Pro qm thematische Buchhandlung

Since 2007, Pro qm has been located in a Poelzig building on Almstadtstraße, just a few steps from the Volksbühne. The thematic bookstore collects titles on city, politics, architecture, design, and theory, with more than half of them in English. Books are not sorted alphabetically, but by the ongoing debates.

Pro qm on Almstadtstraße near the Volksbühne

Pro qm is located on Almstadtstraße in the Scheunenviertel, less than one hundred and fifty meters from the Volksbühne on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. The building housing the bookstore dates from the late 1920s and was designed by the Hans Poelzig office. The interior design comes from the architectural office ifau and Jesko Fezer, meaning one of the three operators themselves. The journey is short: the U2 subway station Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is about eighty meters away, Weinmeisterstraße and Alexanderplatz are both about five hundred meters away. Driving is hardly worth it, as Almstadtstraße belongs to parking zone 29, which is continuously managed and costs four euros per hour.

The story began in the summer of 1999 in an old butcher shop on Alte Schönhauser Straße, born from a theoretical discussion of urban politics and spatial production in post-reunification Berlin. In 2007, the shop moved to its current address. It is operated by Jesko Fezer, Katja Reichard, and Axel Wieder.

Thematic Bookstore for City, Architecture, and Theory

Pro qm describes itself as a thematic bookstore for city, politics, pop, critique of economics, architecture, design, art, and theory. The assortment is internationally oriented, with more than half of the stock being English-language. On the shelves are publishers such as Merve, Verso, Sternberg, Diaphanes, and Spector alongside smaller houses, plus magazines like arch+ or dérive. Titles usually range between twenty and forty-five euros, and shipping within Germany starts at 4.90 euros. Deliveries to private customers within the EU have been suspended since August 2026 due to the EU Packaging Regulation; shipping within Germany continues.

The actual hallmark is the organization of the stock. Shelves and tables are not strictly ordered by categories or publishers but are constantly rearranged into thematic clusters according to the debates currently underway. The event program of book presentations, book launches, and discussions, for example, on Berlin housing policy with Lisa Vollmer and Andrej Holm, fits this approach. The German Bookstore Award went to this establishment in 2015, 2018, and 2023.