Keit Kreuzberg is a minimal bakery located in Berlin, Germany, designed by Studio Michael Burman. The millstone at the heart of Keit Kreuzberg tells a story before a single loaf is sold. Cut into three undulating segments, this ancient tool of bread-making anchors Studio Michael Burman’s Berlin bakery design both physically and metaphorically. What might have remained a museum piece becomes instead a functional counter—a literal foundation upon which the daily commerce of bread exchanges hands. This transformation of historical artifact into contemporary utility encapsulates the studio’s approach: honoring tradition while refusing to be constrained by it.

The millstone’s journey from singular circular form to flowing tripartite counter mirrors the transformation of grain to flour to bread—a process of breaking down only to reconstruct. Its completion with stainless steel creates a material dialogue between past and present, rough and smooth, warm and cool. The douglas wood base further grounds this centerpiece, with grain patterns deliberately emphasized as if to remind visitors of the living material from which their sustenance ultimately derives.

Studio Burman’s material choices throughout the space operate as a quiet manifesto on craft in the digital age. The handmade washi paper wall coverings, with their subtle overlapping grid, reference both traditional papermaking and contemporary minimalist aesthetics. These same papers, when shaped into organic pendant lamps, transform light itself into a tangible material presence. As light filters through the textured surfaces, the boundary between illumination and object dissolves.

This interplay between industrial precision and organic warmth continues with the stainless steel shelving system that displays the bakery’s breads. Rather than fighting against the clean, reflective surfaces, Burman embraces their utilitarian clarity, allowing them to frame the bakery’s true art—the bread itself—while the rounded edges of douglas wood platforms and benches soften the potential austerity.