BERLIN.
17
As to the size of dwellings, while the average number of living rooms was
2*15 in 1890, it was 2'11 in 1895, and 2*07 in 1900, though including kitchens
the corresponding figures were 3’05, 3*02 and 2*99.
At the same time the number of persons per dwelling has gradually
decreased since 1875, a circumstance to which, however, only a partial economic
significance can be attached, for the birth-rate and the average size of families
have also decreased in the meantime. While the average number of persons per
dwelling was 4 40 in 1875 and 4*18 in 1890, it was 3'89 in 1900 and 3*77 in 1905.
The number of persons per heatable room has decreased in a less degree, the
average in 1890 being 1 *95, and in 1895 and 1900 1*88, or, reckoning kitchens,
1'37 in 1890, 1-31 in 1895, and T30 in 1900.
Classifying the small rented dwellings of Berlin, according to the division
recognised by the municipal authorities, it is found that of an aggregate of
470,977 dwellings in December, 1900, 356,781 fell into the following
categories :—
Dwellings consisting of
Only kitchen
One unbeatable room without kitchen
One unbeatable room with kitchen
Two unbeatable rooms without kitchen
Two unbeatable rooms with kitchen
One heatable room without kitchen
One heatable room with kitchen ...
One heatable and one unbeatable room without kitchen
One heatable and one unbeatable room with kitchen ...
Two heatable rooms without kitchen
Two heatable rooms with kitchen
Two heatable and one unbeatable room, without kitchen
One heatable and two unbeatable rooms without kitchen
Three unbeatable rooms without kitchen
Three heatable rooms without kitchen ...
Total of above types
Other types
Grand Total
Number
of
Dwellings.
4,086
658
1,392
27
272
32,812
170,182
1,417
24,267
2,320
118,562
330
84
6
366
356,781
114,196
470,977
Percentage of
Total
Dwellings.
09
0T
03
00
00
7-0
36-1
0-3
5-2
0-5
252
04
o-o
o-o
0-1
75-8
24-2
1000
A few words of explanation seem necessary here as to the description of
rooms as " heatable ” and " unbeatable," since it underlies the entire system of
house enumeration in Berlin and many other German towns. When it is stated
that the mode of heating is by stoves, whose flues pass into central chimneys
which serve all the stories of a house, the terms “ heatable ” and “ unbeatable ”
appear to explain themselves. As used for statistical purposes, however, they
are very vague, and in the opinion of many German authorities artificial and
misleading. The traditional and normal accommodation of working-class
dwellings, and, indeed, of small dwellings generally, used to be " Stube,
Kammer, Küche,” or " Living-room, bedroom, and kitchen,” the living-room
having a stove and the bedroom being without. When rents were lower than
now the “ Stube ” was used as a dayroom only, and corresponded to the downstairs
living-room in an English working-man’s cottage. For a long time, however,
the " Stube ” has had to serve as a bedroom as well, since a dwelling of
two rooms, a kitchen and a room for all other purposes, has become the
predominant working-class type in Berlin. The ‘‘Kammer ” in the old sense
is gradually disappearing, though where it exists it is used as a second bedroom,
even if without a window. In the light ot this traditional division of a
dwelling, it is easy to see how the living-room or " Stube ” came to be regarded
as the unit of accommodation and the anteroom or " Kammer ” was viewed as
subsidiary. Hence it comes to pass that dwellings described as consisting of
one or more " rooms ” and a kitchen may have these anterooms as well, and in
better houses the anterooms are at times spacious, though they suffer from the
defect that they cannot be heated, and sometimes are dark as well.
29088
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