Good, affordable housing for everyone was a foremost concern among modern architects. This applied to the planning of Stalinallee in East Berlin around 1950, the first ‘Socialist Street’ later renamed Karl-Marx-Allee, as well as to West Berlin’s new Hansaviertel, which was presented at the Interbau in 1957. In 2022 and 2024, the Berlin art photographer Bettina Cohnen photographed people in the famous residential estates of Berlin’s post-war modern era. In eight series with over 80 photoraphs, Cohnen presents the apartments in all their diversity, complexity, and intimacy: they form a photographic commentary on everyday life in surroundings that are much discussed today. The photographer also traces the respective architects’ ideas. These works are accompanied by photographs recording the condition of the housing sites in the early 1950s. The removal of rubble was accompanied by extensive documentation on the part of photographers as well as the magistrate, senate, and district offices. Today, these images are preserved in various Berlin collections, including Mitte Museum, as a deposit of Landesarchiv Berlin.