Complying with safety instructions just isn’t his thing. Covering up hot water pipes with insulation because of regulations? When, practically speaking, their heat could be used to warm a room? That’s not an option for Arno Brandlhuber.
This is an architect who mostly works by two mantras: use cost-effective building methods and implement a reasonable energy economy. Why? Not because he’s a born energy saver – as a teenager, he always preferred to leave the lights on. It’s simply because it makes sense, he says. It’s just that the man who established one of the most important creative centers in Berlin – a polycarbonate building at Berlin’s Brunnenstrasse 9 – likes brightly lit living spaces a little too much.
Naturally, his Antivilla is opulently lit as well – in this case by former church lights. But the lights are just one feature of the former lingerie factory building in Krampnitz, near Potsdam, that’s currently causing a stir. It’s also the Antivilla’s sustainable energy concept, and its most visually striking feature, the giant windows Arno and his friends carved out with a sledgehammer to provide better views of the lake. For him, the view is one of the most important facets of the Antivilla, alongside the architect’s cost-effective building methods.
We meet Arno at his apartment above the office at Brunnenstrasse. He lights a cigarette on the gas stove in the kitchenette and immediately you notice that everything up here is open. In fact, the only door leads to the bathroom. There isn’t much here that is private: a bookcase, a few DVDs, a chess board. Yet the apartment definitely feels inhabited. And even though the space is Arno’s workplace, and even though it’s full of art, it’s not a showroom. “It is what it is,” says the architect, as he smokes and wipes his hair away from his forehead. And that means it can change according to any mood or need.
This portrait is part of Home Stories – a collaboration Freunde von Freunden produces with Siemens Home Appliances. To find out more about Arno’s work, see the portrait with him on the Home Stories site.
Dear Arno, thank you very much for your openness and for this beautiful conversation.
This portrait is part of Home Stories – a collaboration Freunde von Freunden produces with Siemens Home Appliances. Home Stories explores the topic of innovative urban living, seen through the lenses of select inhabitants in modern global cities. We present unusual spaces, highlighting their aesthetic and technological qualities, alongside a look into their inhabitants’ lives.
To find out more about Arno’s work, both at the Antivilla and his home on Brunnenstrasse, see the portrait with him on the Home Stories site. There he discusses his approach to juxtaposing historical and modern elements, as well as the importance of being expansive with ergonomic spaces.
If you enjoyed our conversation, see our previous portrait with Arno, which was also published in one of our books.
Text & Interview: Anna Schunck
Photography: Ailine Liefeld