Settling into the land of large beer steins, I've finally had time to do a little of exploring. I've moved out of the hotel and into an apartment outfitted exclusively from the IKEA catalog (shades of FIght Club).
Favorite Munich nightspot so far is the downtempo Funky Kitchen, which has taken over the cafeteria of a former government building. Elsewhere in the same complex is Die Registratur, where the former registration office seems to be a regular stop for Kompact artists along with Harry Klein in the Optimol, possibly the only experimental audio/video venue with it's own beer garden. Daytime, the museum district's Pinakotek der Moderne has an impressive permanent design collection. And there's always more beer gardens to bicycle between.
Caught Matthew Dear spinning to a packed house in London's Fabric, a nest of rooms in a vaulted basement in the meatpacking district. The sound and space really impressed, until I went to Frankfurt to and heard Matt spin again at Sven Vath's new Cocoon Club. A lot (including a giant club and two resteraunts) went into making Coccoon unique, and the suprising interior details range from innovative uses of plastic rods to devide space in the Micro resteraunt to the brilliant and stylish vending machine wall (sorry, no photos allowed).
September 4th is the opening of the Shrinking Cities exhibit in Berlin, so more to come...