Prenzlauer Allee, Berlin

This kind of hallway/staircase makes me feel like I’ve stumbled onto a theater set…a friend of mine lives in a building with such a staircase. Every time I go over to her place, I feel like I’m on stage as I climb the stairs. There is a certain grubby-but-clean quality to these places, like they’ve just been faux-finished to appear old. But of course they are real—though not for long; this place had the signs of imminent renovation in its near future.