55-square-metre apartment

PRIVATE APARTMENT IN MUNICH 

Under the project name “Neuanfang,” [New Beginning] architect Carolin Krebber from the firm Allmann Sattler Wappner has transformed a 55-square-metre apartment that sits high above Munich’s Isar river into what Magazin AD has described as “a minimalistic place of freedom.” The main goal of the renovation was to make the exceptional view, which stretches over the city all the way to the Alps, as tangible as possible. Krebber had some walls removed and redesigned the apartment with an open floor plan; her careful use of materials such as wood and natural stone as well as numerous white elements give the apartment its unique look.

The furniture was also chosen with care: around the dining table of the minimalist kitchen sit four black wooden 118 chairs. Carolin Krebber is a big Thonet fan: “The Thonet chairs add a hint of tradition to the apartment’s contemporary design.” In the early 19th century, Michael Thonet developed the principle of reducing a chair to the fewest elements possible. The archetype of the Thonet chair, the 214, was thus created, which the renowned designer Sebastian Herkner used as the inspiration for his 118 wooden chair. Like the 214, the 118’s seat frame is a single piece of bent wood, and the seat is made of canework. Herkner, though, added some modern details to the 118 that make it less dominant and at the same time more distinguished.