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Jeden Monat nähern sich unsere Kolumnisten, die Berliner Filmemacher Dominik und Benjamin Reding, dem jeweiligen Heftthema
auf ihre ganz eigene Art und Weise. Geboren wurden die Zwillinge am 3. Ja nuar 1969 in Dortmund. Während Dominik Architektur
in Aachen und Film in Hamburg studierte, absolvierte Benjamin ein Schauspielstudium in Stuttgart. 1997 begann die Arbeit an ihrem
ersten gemeinsamen Kinofilm „Oi! Warning“. Seitdem arbeiten sie für Fernseh- und Kinofilmprojekte zusammen.

Each month our columnists, Berlin-based filmmakers Dominik and Benjamin Reding, approach the respective issue-specific theme
in their very personal way. The twins were born on January 3, 1969 in Dortmund. Whilst Dominik studied architecture in Aachen
and film in Hamburg, Benjamin graduated in acting studies in Stuttgart. They started working on their first joint motion picture “Oi!
Warning“ in 1997. Since then they have tightly collaborated for TV and cinema film projects.

A rchitecture is the most beautiful art because it is very social!" "Why?" "Well, be- all!" I got the job. All 13,000 books in the structural design library had to be renumbered.
cause it protects everyone from rain, cold and storm. No other art can do that." Vera
By hand. Long, silent evenings. Then, after a few weeks, Mr. Döring came down the nar-
nodded, not very convinced though. "Every roof helps, every wall, ultimately no matter row spiral staircase, leafed through the current issues of Domus, Architectural Review,
what it looks like". Vera nodded again, again she wasn't convinced. A warm wind was AIT, quickly, almost hurriedly, muttering now and then, half to me, half to himself, "The
blowing, the sun was shining, I didn't do a good job of illustrating my thesis. "Döring is house is good" or "Is he still doing that sort of thing?". Then he suddenly asked out of
supposed to be bloody stressful." Professor Wolfgang Döring. He holds the important the blue: "Would you like to work in my office? Right now, during the semester break?
chair of structural design. He's such a pedantic, strict..." she hesitated "...fussy grump. We're working on a competition — a museum building." Vera advised against it, of
On top of that, he's post-modern." Wolfgang Döring? I had never heard the name before. course. "He won't win, postmodernism is a thing of the past. That won't be of any ad-
She looked at me, startled. "Now don't tell me you don't know who's going to be tea- vantage on your CV." "Out in the first round or first prize, everything else is shit". Döring's
ching us for the next couple of years?" She stopped. "You have to know the mind-set of gruff voice echoed through the small office, good-humoured and attack-minded. He sket-
everyone around here beforehand. The tricks and tics of the professors. Otherwise, you'll ched right between us, not separated behind thick doors in the "senior's office". For the
be studying here for at least 20 semesters..." My fellow student Vera was in the know. museum he had designed a glassy, discreetly curved complex, with a building-high LED
She herself was the daughter of an architect. Now she was expecting my regret, but the façade, actually not that postmodern. Marilyn Monroe's face with her kissing mouth was
small university town stretched out in front of us, the roofs shimmered in the morning emblazoned on it as an eye-catcher, conjured up on the LED façade with a few confident
light. I had my own room, in the back house at the home of an emeritus professor. I had strokes sketched by the most talented team member in the office. "Warhol couldn't have
a decent talent for drawing and designing: tables, chairs, apartment buildings, even done that better!" Döring was amazed, praised it, honestly enthusiastic. And then, "We'll
theatres, department stores and industrial plants — with a few pencil strokes. Studying call it a day." What? Office closing time in the middle of the competition at 5 pm? In
architecture? Well, that couldn't be that difficult! The lecture hall was packed, buzzing other offices, I had experienced night-time breakdowns of colleagues with emergency
with youthful restlessness. Through a low side door, a small man in a black suit, short medical treatment during the submission phase. "Night-time work is the result of bad
black hair and a round, somewhat crumpled face and circular, office logistics!" In general, his sentences stuck in mind: "If you
black horn-rimmed glasses stepped up to the lectern. "I am don't build, you're not an architect". Another comment, which
Wolfgang Döring, your professor of structural design." Then he he made when I was actually working past 5 pm, was: "Never
spoke, of course, about the art of architecture, his lips so close run two offices at the same time. One office doesn't know what
to the microphone that every swallow and harrumph became the other is doing. Then you go bankrupt. As happened to me
an acoustic drama. I only remember the last sentence to this with my office in Milan." He said it quietly, sadly, like an old
day: "You can only escape the diploma by committing suicide. captain who knows the feeling when a beloved ship is lost. He
" If the structural design tutorials were strict and unavoidable Abb.: Wolfgang Döring-Archiv, Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt amMain was leafing through a thick book, a monograph of his work,
like Czerny's etudes in piano lessons, the lectures were all the freshly published, "Wolfgang Döring. Architect" it was entitled.
more psychedelic and volatile. The slide projector hummed, "That's gone too, stolen, it is probably sitting in a cellar bar
the window blackouts were rolled down low, the light shimme- now — as an ashtray". He looked at the printed photo of an ar-
red yellowish at the edge of the black awnings. Images of bricks chitectural model. His design for an experimental theatre from
flitted across the screen, of roofs, walls and masonry. It was 1963. An incredible model, an even more incredible building:
here that I was abruptly struck by the realisation that a wall is a red shell, the corners rounded like a bar of soap, in which,
not just the sweeping stroke of a 5B pencil, but made up of tiles like the nut in a shell, a silver, second envelope rested, in
in cross bond or stretcher bond, of Moorish bond or Flemish bond, that roofs are not which, again like the pearl in the oyster, there was a circular auditorium, the seats in sil-
just roofs, but rafter roofs, collar beam roofs, mono-pitch roofs... One fell into a melan- ver , the floor in vibrant red. Even today, he could still win competitions with this design.
choly twilight... "And these are two flat roofs, one of wood and one of reinforced con- Assuming a courageous jury. We lost the museum competition, as Vera had predicted.
crete." WHAT kind of houses were that? Döring's voice creaked: "Wabbel House and Neither first round nor first prize. "What a pity for the pointlessly wasted time." Vera loo-
Mayer-Kuckuk House". Laughter rang throughout the lecture hall. He remained serious. ked at me with sneering regret. "Vera, it doesn't bloody matter whether you've built 100
"That's the name of the building owners. Very honourable people." We would have liked or 200 or 1000 houses, if there's just one that people will still remember in 100 years!
to shout: Don't you have more houses like this in your programme? 1960s space-age And Döring designed three of them!" I never saw Mr Döring in person again. Only on te-
dreams built of steel beams, pop colours and confidently mastered geometry? But no levision I saw him, years later, in an interview. He smiled more than before, seemed
one dared and he was already moving on to his next, entirely post-modern project, sho- more relaxed than when he was a professor. It was only years later that I learned that
wing the next slide. Döring had studied with Eiermann and worked with Schneider-Esleben, that he collec-
"Do you know Per Kirkeby?" Professor Döring looked at me through his thick horn-rim- ted works by the artists of the Rhineland ZERO Group and, of course, that he was also
med glasses. Well, who could that be? Per Kirkeby? The workroom at the chair for struc- acquainted with Per Kirkeby and appreciated his austere brick sculptures. I came across
tural design was high, bright and cool. I crouched fearfully at the end of the long table the Wabbel House, the Mayer-Kuckuk House and the theatre model again and again;
and opposite me, far away, sat the commission. The student assistant position for the they had long since become icons of architectural history. A few weeks ago, despite the
department library was to be filled. "Awful job, nothing but dusty books and fussy Dö- corona pandemic, Vera came to Berlin to work on a building project. We met at my
ring," Vera warned me. Kirkeby? I had heard that name before... No, I had read it! In an place, drank coffee and recalled old times. "I wonder what Döring does?" she asked,
art magazine. So he was probably an... "Artist!", I exclaimed. But that was all I knew googling his name. Then she looked at me, numbly, and said, "He died on 4 November
about Kirkeby. Had he now asked me what he was doing, I would have been lost. Sud- 2020." After that we were silent, for a long time, then I heard her crying. "People like
denly Mr. Döring smiled and turned to his assistant. "You see, people know him after him no longer exist, architects like that." And I couldn't comfort her, because of that.

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