Twelve Holes on a Parking Garage Roof in Kreuzberg

For four days in late July 2014, someone turned the top floor of a parking garage at Kottbusser Tor into a minigolf course. Twelve holes, a bar, a view over one of the more chaotic intersections in Berlin. I don’t know whose idea this was, but it’s the kind of thing Berlin does occasionally and nowhere else really manages—taking a piece of urban infrastructure and making it briefly, genuinely strange.

Kreuzberg in summer already operates at a level of low-grade organized chaos that needs no outside help. Everyone is outside at once, moving between bars and parks and rooftops with an ease that feels specifically seasonal, specifically here. Adding minigolf to a parking structure roof fits that logic exactly. You play badly, you drink something cold, you look out over Kotti and the S-Bahn tracks and whatever is unfolding below, and you think: this is fine. This is better than fine.

There was a tournament across the final three days—a trophy, organized slots—which probably added more structure than the thing needed. The best version of an event like this is the one where you just show up. Berlin is at its most itself when the rules are loose enough that you can find your own way in.