LUXURY REAL ESTATE AND URBAN DISSOCIATION

Research on shifting paradigms of luxurious living, market dynamics and different segments of urban alienation as a form of dissociation of social groups. Comparative study of a case of declining luxury (Mundsburg Towers) within the landscape of luxurious properties in Germany. / available in German

Currently struggling with housing shortage and increasing immigration, German metropoles undergo a paradigm shift in terms of emerging new architectural

models, changing the silhouettes of Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Cologne or Munich.

Residential high-rise, despite not being a substantial part of the German panoramas in the past, emerges from the ground as a form of vertical densification in the inner-city locations available exclusively to a small part of population. These spaces as sublime expressions of ‚high life‘ embody the pursuit of distancing from regular urban happenings. Built in 1973, Mundsburg Towers was a prestigious property, now in a need for renovation. Despite being a fixture of Hamburg’s skyline, due to its 70s look it is perceived as a flaw by many Hamburgers. Only four decades dissociate ‚highly luxurious living’ from ‚museum-like burden‘. Identification with or a distancing from this icon mirror the paradigms representing exclusivity.