The LUX&ASA Story

LUX&ASA opened its doors in march 2016 after Max and me (Jan) renovated for almost a year. During this time we received a lot of help from friends and family, which we´d like to thank kindly. Without them and most importantly without the help of Bruno Lux&Asa would have looked very different. When we started the project of renovating a 3250 square feet industrial warehouse we fortunately had no clue how much work it would be to build a photo- film- studio from scratch. We were kind of naive and just started without thinking too much about it. 

The warehouse is located in the former communist part of Berlin and was part of a huge industrial complex. We treared down walls and took out tons of rubble. Just to refill the floor with 2,5 tons of concrete to level it again. After that we high pressure cleaned the walls for about 4 weeks, which were literally black from all the dust of 30 years East German industry. About 2 or 3 months into the project we started realizing that we would need professional help. A friend recommended us a carpenter. A couple of days later Bruno showed up – had a look at the place and declared us crazy for starting this with almost no craftsman experience. He never left. Over 9 months he helped us to create the studio of our dreams. We became good friends with this interesting man who had spend the last 27 years traveling the world. Well into his 50s he came back to his hometown Berlin and straight into our then still a ruin studio. He now has his own workshop downstairs on the ground floor of the building. 

Brunos masterpiece is the staircase out of a tree trunk that we took out of the woods near Berlin Köpenick. We put in a second floor opposite to the backdrop to make better use to the 19ft high ceiling. We made the wooden railing about 16 inches wide so it can fit a camera slider for top shots. All the wooden doors are over 100 years old and removing the paint and then repainting took about 3 days for each one. Every detail in the studio is hand made and we could probably tell a story about it. After months and months of working – while still working as photographers and in the film industry to finance the construction – we could see our dream become reality. 

By the end of February 2016 we asked our friends to help one last time to paint the floor, the walls and the ceiling. And beginning of march in a final effort we finished the backdrop. 

LUX&ASA has been open for almost 3 years now and we still work constantly to make the studio better. We started with the idea of creating a space we would like to work in as photographers. At the same time having worked in the media industry for years, we both wanted to create a space that would help our clients in their needs to be creative and realize their projects in the best possible way.