Tugendamt und Pizzarand (Virtue Office and Pizza Crust) in Kleinmachnow, Germany

It is not a pretty place, and most drivers speed right past it without a second thought. Hurrying down the AVUS, onto the urban highway, and finally reaching the destination after a long drive—who actually bothers to obey the 60 km/h speed limit around the Checkpoint Bravo area? And yet, the former Dreilinden rest stop is a sight worth seeing, resembling an architectural lava lamp in both shape and color scheme. Built between 1968 and 1972 based on designs by architects Rainer Rümmler and Hans Joachim Schröder, the complex—featuring clearance buildings, a rest stop, two gas stations, and a bridgehouse (customs office)—is coordinated in striking red, blue, and yellow like ABBA’s stage wardrobe. You simply cannot get more 1970s than this. The ensemble is a listed historic monument, but what does the tooth of time care about that? The colors are fading, the yellow blinds in the service area hang crooked, and the gas station buildings are smeared with ugly graffiti. Here, where motorists used to make one last brief stop for good West Berlin gas before the nerve-wracking wait and checks by the Vopos (East German border police), nobody has stopped for ages. The gas stations are abandoned, and while the rest stop was recently renovated, since it goes unused, it is likely just a stay of execution before ultimate decay. Long gone are the days when outbound vehicles had to slow down to a walking pace here and Dreilinden was the Eldorado for hitchhikers. Only a customs office remains active in the bridge building, but even that hasn't seen a paintbrush in a long time. Between the former gas stations stands the Berlin Bear on a pedestal, greeting visitors on all of Berlin's major arterial roads. If you look at him closely, you almost think he is grinning. That might have something to do with the fact that street art artists have renamed the gas station weather canopies in large, official-looking lettering. Outbound, it reads TUGENDAMT in white but slowly fading letters; inbound, it reads PIZZARAND in black. Tugendamt ("Ministry of Virtue") is a play on words with Jugendamt (youth welfare office), the dreaded state institution for child welfare. The fact that the clocks on the facades of the gas stations are all permanently set to five minutes to twelve can hardly be a coincidence, either. Unlike meaningless tagging, artistic intervention with a wink is to be appreciated. The artist collective Angst Yok is responsible for this intriguing renaming. They specialize in redesigning the facades of abandoned shops, billboards, and urban spaces with confusing, funny, and initially professional-looking messages—a critique of capitalism and consumerism that brings a smile to your face. Even upon arrival, Checkpoint Bravo shows visitors many facets of Berlin: History, former splendor, helplessness in dealing with change, decay, and—humor.

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