The couple like it reduced, factual and clear, nothing is left around that is just for decoration.Clara Renner
Max Renner and Jonas Vach did it. You have found a nice apartment. In the middle of Kreuzberg, via a relevant real estate platform, just like that. And yet, whoever hears where the two live today will not immediately turn green with envy.
Because Renner and Vach don’t live with Kotti, Schlesi or Görli; not on Bergmann, Gneisenau or Mehringdamm. Her apartment is in Kreuzberg’s no-man’s-land – in the somewhat strange quarter between Mehringplatz, the Jewish Museum and Checkpoint Charlie.
“Location is everything”, as a classic real estate agent’s saying goes? Maybe not: Renner and Vach did not have each other versus a nice neighborhood, but just for decided on a nice apartment. And that’s where it’s at now. “By Kreuzberg standards, this is a bit of a non-location,” says Max Renner, while he is sitting with his friend at the large, glass dining table. “I used to live on Zionskirchplatz, Jonas on Lenaustrasse in Neukölln, we really enjoyed this neighborhood culture.”
Max Renner (left) and Jonas Vach are sitting on the edge of a “Rue intérieure”.Clara Renner
Cafés, bars, late night shops, everything right in front of the door, always action, always something going on – they knew before they moved that things would not be like that in their new neighborhood. But the apartment? She immediately convinced them both. In the upper area of the approximately 130 square meter maisonette, a small TV room, the guest bathroom, a large open living-dining area and Vach’s study, which also serves as a guest room, are lined up to form an airy tube, with a large window front on both sides Mistake. In the lower area of the apartment – accessible via a narrow private staircase – are the bathroom and bedroom.
Aulenti chairs gather around the Corbusier table; Everything important is grouped together in Vitra wall compartments.Clara Renner
The poured floor and the rough concrete ceiling are gray and all the walls are white. This goes well with the couple’s style, which is reduced, clear and factual, punctuated by witty and witty accents. For example, typographic art by Esra Gülmen and Pepo Moreno hangs on the long walls in the living area; Ettore Sottsass’ “Shiva” vase in the form of a pink phallus stands on nesting tables by Gianfranco Frattini, and a little further ahead in the room is the funny-shaped glass vase decorated with letters that the artist Stefan Marx designed for Ikea.
Besides art, cut flowers are the only decorative elements that we really always have in our rooms.
“Besides art, cut flowers are the only decorative elements that we really always have in our rooms. So we also own a few vases – precisely because they serve a purpose,” says Jonas Vach, who works in lobbying and political contacts for a large German company. “Other than that, we don’t have things lying around that are just there to be there.”
Classics such as the Togo armchair or the nesting tables by Gianfranco Frattini also find their place in the apartment.Clara Renner
So it’s fitting that the two, when asked about their favorite pieces, give very practical answers. “The dining chairs,” says Vach without thinking twice. The two found the “Orsay” designs by the Italian architect and designer Gae Aulenti on Ebay classifieds, and they had the brown-orange chairs repainted in black and pastel yellow in a car paint shop in Wusterhausen. “We wanted to create something really unique here in the apartment, working with furniture that you don’t see that often,” says Vach. “In this respect, we were immediately enthusiastic about the Aulenti chairs, which are not so well known.”
The bouquet comes from the very popular Studio Linné in Neukölln.Clara Renner
Max Renner, one of the heads of the Berlin PR and marketing agency Bold, particularly likes Le Corbusier’s large dining table for Cassina. The couple also discovered this design classic on the classifieds platform. “My grandparents also have the table and I’ve always loved it,” he says. The copy that is now in his Kreuzberg apartment still has the original glass plate. “It does have a crack, but it’s somehow part of it, we actually find that very exciting.”
Sigurd Larsen designed the blue velvet sofa; the parrot is not just decoration, but also serves as a pen tray.Clara Renner
Also popular with the two design enthusiasts: the leather Launch Chair, which was also designed by Gae Aulenti; the first piece the couple bought together. However, the kitchen unit, clad in light wood and already in the apartment before you moved in, is not very popular. “It’s actually a bit too warm and homely for us,” says Vach. Anyone standing at the stove or sink, however, has an extremely interesting view: into a narrow, green light shaft – and into the next apartment.
In the year and a half that we’ve been living here, we’ve noticed that there’s a lot around here too.
Because every unit in the large house opposite the Jewish Museum has numerous windows. On the outside, of course, but also on the inside, towards the courtyard-like shafts. The closeness that this creates to the neighbors – sometimes people give each other friendly nods across the shaft, as Renner and Vach explain – fits perfectly with the concept of the building complex.
The ceramic sculptures on the left are by Giorgio di Palma; From the guest bathroom you can see the green light shaft.Clara Renner
The “Integrative building project at the former wholesale flower market” by the Berlin office Heide and von Beckerath, which has received architectural awards, is based on the idea that a good, homely community can also be formed in a large city characterized by anonymity.
Esra Gulmen’s painting “Clouds” hangs in the airy living-dining area.Clara Renner
Some of the apartments in the house are geared towards people living with disabilities; many of them organize themselves in special house groups. There are common rooms and a roof garden that is planted by the residents; The building corridors, designed as “Rues intérieures”, as “internal streets”, with their green light shafts and seating areas, also invite you to linger and exchange ideas. In this respect, even in this district there is a bit of a neighborhood feeling – namely in Renner and Vach’s apartment building.
“In addition, in the year and a half that we have been living here, we have noticed that there is also a lot here in the area,” says Renner; With the minimalist Akkurat-Café around one corner and the Berlinische Galerie around the other corner, with other cultural sites and nice restaurants nearby, the less popular part of Kreuzberg also has a few highlights to offer. “And because we’re pretty much in the middle of the city, we can get to Neukölln by bike just as quickly as we can to Torstrasse, and we can cycle to the canal or Kantstrasse.”
That’s the impressive advantage of a residential area that doesn’t present itself as too neighborhood: you always have to, you always want to leave it. And while the others are constantly walking up and down their Bergmannkiez or leaving the triangle between Adalbertstrasse, Mariannenstrasse and Oranienstrasse once in a blue moon, Max Renner and Jonas Vach get to know the city in all its glory. Enviable.
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