Modern Architecture in Munich II

As I keep seeing interesting examples of modern architecture in the Munich/Starnberg area, I notice though how many fewer midcentury homes than in Florida I encounter. That may be odd, but is no indicator for the frequency of that style in Germany, as far as I know.

Some more examples:







(Please forgive the photo quality, some pix are taken with my cell phone, others with my PDA.)

Modern architecture in Munich I

I am working from Munich for about two months. Every time I’m home I’m baffled and delighted how much modernist properties - old and new - I discover.

Spec houses are not common in Germany, and especially modernist architecture is practically always commissioned. From my observations, it seems modernist architects in Germany are stylistically more daring and experiment more in comparison to what I see in SE Florida. I’d be very curious to hear German and US architects’ opinion on this though.

Germans are sticklers for privacy, so I will not list owners or addresses with the examples I’m showing:








From top: Starnberg ca. 2006, front; Starnberg ca. 2006, back; Starnberg, ca. 2004; Starnberg, ca. 1960



(Please forgive the quality of the photos; they are mostly taken with my mobile which uses an extraordinary amount of jpg-compression.)

Unclear Market Direction

I looked at a (non-modern) house in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea with clients of mine. Interesting project, but what a project. I wonder: are deepwater (= waterfront with no fixed bridges) home prices on their way up?

I run my own statistics every month, condos and townhomes in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade, as well as single family homes in these three counties. Yes, you certainly can atomise the market into nano-sectors. But I don’t have the time to do that. I created two subsets of two “model homes”, one on a dry lot and one on the water with no fixed bridges.

After the peak in Jan 2006, where $527 per sf under air were paid on average for my waterfront “model home”, prices tanked to a low of $355/sf or so under air. Now I see three months of increases, and a preliminary April search showed another uptick.

This would be in line with what I had previously mentioned in my client newsletter*: houses will recouperate before condos, and the best locations will improve before the others. Three-and-a-half months sure don’t make a trend, but I will keep an eye on that one.

(*Please let me know if you are interested in subscribing; I'll be happy to send it to you).

The List

Stemming from my love for modern architecture, I have been “collecting” modernist properties for several years. Searched out, observed, accidentally found or through our Multiple Listing Service, every find ends up in a list of contemporary and mid-century modernist properties - mostly single family homes Southeast Florida, with a condo building, a supermarket or even a car dealership thrown in for good measure.

Our MLS (for Non-Americans: a shared database of properties for sale; only participating real estate real estate agents have access to it) is a bit tricky, because there is no filter “Modern”, so I devised my own. I have as many as five “modern” MLS searches running parallel, handpicking modernist properties from them every few days.

Over the course of the years, this list has grown to over 1,300 buildings in Southeast Florida, covering roughly an area between the Florida Keys and Stuart. It’s a bit of work to keep it updated, but an excellent education for me, a great tool, and of course invaluable help when it comes to finding modern properties for like-minded buyers.

If you know of a modern building - house, townhouse, apartments - would you let me know please? Even better: if you can send along with the address also a photo, even one quickly taken with your mobile phone is totally fine. - Thank you!