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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.

T he Berlin underground-train drivers are on strike. I’m going to be late. To the big pillared rooms, then it slumbered again until Karl Lagerfeld acquired the “Latifundi-
post-New Year’s feast. Given by Jeremy, the young artist from Glasgow. The invitati-
um”, as the local press reported in detail. But there was another reason why I knew the
on came at such short notice. And now a rain shower. And what a shower! “It’s raining Villa Jako: he ran towards me in the canteen of the Hamburg art academy, all excited.
cats and dogs”, as the British so aptly describe it. I take refuge, first under the canopy No, not Karl Lagerfeld, but my always carefree, successful fellow student Tom: “I’ve got
of a tree, then under the tent roof of a kebab stand, then in a department store. The the job! I’ll look after Lagerfeld’s villa!” “What do you mean, that Roman senator thing
sudden warmth does me good. The Christmas decorations are still being taken down on the Elbe?” “Yes!” What a job! To be paid to live in a villa with a park and a view of
here. The gift tables are crowded around the exits: toys, cooking pots, Father Christ- the Elbe. He also got a room in the house rent-free. I confess I was envious. The depart-
mases, books. Magnificent coffee-table books; now stormy outside, the rain pattering ment store warms, it continues to rain, I leaf through the pages: “Here he celebrated
horizontally. I look at the covers, open one of the tattered trial copies. A book about her 18th birthday with Princess Stéphanie of Monaco”. The illustrated book shows a
“coolness” (with lots of “cool” photographs of Jaguars, Porsches and Ray Ban sunglas- photo of a baroque dining room. Of course, this room is also exquisitely decorated and
ses); then a book about travel destinations in the Sahara (with lots of sand, wonderfully the dining table is large enough for at least 30 people. But there are no guests in the
photographed); then one about vegan cuisine in Iceland (fresh tofu draped in front of picture. In fact, they are missing from all the pictures. Instead, these rooms, sometimes
bubbling geysers, wonderfully photographed); then one about the English royal family Baroque, sometimes Empire, sometimes Art Deco, sometimes German Art Nouveau.
(even more wonderfully photographed). I yawn, freeze, look outside: the next squall. So Always well prepared, like an empty five-star hotel. Or as a set, as decoration for
the next illustrated book, a little more voluminous, a little more elegantly bound than a photograph. Even his desks that are shown shown, his bathrooms, immaculately
the others. The cover presents an austere Empire room with a light-blue striped sofa clean, immaculately beautiful, unused and useless. At some point, on page 180 or
in the centre of the picture. In the House of Lagerfeld announces the book title in fine 220, I am overcome with anger. Has this Lagerfeld never thrown his socks in the cor-
Garamond letters. I hesitate. The yellow press knows eve- ner, not washed the dishes once, forgotten the perfectly
rything, simply everything, about this fashion designer, arranged flowers, let them wither? At least put a can of
from his countless talk-show appearances, his always coke down somewhere, lost in thought, leaving dirt rings
eloquent bon mots, which often seemed more surprising on the highly polished wood of the marquetry tables? Did
and courageous than his fashion designs, from his fan he never LIVE in all those villas, mansions and palaces?
to his pony tail, from his gloves to his stand-up collar, Then I realize: this thick illustrated book is not about fur-
from his model discoveries, from Claudia Schiffer to Lara niture, not about “residences”, not about the art of deco-
Stone, to the whims of his Burmese cat Choupette. Now ration, whether that Louis XVI-style armchair is genuine
his houses. Or more appropriately: his private estates, or or “in the style of” or whether this one was designed by
more disdainfully: his properties. The subtitle of the book Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann or Bruno Paul. The book is a
puts it elegantly: The Residences of Karl Lagerfeld. Out- philosophical treatise. A precise, spot-on treatise. It is a
side, a hailstorm, I open the illustrated book: on the first book about loneliness. And the impossibility of compen-
pages, in orderly chronological order, his early flats, even sating for it with money and even with creative energy,
those already elegant and oversized, skilfully decorated almost frenzy. It is a radical book. Radically – unintentio-
in the style of French Art Deco, full of original furniture: Grafik: Benjamin Reding nally – honest. Back then, in the art-school canteen, I met
Jean Dunand, René Lalique, Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann, my fellow student again after a few months: “So, how’s it
always the big names. Then a flat in Monaco: Memphis going at Lagerfeld? Have you had many glittering parties?
furniture, Sottsass, Michele de Lucchi, Matteo Thun – ultra modern in those days. Then “Nope,” he says, “I lost the job. He was only there once in the whole time and I wasn’t
country houses, villas, and finally castles. The furniture – sorry: the meublement – there then. But there’s nothing going on in Blankenese anyway.” It’s no longer raining
always perfectly arranged, right down to the curtains, cushions, wallpaper, from Louis outside the department store. I close the book. Change of scene: a ground-floor flat,
XV to Louis XVI to Napoleon. Then a villa in Hamburg. Karl Lagerfeld christened it Villa 1950s social housing. So everything is tiny: the doors (with ribbed glass and yellowed
Jako, after his former lover Jacques “Jako” de Bascher. I knew the villa. From when it paint), the fitted kitchen with its colourful drawers, the baby-blue tiled bathroom, the
wasn’t called that yet. It was an insider tip among us Hamburg architecture students. A narrow balcony shaped like a piece of pie. The ceilings are low, the windows sparse,
vacant, ivy-covered villa on the Elbchaussee. 400 square metres with a 12,000 square- the view is, well, of the rear courtyard. No doubt the whole thing was once intended
metre park in front of it. It is laid out in a strictly classicist style on a slope near the as a home for single postal workers. And one such person lived there until two years
Elbe, with a dramatic view of the wide, melancholy, dark river. And the house is just ago. Then came Jeremy, the artist from Glasgow. His gallery owner, a distinguished
as “classicist”: a three-storey version of the Villa Jovis of the Roman Emperor Tiberius gentleman from London, two artists from Gundelfingen and San Francisco, his friend,
on Capri, not quite as large, but just as “Greco-Roman”: Ionic columns at the entrance, a cheerful, chain-smoking palliative-care nurse and I gathered for a post-New Year’s
Doric columns in front of the terrace and an atrium in between (despite Hamburg’s feast. We had duck with red cabbage and dumplings. There were piles of unwashed
“nasty weather”). A ship insurer commissioned the building in 1922. It made sense: dishes in the kitchen, laundry dangling in the cramped bathroom and the tiny living/
from the windows, he could watch the ships returning to Hamburg harbour and enjoy dining room was cluttered all around with canvases, tubes of paint, bottles of turpen-
the premiums earned. The client and architect, a Mr Witte and a Mr Baedeker, have tine, brushes and cleaning cloths (or old socks?), the banquet was so-so, but the wine
long since been forgotten. In 1973, the villa emerged from its ivy-covered slumber for a was powerful, the music loud, the ashtrays overflowing and for dessert there was ice
brief moment, filmmaker Roland Klick shot scenes from his cult film Supermarkt in the cream from the chiller cabinet. Wow, what an evening that was!

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