GENESIS

A field study

Most of the coffee shops and bars in Berlin`s alternative and trendy neighbourhoods, from the early nineties until now, were opened by individuals without much seed capital. Therefore those people had to improvise. They asked their friends about where to find old furniture or went to flea markets or the junkyard. The dealers in the flea markets I spoke with today told me that many west German public authorities, institutions, and churches (see the stamp “Sportamt Spandau”- office for sports in Berlin-Spandau – these chairs originate from a multifunctional gymn) used to change their whole inventory every 20 years or so and gave the respective furniture either to charity organisations, which in turn either used the furniture themselves, sold it, or dumped it in junkyards, where resourceful dealers found, restored and resold them.

The above-named practical reasons for resorting to cheap recycled chairs joined forces with the growing individualism of post reunification Berlin. Coffee shops now attracted customers by their very own and unique constellation of different styles (this might have been the case for west-Berlin before, which has always been preferred by punks, alternatives and others who run away from military service; but was new for the former socialist part of the city. It was the beginning of the cultural occupation of east-Berlin). One of the dealers gave me an appealing thought: a customer can not only have his favourite coffee shop, but also his favourite, unique and therefore easy recognizable, chair (in a place packed with No.14s, you can only have your favourite table), which might in turn finally win over the customer.) Werner Aisslinger, the designer of the Michelsberger Hotel, said in this context, that the typical Berlin-style stands out as poetic minimalism meeting improvisation and recycling.