Housing Speculation and Nouveau Riche Taste in Late-Nineteenth-Century Berlin

After Germany experienced a series of economic booms in the late-nineteenth century, the city of Berlin was transformed by intense land speculation and rapid housing construction. This paper considers both the tenement market and the suburban housing market in the context of a pervasive entrepreneurial culture and ‘gold-rush’ mentality that defined nouveau riche society in Berlin. After mining the tenement market in the north and east of Berlin, this expanding middle class fled the city and moved to affluent low-density suburbs to the west of Berlin called “villa colonies,” where they sought to display their newfound wealth. The pastoral but cosmopolitan and technologically vibrant villa colony was gradually constructed in the imagination of Berliners as the “bling” of the nouveau riche and an antithesis to the poverty of the tenement. The distinctive architecture of the villa colonies thus came to demonstrate the success of local government’s laissez-faire attitudes towards the speculators – even if a dwelling in such suburbs was only available to those members of society who had themselves exploited the tenement market. As this paper argues, it was through architecture that the perceived successes of real estate were made tangible and the tastes and values of an expanding bourgeoisie were given expression.