Poc­cino

Espresso cul­ture the itali­an way

POS­TED BY ALEX IWAN, 11. March 2021

When Bruno Albrecht returned from Rome, back in 1976, it upset him that cof­fee in Ger­many differed widely from the Itali­an espresso cul­ture, he had so dearly learned to love and appre­ci­ate, dur­ing his semester abroad. In order to intro­duce Ger­mans to cof­fee, made the Itali­an way, he presen­ted espresso beans and Itali­an cof­fee machines to mar­ket-lead­ing cof­fee-com­pan­ies such as Jac­obs and Melitta – unfor­tu­nately without any suc­cess. The only per­son who believed in Albrecht’s idea was Emilio Lavazza, the own­er of the largest Itali­an roast­ing com­pany. Albrecht traveled to Italy to roast more than 20 dif­fer­ent cof­fees with Lavazza, the god­fath­er of espresso him­self. Finally, in 1977, he developed the first elec­tric porta­fil­ter espresso machine. One year later, he presen­ted the first Poc­cino espresso machine, includ­ing match­ing table­ware and the finest cof­fee beans, at Berlin’s KaDeWe depart­ment store. Only nine months later, he had already sold 36,000 units in Germany.

One can­not enjoy authen­t­ic Itali­an espresso, without a porta­fil­ter espresso machine. No oth­er device can brew an espresso in such “arti­gi­anale” (hand­craf­ted) per­fec­tion. The word “espresso” refers to the Itali­an word “caffè espresso,” which is used to describe a cof­fee that has been pre­pared spe­cific­ally on the guest’s request. In Italy, espresso has long been con­sidered a cul­tur­al treas­ure and its pre­par­a­tion is a form of art. Due to the emer­ging cof­fee cap­sule industry, how­ever, there is hardly any truly authen­t­ic Itali­an espresso cul­ture left – even in Italy.

Poccino’s espresso machines today only dif­fer slightly from the pion­eer­ing device from 1977; they are only slightly optim­ized to ful­fill mod­ern require­ments. Poc­cino machines are extremely dur­able and

bring home the pleas­ures of Italy, with its sev­er­al fla­vor­ful espresso vari­ations. Düs­sel­dorf is con­sidered, next to Ham­burg and Munich, as true espresso hot­spot in terms of sales fig­ures. It is there­fore not sur­pris­ing that Café Poc­cino is loc­ated in the heart of Düs­sel­dorf, at the fam­ous Kö-Bogen.

Düsseldorf’s smal­lest art exhibition

Kö-Bogen Kö-Bogen sup­ports academy graduates

POS­TED BY ALEX IWAN, 1. FEB­RU­AR 2021

“The store in the pas­sage between Bre­uninger and Porsche Design is one of the busiest prom­en­ades in the heart of Düs­sel­dorf. Imple­ment­ing an art exhib­i­tion in the midst of this glit­ter­ing world of fash­ion and busi­ness with its enti­cing dis­plays is a chal­lenge, because the visu­al stim­uli of the goods and con­sumer offer­ings are over­whelm­ing,” says board mem­ber and cur­at­or Dr. Astrid Legge of 701 e.V., who helped bring­ing Paul Schwa­der­er to the Kö-Bogen.

With Paul Schwa­der­er, the 701 e.V. asso­ci­ation is real­iz­ing its new ‘PopUp Gal­lery’ format for the second time. After a first impact in 2019 in the Renzo Piano designed office build­ing FLOAT in the Media Har­bour, the asso­ci­ation has been show­ing at the Kö-Bogen a recent gradu­ate of the Art Academy, who gradu­ated last sum­mer in the class of Mar­tin Gost­ner. As in 2019, Düs­sel­dor­fers will also get an “art treat to go” this time, because corona-related, the exhib­i­tion is designed as a pure ‘win­dow show’ and can only be viewed from the out­side. 701 e.V. is a non-profit ini­ti­at­ive of Düs­sel­dorf per­son­al­it­ies from the fields of art and cul­ture, busi­ness and polit­ics. It sees itself as a link between busi­ness and art and pur­sues the goal of estab­lish­ing cre­at­ive net­works and thus sus­tain­ably strength­en­ing and pro­mot­ing the city’s cre­at­ive image.

Everything revolves around “Exten­ded Break

Prom­in­ently posi­tioned in the shop win­dow and yet incon­spicu­ous, the work ‘an exten­ded pause’ can be seen, a rotat­ing glass tube filled with a white powder on a black cuboid. The slow rota­tion causes the rock powder to pile up until the mater­i­al can no longer defy grav­ity. It breaks down, cre­at­ing cre­vasses and frac­tures remin­is­cent of nat­ur­al pro­cesses such as gla­cial move­ment or geo­lo­gic­al rock reshap­ing. And although the reel rotates exceed­ingly slowly, it shows, as if in fast-for­ward, a pro­cess that in real­ity spans cen­tur­ies. Fast-for­ward and slow-motion are very close togeth­er here.

LIT­ER­ARY EXCHANGE AT KÖ-BOGEN

TWELVEVEY OPEN BOOKCHARGE

POS­TED BY ALEX IWAN, Novem­ber 10, 2020

Art-Invest Real Estate cre­ates a meet­ing place for lit­er­ary exchange and dis­cus­sion at Kö-Bogen: Togeth­er with the Lit­er­at­ur­büro NRW, an open book­case was set up between the Itali­an res­taur­ant Poc­cino and Eduard’s Bar. 

Lit­er­at­ure lov­ers can explore the con­stantly chan­ging range of books, take books with them or exchange them with new ones in to give oth­er read­ing enthu­si­asts a lit­er­ary treat.

MOOSE KNUCKLES

POP UP
AT KÖ-BOGEN

POS­TED BY ALEX IWAN, 9. AUGUST 2020

Since 1921 the fam­ily of Moose Knuckles has been pro­tect­ing Cana­dians from the cold — a relent­less task from which the Moose Knuckles Canada brand was born in 2009. Today, Moose Knuckles hon­ors its her­it­age and drives the “Spir­it of the Moose” into innov­at­ive coats and jack­ets of unpar­alleled style and warmth.

Born from the cold, made for the city!
Moose Knuckles is a fam­ily, a tribe, a pack, and we wear it on our sleeves. Wheth­er it’s a wild night or the wild coun­try, we have it all! Wel­come to Canada… Wel­come to Moose Knuckles.
Open­ing Hours: Mon-Sat 11.00 — 20.00

Shop­ping Düs­sel­dorf Style

Cat­walk
Kö-Bogen

POS­TED BY ALEX IWAN, AUGUST 9, 2020

I am stand­ing on the fore­court of the Kö-Bogen in the most beau­ti­ful sunny weath­er. I look towards the hori­zon and lose myself in the reflec­tions of the impress­ive Daniel Libe­s­kind build­ing. Before I com­pletely get car­ried away by my thoughts, a loud laughter awakens me from my archi­tec­tur­al dreams.

Three illus­tri­ous ladies have met under the impos­ing para­sols for a glass of French spark­ling wine. The trio is per­fectly styled. Even though their hand­bags have been placed on the table, I can tell which cre­ation belongs to which lady. Everything is just right in terms of col­or, shape and style. This is prob­ably their aper­itif for the day –“shop­ping Düs­sel­dorf style”. I also treat myself with a glass of cham­pagne, enjoy the col­or­ful hustle and bustle at the bar and stroll on towards the Hofgarten. Espe­cially from here the build­ing of the star archi­tect looks iconic.

As soon as the weath­er per­mits, tour­ists and loc­als alike enjoy culin­ary delights and an Aper­ol Spritz at the top Itali­an res­taur­ant and bar Poc­cino. Today I’m in the mood to pamper myself and cel­eb­rate the sun­shine with an ice cream from Man­zoni Gelato – with fresh and sweet straw­ber­ries as top­ping. I take a seat on the steps with a per­fect view on the Hofgarten. The Steigen­ber­ger Park-Hotel, vis-à-vis to the Kö-Bogen, appears in grace­ful grandeur. It is excep­tion­al here, that much is certain.

In addi­tion to the culin­ary delights, count­less shop­ping oppor­tun­it­ies, ran­ging from high-end fash­ion at Bre­uninger and Co., to lux­ury chro­no­met­ers at Rüschen­beck or the latest tech­no­logy gad­gets at Apple, invite you to let your cred­it card glow. No mat­ter wheth­er you travel by train, on foot, by bicycle or care­free by car to the premi­um under­ground car park, many roads lead to the Kö-Bogen and give you the feel­ing of hav­ing spent a few hours on vacation

LIFE ON THE ROOF

KESTREL-
HOTEL PLUS
BUZZ BUZZ

POS­TED BY ALEX IWAN, AUGUST 9, 2020

The Kö-Bogen provides spaces that are com­pletely remote and almost inac­cess­ible — just not for insects and birds! I love being on the roof of the Kö-Bogen with a fant­ast­ic view on Düs­sel­dorf. But the best thing is: There is a lot going on here, because a small nature reserve has been cre­ated up there too. A real green building!

Five cus­tom-made insect hotels have been built espe­cially for the Kö-Bogen, equipped with appro­pri­ate nest­ing mater­i­als. The small stain­less steel houses offer a new home to wild bees and oth­er insects above the court­yard garden. Spe­cies pro­tec­tion in the city cen­ter! In addi­tion, 24 nest­ing boxes for bird spe­cies such as the great tit, the house spar­row, the tree spar­row, and above all swifts belong to Kö-Bogen’s nature con­ser­va­tion pro­ject, which by the way was awar­ded the title of Green Building.

How­ever, nest­ing places were not only cre­ated for song­birds and insects. In con­sulta­tion with the NABU experts sep­ar­ate boxes for bats were installed; they serve as day­time quar­ters for the pro­tec­ted anim­als in the middle of the city. Nest­ing boxes, at a height of 26 meters should invite majest­ic kestrels to settle over Düsseldorf’s rooftops. The extens­ive green­ing of the roof area is an import­ant con­tri­bu­tion of the real estate industry for sus­tain­able build­ing in the 21st century.

“Sus­tain­ab­il­ity and envir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion are major glob­al issues to which every indi­vidu­al can make a con­tri­bu­tion with small meas­ures. Due to its green loc­a­tion, we as respons­ible oper­at­ors abso­lutely want Kö-Bogen to play an act­ive role in nature con­ser­va­tion”, Marco Koch, Man­ager Tech­no­logy Kö-Bogen. This pion­eer­ing ini­ti­at­ive for green, nat­ur­al roofs was developed in close cooper­a­tion with NABU Düsseldorf.