The article mentions: >"East Berlin had Alexanderplatz; West Berlin had Europa Center ..." I know Alexanderplatz but can someone tell me where is/was Europa Center?
Berlin Living Rooms
41–50 of 70 posts
Re: Berlin Living Rooms
#42Re: Berlin Living Rooms
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my circle of friends only minority has TVs, we are more of a Internet generation, TV lacks interactivity and limits selection. BTW. I'm not from Germany and never lived there.
Internet connectivity and screen size are fairly orthogonal.
This. It's crazy to me that my entire generation loves to say "I don't own a TV" while staring at videos on their tiny laptops (or even phones) all day. You don't need cable or any other subscription to get a lot out of a TV.
Re: Berlin Living Rooms
#44Having looked at some of the photos, one of the things that I notice is a lack of televisions which I see amongst sometimes with my friends. I find when I go to my friends living room with a PS4 and tv, we generally chat for a few minutes before diving into games or videos. Or if I go to another friends place, they feel obligated to entertain instead of allowing one another to be he entertainment. And while I certain…
There is a distinction to be made between the living room and the family room. Family rooms tend to have TVs, and living rooms are for sitting+conversating.
This is an article of clearly well-off households and their living rooms. Your mention of PS4 and tvs leads me to believe you're younger, and that your friends are perhaps not living in houses the size of those that the German upper/upper-middle class families whose homes are pictured. I don't think I know anyone in my own social circle who has both a family room and a living room, because the extra room is almost always turned in to another bedroom.
e: Please continue the conversation, tell me what I had read wrong -- simply downvoting me is rude and unconstructive.
Re: Berlin Living Rooms
#45Having looked at some of the photos, one of the things that I notice is a lack of televisions which I see amongst sometimes with my friends. I find when I go to my friends living room with a PS4 and tv, we generally chat for a few minutes before diving into games or videos. Or if I go to another friends place, they feel obligated to entertain instead of allowing one another to be he entertainment. And while I certain…
Along those same lines, I never understood why bars and clubs have such loud music as to make conversation impossible. Especially if it's just canned music, so you're not there to listen. And especially more if the idea is to meet women (or guys). As far as I can determine, it's fashion. It's not that games and videos are intrinsically more enjoyable than conversation, or that people have more success meeting the opp…
>> Along those same lines, I never understood why bars and clubs have such loud music as to make conversation impossible.
Bars I can understand but the point of a club is the music/dancing. You go to a bar for some conversation before the club. Seems a lot of bars are becoming part-clubs though because that's what people want (local bars and pubs have been closing down pretty quickly in the last 10 years).
Re: Berlin Living Rooms
#46Calling them living rooms is a bit of a misnomer for most of them, representational guest zone in uncommonly large apartments of the Berlin cultural elite might be a bit more honest description. The last two (Blechschmidt and Hubalek) might be actual living room arrangements.
> Calling them living rooms is a bit of a misnomer for most of them Living room, family room, and den always confused me when I was a kid. In the States, "living room" means a more formal room for entertaining guests (coffee table with thick art monographs) and it'd often be adjacent to the dining room. In contrast, the "family room" or "den" are places where people would spend most of their time and that's where the…
We don't, that i know, have family rooms or dens in the UK, but i have always been a bit confused by the possibility of both living rooms and sitting rooms. There are also lounges, of course, but the kind of people who have lounges certainly don't have sitting rooms. To say nothing of drawing rooms.
There's actually quite a good gallery of British living rooms through the ages in the Geffrye Museum in London, starting from back when they were called parlours. The main thing i remember about it is that the Victorians had fantastically poor taste in interior decoration.
Re: Berlin Living Rooms
#47In the fourth paragraph he mentions Charlottenberg. The actual name is Charlottenburg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottenburg).
Re: Berlin Living Rooms
#48Berliner here.... the sad truth is that most living rooms are dominated by Ikea furniture and are nowhere near like the stylish and classical ensembles presented in the article.
It's just a different style. Some prefer rococo style (late Baroque) and some more modern minimalism presented by e.g. Ikea. I prefer the later, and most of my generation also. Our parents prefer the former.
My problem with Ikea isn't the design--their products are pretty good in that regard. My problem is with their awful construction quality. Particleboard does not belong in furniture. Fiberboard and plywood sure, oriented strand board maybe, but particleboard? Hell no.
Re: Berlin Living Rooms
#49Having looked at some of the photos, one of the things that I notice is a lack of televisions which I see amongst sometimes with my friends. I find when I go to my friends living room with a PS4 and tv, we generally chat for a few minutes before diving into games or videos. Or if I go to another friends place, they feel obligated to entertain instead of allowing one another to be he entertainment. And while I certain…
In my experience it's a generational thing. I'm 29, and whenever I'm with people around my age sometimes the TV will be on, but only if we're actually watching or playing something. Otherwise the TV is off. Whenever I'm with people of my parents' generation though, the TV is always blaring even if they're not actually watching anything, and since they always watch live TV instead of streaming services the advertising is incredibly annoying.
Re: Berlin Living Rooms
#50The article mentions: >"East Berlin had Alexanderplatz; West Berlin had Europa Center ..." I know Alexanderplatz but can someone tell me where is/was Europa Center?
also Kuh-Damm