I almost bought an old cinema last week
I almost bought a cinema last week. Like, an actual cinema — dusty ramped floor, stucco where the screen once hung, 250 square meters of pure possibility. For 96 hours I could picture myself unlocking the door and thinking: yep, this is mine.
And then, after four days of calculating all kinds of concepts to make it work, I said no.
The place had everything a dream project needs: a century-old façade, big arched windows, a cavernous hall with a slope, even bits of decorative stucco left from the screen. The kind of building that makes you think you could build something bigger than yourself — or at least a stationery shop that feels like an Apple Store.
It was 360,000 euros for 250 square meters. In Merano, that’s a bargain. The catch: it only comes with a commercial license. So no loft apartments, at least not without bureaucratic gymnastics. Still, the numbers weren’t the first thing I noticed. It was the light. Six emergency exits along one wall, all of them potential windows. You’d expect an old cinema to be dark, but this one had the kind of brightness you could read a book in.
I started picturing it.
Long tables following the slope of the floor, legs adjusted to the incline. On them: stacks of Japanese notebooks, sharpened pencils, carefully curated design objects. Maybe even a corner for vintage furniture. My wife added her vision: wool, yarns, and knitting supplies for her label Little Knitaly. Not the granny kind — more “cool Berlin knit club.”
We also toyed with other uses: rental apartments, a coworking space, a design market open eight weekends a year, a little garden out back where the projection room once was, a community space. Each idea felt possible, each idea carried the same dangerous glow: we could do this.
And then reality sat down in the empty space.
Because here’s the thing about passion projects: they run on passion, yes — but also on time, energy, and a business model that doesn’t bleed you dry. The idea of running an offline shop, a coworking space or a community-based design market eight weekends a year felt only exciting in the moment, like ordering another round at 3 a.m.
But I could already sense the hangover.
And the more I thought about it, the more it felt like strapping on a backpack full of bricks.
That thought was sobering. So I didn’t buy it.
But walking away wasn’t just walking away. It came with two learnings.
1. Negative space is design, too
In design, negative space — what you don’t draw — is what makes the picture work. Japan even has a word for it: Ma (間), the space between things.
Not buying the cinema was negative space. It was saying no, so the rest of my life’s composition doesn’t get overcrowded. I’m usually a yes-sayer (I love chasing ideas), but sometimes saying no is what keeps the rest of the canvas from collapsing into chaos. Saying no can be as creative as saying yes.
2. a notebook for possible futures
Not every idea has to die just because it doesn’t happen right now. Borrowed from Derek Sivers, I keep an Apple note called possible futures. It’s where I park the projects that don’t make sense today but might someday.
The cinema-slash-stationery shop-slash-knitting hub goes in there. So does a forgotten beach motel glowing in soft turquoise neon. An e-commerce brand that only launches four capsule drops a year. And maybe one day, a house perched on the edge of a mountain, looking out to sea. They’re not failures. They’re possible futures, waiting until the timing is right.
So the cinema stays empty for now. But the idea isn’t gone — it’s just in the negative space, filed under possible futures. And who knows, maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and the ‘for sale’ sign is still there…
What about you? What’s your white space — where are you saying no right now?