Berlin's 'Rental Barracks'

Today’s coveted altbau began life as the derisively titled ‘Mietskaserne,’ housing for the massive influx of workers who moved to the city during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on the blog version of Alte Frau, New Life on June 22, 2022. It has been imported here and edited for clarity.

For those of us who have fallen in love with Berlin’s altbau (literally, “old build”) apartments, it may seem hard to believe that these were once considered tenement housing.

In the industrial boom that accompanied the first unification of Germany in 1871, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers streamed into the capital in immediate need of housing. The result? Massive construction of mid-rise, five- and six-story apartment buildings lining the radial avenues and ring roads outlined in city planner James Hobrecht’s 1861 master plan.

Then, as now, the street-facing facades concealed larger interior courtyards. Detailing the history of these developments for CityLab, journalist Feargus O’Sullivan writes:

Built to a height of five or six stories, the tenements did have spacious, light-filled apartments overlooking the street, shel…