Juan Convers

I took this picture while walking through Berlin-Mitte on my way to get my glasses done — way cheaper than in Switzerland! Among the renovated façades, galleries, boutiques and expensive apartments, Linienstraße 206 stands out like a time capsule. Covered in graffiti, street art and banners, it's clearly not a fully modernised luxury building and that's exactly what makes it so unique.

After the Wall fell in 1989, hundreds of empty buildings across East Berlin were occupied by squatters, artists and activists. Most of those squats were eventually evicted or swallowed by gentrification, but Linienstraße 206 is still standing, still defiant. A small piece of Berlin's alternative history right in the middle of all that fancy new East Berlin.