A Hub and a Haven: Impressions from GAiA Deli & News
Places shape people, and people shape places, it is said. They become part of the space and make it their own – nowhere more so than in a space designed to bring people together, like the historic Hall E. Here you’ll find people solving sudokus, reading a newspaper or sipping a coffee, all enjoying the sense of community the hall exudes. Ella Rendtorff, a work-study student at the Gasteig, spent a day looking around and talking to people at the GAiA Deli & News café.
Like little white hats, clean coffee cups are stacked behind the counter at GAiA Deli & News. For barista Laura Petrone, the working day here begins before nine o’clock, long before the evening audience starts streaming into the Isarphilharmonie. Petrone, who stems from Naples, knows the faces that frequent the café: day after day, she stands here behind the counter, serving coffee and croissants – and watching the world go by. “I like this place,” she says, letting her gaze wander across the expansive hall. Given Munich’s housing shortage, having a large space to be in is a luxury. “There’s room to breathe here,” she says. Above all, however, Hall E is a place where people of all ages and social backgrounds come together: to revise, read or relax – without any expectation that they spend their money here.
Potted plants and cheesecake
By now, Petrone has become friends with some of the regulars: Susanne is enjoying the soup she’s brought with her at one of the tables of the Deli & News. The 59-year-old is currently looking for a job. Upstairs in the library, she writes job applications; downstairs, she sits in the café, waters the pot plants and just goes with the flow. “What makes this place special is that it it is not enclosed,” she says. Unlike in other cafés, there are no walls, no boundaries that mark it out it from the rest of the space.
The space is created by the people who use it; people who come here to read the paper, study in the library or just hang out. They all become part of the building as a living organism. Among the regulars frequenting the café in the mornings are staff from the power station across the road. In their blue work overalls, hard hats still on their heads, they lean against the counter, chatting. Three of them say that they come here for a slice of cheesecake every lunch break before heading back to work.
“I like the fact that you can just be here, even if you’re not doing anything in particular.”
Philosophising and hanging out
By now, the hall has filled up: students are sitting on the steps, unpacking the packed lunches they brought with them and sharing the latest gossip, whilst senior citizens sit at the café tables solving sudokus and leafing through magazines, which the public library provides for free on sizeable shelving. The coffee machine hisses; here and there, you catch snippets of conversation amidst the babble of voices.
Leaning intently over their notepads, two people are discussing Virginia Woolf, Heidegger and Wittgenstein; at the next table, people are conversing in Japanese. On another table, a group of friends, here for the first time in Hall E. Will they come again? They all nod their heads.
A short distance from the deli, a young man is typing on his laptop, his gaze wandering across the hall every now and then. His name is Kemal.The 30-year-old biologist regularly comes to Hall E to work, sitting sometimes in the public library, sometimes in the Deli to enjoy a coffee. “I like the fact that you can just be here, even if you’re not doing anything in particular,” he says with a laugh, as he closes his laptop. Whenever he’s here, he strikes up conversations with people: “It’s a space for everyone.”
A charming mix
In the café, Laura Petrone is just selling the last butter pretzel as children play hide-and-seek around the counter and mums push their buggies through the hall. One floor up, young people are sitting at their laptops. Someone is playing the piano. Out in the courtyard, the shadows are gradually growing longer. Eclectic clothing is giving way to black evening wear as the audience of a classical concert is streaming into Hall E from the bus stop across the road.
Wine glasses join the coffee cups, as the evening audience mingles with the day-time guests between concrete walls and bookshelves. While some are quickly reapplying their lipstick before the concert begins, others are still sitting together in small groups after their day’s studying. Outside one of the entrances, a vendor sells the BISS street magazine.
Laura Petrone has finished her shift. As she heads for the door, a group of young women call out to her: “Ci vediamo!” – see you!
Food & drink at the Gasteig HP8
Text: Ella Rendtorff
