Berlin & Dublin

Berlin

Sankt Oberholz is a wonderful cafe located on Rosenthaler Straße in Berlin. The cafe has a lot of history and has being a meeting place of the art and culture scene of Berlin since the twenties.

The cafe is contained in a two storey building, that has a very high ceiling and gigantic windows on its west and north face that allows both floors to be filled with light. The furniture is a mix of different styles that complements the creativity of its patrons.

The cafe is always full, but the tone is very mellow with most people spending their time flicking through the communal magazines or accessing the free Wi-Fi. It is perfectly acceptable to squander an afternoon in Sankt Oberholz having only purchased one coffee. It feels more like a shared public space than a cafe.

Dublin

This cafe is very far removed from the usual fare that is regularly served up at local cafes in Dublin. In recent years, there have been very few Cafes and Bars established in Dublin that provide something original and unique that one could not find elsewhere. Such innovation and novelty has been transcended by the power of the market as it would of been impossible to establish a unique cafe because the likelihood of failure is so great when rents are so excessive.

Moreover, many cafes and bars have closed as former proprietors who were involved in the business for many years shut shop so that they could pocket some of the recent property valuation increases. These closures are further evidence of the loss of reality and economic equilibrium. Similar behavior was also observed during the South Sea Bubble as noted by J.K Galbraith in his book The Great Crash 1929 'Statesmen forgot their Politics, Lawyers the Bar, Merchants their Traffic, Physicians their Patients, Tradesmen their Shops, Debtors of Quality their Creditors and Divines the Pulpit"