Bauen in Berlin

Bauen in Berlin is a commercial film made by the advertising agency Zühlke + Scholz for Heinz Mosch GmbH & Co. KG, which was one of the largest West German construction companies and a major player in the building of subsidized apartments in West Berlin. The film’s subtitle patently exposes the financing model of publicly funded apartment construction as a private investment scheme: … spart Steuernbringt Geld (“lower your taxes – make money”). One secondary effect of the system: the higher the building costs, the more that could be written-off, which means greater tax savings and more profit. As a result building costs in West Berlin in the 1970s and 80s reached absurd dimensions, which weighed heavily on the budget of the divided city and dramatically increased its long-term debt.

Michael Raven, BRD 1970, 11 min