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SERIEN PERSPEKTIVWECHSEL • CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE

and conditions of the field, always with the goal to make the lives of the creative in-
dividuals more attractive, easier and more successful with our books and calendars.
This consistent customer orientation appears to be fruitful. Our authors who, for the
most part, are also designers, have to bring along the competence and the readiness
to grind a diamond-like book out of the idea for a raw diamond.

r The love of what is beautiful, what has been made well as to craft and content,
is the basis of building culture and of book art. Where do you see parallels and
differences?
As I see it, books are allowed to more courageously fathom something new, they
may be bolder, fresher, freer and, where it makes sense, more influenced by the zeit-
geist. Even though they live long, books spend most of their lives on shelves. Archi-
tecture endures. It may also dare something new – I drive past the Olympic grounds
every day right now and, even after almost 50 years, what Günter Behnisch and Frei
Otto have created is still breath-taking – but it must not be fashionable-contempo-
rary. To be like this, buildings are written off over too long a period of time. Perso-
nally, I also find material defects in building less forgivable than in a book, even if I
have great problems forgiving us for mistakes we have made.

r In the beginning, did you actually have a plan B in case of failing?
While I am working on something, I never have a plan B, that would deprive me of
Foto: Gaby Gerster, feinkron the determination and the energy. But I do believe that “there is always another
bus”. I believe in the existence of a plan B, except in the case of the man-made cli-
mate change which, today, is very much made a subject of discussion with “there is

Die diplomierte Architektin Karin Schmidt-Friderichs brachte im Verlagswesen viel ins Rollen. no plan B”
r Do you consider your haptically and visually beautiful printed works also to be
a kind of alternative to or even a bastion against the digital overkill of our times?
I believe that digitization is changing our life to such a degree that we know how to
especially appreciate what is haptic, wherever we still use it; but I do not see this as

Oben angekommen im Berufsleben: Auf den Dächern der Frankfurter (Buch-)Messe
„Whatever is, whatever comes,

go with it and grow for it!“
Karin Schmidt-Friderichs

an alternative, but as a way of togetherness. Unwrapping a new iPhone is a haptic
pleasure, by the way. But I no longer buy carelessly designed and printed books; in
these cases, I prefer to read the content digitally or I listen to them. I myself like to
immerse myself during linear reading to such a degree that I do not need any mul-
timedia. In teaching and in keeping children occupied, however, there are very good
examples of how a combination can be successful.

r You have been the head of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels since
2019. In this role, you hold the highest office in the German book world. How did
you obtain this office and what is your range of tasks?
The Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels is a business association which repre-
sents the interests of the book trade, the publishers and the so-called intermediate book
trade, hence the logistics between them. Employees of the member companies are aut-
horized to run for office as the head. At the end of 2018, questions kept increasing why
I should not run for this office. Since 2003, I had been engaged in the association on a
voluntary basis and, apparently, had managed to gain a certain reputation. So, I ran for
office, there was one competitor, and the general meeting of the Börsenverein decided
in my favour on 19th June 2019. Internally, the head moderates and pools the diverging
interests; towards the outside, it is more of a representative function. Corona has so-
mewhat changed all this. Describing the office with all its facets in detail would go bey-
Foto: Gaby Gerster, feinkron ond this interview. It ranges from the activity on the supervisory board of the economic
subsidiaries of the Börsenverein, with the best-known of them being the Frankfurt Book
Fair, to being a member of the foundation committee which chooses the winners of the
Peace Prize and, as the head, giving the talk in the Paulskirche.

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