HIDDEN PLACES - ORCO Germany

Rainer Bormann was born in the Berliner Charité, grew up in
Germany and Tunisia, studied in Paris at the Institut d’Études
Politiques and started a career as an investment banker in
London. Since the age of ten, he has moved home a scarcelycredible
19 times! His travels ultimately took him back to his home city where he exchanged
the trade with shares for something much more substantial.
INTERVIEW Stephan Burkoff PORTRAIT & FOTO Christian Brox
In the midst of a career in investment banking, you sud-
denly decided to become a real estate developer - can
you tell us why?
I had already worked with shares for many years and I simply re-
alised at some point in time that it wasn‘t really fulfilling. On the
other hand, I had the opportunity to learn a lot about the Asian
capital markets and they have major interests in real estate.
Real estate also interested me personally and it wasn‘t so far
removed from what I had been doing. Real estate has something
that you can grasp - and it lasts - and through real estate you can
play an active part in shaping the lives of others and that in turn
makes it a part of the social structure. That‘s a good thing on the
one hand, but it also involves a lot of responsibility as well.
How do you handle this responsibility?
Well, there are the social and ecological aspects of course. We
also want to create something special, something that com-
municates with its environment and makes people happy.
That‘s why we work with some of the world‘s best architects.
What does this specifically mean as far as your projects
are concerned?
We don‘t see real estate development as a fast cosmetic job
and a quick sell-off of objects, quite the opposite, in fact. We
are interested in retaining our developed objects or at least
part of them ourselves. The fact that we renounce exit strate-
gies naturally brings with it a more durable treatment of exist-
ing substances and a more exact analysis of objects and sites.
That‘s why we decided to focus our main Berlin projects in
Prenzlauer Berg and the Centre - two locations in which we
see a lot of potential which we would like to promote.
ThE DEVELOPER
In Mitte you‘re realising one of your favourite projects as we speak - the
“Fehrbelliner”. What are your aims here?
In the case of the “Fehrbelliner”, we‘re developing a standard which doesn‘t as yet exist
in Berlin. In close cooperation with the architect Eike Becker, we have succeeded in mak-
ing dreams come true - dreams that we‘ve had for a long time now.
We asked ourselves: What has always been lacking?
What did we always want to realise in a project? A roof garden with a view of the whole
of Berlin? We have it. Can we grow fruit there? Yes, we can. In Berlin you must have the
confidence to dream. The city needs that: the courageous implementation of big ideas.
What’s your personal image of Berlin?
Well, Berlin is of course my home town. I feel at home here. But apart from that, Berlin
has for me a dynamic zest which I haven‘t felt in any other city – and it springs from
many sources. Firstly, because Berlin is emerging from a crisis and when you overcome
a crisis, there is always pent-up energy released; and then there‘s the city‘s special his-
tory, which is also responsible for bringing a multitude of young, creative persons here
- and they‘re providing a tangible drive.
As a meeting place, you suggested Haus Cumberland on the Kurfürstendamm in
West Berlin. What links do you have with this building?
Haus Cumberland is one of the largest and most important undeveloped real estate
projects in Berlin. As CEO of Orco Germany I‘m delighted that we were able to acquire
this unique object, after a long and difficult bidding process.
Why were you so interested in this house?
It was built in 1911 by Robert Leibnitz as a luxury boarding house, but it went bankrupt
soon afterwards. Since 1936, this magnificent building has been home to many gov-
ernmental departments, the last one being the Regional Tax Department. Today the
building is in a kind of “Sleeping Beauty” trancelike state. Much of the old and beautiful
has been preserved however - and then there‘s its location in the direct vicinity of Gucci,