Your inner hippy lives in Lohmuehle
Aug. 26th, 2007 01:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusWe probably all have an inner hippy who'd be happy to live without running water or electricity in a shed surrounded by enormous sunflowers. I know I do. I confine my inner hippy to a 22 metre square area of my soul, to stop him taking over all my desires. If he had his way, I'd probably be living in a hut in Lohmuehle.
Yesterday Hisae and I visited this bewitched village in Berlin's Treptower district, just east of Kreuzberg. Lohmuehle describes itself as a Gesamtkunstwerk -- a synthesis of the arts, Eden, playground, field of experimentation, lifelong residence, inspiration, childhood dream, magnet, community, paradise. Just twenty years ago the leafy site was all barbed wire and military patrols; the Berlin wall passed through here. I've made a Flickr slideshow of the place here. Somehow, I find the ramshackle homemade architecture much more inspiring than the kind of house you're supposed to hype yourself up to spend £300,000 -- and a lifetime's labour paying off a mortgage -- on.
Lohmuehle is terribly German -- not unlike the gardening allotments you see in Berlin suburbs. Of course, here the petit bourgeois Protestantism is tempered with radical protest -- in the bushes nestle banners against deportation or yuppification. And although all the allotment fences have been removed and the Protestant virtues of self-sufficiency and autonomy have been tilted slightly towards communitarianism and anarchism, this is essentially a rather conservative pastoral dream -- to opt out of the rat race, to live organically, to wash in water pumped up by hand from the water table, to gather rainwater from the eaves and electricity from the sun.
On their website, Lohmuehlers explain their way of life to the curious. "We are an emancipated extended family living together by our own free will. We are 21 young and young-at-heart humans with cats, dogs and rabbits, who invest much love, time and money in their site trailers, cabins and wagons. We live here all year round."
But isn't it cold in winter? "You burn wood in the stove and your ass gets cold when you go to the chemical toilet. In summer, if it's hot, it's worse. You rot like melted Emmenthal. I like the transitional seasons best."
The Lohmuehlers put on a pretty nice summer festival, with sardonic cabaret songs and organic beer served by lesbians. Hisae and I wandered around the site yesterday and what I liked most was the cheap yet idealistic pastoral utopian feel the village had. There was definitely something enchanted going on there, something banished by the kind of buildings and streets most of us spend pointlessly vast amounts of money for the privilege of living in. There were also lots of interesting colours and forms at every turn (wood, ply, plastic, corrugated iron and tarpaulin, bamboo) -- temporary materials and structures here taking an idealistic, eco-friendly shot at permanence.
Yesterday Hisae and I visited this bewitched village in Berlin's Treptower district, just east of Kreuzberg. Lohmuehle describes itself as a Gesamtkunstwerk -- a synthesis of the arts, Eden, playground, field of experimentation, lifelong residence, inspiration, childhood dream, magnet, community, paradise. Just twenty years ago the leafy site was all barbed wire and military patrols; the Berlin wall passed through here. I've made a Flickr slideshow of the place here. Somehow, I find the ramshackle homemade architecture much more inspiring than the kind of house you're supposed to hype yourself up to spend £300,000 -- and a lifetime's labour paying off a mortgage -- on.
Lohmuehle is terribly German -- not unlike the gardening allotments you see in Berlin suburbs. Of course, here the petit bourgeois Protestantism is tempered with radical protest -- in the bushes nestle banners against deportation or yuppification. And although all the allotment fences have been removed and the Protestant virtues of self-sufficiency and autonomy have been tilted slightly towards communitarianism and anarchism, this is essentially a rather conservative pastoral dream -- to opt out of the rat race, to live organically, to wash in water pumped up by hand from the water table, to gather rainwater from the eaves and electricity from the sun.
On their website, Lohmuehlers explain their way of life to the curious. "We are an emancipated extended family living together by our own free will. We are 21 young and young-at-heart humans with cats, dogs and rabbits, who invest much love, time and money in their site trailers, cabins and wagons. We live here all year round."But isn't it cold in winter? "You burn wood in the stove and your ass gets cold when you go to the chemical toilet. In summer, if it's hot, it's worse. You rot like melted Emmenthal. I like the transitional seasons best."
The Lohmuehlers put on a pretty nice summer festival, with sardonic cabaret songs and organic beer served by lesbians. Hisae and I wandered around the site yesterday and what I liked most was the cheap yet idealistic pastoral utopian feel the village had. There was definitely something enchanted going on there, something banished by the kind of buildings and streets most of us spend pointlessly vast amounts of money for the privilege of living in. There were also lots of interesting colours and forms at every turn (wood, ply, plastic, corrugated iron and tarpaulin, bamboo) -- temporary materials and structures here taking an idealistic, eco-friendly shot at permanence.
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more than one hippie
Date: 2007-08-25 11:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 12:11 am (UTC)to build a fort
it's practical
it's fun
it's your own.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 12:17 am (UTC)Outrageous pakuri!
('Salright, I know where you really got it.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 12:33 am (UTC)Long tradition of dropping out here in the States--the country was founded on it. The pines were once brimming with dropout communities out in the dense woods populated by people of mixed race. Not much left but foundations and apple trees. Hakim Bey has riffed off its possibilities it a couple times. (http://www.akpress.org/1996/items/gonetocroatan)
And of course the old flogged nag: "Gone to Croatan." (http://delza.alliances.org/taz/taz5.html)
We'll keep a fire going in the bog for you kids.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 12:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 12:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 12:47 am (UTC)A glimpse into the post-oil lifestyle?
Date: 2007-08-26 12:53 am (UTC)by the way, on that topic, check out VBS.tv (Vice Magazine's internet tv station) -- they have a show online called 'Toxic Alberta,' all about the human, social, economic and environmental costs of the oil sands boom going on.
then sign my petition at shoulddothis.com, if the mood moves you:
http://alberta.shoulddothis.com/suggestion_details/1222
aj in montreal
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 01:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 02:24 am (UTC)Why does this have to be a dream of ideals? It looks like just a mess of folks minding their own business and having a lot of fun doing it. The sort of thing I'd reflect very fondly on on my deathbed. Life lived... check!
As long as I don't have to listen to the Dead. And no one minds me constantly cleaning things with lemon-scented vinegar.
Dammit, why do the Amish have to have that whole "leave us alone" thing going on?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 02:27 am (UTC)"being served organic beer by lesbians" sounds like a good time to me and I don't mean heterosexual voyeurism or threesomes as is often imagined when guys like me say that..damn, I used to know the term for the male equivalent of faghag
This piece brought back memories of my times in far flung Shetland living in a caravan with a stove..there's a definite magic when that life starts working for you..real scary when it doesn't..but christ, you know you're alive.
I still hope I will end up like Fulton Mackay beachcombing in Local Hero
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 02:28 am (UTC)http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/307
anything
Date: 2007-08-26 02:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 03:32 am (UTC)We really haven't yet found an equally strong substitute for religious dogma; nothing else seems to keep such alternative societal models going for more than a generation or two--not even political dogma can match it. Even the Shakers only lasted three or four generations, and their numbers were huge at one time. In the end, a more open-ended, eclectic, supple approach might be the best long-term solution.
Met my first gay Amish fellow the other day at a the nearby Amish market. Quite possibly the ultimate "bear". Makes great keylime pie.
Re: anything
Date: 2007-08-26 03:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 04:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 08:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 08:22 am (UTC)nihilists
Date: 2007-08-26 12:19 pm (UTC)feel about these places?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 12:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 12:23 pm (UTC)http://akultur.org/aschan/bild/sept_2003.html
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 02:35 pm (UTC); )
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 04:04 pm (UTC)Your statement about religion is, shockingly, ringing true. All of my favorite prophets of environmental responsibility are practicing religion. Then again, I always thought atheists were the most dogmatic people around.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-26 07:56 pm (UTC)Their Z-Glass house stands out to me from some of their other wagonwheel rustic designs, although the gypsy caravan is somehow tempting, as Walmart after all does permit you to live in their parking lots.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-27 03:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-27 05:08 am (UTC)Self-imposed sublimation within a desublimated social context can be very sexy. This is the source of my legendary deliciousness, and why my beard smells of jasmine.
The repressive desublimation that comes with letting it all hang out kills any possibility of flirtation, and gets boring very quickly. Formlessness is the ultimate prison.
That said, I am very much in favor of the peek-a-boo antics of seaside skinnydipping cocktail parties.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-27 12:30 pm (UTC)It was an instant knee jerk to the mention of firearms. Suppose I am a bit of a blunderbuss anyway.
O soldier, soldier won't you marry me?
With your musket, fife and drum.
Old School Song
Oh, I see...
Date: 2007-08-27 01:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-27 08:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-28 03:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-22 07:03 pm (UTC)