Both Ends Burning

9. August 20189. August 2018

The hottest day of the year in Berlin was not even 24hours ago and I’m sitting on my balcony in a reminiscent mood, thinking about the longest and strongest summer I’ve had in my life – so far. Yet, the summer is just at its peak and there is only more to come. A lot of you guys probably agree that there is something extremely magical about the summer in Berlin, and my honest opinion is, that there is no city in the world more charming than the Spree-metropolis.

The ideal soundtrack for this article is also the title of the story. “Both Ends Burning” by Roxy Music – Listen to it here, while strolling through this article. As far as i know, a little Bryan Ferry here and there never hurt anybody.

This article is featuring Ace & Tate’s brand new frame the “Billy” – Thanks to everyone involved, we love you all!

This is not supposed to be a top-ten list to convince you to visit Berlin. Instead, I offer you viewpoints that will make you and your friends curious about travelling here, so you can come and make up your own mind about this European metropolis. Anyway, there are more than ten good reasons to visit Berlin. So, no need to count, is there?

If you live in Berlin and over time you managed to gain a couple of friends outside the city, most likely at some point during your friendship you will receive a message or a call from one of them. Take that call, answer the message and welcome your friends. They will take you through your own city and show it to you from a different perspective and a different mindset. Here is your chance to have a little vacation while still feeling at home.

Give your friends a while to discover Berlin on their own. You need your time and so do they. Every friendship benefits from having a good balance between seeing each other and not seeing each other. No need to reinvent the wheel here. Give them the keys to your bike or car, while you recharge your own batteries.

Bikes… when talking about bikes, you will need one! It is the perfect mode of transportation, second only to your skateboard. But sharing a bike will only last for so long. So suggest to your friends that they get a cheap rental bike, it only costs a few Euro’s a day and there is a bike rental service on almost every corner.

“Tell your friends, to get with my friends
And we can be friends.”

Biggie Smalls.

Let them meet your friends if they are not already chummy enough with your crew. Being overconfident is never a good thing and meeting new people will take a bit of getting used to. Presumably, during this process, you will learn a few new things here and there. And for most parties the rule is, the more people present, the better the chance that the party will last long into the night. “One’s a company, two’s a crowd and three’s a party” – right!?

In Berlin you can drink in the streets, there are “Späti’s” on every corner and you can get a full meal for only a few Euro’s at a Falafel-House, or a Currywurst-Bude. This is not big news to anyone but somehow it is always a topic when meeting foreigners. There are only a handful of countries in the world where you do not have to watch out for police whilst enjoying a beer on the sidewalk. Besides the drinking it is nearly impossible to stumble upon really bad food, the competition is just too strong. If you still find yourself with food poisoning in bed, you probably didn’t drink enough “Berliner Luft”.

I say all that to say this – take it easy on the partying. There is so much more to see. Although we just talked about the freedom you will have during your stay, to really enjoy Berlin for more than just a day and night you should try and be a little responsible. No one wants to see you totally hammered on the Warschauer Brücke at 09:00 o’clock in the morning.

“Both ends burning while you’re counting sheep – Hell, who can sleep in this heat this night?”

Bryan Ferry.

Berlin’s hotter than Cairo/Egypt at the moment, make sure to show your friends a few lakes around Berlin/Brandenburg and give your body and soul some rest.

Every trip comes to an end at some point. Do not feel bad about sending your friends home, we all have this one buddy who is trying to overstay their welcome.

All Photos by Danny Sommerfeld / Words by Daniel Pannemann.

Adidas – the showcase event announcement

22. May 201822. May 2018

This Wednesday at 6 PM the three stripes will be putting on a show featuring some of our friends and associates.

People like Kai Hillebrand, Kyra Sophie, Piotr Zapasnik and Danny Sommerfeld will be exhibiting their work.

On top of that, Torsten Frank will be premiering his newest video “Spring Dancing”.

We hope to see you there.

Romain Batard – Giddy #6

9. February 20189. February 2018

After I have been absent for almost a year, I am more than happy to take up my work again at my beloved Placemag. And to start things off by posting a clip of my treasured friend Romain Batard is more than I could have asked for. As it is with every Batard-edit, Giddy #6 provides playful skateboarding at its best, where Romain makes even the smallest tricks look great through his classic Century MK1.

Featuring Rémy Taveira, Felipe Bartolome, Oscar Candon, Joseph Biais, Roger Gonzalez, Mickaël Germond, Alastair Pathé, Charles Giron, Edouard Depaz, Denis Lynn, Morgan Katomba, Lilian Fev, Roland Hoogwater, Danny Sommerfeld, Martino Cattaneo, Guillaume Colucci, Masaki Ui, Tom O’Reilly, Igor Fardin, Casey Brown, and Conor Charleson.

Special greetings go out to you Romain & Edouard. Hope to see you guys soon. Yours, Placemagpaule.

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Valle Cafuk – “Thanks, Homie I Really Don’t Want To Annoy You.”

8. February 20188. February 2018

This documentary was filmed without Valle Cafuk knowing about it. His roommate Danny Sommerfeld created this video over the course of the last two months in Berlin.

You might think just filming someone is a strange move but once you see the results you might change your mind.
It shows Veysel from his best side, the side that paints, parties, skates and loves to hang out.

Sit down and press play to see a video by a friend about a friend. Enjoy!

Thanks to Vans for the support.

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The Place Roadtrip

23. December 201723. December 2017

The Place Road Trip was a 2017 French/Dutch/German/Swedish comedy bus tour directed by Daniel Pannemann, Roland Hoogwater and Danny Sommerfeld and written by Franz Grimm.

The bus stars all the above in addition to Peter Buikema, Valentin Cafuk, Valentin Bauer, the brothers Sondre Mortensen and Amandus Mortensen and Malte Spitz. The team went on a 2,000km journey through Germany and France.

They soon found out to their shock and horror that their final destination is doomed to be Disneyland Paris. Upon entering the park, they immediately discover that the castle in the world famous Walt Disney Resort is not in fact real and that ticket prices are lower on the internet.

Filmed and edited by Peter Buikema.

Leon Rudolph – Vacation

1. September 2017

It is hard to understate how involved we were in the making of this video, all our staff has tricks except Danny Sommerfeld who was hurt. Some of this video was even filmed on Place trips, a lot was documented on other trips but all of it was shot during Leon Rudolph’s holiday.

The end reslut makes you wonder what he could do if he filmed full time.

Blog Feature

FUNBOX – A Place Full-Lenght

17. July 201717. July 2017

It has been a while since a Skateboard Magazine from Europe released a full-length video project with the magazine at once. Our issue 61 comes with a 19-minute film, all filmed with a VX and Hi8. In times of Instagram and extremely fast ways of having your footage being released, we as a team got together and worked on this video for about four weeks. Thaynan Costa, Hugo Maillard and Willem van Dijk came for a visit and every one of these guys killed it.

A big thank you to everyone involved, besides the lineup above this video features: Tjark Thielker, Timo Meiselbach, Nils Brauer, Jan Hoffmann, Paul Röhrs, Giorgi Armani, NSVC, Alex O’Donahoe, Peter Buikema, Deniz Bulgurcu, Daniel Pannemann, Roland Hoogwater, Valentin Cafuk, Alex Raeymaekers, Mats Edel, Jonas Heß & Danny Sommerfeld.

Filmed and edited by Peter Buikema.

Header-Photo by Henrik Biemer, Hugo Maillard BS Lipslide.

Feature Musik

PLACE ‘Funbox’ Launch – Snapshot Recap

6. July 2017

“The global karaoke market has been estimated to be worth nearly $10 billion.” We just got the news that the karaoke share is increasing arithmetically since last Tuesday and it seems to be a good time to invest. Another increasing thing was happy faces because we saw them everywhere. A good time with good people at a good bar on a fucking good night, thank you guys for coming out. You are the best! S/O to Nike SB for the support and Heiners Bar for being the coolest Bar in Berlin.

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Kaffeezigarette – (Sommer) in München

31. May 2017

Last week our trusted companion Danny Sommerfeld exhibited his work at COMA (Container Of Modern Art). He also presented to the world his latest project called (SOMMER), which is basically a tool for Danny to connect his photography to a disposable product like a skateboard. So about a week ago Danny went off to München with his bags packed, his photos printed, three rolls of film and he came back with “this”.

What is “this” you might ask yourself, this is what we call a meta-work. What is a meta-work!? you might ask. Well let me put it this way, on one side this is a recap of Danny’s time in München, at the same time, Mr. Sommerfeld twisted the whole thing around by encapsulating all the images into a concept.

The concept being that you are looking at three rolls of film, every roll starts with a contact sheet (like you get when you develop a roll of film a camera store.). In this Kaffeezigarette, Danny presents us with 3 rolls of film, many moments, shot in 1 city and all of that is connected by this 1 idea.

So instead of simply giving you a review of events, you get a review packaged into something new. Enjoy.

ROLL 1

ROLL 2

ROLL THREE

If you want to see the exhibition you still can check here for info.

All photos by Danny Sommerfeld.

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Kaffeezigarette – Adidas Summercamp extended

5. May 20175. May 2017

Most of these images could have made it into our current issue, that is a fact. It takes a certain idea, a vibe, a setting and the right people to make a good article. It also strongly depends on the taste of the person working on a specific article direction. Person “A” might like a bit more Heitor Da Silva (who wouldn’t?), Person “B” might prefer some more grandpa’s (elderly Spanish people have the best style!) or simply a second Budgetbeuker portrait (he is a pretty one isn’t he?). Since we have other articles and a limited number of pages, we don’t want to have to leave some stuff on the drawing board just to watch them expire.

Enjoy another episode of Kaffeezigarette!

Place ‘Time Issue’ Launch – Snapshot Recap Madrid

3. May 2017

After the launch, it’s the afterparty, then, after the party, it’s back to the hotel lobby, then.. We went back to Madrid to celebrate our launch of the ‘Time Issue’ #60 – this time we were not very lucky with the weather, so no skating for us. But there is a bunch of other things to do in Madrid, right guys? Yes ma, MAD-Style, Fiesta, Remix with the homies from the Sevenmad Crew (Cheers Boys!)

Enough with the R.Kelly lyrics. But we would suggest you listen to THE SONG while flipping through the images.

Ok, Spain. We had enough for a few weeks, at least. We would like to thank Carhartt WIP & Converse CONS for supporting us. All photos by Danny Sommerfeld.

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Franz Grimm – Virtual Vacation: On the streets

15. February 201715. February 2017

To turn something simple and random into something meaningful gifted with form and substance can bring precious satisfaction. In skateboarding, this something might be a bent pole or just a wall. As soon as you put your eyes on it, the glimpse of a movement through space and time comes to your mind. You picture yourself doing your own little special thing right there and unconsciously you’re giving this infinitesimal fragment of your physical environment a new purpose. If you make this vision real, you get that valuable satisfaction and be sure you count among the coolest people on earth from then on. The truly cool ones, top 5%.

As there are limitless possibilities of shaping and adapting what’s around you to your own perception, it can be very entertaining to widen the range. That’s how we come to talk about the street view on Google maps. It offers way more than one may think. I know some skaters use it to find new spots but I have no clue what the street view’s original function is. It must cost loads of money to drive those Google-maps-360°camera-cars through every city in the world. All that for a gimmick? No, the street view is one of the hidden treasures of the world wide web. One of the rare escapes from the boredom of social media, for example.
The street view embodies normality and randomness. The 360° camera captures ordinary streets at random moments of the day. Average people doing regular things outside. And you can’t see their faces (they are blurred), which makes it even more emotionless. Moreover, the camera settings are so basic all the pictures taken over the planet lookalike. But the street view doesn’t care much about aesthetics, it is about raw reality. That makes it so great… I like to think so. The more normal things get, the more anything unusual sticks out.
For a better understanding, I would like to invite you to click on the link below and to spend a few minutes on the streets of Mlada Boleslav. And you should read the instructions first:
Mlada Boleslav is a small city of Central Bohemia, a region of the Czech Republic. As soon as you click, you find yourself on a street with no name, surrounded by parking blocks and you fully experience the flair of Czech suburbia. Now, follow the road straight and observe what’s around you until you reach the next road junction. That’s where the journey ends.

Now let’s venture into the world of street view and into the Czech city of Mlada Boleslav.

To go on to the road junction click here.

Did you see what I saw?

And what else did you see?

Did you notice this guy?

And

Did you check him out properly?

Did you see that the guy is wearing a Thrasher shirt tailored into a lovely tanktop.

So… You’re virtually going through these streets, it seems like time has stopped and so you can take some time to notice things you wouldn’t see if you were there in real time, caught in the rush of life.

You are looking at all this average stuff, realizing almost every corner of the “Western world” looks alike. Suddenly, you see something that sticks out. Someone flipping a bird to the camera is a classic. Someone picking up his dog’s business as well. If you’re lucky, you come upon a 60-year-old badass wearing a Thrasher tank top in the absolute middle of nowhere. At that moment, the best thing to do is to take a screenshot because you don’t want it to sink into oblivion. There is a good chance for you to be the first web surfer to notice this deviation from the ordinary. And that feels good, so handle the street view with care or it might turn into your major pastime: exploring the streets in order to capture the aberrations of a society that wants to be cast into the mold.

Here are some screenshots from my personal collection that I’ve been widening over the last two or three years. A breathtaking mosaic of impressions from a virtual odyssey, from Skagen (Denmark) to Zadar (Croatia) passing through Miami Beach.

No clue what is happening here. Are they waiting for the school-boat?

No words needed to describe the intimate beauty of this one.

“The man who talked to walls.”

That’s a wolf. Wildlife at it’s finest.

“People in love near the Military Circle.”

True words. Get them and forget them.

I wish I was a little bit taller, an ode to the Deutsch Stylechef.

It’s a done deal.

When your shoes match her zip sweat/ When your zip sweat matches his shoes.

Same blood & fashion sense.

This is my favorite one. (note his face is not blurred)

Text by Franz Grimm

Images by Google Maps selected by Franz Grimm

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Kaffeezigarette – dannysommerfeld.com

10. February 2017

Our very own dog Danny Sommerfeld just launched his website! On his piece of web space, you can take a virtual tour through his PLACE projects, his autonomous works and more. Basically, you will be able to sneak peek into his doggy brain.

To celebrate this event Danny delved into his archives and created something new out of something old, Upcycling his own work so to speak. All jokes aside though we have seen Danny learn a lot and transform his work into something worth looking at longer than your average picture

Click here to visit Danny’s website.

Click here for all the Kaffeezigarette posts.

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The Anti-Handshake

9. February 201710. February 2017

In our ‘anti-handshake’ article, we face the fact that not everyone necessarily loves what we are doing. Just to point out one really good story: As we happened to meet Jeremy Rogers – wearing an Alien Workshop T-shirt – at NYC’s Tompkins Square Park, it seemed like we had gone on a run of seeing famous people. Only minutes later, we crashed into Will Smith’s son, surrounded by a bunch of teens. Naturally, the son of Mr. Men in Black had his very own security guard, who soon got the feeling that Roland might be a little too close for comfort – and proceed to aim for his ass with his foot. Roland got away, though. Shortly after, we happened upon another crowd of fans gathered outside of a location that seemed to be a restaurant. “Wait, who is this again?” I was asking myself, as Lady Gaga slowly appeared. People were screaming, crying, taking photos and filming, while Conny, who shot Alex Olson’s article, was already far ahead of us. Lady Gaga stepped into her car, went off with two other security cars in tow, and I almost lost track of them.

But then I found Conny nonchalantly spotting the weird scenery. And then he spontaneously decided to skitch her car, without knowing it was hers! Through the eyes of a security guard for one of the biggest pop stars in the world, worrying about what was going to happen next sounds about right. But because of the bad street conditions, Conny had to let her go after a few seconds and the situation defused itself. Funny enough, Conny actually had no clue what was going on.

Ultimately, it’s a thin line between good and bad, and sometimes the ‘anti-handshake’- as we call it – is just as interesting.

Text by Daniel Pannemann
Photos by Danny Sommerfeld

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Steffen Grap – Berlin Bound

21. January 2017

In addition to our latest “At Home With” issue, we produced a few videos to go along with the articles. We will release these videos on our website the next couple of days, starting today. Watch “Berlin Bound”, a video by Steffen Grap & Peter Buikema, below!

My name is Steffen Grap. I’m 20 years young and born and raised in Berlin: the city that never sleeps but is always tired. The city of contradictions. Nowhere else can you get so much inspiration and space for creative freedom. Nowhere else does that exact same freedom turn into a curse, causing you to relentlessly put yourself under too much pressure. Over and over you lose yourself in the city only to find and recreate yourself again later. You lose hope, you create hope. Berlin is a sensory overload, which sometimes is exactly what I need and other times is just too much for my brain.
Berlin, my aesthetic chaos.

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Kaffeezigarette – 10 Years Of Place

15. January 201715. January 2017

Next Wednesday during the BRIGHT Tradeshow we would like to invite you all to our 10 Years Of PLACE Birthday Party at Strausberger Platz 19 in Berlin, Friedrichshain. But before we will raise the glass, we have a little teasing and quite special column for you guys. As a real flower child, Danny Sommerfeld unintentionally documented a few situations during a few more or less blurry party nights of the past year where every time not least the power of colorful plants made him hit the shutter release.

Photos by Danny Sommerfeld

Brett Nichols – Späti

23. December 2016

Past summer American filmer Brett Nichols visited the two German cities Berlin and Hannover. His edit “SPÄTI” chronicles this ten days trip and features next to his American friends Harrison Hafner and Bobby Groves also some very common German personalities like Dennis Laaß, Niels Brauer, Malte Spitz, Jonas Hess, Conny Mirbach and with Tjark Thielker, Daniel Pannemann and Danny Sommerfeld even half of the PLACE staff.

“Späti (pronounced shpi-tee) is a shorthand for a German corner store. It was the most common word spoken by my new German friends Nils Brauer, Daniel Pannemann, Tjark Thielker, and so many others. Between every spot a debate would be sparked as to where the nearest späti was and whether it was in the direction we needed to go. The späti serves as both the snackbar and the regular bar – unlike The States, you are free to sample adult beverages right outside.” – Brett Nichols

Photo by Alexey Lapin

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Leon Rudolph – U Already Know

17. December 201617. December 2016

I clearly remember when this project started, I was talking to Leon Rudolph and I asked: “Why don’t you do full-length videos anymore?” He answered: “Right now, I just don’t want to wait to put something out.” Leon did do a lot this year, he did some stuff for Converse Cons, Cleptomanicx and a couple of independent short videos. So an idea crept into our mind, what if we ask Leon to remix his 2016 work into one longer project? He loved the idea, and from that moment we started to talk regularly about the project, Leon would bring up ideas and started working on the project, he even found a date and a location to premiere the project. Yesterday the video had its premiere in Kassel it premiered together with Jonathon the Dog’s new project. So with, that out the way we are proud to introduce to you Leon Rudolph’s newest project “U Already Know” for PLACE, Enjoy!

Featuring: Danny Sommerfeld, Jonas Hess, Jan Hoffmann, Daniel Pannemann, Hyun Kummer (Versace_Germany), Jun Kummer (Seoul_air), Steffen Grap, Franz Grimm, Max Sand, Moritz Alte and much more.

Photo Recap – 10 Years Of Busenitz

14. November 201614. November 2016

If someone works for 10 years at a big company they maybe give out a bouquet of flowers and a few warm handshakes. adidas in this case was behaving a little bit different and flew out half of Europe to a very Bavarian location just to celebrate Dennis Busenitz’s 10 year anniversary skating for the brand. Dennis is one of a kind to say the least and so was our weekend in Munich. Cheers to Dennis and the whole adidas Skateboarding crew! That’s how it looked like:

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Kaffeezigarette – Diaries

1. November 20161. November 2016

Danny Sommerfeld is back with a video version of his Kaffeezigarette column. This one features our cover kid Jun Song a.k.a. Seoul_air and his very trusted companion Moritz Alte a.k.a. mo.therfucka, in the middle of filming for this some Swedish guy named Felipe just popped up and started skating the park Danny being Danny just started documenting him. As far as the tunes go some of you trusted followers probably started to notice a shift in the tpdg’s musical interests by now.

P.s. If you are the guy hit us up and get your just due.