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property prospectus Wedding home-cooked comfort Stay foods. Fresh breakfasts segue into rotating small 1 ExRotaprint guest lunch and dinner menus, apartments which might include beef Wedding isn’t known for goulash with polenta its hotels (fortunately or creative variations adjacent is packed on Italian fare. with them) but those Uferstrasse 8-11 angling to stay here can pfoertner.co rent guest apartments at ExRotaprint, a converted 5 TassenKuchen brutalist-style former Perfect For about three years, printing-machine factory TassenKuchen (literally that is now brimming marriage “cup cake”) has offered with artists’ studios. American organic breads Gottschedstrasse 4 and vegetarian lunches. 01 02 07 exrotaprint.de Owners Paul and Tonia The resident Meskunas are respon- Preface Property guide Emmy Skensved, artist sible for the comfy interior Berlin’s Wedding quarter,Tt once50 “Recently I’ve seen people Shop and – look up – the dismissed as a drab industrial Buying property in Berlin standing in line when a good striking ceiling sculpture. district best avoided, has is a relatively easy, if slow, rental apartment is available; 2 Müllerstrasse emerged as an engaging process. For permanent that’s a brand-new situation. High streets are rare in Malplaquetstrasse 33 home for creative types residents, 20 per cent And we don’t see many Berlin but the 3.5km tassenkuchen.com thanks to its mix of eclectic of purchase price is a tourists here, which is good.” thoroughfare traversing architecture and a laidback standard deposit; foreign western Wedding offers 6 Vagabund Brauerei atmosphere. Monocle got buyers need a higher a high-and-low mix of Two years ago, three a spot on the guestlist. percentage to secure department stores Americans expanded financing. Cash works including Karstadt, their home-brewing Writer too of course. Allow for mom-and-pop shops, hobby and launched Kimberly Bradley lengthy closing periods. Turkish, Arab and Asian Vagabund Brauerei. The food markets and the homely spot is already Photographer Prices red-brick Rathaus a community favourite Thomas Meyer The average price per Wedding, which houses and serves its own beer 03 04 square metre is around 08 an art gallery and green alongside craft brews Its history may be rough and ready but €1,750 and rising quickly; HealthCare; it is something many market on Wednesdays from around the world. and Saturdays. Antwerpenerstrasse 3 its streets are surprisingly illustrious and better-appointed spaces cite for the area’s slowness to gentrify. sell for €2,200 and up. vagabundbrauerei.com often overlooked compared to One-bed apartment: Rents and apartment prices remain lower 3 Colorblind Patterns or Neukölln (see issue 38). Now Berlin’s from €85,000 than elsewhere (except perhaps Lebanon native Daniel Culture Wedding district – a neighbourhood north Two-bed apartment: in central Berlin) and the neighbourhood Arab’s black-and-white geometric-patterned of Mitte and Moabit, west of Prenzlauer from €130,000 steadfastly sticks to its historic lack of Uferhallen textiles adorn pillows, 7 Three-bed apartment: This privately owned Berg – is finally taking its turn as a place pretence despite its new developments 09 pencil cases, tote bags from €180,000 expanse includes vast to settle in the German capital. and decent transport options. and lampshades. art-exhibition halls, Antwerpenerstrasse 46 Not that it has been a quick process. Estate agent Emmy Skensved, a Canadian artist cultural workshops such colorblindpatterns.com For several years Wedding has seen a Home Immobilien who with partner Greg Blunt bought a as the Alte Kantine and steady trickle of studios and innovative Simone Schulz spacious prewar apartment on Brüsseler Piano Salon Christophori, +49 (0)30 3010 3273 To eat a piano workshop that restaurants colonise its storefronts and immo-home.de Strasse seven years ago, says the demo- one-time industrial buildings. There is graphic has been changing more notice- also hosts concerts. Café Pförtner Brand-new is the Adidas also a community of culturally diverse ably in the past two years. “You hear 4 05 At the entrance to the Football Base, an indoor locals, including a sizeable Turkish popu- more people speaking English on the Uferhallen art studio space with variously lation and growing African community. natives rarely honour the differentiation. streets in the summer,” she says. complex (formerly a sized pitches and a The pace has picked up in recent “Greater Wedding” is an intriguing patch- There’s plenty of space to develop in bus-maintenance depot; trick-shot studio. times though. “When I needed to move work and its neighbourhoods include this large district. “This is a people’s com- see entry seven), this Uferstrasse 8 diner-style venue serves uferhallen.ag in 2011 I was writing my dissertation an eclectic mêlée of streets named after munity so I don’t think there will be a hip- and had a choice between Neukölln northern European cities and African ster invasion,” says Satch Hoyt, a British and Wedding,” says writer, editor and countries. Picturesque prewar houses sit visual artist and musician who has lived in curator Jeni Fulton, who lives in a on tree-lined streets leading to expansive a loft here since moving from New York 10 Malplaquetstrasse Gottschedstrasse building complex on the cobblestoned parks, one of which even has its own in 2008. In early 2015, Hoyt mounted an 01 Paul and Tonia Meskunas, owners 2 1 Malplaquetstrasse. “Wedding was qui- sandy lake beach. exhibition at Galerie Wedding, a munici- 4 7 of TassenKuchen eter. And when I saw this street I fell The River flows through east- pal art gallery in the district city hall. 6 Mullerstrasse 02 Outside TassenKuchen 5 Uferstrasse in love with it.” The art nouveau com- ern Wedding and portions of the area Artisans priced out of other areas work 03 Jeni Fulton’s apartment 3 04 Resident Axel Voelcker plex was built between 1904 and 1906 flank ’s former harbour, where on porcelain-making or jewellery design in Wedding by the industrialist Karl Schrader as a host of waterfront cafés has sprung up storefront workshops; night-time venues 05 Vagabund Brauerei Antwerpenerstrasse an estate for working-class people. It in recent years. To the north is an estate such as Stattbad or the Vagabund Brauerei, 06 Café Pförtner is perfect for a Wedding breakfast is a telling monument to the period: in designed by architect and a a brewery and tap room, draw in-the- 07 Blossoming Mitte the 1920s, Wedding was linked with the French-German cultural centre (Wedding know locals who appreciate a tourist-free Malplaquetstrasse 08 Emmy Skensved’s Communist movement and earned the was in Berlin’s French-occupied sector atmosphere and a good beer. “People see Berlin enduring nickname of “Red Wedding”. after the Second World War). These idyl- the concrete housing estates on the Mitte partner Greg Blunt Tiergarten in their apartment Berlin’s 2001 rezoning project split lic enclaves stand in contrast to the less border and think all of Wedding looks like 09 Skensved herself the former borough into the sub-districts attractive concrete housing blocks and this,” says Fulton. “But they’re slowly get- 10 Family pit-stop at Kreuzberg of Wedding and but the HQs of mega companies, including ting over the barrier.” — (m) Vagabund Brauerei 06

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