worm, chrysalis and butterfly…

This is the butterfly…a bedroom full of light, the bed facing an enormous double window overlooking the chestnut trees, new oak floor and travertino paint for the walls.

…the necessary chrysalis…

And this was the ugly worm we bought…poor thing it was ugly but with lots of potential! This is the same room as above, here as a post-war kitchen.

Before the war each floor of this Altbau had just 2 enormous buergerlich flats, with chambres de bonne and the like. Each flat was then divided in 3 flats. Our worm – pardon, our Flat – didn’t have any bedroom, just a big living room with a bow-window, a kitchen and bath both with windows, and a roomy dark corridor for a total of 54sqm.

We torn the wall down (even if we never liked Reagan, we did as he said ) and transformed the neighbouring bath and kitchen into a nice bedroom with a superb double window.

So now The Flat has a double bedroom and, thanks to our architect, the living room goes back to its pre-war destination. (Er…what about kitchen and bathroom then?!)

Berlin second-hand vs Salone del Mobile

Yesterday I browsed through D di Repubblica, a beautiful saturday magazine. If you check the picture at page 192 of the current issue, N* 643, there is a very nice banquette or little bench, metal long legs and purple velvet upholstering. The bench and the dormeuse are part of the Lobularia collection by Poltronesofa’, you see them in pink on this Repubblica photo. It’s nice, isn’t it? Well…you’ll see the real thing now!

Here’s my most recent Berlin second-hand treasure.

In January my friend Dorita – another second-hand stores junkie like me – and I went to my favorite second-hand shop in Berlin to collect a beautiful 1950s cat brooch, obviously a nice feline present from MeinMann. And I fell in love with this banquette…all alone, sitting pretty in a corner of the shop…

It was produced in 1960, it has its DDR stamps on its wood seat chassis. The legs are made of black iron. I find it has incredible grace. Quite surprising for GDR design. Well, in fact I discovered that there were two banquettes and I had to have them both, I couldn’t possibly leave one behind. Dorita supported me in the decision making process and 15 seconds later the deal was done.

The following month, when our Flat was less dusty and the carpenters had almost finished their work, me and my brother went back to the merciful and fanciful furniture orphanage to collect our long-legged GDR beauties.

Of course the gray velvet upholstering is brand new and you know, it’s magic. It’s cangiante, nice italian word which describes how velvet plays with light. The size is perfect. You can have them at the end of your bed. Or like a mini-sofa on a corridor. Or next to the bow-window. Good design, good-good.

I wonder if the spanish – pardon, catalano – Poltronesofa’ designers did mention the credits to the DDR State-designers…

My modernariat pieces costed Eur 60 each, brand new upholstering included of course! The Lobularia banquette retails at 390 Eur.

Thrifty Berlin second-hand beats Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

Adopt furniture!

Is Berlin property still worth investing on?

The source of the following article is a real estate agency, still you may want to check a couple of figures…

“Berlin property is still worth investing in. Despite the downturn in the global economy, Berlin property is still worth investing in, according to property experts. Due to the many years of economic isolation for the city, the value of Berlin property remains relatively low in comparison to other European centres and has space to grow.

Berlin property offers a good deal for investors who wish to add a long term and stable investment property to their portfolio. The cost of rents are climbing steadily across the city, statistics reveal a recent rise of 6%, while property values have dropped.

At the same time, the pool of investors showing an interest in property has declined. Rents are increasing, and will continue to increase, because of demand outstripping supply. There are various reasons for this. Demand for good accommodation rising • An increase in the number of people moving into the city. Records show that in the first 6 months of 2008, around 8,500 people moved to Berlin. Multinationals such as Sony have chosen to locate their European headquarters in Berlin.

• A decrease in unemployment rates means that there is an increase in people willing to spend money on space. In the 1990s, the unemployment rate was nearly 20%. By 2008, this rate had decreased to 12.4%. Despite a spike in unemployment during 2009 due to the economic downturn, unemployment figures are not expected to return to previous highs. Decline in rental stock

• As in any city, it is expected that a certain number of properties will fall into such serious disrepair that they will be deemed uninhabitable by authorities. The general rule of thumb is 1% of the housing stock. Berlin will lose around 6,000 homes a year.

• However, property development in Berlin has been slow. In 2007 only 3,718 new homes were built. By September 2008, the number of housing permits issued to builders was lower than the 2007 total.

• A number of properties have been bought by foreign buyers for business or holiday homes, thus taking them out of the rental pool.

• With a tougher economic climate, it has become more difficult for builders to access funds that would sustain a large development project.

These three factors together have increased the attractiveness of Berlin property, so much so that the Chairman of the managing board of the GSW has said “anyone with the financial means to do so should buy now”. Experts advice and consultancy services for investors who are considering purchasing investment property in Berlin”.

Source: Katrin-Maja Maehl – Berlin Investment Property

After Köln, Milan

Salone del Mobile in Milano, after Köln…less hype, more craftmanship. On the 80th anniversary of the bauhaus, the return of the well-crafted over the decorative, the fashionable, the redundant, the transient is good news.

I am looking forward to returning to that second-hand market in Berlin where I saw the most beautiful 1950s oval table…for just 50 euros…(it’s gone, I know, I know…). I am more into “pick and mix” rather than in Salone mood!

Look at the beautiful colors of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt cafe’…very much recycled stuff, I love it! (even it does not fit with The Flat)

the haberdashery factor

“The ideal neighborhood” is the most visited page of this blog, since ever. I guess this has to do with the fact that we all long for finding some sort of village-like harmony (but not flatness). Among the points of the ideal place there is the sense of community, call it “no big retail chains around” or “feeling safe in your whereabouts”.

I quite liked Mr Brule’ s article comparing Lisbon, with its ancient haberdashery and grocery-style beauty stores, with Notting Hill no man’s land in the making.

inflation: if it’s not behind you…it’s ahead

-gle

Today in the office I had a nice discussion about the risks of the come-back of double-digit inflation down the road in a couple of years or so, something that we kids of the 70s recall when shopping with our mums at the supermarket.

To me back then it seemed NORMAL that prices of pasta Barilla and Nutella would change every week or so, I did try to desperately memorize the prices but it wasn’t worth the effort. We had then mini-assegni, funny wannabe banknotes-in-lieu-of-coins, something I hear is back in fashion in the US these days. Early 90s, freshly graduated, my first image of London was one of building societies changing daily the interest rates on the window-displays, and I clearly remember that it was in the double-digits (and starting with a “2″).

The discussion ended with “it was all the fault of the Versailles Treaty, it paved the way for disaster for poor Weimar young and sexy Republik…then things went sour”.

Or, as in Tom Tykwer’s “The International”, big debts are big crow bars….

Even if I do not particularly like the new Herald Tribune web edition layout, I do looove the fact that now when using the SEARCH function you can dig deep and directly in the PDFedded archives of the New York Times… there are very interesting articles for useful meditation…which remind me of hedge funds buying single-handedly entire blocks in East Berlin from the helicopter only a few quarters ago, or individual investors buying flats on the basis of the Expose’ and looking up the property only on Google Earth, and not by stepping in the Kiez and walking up the Treppe of the Vorderhaus.

There were neither copters, nor Google Earth back in 1922, indeed turbolent times and postdemocracies are back in Europe…and Angela may be quite right in fearing the comeback of those zeroes by the kilo.

taking the hype out of the hypo

Today’s Economist has a couple of interesting articles on Germany, bailouts, real estate, HRE and cash-for-clunkers car bonus. The most interesting bits in my opinion are:

The plans are hobbled by two constraints. The first is that the government hopes to avoid transferring much of the risk of losses to taxpayers without first punishing shareholders. That conflicts with the government’s equally pressing desire to avoid nationalising any more banks. These contradictory aims preclude the government from, for instance, wiping out the value of equity in banks by forcing them to write down their assets.

and

…fretting about debt and inflation is equally characteristic of the German soul. Many commentators have criticised the scrapping bonus. Singling out one industry for subsidy, even if it accounts for 20% of industrial production, is economically dubious. The bonus may rob sales from other deserving industries, from white goods to beer—as well as from future car sales. In France, which offered a scrapping bonus in the mid-1990s, sales slumped by 20% in the year after its expiration.

…but you can read the full articles herebelow.

Goldbären and Golia

Goldbären and Golia side by side. Goldbären for gemütlichkeit, Golia for simplicity. Goldbären because in Berlin the house is a shelter from the cold and the rain, like a cavern for the fatty bear.

Golia because we need to remind ourselves that every object needs to have a precise function, and the only decorative items must be transient and lightweight, like a bunch of flowers, a colourful pillowcase, but furniture and walls need to remain plain and quite neutral, without constraints.

Goldbären because it’s süß, Golia because it’s strong…and both because I wanted to put something in the budget IKEA jars I had bought months ago!

Happy Easter!!

Well in march during my latest Berlin weekend I did not resist to the temptation of acquiring another (yes! another) samovar. The girls at the Akazienstrasse cafe’ told me they had to give away a dozen of samovars, as their cafe’ was formerly known as a chai house…had I known this 10 months ago when they refurbished the place, I would have had exquisite and very welcome presents for my triestine friends!

This one is less shiny and missing the top kettle, poor thing, so it seemed quite obvious to me to buy an egg to keep him company. Yes, one of those perfect gyps eggs that you find in the marvellous bricolage stores in Berlin, it fits very well on top of the samovar, as if a cheeky goose would have passed by our window…

Samovar, wannabe Fabergé eggs, Berlin, there is a russian fil rouge…Frohe Ostern from A flat in Berlin! (even if we’re in Rome now- cooking and enjoying long chats with our friend Ch. from Geneva!)

Urban farming: Li Edelkoort was late

After Naomi Klein’s “No logo”, are we heading for a “No guru” era?

Since the 90s we’ve been reading more and more about these so-called “cool-hunters” or “trend-gurus”. Those who stitch up trend books and if we buy a lime-green pullover next week it is because 3 years ago they found out that lime evocates purity and freshness and we would crave that at some point in the distant future.

On the Elle Decoration – and other magazines I browsed through in the trains and planes of the last few days – the trend-guru Edelkoort goes about saying that now people want countryside in the cities. Crise oblige.

I’m sorry but this has always been the case in “provincial and poor Berlin”. Berliners understood ages ago how important is to have real countryside in town.

As the italian writer Alessandra Montrucchio wrote nicely in her book “Berlin”, especially West Berlin after WWII had to recreate within the boundaries of the encircled town the seaside, the woods, the countryside, even the “mountains”.

Now countryside in town seem to be the must-have for milanese penthouses, Primrose Hill windowboxes, Chelsea faux-accessible squares. For Berliners, it’s the reality in many Kiez. It is not the ultimate expression of elitism, only for the few,  but the democratic accessible green shore of the Spree in the Regierungsviertel, the summer Tiergarten grill or the tai-chi lesson in the Volkspark across the street.

So, Li Edelkoort was late.

Berlin, trend-resistant, is above trends.  It literally bathes in sound, Birkenstock-sturdy common sense…

PS

on this topic also check Metapolis

photos: StripedCat