24
BERLIN.
in which the rooms, if smaller, are of such number that one can exclusively be
set apart for day use.
The apportionment of the rooms in many of the older houses is very
promiscuous by reason of the fact that the original design of the builder has
been departed from ; thus a suite of three rooms and a kitchen may have been
divided into two dwellings, or out of two suites three dwellings may have been
formed. The result of this division of suites is often a very inconvenient
combination of rooms ; for example, there may be two kitchens upon one
corridor, the second kitchen going with a self-contained room on the landing.
Often one comes across cases in which single rooms have been divided into two
with a view to converting them into tenements of a room and a kitchen for the
sake of the higher rent obtainable, and sometimes the kitchens so constructed are
without windows and are lighted by the open door or by gas. Three and even
four dwellings to a corridor are not uncommon, though in many dwellings the
kitchen is entered direct from the landing. Many of the so-called kitchens,
however, are only such in name. In the older houses they are often mere
corners or boxes, without windows, in which cooking is difficult and even
dangerous. The expression “ cooking facilities,” which is often used to describe
the space that serves as a kitchen, is significant of the pinching policy which has
been pursued by builders in the past in the arrangement of this part of the
dwelling.
The closet arrangements are ample in the new houses, where they are
generally found in a corner of the corridor within each separate dwelling.
In the older houses this satisfactory condition of things is seldom found.
Here the closets were originally placed in the courtyards, and the number was
never proportionate to the households for whom they were intended. When
modern ideas of hygiene and domestic convenience required the removal
of the closets from the public courtyard, the landing was the only available
position, and here they will be found in most houses of the earlier
period, one serving for all the families on a flat. The building regulations
now in force require that closets shall have an area of at least one square metre
(10 - 8 square feet) with a distance from wall to wall of at least 0'80 metre (2 feet
7 inches) ; also that they shall be lighted and ventilated directly from the outside
or from a light shaft open at the top ; but these conditions have not in the past
been observed, even in houses inhabited by the middle classes. Often the
provision of this kind is very inadequate. An enquiry on this subject made in
1905 of 13,221 members of the Local Sick Fund for mercantile employees
elicited the fact that in 9,554 cases the closet was shared by 1 to 10 persons,
in 1898 cases by 11 to 15 persons, in 744 cases by 16 to 20 persons in
456 cases by 21 to 30 persons, in 95 cases by 31 to 40 persons, and in 29 cases
by over 40 persons. A similar enquiry referring to 450 dwellings occupied by
members of the Machine Builders’ Sick Fund in 1903 showed that the closet was
used in 145 cases by from 1 to 5 persons, in 176 cases by 6 to 12 persons in
58 cases by 13 to 20 persons, and in 25 by 21 to 60 persons.
Probably no large city in the world wears externally an aspect more
pleasing than Berlin. The city is modern ; save for a diminishing area in the
Centre its buildings are almost of yesterday ; its newer streets are wide, well made
and well kept, and avenues of trees and bright, green open spaces are common •
while the municipal authorities and the police exercise a scrupulous care that the
building regulations are not evaded. The visitor, observing all these outward
signs of order and well-being, is naturally apt to conclude that Berlin has in
some way been protected against the social evils which have made their
appearance in other large centres of population. The fact is that, metaphorically
speaking, Berlin puts her wealth into her front windows ; the scarcity is kept in
the background. At the census of December, 1900, there were in Berlin no
fewer than 24,088 rented basement dwellings of all kinds in which 91 426
persons were housed. A large number of these dwellings—like the porters’
quarters of West End houses—were free from objection ; but that cannot be
said of the majority, and least of all of the 11,147 basements in back buildings
in which 08,660 persons lived. 6
It is in the basement dwellings that the worst housing conditions and the
worst poverty are found. Low rooms, damp, decay, and absence of sufficient
