Liking stuff is perilous and fraught with moral implications. For example, if one expresses a fondness for an artistic or design movement created under a corrupt or otherwise undemocratic political regime, one is accused of endorsing said regime, or at the very least, making light of the atrocities committed in its name. (“Nazi chic” is the exception. I don’t care how “cool” you think their uniforms were.) It should be noted that these accusations are never levied upon the good ole US of A—no one has ever been declared a bourgeois closet segregationist, for example, because one enjoys the “countrypolitan” sounds of Tammy Wynette, but it’s not like Tammy was singing “Stand By Your Man” in front of a Confederate flag at Klan rallies, was it? I think we’re perfectly capable of engaging with aesthetics without either divorcing them from their historical context, or moralizing like a shrieking rabble of inquisitors,

So let’s all enjoy some crazy cool vintage East German design, shall we?

The Ostel Hostel in Berlin has been painstakingly decorated in the style of 70s and 80s East Germany—even the wallpaper is vintage. And the building itself is a former East German “Plattenbauwohnung”—the modern, prefabricated concrete architecture that came to symbolize East German infrastructure. Should you be under the impression that The Ostel is merely a kitschy tourist trap, it actually receives a lot of guests who lived under the GDR. After the wall fell, many people were quick to toss out any reminder of communist life in favor of freer Western aesthetics. Now the nostalgia for East Germany is significant enough to garner its own term—“eastalgia,”’ or “ostalgie.”

The Ostel isn’t a totally earnest homage either. You might notice some cheekily staged bananas in one of the photos, a reference to ad nauseam anecdotes of trade embargoes on East Germany—many East Germans had never had a banana. In fact the website explicitly jokes, “Nobody needs bananas.” And if you’re looking for some sort of vulgar irony, no, the rooms are not absurdly expensive. Yes, you too can sleep under the benevolent gaze of former East German Prime Minister Horst Sindermann, with single rooms going for about $40!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Via Messy Nessy Chic