Frau Yardley’s 1920’s Berlin Project has started to celebrate its sixth birthday in Second Life. There will be six days of festivities, which started today with an open door day. That is a day when homes within the project that have a sign stating “Open House” can be explored inside without the owners chasing you out on to the streets.

Further activities are planned for the forthcoming days too, including (but not limited to) :

• 6th Anniversary Dance at the Pariser Platz (At the foot of the Brandenburger Tor) with a show by Fraulein Sonatta Morales and with DJ Myron Byron.
• Unveiling of the Community Quilt at the Library.
• Miss Berlin pageant!
• Relaxed Rules Day: All day.

For a full list of planned activities, times and dates go here.

The 1920’s Berlin Project is without any shadow of a doubt, a Second Life success story and one that warms the cockles of many a heart, and also makes others scratch their heads at how Frau Yardley has managed to get this all to work, thrive and grow. I really should ask Frau Yardley about this at some point.

Frau Yardley has had some assistance with the project of course, most notably from Mila Edelman. However the way this community has thrived is certainly something to admire.

The About page of the 1920’s Berlin Project gives some insight into the ambitious project that was undertaken :

We wanted to try and recreate the atmosphere of this fantastic city in that amazing era.

Our ideal was to show an as realistic and authentic as possible experience of visiting this part of history. Most historical sims show a somewhat romanticised, clean andcharming view of the past where everyone lives in big houses and walks around in lovely clothes all the time. They offer the past up as they would have liked it to be.

We wanted to show our visitors both sides of the coin; the amazing modern houses near Unter Den Linden where modern rich people in the latest fashion live a life of leasure, but also the dirty, narrow streets with tiny apartments where the poor try to survive.

The 1920s Berlin Project offers you the chance to explore these two different worlds and even become part of one, or both of them. Spend your evening dancing in the mirror room of the luxerious Hotel Adlon or spend it in a damp basement Tanzlokal where they have lukewarm beer in dirty glasses.

It should be noted that the current year in the 1920’s Berlin Project is 1929 and I’m reliably informed that it’s unlikely to go into the dark 1930’s, which is understandable of course.

Now if you’re planning on visiting there are some housekeeping rules you should take note of. The major one, and one for which you will receive a lot of reminders, is the dress code. Only authentic 1920’s avatars are allowed (with a one day exception which I’ll come to later). Now as I’m a Dwarfin King this was somewhat challenging, well it would have been if it hadn’t been for the fact that freebie clothing to help you fit the theme is available at the landing point. Well actually, this was still a challenge, I’m a King for goodness sake, they should have been rolling out the red carpet for me!

However I complied, and if a King can comply, then so can you. This also meant I was free to explore the project without Frau Yardley frowning at me very hard and showing me exactly whose in charge in this area.

Complying with the rules is worth it, this is an excellent build with authentic looking buildings and some very eye catching vintage advertising, which I very much like.

However if you really don’t like being told what to wear then fear not. On Wednesday June 3rd it’s relaxed rules day, all day. What does this mean? Well Frau Yardley explains that :

On this day we forget the 1920s Dress code for 24 hours and welcome all kinds of avatars.

So if you are interested in visiting our sim but were not keen on wearing 1920s clothes or just don’t feel comfortable with a human avatar, this is your chance to walk around without our cops coming running after you.

But be warned! We also allow our tenants to ignore all the other rules of the sim and this usually means they will go a little nuts…

If you’ve never visited before, the next few days will certainly be a good time to rectify that, this is a set of regions that are well worth a visit.

SLURL To 1920’s Berlin : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/1920s%20Berlin/236/232/751/

Tweet