Altbau Apartment Renovation

Breathing New Life into Faded Grandeur: Restoring and Transforming a 19th-Century Apartment

Apartment conversion, restoration, interior design, styling, project management, 140 sqm, Szczecin, Poland

Reviving a Sleeping Beauty

From a ruin to a stunning rental apartment, we revived the former glory of this grand late 19th-century dwelling in Szczecin, Poland. Its spectacular Altbau character was hidden behind panels and thick layers of paint or destroyed by unsympathetic reconfigurations. The Altbau style is also called “Historismus” or Historicism as an eclectic remix of older styles. With meticulous care, the rich layers of decoration on walls, ceilings, and doors were restored and brought back the historical grandeur. Some existing elements were sensitively reused in different configurations within the apartment to maintain the original character, while others were sourced from various locations. New elements added practicality and comfort. The limited budget required a clever, inventive approach and the help of skilled, passionate craftsmen.

Fusing Historical Elements with Contemporary Design

The kitchen and dining room is the place where inhabitants gather around the kitchen island and the antique Art Nouveau table combined with 1960’s school chairs. Repurposed kitchen elements were reconfigured with new wooden elements and extra kitchen cupboards. The open wooden additions provide a touch of warmth and a place to display interesting items, making it a personal, welcoming place to cook and dine.
The bathrooms and laundry room are designed to make the most out of the available space within the existing structure of narrow, deep rooms and existing structural limitations. They are divided into four zones with two areas featuring a toilet, sink, and shower, a laundry room, and a dedicated bathing area. This division creates a calm and luxurious atmosphere. The separate elements within the bathrooms are unified in a continuous geometry in which the floor folds up and becomes elements like a vanity table with a sink, storage areas, and a seat. The carefully designed and executed tile patterns emphasize the geometric play.
Our selection of furniture from antique, vintage 50s-70s pieces, to new furniture is combined with contemporary artworks. These elements add more layers of history and pull the monumental apartment into the present day.

Historic Sensation

With the transformation we gave the Altbau dwelling a 21st century elegance with a rich blend of history and modernity. In this apartment the inhabitant experiences the spectacular historic sensation¹ of becoming a part of an environment that breathes many years of luxurious residential living. With one foot in a past of grand architecture of an upper-class society and one foot in the here and now with an elegant mix of contemporary, modernism and antiques. As a resident you become an actor in a rich blend of historic storylines. The Altbau method of freely quoting from an eclectic array of sources and periods for a maximum effect is reused to create an exciting sensually rich harmony with a sense of freedom to celebrate diverse beauty.

¹ Historic sensation is a concept by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga for feeling connected to a specific past by observing an object or environment from that period.

Would you like to know more about our restoration work or discuss your own project? Contact Majka at ++ 31 (0) 6 16517851.

Client: Commercial
Status: completed 2023
Photography: Tom Kurek
Artist of painting in living room and b&w linoleum cut matrix in bedroom: Marta Garbaczewska
Design team: Majka Mikulska, Edwin Larkens