Hot water supply

To qualify for subsidies from Berlin's house interest tax (1924), every new apartment had to have a private bathroom – a must for proper reformist housing and the city's new quality standards. For the less well-off, this was nothing short of a revolution. However, the technology of the day could not deliver the comforts that we now take for granted. For example, the bathrooms in the Horseshoe Estate were equipped with coal-fired water heaters. Installed on the wall above the bathtub, these cylindrical tanks had a lower berth where a small stove was placed to heat water for a hot bath. To wash their clothes, some residents had access to special laundry cellars or washhouses.

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