The House of David Bowie in Berlin, Germany

The house is nothing special, and the neighborhood even less so. Flanked by a tattoo parlor and a physiotherapy clinic, the entrance to Hauptstraße 155 is an archway made of cast cement stone—a common feature of the Gründerzeit (Wilhelminian era)—featuring a massive oak door decorated with cast-iron floral ornaments. The door lock has two keyholes set at a 90-degree angle to each other, designed for the “pass-through” keys of the early 20th century, which were intended to force the residents of these tenement blocks to lock up. The beautiful door is defaced with several hastily sprayed tags, the sidewalk is dirty, and the surrounding area is shaped by a high proportion of immigrants.

Real roses have been tucked into the metal flowers of the door; now, in late February, they are already withered. They are dedicated to the house’s prominent former resident and were placed in his memory either on January 8th (his birthday) or January 10th (the anniversary of his death).

David Bowie lived in a seven-room apartment on the first floor of this house from 1976 to 1978. This period was marked, on one hand, by a turning away from the drugs that had previously dominated his life in Los Angeles and, on the other, by extreme creativity; the iconic albums Low, “Heroes”, and Lodger—the so-called “Berlin Trilogy”—were created here. In 1976, Bowie was a wreck: emaciated, surviving only on milk, cocaine, and cigarettes. Depression came along, and the marriage with Angie wouldn’t work.

The strange, isolated location of the divided city, his fascination with the Weimar Republic, Bertolt Brecht, and the Brücke painters, as well as the creative input from avant-garde bands like Can, Kraftwerk, and Neu!, were the deciding factors in his move to Berlin.

After the landlady, Rosa Morath, evicted a lawyer involved in the APO (student protest movement) who had painted all seven rooms black and wanted to start a commune, an agent reached out to rent the apartment for a British artist. The condition was that he be allowed to paint the apartment white at his own expense. Permission was granted, and thus David Bowie became a Berliner. He also brought along Iggy Pop, who initially lived with him but was eventually evicted from the main apartment and banished to the rear building for raiding the fridge (specifically, expensive delicacies from KaDeWe). This did not harm their friendship or creative partnership; in 1977, Bowie composed and produced what are arguably the best albums of Iggy Pop’s career: The Idiot and Lust for Life. Contemporary witnesses report that Bowie’s apartment was furnished rather sparsely, while Iggy’s place was appropriately “shabby.”

In photos from this period, Bowie usually looks unremarkable, which allowed him to evade public attention in Berlin; furthermore, his fame continued to grow later due to the music composed here. He is said to have often cycled to Hansa Studios, with a view from the window directly onto the Berlin Wall. The sight of a couple kissing in front of the VoPos (border guards) inspired him to write the song “Heroes”—the ultimate West Berlin anthem.

Other Berlin haunts for him included the Dschungel, Schwarzes Café, Chez Romy Haag, and, just a few steps from his front door, the gay bar Anderes Ufer, which still exists today as Neues Ufer.

To the right of the house entrance is a lovely piece of graffiti from his Ziggy Stardust / Aladdin Sane phase, and above it, a Berlin commemorative plaque has been mounted since August 2016.

There were considerations to rename this part of Hauptstraße to David-Bowie-Straße, but so far, these plans have faltered due to the slow-moving wheels of Berlin’s bureaucracy.

We can be heroes, just for one day…