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1976 · era

Bowie in Berlin

A Schöneberg home, a nearby café and Hansa’s recording rooms: separate settings within Bowie’s Berlin life.

Bowie’s Berlin geography is most useful when its everyday places remain distinct from its recording places. Hauptstraße 155 locates his home in Schöneberg; the nearby café connects to his neighbourhood routine; Hansa locates the work on Heroes. Together they make an urban story with several functions, rather than a claim that every album associated with the Berlin period was wholly recorded in the city.

Explore the places

Markers identify buildings or documented location references. They do not mark an exact recording room, stage position or camera angle.

  1. Hauptstraße 155 — Position not yet established
  2. Neues Ufer — Map source
  3. The Meistersaal, Hansa Studios — Map source

1 place remains listed without a pin.

A neighbourhood on Hauptstraße

Berlin’s city portal places Bowie at Hauptstraße 155 from 1976 to 1978 and identifies the café at number 157 as a place he frequented. The café was then called Anderes Ufer. These addresses belong to the lived city: a home and a social setting, close together but not interchangeable. The residential address is an exterior reference, not an invitation into a former flat. Their importance is the relationship between ordinary neighbourhood life and the public image of a visiting musician. [1]

Across the city to Hansa

Hansa’s own history connects Bowie with Studio Two and Heroes. The studio provides the professional counterpart to the Schöneberg addresses. Do not interpret the popular phrase Berlin trilogy as a precise recording map for all three records: an era label and a session location are different kinds of information. This World includes the directly supported Heroes relationship, with Hansa’s present visitor policy requiring booked visits or tours. The studio remains a workplace, so access is arranged rather than assumed. [3] [2]

The story in real places

Hauptstraße 155

Hauptstraße 155, Schöneberg

  1. Living on Hauptstraße

    1976–1978

    David Bowie lived at Hauptstraße 155 in Berlin-Schöneberg from 1976 to 1978. [1]

Neues Ufer

Hauptstraße 157, Schöneberg

  1. The nearby Anderes Ufer café

    Berlin years

    Bowie frequented the café at Hauptstraße 157, known during the 1970s as Anderes Ufer. [1]

The Meistersaal, Hansa Studios

Köthener Straße 38, Kreuzberg

A stone-fronted building on Köthener Straße
The Meistersaal building, Köthener Straße 38, 2012. Jörg Zägel · CC BY-SA 3.0. Existing local rendition. Venue illustration; not a photograph of the historic music event.

  1. Heroes at Hansa

    1977

    Hansa Studios’ history identifies its Studio Two as the setting where Bowie wrote Heroes. [3]

Reading the place today

View the residential address respectfully from public space. Hansa’s operator permits booked visits and tours only. Contact the current café and studio operators directly for present arrangements; no opening hours or interior access are inferred here.

Sources

  1. David Bowie in Berlin — Berlin city portal. Checked 2026-10-17.
  2. Contact Hansa Studios — Hansa Studios. Checked 2026-10-17.
  3. Hansa Studios: Geschichte — Hansa Studios. Checked 2026-10-16.

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