„David Bowie is“: A Return to His Old Stomping Grounds – The Legendary Exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau (2014)

In the spring and summer of 2014, the German capital experienced a major cultural event that was far more than a typical museum retrospective: The exhibition „David Bowie“ (based on the internationally acclaimed show „David Bowie is“ organized by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum) made a stop at Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau from May 20 to August 24, 2014.

For Bowie fans and the city of Berlin, it was a highly emotional affair. After all, the artist was returning—at least through his archive—to the city where he found refuge and made music history in the late 1970s.

The Concept of the Exhibition

Conceived by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the exhibition granted unprecedented access to the artist’s private archive. From over 75,000 objects, around 300 exhibits were selected to illuminate Bowie’s creative processes as a musician, fashion icon, actor, and cultural phenomenon. It was not a purely chronological biography, but rather a multimedia journey through his various alter egos and creative phases.

The Absolute Highlights

The exhibition captivated visitors with an incredible density of original artifacts. The most important highlights included:

The iconic costumes: Over 60 original stage outfits were on display. These included the extravagant, Asian-inspired designs by Kansai Yamamoto for the Aladdin Sane tour (1973), the light blue suit from the Life on Mars? video, and the famous Union Jack coat designed by Alexander McQueen from the cover of the album Earthling (1997).
Handwritten lyrics & sketches: A deep insight into his genius. Visitors could read Bowie’s original, often heavily crossed-out and corrected notes for global hits like Fame, Heroes, and Ashes to Ashes.
The immersive audio experience: The exhibition set new technical standards. Equipped with a location-based headphone system by Sennheiser, visitors experienced a fluid 3D soundtrack. The music, interviews, and concert recordings automatically adapted to the respective exhibit you were standing in front of.
Photographs and set designs: Works by world-famous photographers such as Brian Duffy, Terry O’Neill, and Masayoshi Sukita showed the creation of his legendary album covers. In addition, there were models of his elaborate stage sets (e.g., the Diamond Dogs tour) on display.

The Berlin Focus: An Exclusive Chapter

What distinguished the Martin-Gropius-Bau stop from all other global stops on the tour was the greatly expanded Berlin section. Since Bowie lived at Hauptstraße 155 in Schöneberg from 1976 to 1978, this phase of his life was given special recognition:

The Berlin Trilogy: The creation of the albums Low, „Heroes“, and Lodger, some of which were recorded in the famous Hansa Studios near the Berlin Wall, was detailed.
Paintings and art: Bowie was not only musically creative in Berlin, but he also painted a lot, heavily influenced by German Expressionism (especially the Brücke-Museum). Some of his own dark paintings from this time—such as portraits of his roommate Iggy Pop—were shown exclusively here.
Contemporary documents: Letters, photographs of his favorite places at the time (like Romy Haag’s cabaret), and props from the film Just a Gigolo, which he shot in Berlin during this time, made the symbiosis between the artist and the divided city tangible.

Conclusion and Impact

The exhibition was a massive crowd-puller and was sold out almost the entire time. It impressively showed that David Bowie was not just a pop star, but an interdisciplinary artist who revolutionized fashion, design, theater, and music. For Berlin, 2014 was a nostalgic and proud celebration—a late, great homage to one of its most famous „adopted Berliners,“ before he passed away about a year and a half later, in January 2016.

Anonymity, Art, and Bicycles: David Bowie’s Everyday Life in Divided Berlin

When David Bowie moved to Berlin at the end of 1976, he was an exhausted global star. In sunny Los Angeles, he had maneuvered himself into a dangerous downward spiral of cocaine, paranoia, and occult delusions. He supposedly lived on nothing but milk and bell peppers. West Berlin, the walled island city during the Cold War, offered him the exact opposite of Hollywood: gray dreariness, rough charm, and above all—anonymity.

Everyday Life: Rehab Through Normality

Berliners were not particularly interested in the glamour star. That was exactly what Bowie was looking for. His everyday life in Berlin was characterized by what was, for him, a radical normality:

No star hype: Bowie could ride his bike through Schöneberg, take the S-Bahn, or go grocery shopping on foot completely undisturbed.
Flatshare life: He shared a classic Berlin Altbau (old building) apartment with his friend and colleague Iggy Pop, whom he also wanted to help get off drugs. (Iggy, however, regularly raided the shared fridge, which led to occasional flatmate disputes).
Art and culture: Instead of excessive parties, museum visits and painting in his own studio were often on the daily agenda.

Bowie’s Most Important Stops in Berlin

When Bowie was out and about in Berlin, he was drawn to very specific places that are considered pilgrimage sites for fans today:

The apartment (Hauptstraße 155, Schöneberg): A simple old building. Bowie and Iggy Pop started their day from here. Right next door was (and is) Café Anderes Ufer (today Neues Ufer), one of Europe’s first openly gay cafes. Bowie often drank his coffee here and played a major role in ensuring that the establishment no longer had to hide its windows behind curtains.
The Hansa Studios (Köthener Straße, Kreuzberg): Known as „The Hall by the Wall.“ The legendary studios were located in the immediate vicinity of the Berlin Wall. From the window, Bowie and his producer Tony Visconti could see the East German border guards. When Visconti secretly kissed one of the backing singers by the wall, the sight inspired Bowie to write the lyrics for his biggest hit: „I can remember / Standing, by the wall / And the guns, shot above our heads / And we kissed, as though nothing could fall“ (Heroes).
The Brücke-Museum (Dahlem): Bowie was fascinated by German Expressionism. He spent hours in this museum on the edge of the Grunewald forest. The painting „Roquairol“ by Erich Heckel inspired both Bowie’s angular posture on the cover of the album „Heroes“ and Iggy Pop’s pose on the cover of „The Idiot“.
Chez Romy Haag (Fuggerstraße, Schöneberg): Nightlife, of course, was not entirely neglected. The legendary cabaret run by the transgender artist Romy Haag was one of Bowie’s favorite places. He and Romy Haag also had an intense affair during this time.
SO36 (Kreuzberg) and Dschungel (Schöneberg): Here, Bowie and Iggy dove into the city’s emerging punk and new wave scene.
The Paris Bar (Kantstraße, Charlottenburg): The artist hangout and restaurant of the West Berlin bohemian scene. Bowie and Iggy Pop liked to party here extensively. A legendary interview with Rolling Stone magazine took place here—and ended with a drunk Iggy Pop rolling over the tables.

The Salvation

Berlin was a musical and personal cleansing for Bowie. Without the pressure of the music industry, surrounded by the melancholy of the walled city and the Krautrock scene (bands like Kraftwerk and Neu!), he created music here that was years ahead of its time.

The Sound of the Walled City: How the Berlin Trilogy Was Created

To create this completely new sound, Bowie brought two crucial partners to his side: the brilliant producer Tony Visconti and the avant-garde musician and synthesizer pioneer Brian Eno. Together, they formed a creative triumvirate that worked in the studio using highly unconventional methods.

The Epicenter: Hansa Studios

Although the trilogy bears the name of Berlin, only „Heroes“ was actually recorded there in its entirety. Nevertheless, the Hansa Studios (Studio 2) shaped the spirit of this entire era.

The studio was located in the old Meistersaal, a former ballroom with fantastic, reverberating acoustics. The location was surreal: the building stood practically right in the „death strip“ of the Berlin Wall. From the windows, the musicians could see the East German border guards in their watchtowers—and vice versa. This oppressive, isolated, yet raw atmosphere literally crept into the recordings.

The Three Albums in Detail

1. Low (1977) – The Radical Break

Low was mostly recorded in France (at the Château d’Hérouville) but was finished and mixed in Berlin. The album deeply shocked Bowie’s record label because it broke all conventions:

The Structure: The first half of the record consisted of fragmented, unconventional pop songs. The second half consisted of dark, atmospheric instrumentals heavily influenced by Brian Eno’s ambient experiments.
The Snare Drum Sound: Tony Visconti used a completely new device, the Eventide Harmonizer. He altered the sound of Dennis Davis’s drums so that the snare sounded mechanical and like a whiplash—Visconti playfully described the device at the time by saying: „It fucks with the fabric of time.“ This drum sound came to define the entire 1980s.

2. „Heroes“ (1977) – The Masterpiece of the Wall

The centerpiece of the trilogy and the only album created entirely at Hansa Studios. It is louder, more driving, and more optimistic than Low.

Krautrock Influences: Bowie was fascinated by German bands like Kraftwerk and Neu!. The driving rhythm of the album is a direct bow to Germany’s musical avant-garde (the song „V-2 Schneider“, for example, is named after Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk).
The Vocal Trick on the Title Track: The song „Heroes“ builds from a quiet ballad to a desperate scream. Tony Visconti solved this brilliantly from a technical standpoint: He set up three microphones for Bowie. One right in front of him, one a few meters away, and one at the other end of the huge hall. The rear microphones only activated when Bowie sang louder. As a result, his voice at the end of the song sounds as if he is singing against the walls of the hall (and symbolically against the Berlin Wall).
Chance as a Principle: Brian Eno brought his famous „Oblique Strategies“ cards into the studio. These were cards with cryptic instructions (e.g., „Honor thy error as a hidden intention“ or „Change instruments“) that were drawn when the band felt stuck, helping to break creative blocks.

3. Lodger (1979) – The Epilogue

Although counted as part of the Berlin Trilogy, Lodger was recorded in Switzerland and New York. Bowie had already left Berlin by this time.

Return to Song Format: There are no more instrumental tracks on this album. The structure is more accessible again, but the arrangements remain experimental.
World Music: Bowie and Eno experimented here with rhythms and instruments from Turkey and Africa, making the album an early pioneer of pop world music.

The Musical Legacy

The Berlin Trilogy was initially a commercial risk, but it proved to be groundbreaking. Post-punk, new wave, synth-pop, industrial, and alternative rock—all these genres would be almost unthinkable without the groundwork that Bowie, Eno, and Visconti laid in the late 70s in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.

To the German version: here