Ia town stuffed with awkward monuments, it could have been one more. Placed in the muddy middle of a large roundabout, the large cube has a sheet metal top, sides covered in plywood and a front with three metal doors. But it is not a conceptual work to inspire or irritate passers-by. A closer look reveals some neat labels: bathroom, Mission, Pissoir.
Installed this month, the Kottbusser Tor public toilets have drawn ridicule. Some scoff at its ugliness – one post on Twitter calls it “the color of liver sausage”. Others lament the five years it took the district government to build it – far longer than it took German boffins to invent a covid vaccine. Others note that there is no disabled access. But the typical response seems to be to turn a blind eye to a futile effort to gentrify a notoriously seedy place. “Thank you for giving drug dealers a new place to do business,” one post smiled.
Berlin’s reputation for scruffy dysfunctionality is deserved. Whether it’s letters that never arrive, trash left uncollected, or months-long wait times at government offices, city services are undermining the city’s reputation for efficiency. Germany. The government in Berlin failed last year’s election so badly that the courts told it to do it all over again. The naïve graffiti tangles that mark many of the walls suggest the city is afraid to grow.
While in other countries the capital is usually the wealthiest city, the per capita income in Berlin lags far behind that of Hamburg or Munich. Berliners have worse schools and fewer hospital beds than other Germans. They complain more to landlords too, with good reason: in a Facebook advice group for newcomers to the German capital, a resident of Kottbusser Tor asks what to do with “50+” rats frolicking in the courtyard of his apartment building. The property manager haughtily asserts that it is not his responsibility but that of the district government.
Berliners take pride in their city’s lack of grace. At least it was cheap, and therefore a magnet for misfits and creative minds. But demand has driven up rents. Even Kottbusser Tor seems to be getting gentrified: a whole week into its life, the new toilet block doesn’t bear a stain of graffiti.■