The European Union: Real Estate and Demography

25 May 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Editorial, EU blog post series, European Union, Living, Working, Building Reading Time:  467 minutes

(Latest update: 22 August 2022) First, there is not THE real estate market – not national and certainly not international. In fact, the market situation is very fragmented due to the general conditions, in other words, many individual markets, collectively referred to as “the market”. Metropolitan Area A faces different challenges than Metropolitan Area B and Metropolitan Area C can not even understand what A and B are talking about. Where there is comparability, is the housing situation in the “affordable segment” in urban centers in all western EU states, the US and Canada. This is where the call for the state, which should intervene regulatively, quickly becomes louder. In free market economies, however, this is on the one hand not wanted and therefore on the other hand, only limited possible. That’s pretty okay, because the market is inherently profit-oriented and that’s just what it will stay, otherwise investment incentives for new construction would sooner or later be completely absent. The “rental price brake” (Mietpreisbremse) exemplifies the problem. At the same time, more and more social housing is being let out of the rental price brake without replacement investment being made. In the following, single aspects are examined in more detail using the example of Germany, whereby the scenarios also apply to other western countries such as the EU states, the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, but also, e.g., to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul in South Korea, Tel Aviv in Israel and other emerging metropolitan regions around the world.   read more…

The Marco Polo

1 October 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Cruise Ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  13 minutes

Sailing yacht and Marco Polo in Tallinn Bay © Pjotr Mahhonin/cc-by-sa-4.0

Sailing yacht and Marco Polo in Tallinn Bay © Pjotr Mahhonin/cc-by-sa-4.0

MS Marco Polo is a cruise ship owned by the Global Maritime Group under charter to UK-based Cruise & Maritime Voyages, having been previously operated by Transocean Tours. She was built as an ocean liner in 1965 by Mathias-Thesen Werft as Aleksandr Pushkin for the Soviet Union‘s Baltic Shipping Company. After major alterations and additions, the ship sailed as Marco Polo for Orient Lines from 1993 to 2008.   read more…

The Kyffhäuser Monument

6 April 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  8 minutes

© Burghof Kyffhäuser/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Burghof Kyffhäuser/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Kyffhäuser Monument (German: Kyffhäuserdenkmal), also known as Barbarossa Monument (Barbarossadenkmal), is an Emperor William monument within the Kyffhäuser mountain range in Thuringia. It was erected in 1890–96 at the site of medieval Kyffhausen Castle near Bad Frankenhausen. The Kyffhäuser Monument is the third-largest monument in Germany, after the Monument to the Battle of the Nations (Völkerschlachtdenkmal) commemorating the 1813 Battle of Leipzig and the Emperor William Monument at Porta Westfalica, both of which also were designed by architect Bruno Schmitz (1858–1916).   read more…

Oranienbaum Palace in Saxony-Anhalt

6 December 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  9 minutes

Oranienbaum Palace © Michael Sander/cc-by-sa-3.0

Oranienbaum Palace © Michael Sander/cc-by-sa-3.0

Oranienbaum Palace is located in the town of Oranienbaum-Wörlitz in Saxony-Anhalt. It belongs to the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm. The castle, which is located in the district Oranienbaum, is located east of Dessau-Roßlau, only a few kilometers from the Wörlitzer Park. Oranienbaum Castle is one of four castles named after the House of Orange in Germany. They were built for four sisters, German rulers, who were born to the House of Orange. Besides Oranienbaum there are Oranienstein Palace near Diez and Oranienburg Palace in Oranienburg. The fourth, Oranienhof Palace near Bad Kreuznach, does not exist anymore. The former Dutch Queen Beatrix is patron of the restoration of the castle Oranienbaum. In 2004 and 2012 Beatrix visited Oranienbaum and visited the castle.   read more…

Theme Week Potsdam – Cecilienhof Palace

13 November 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Berlin, Hotels, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  14 minutes

© Gryffindor

© Gryffindor

Cecilienhof Palace is a palace in Potsdam, Brandenburg built from 1914 to 1917 in the layout of an English Tudor manor house. Cecilienhof was the last palace built by the House of Hohenzollern that ruled the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire until the end of World War I. Cecilienhof has been part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990. Cecilienhof is located in the northern part of the large New Garden park, close to the shore of the Jungfernsee lake. The park was laid out from 1787 at the behest of King Frederick William II of Prussia, modelled on the Wörlitz Park in Anhalt-Dessau. Frederick William II also had the Marmorpalais (Marble Palace) built within the Neuer Garten, the first Brandenburg palace in the Neoclassical style erected according to plans designed by Carl von Gontard and Carl Gotthard Langhans, which was finished in 1793. Other structures within the park close to Schloss Cecilienhof include an orangery, an artificial grotto (Muschelgrotte), the “Gothic Library”, and the Dairy in the New Garden, also constructed for King Frederick William II. The park was largely redesigned as an English landscape garden according to plans by Peter Joseph Lenné from 1816 onwards, with lines of sight to nearby Pfaueninsel, Glienicke Palace, Babelsberg Palace, and the Church of the Redeemer.   read more…

Rheinsberg Palace in Brandenburg

10 November 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  9 minutes

Rheinsberg Palace on Lake Grienerik/Pelz-cc-by-sa-3.0

Rheinsberg Palace on Lake Grienerik/Pelz-cc-by-sa-3.0

Rheinsberg Palace lies in the municipality of Rheinsberg, about 100 kilometres (62 mi) northwest of Berlin in the German district of Ostprignitz-Ruppin. The palace on the eastern shore of the Grienericksee is a classic example of the so-called Frederician Rococo architecture style and served as a basis for Sanssouci Palace. The palace rose to literary fame when it was described by Theodor Fontane in his book Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg (“Walks through the March of Brandenburg“) and by Kurt Tucholsky in his Rheinsberg. Ein Bilderbuch für Verliebte (“Rheinsberg. A Picture Book for Those in Love”). Until expropriation in 1945, Rheinsberg Palace was owned by the House of Hohenzollern.   read more…

The German Federal Election 2017

29 September 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Editorial, European Union Reading Time:  25 minutes

The electoral participation in the Bundestag election in 2017 was 76.2%, and again increased by just under 5% compared to 2013 with 71.5%. The electoral participation has now risen for the third time in a row, which in principle is a very good signal. People are more and more interested in politics and realize that it is “about something”. Parties who could reach the 5% hurdle to enter the Bundestag are:

  read more…

Town and Parish Church of St. Mary’s of Lutherstadt Wittenberg

1 August 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  13 minutes

Stadtkirche Wittenberg © M_H.DE/cc-by-sa-4.0

Stadtkirche Wittenberg © M_H.DE/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Stadt- und Pfarrkirche St. Marien zu Wittenberg (Town and Parish Church of St. Mary’s) is the civic church of the German town of Lutherstadt Wittenberg. The reformers Martin Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen preached there and the building also saw the first celebration of the mass in German rather than Latin and the first ever distribution of the bread and wine to the congregation – it is thus considered the mother-church of the Protestant Reformation. Since 1996 it has been a World Heritage Site – it, the Castle Church of All Saints (Schlosskirche), the Lutherhaus, the Melanchthonhaus and the surrounding Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm form the world’s densest concentration of World Heritage Sites in one area.   read more…

Königstein Fortress in Saxony

1 May 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  15 minutes

Königstein Fortress © Fritz-Gerald Schröder

Königstein Fortress © Fritz-Gerald Schröder

Königstein Fortress, the “Saxon Bastille“, is a hilltop fortress near Dresden, in Saxon Switzerland, above the town of Königstein on the left bank of the River Elbe. It is one of the largest hilltop fortifications in Europe and sits atop the table hill of the same name. The 9.5 hectare rock plateau rises 240 metres above the Elbe and has over 50 buildings, some over 400 years old, that bear witness to the military and civilian life in the fortress. The rampart run of the fortress is 1,800 metres long with walls up to 42 metres high and steep sandstone faces. In the centre of the site is a 152.5 metre deep well, which is the deepest in Saxony and second deepest well in Europe. The fortress, which for centuries was used as a state prison, is still intact and is now one of Saxony‘s foremost tourist attractions, with 700,000 visitors per year.   read more…

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