As Berlin upgrades its chameleon wardrobe toward something more sophisticated, it’s tempting to find its bohemian foundations provincial or quaint—in any case, relegated to the pile marked, “donations.” But such a linear notion of progress belies this city’s iconoclastic nature. Berlin is a humane place, scaled for human beings. This is clear to anyone who walks along the stretch of the Landwehr Canal in front of the Vivantes Klinikum am Urban (aka the Urban Krankenhaus). Whether this scrappy swath of nature belongs to the city or to the hospital is unclear. Between Admiralbrücke and Baerwaldbrücke, it’s neither park nor strasse. It’s neither here nor really there. Sure, moored on either side of the hospital bank are two cafes in sailboats, whose colored lights strung from the masts certainly welcome tourists. But in between them sits a fat, abandoned ferryboat whose smashed windows and graffiti silently attest to the legends of yesterday’s parties. Maybe the city’s too broke to move it, but for the passers-by who stop here (and perhaps also the patients behind the hospital’s windows), the trashed boat epitomizes Berlin’s sense of humor; it’s a monument to not taking life too seriously. On warm afternoons throughout the year, adventurous readers climb over the low fence along the northern side of the canal to dangle their legs over the edge and enjoy hours of southern exposure. During long days around the summer solstice, the gravel path is crowded with slow bicyclists, wild children chased by strollers, patients in wheelchairs, and the usual flâneurs. Picnickers and laughing sunbathers, a few strumming musicians, chess players and lovers crowd the patchy grass next to the water. From wooden benches many watch these unabashed displays of life, some in spite of a bandaged eye or half-hidden IV. Swans ornament the shores and aggressively hunt for scraps. Sometimes a tall man on an air mattress floats, napping, in the canal. This un-place belongs to anyone who pauses, enchanted by an unexpected glint of sunlight on the canal or the welcoming mood of a motley gathering. Here is something spontaneous and unselfconscious. Something natural. For this nature to reside within the purview of the Urban Krankenhaus is, for anyone, heart-breakingly humane. (Emily Lundin)