Gentle Rain Issue 04

gentle rain is a magazine about Hamburg. It looks at co-existence in urban space, portrays people in the city and shows how they live and work. We also make excursions into the creative habitats, urban enclaves and nearby retreats in and around the metropolis that is our home.

Issue 4 is out now and available in English and German.

In 2050, cars are just fossils, climate change stopped, the seas are garbage-free again and discrimination is over. We live in cities that are green and healthy, we live as we please, and yet in a peaceful community.

The new issue of gentle rain is serious on utopias. We asked transport planners and architects from Hamburg, Frankfurt and Copenhagen how the end of the car could become an opportunity for the city. How do we tackle climate change with sustainable mobility – and thus create room for new things in public space?

We meet people who advocate cycling and a life that produces as little garbage as possible. Surprise: As far as the subject of consumption is concerned, the hip “Zero Waste Café” and the centuries-old “Eisenhandel Schüllenbach” are not too different ideologically. For ideally, change means freedom rather than prohibition. Instead of comfort and joie de vivre, only a few old certainties fall off tracks: The toughest rap today quite well comes from a woman – musician Eunique simply chews machismo away. And who said that you cannot choose your family? For many people of the gender queer Voguing community, their “house” is not just a dance clique, but also a living communion.

Making way for stories – now digitally and in German, too

We believe in the innovation and savvy of urban society. That’s why, since gentle rain’s first edition, we have been visiting people with different ways of life that do not take everything for granted, but actually put change into effect. And that’s why we keep listening to the feedback from our readers. For the first time appearing, next to the English edition, is a German one. We started as a magazine addressing the international Hamburg – and so we see gentle rain until today. Nevertheless, we thought it too bad to fail understanding and honest interest by a simple language barrier.

Next to all the food for the brain, the new “compass” format is intended to create occasions for exploring Hamburg – and, for example, to visit five tiny but fine museums. To give the magazine’s stories their appropriate space, the fourth issue focuses on fewer topics, but applies more space and greater depth – and further explores them digitally. The “maker” workshops can be visited in 360° videos soon, and readers can experience the dancers in motion. All additional digital content – implemented in cooperation with Robots & Friends – can be obtained using the smartphone.