Phantom Hands at Unité d’Habitation, Berlin (Apartment 258)

Apartment 258 in Berlin

When architect Philipp Mohr purchased an Easy Armchair and a Kangaroo Chair from our Project Chandigarh collection in mid-2016, he mentioned that these chairs were going to be used in an apartment in the Unité d’Habitation building in Berlin designed by Le Corbusier.

We loved the idea of our chairs being in a Le Corbusier building, but we had no idea this was part of a grand project conceptualised by Philipp. The Berlin and Brooklyn-based architect and fan of Le Corbusier had purchased the apartment (Apartment 258) in Unité d’Habitation in 2016 with the intention of recreating the interiors exactly as Le Corbusier had imagined it.

Labour of Love

The Unité d’Habitation in Berlin was completed in 1958 and Le Corbusier had made detailed plans for the interiors of apartments. These were to be similar to the famous Unité d’Habitation apartments in Marseilles. However, a disagreement with German planning authorities meant that the interiors ended up with absolutely no resemblance to Le Corbusier’s plans.

Beginning in the second decade of the new millennium, Philipp Mohr and his team spent a couple of years on the renovation of the interiors. They meticulously researched archives, visited apartments in Marseilles, and sourced or fabricated authentic elements, including an original staircase from an apartment in Marseilles.

Their labour of love was realised in 2018 and the apartment has been visited by architects, designers and Le Corbusier fans from all over the world.

Philipp decided that the furniture for the apartment would be from designers and collaborators of Le Corbusier from the same period — Pierre Jeanneret, Jean Prouvé, and Charlotte Perriand. Even though they belong to slightly different periods and contexts, they could all have been assembled in an apartment in Berlin in 1958.

Phantom Hands is thrilled that our chairs are part of this amazing project!