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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.

An Essay by Dominik Reding
N obody really likes dusting. Neither do I. Especially not on bookshelves. To do it, office. In front of the window, somewhat blurred, a square with a fountain and a
church. Looks like a major city. Could be Cologne. Bingo! Wow, I was there once, this
I have to stand up on a chair and then balance on tiptoe and then reach up very
far. So I only dust every two or three years. Or could it even be longer since I did it? is the old Gerling central administration building. There were the wildest rumours
A few days ago, I thus get up on the chair, then on tiptoe and reach up. Oops! going round about the house. Hans Gerling, the insurance patriarch, was said to have
Something falls on me. A book, quite dusty, of course: Irene von Tibus. Interieurs. designed everything himself. As the replica of a small Italian town. Or even Arno
Pretty colourful cover, office furnishing from the 1960s with linoleum floor and poly- Breker, the favourite sculptor of the Führer. As a replica of the Reich Chancellery.
ester seats. Gosh, was this not found in the university library in a box with books During our studies of architecture, we shuddered and marvelled at the building
marked “Take away”? I blow the dust from the cover, leaf through the pages. Quite ensemble on the edge of Cologne’s city centre. We shuddered seeing this cult with
elaborately made. Different types of paper, colour photographs, linen binding with surfaces of marble, shell limestone, sandstone, granite, trachyte, dolomite, this hybrid
embossed printing. Pictures of “economic miracle” office premises. No, rather execu- accumulation of axes, symmetries, porches and commemorative courtyards, this hor-
tive floors, conference halls, reception rooms and entrance halls. There is even a bar: ror vacui that did not leave a single centimetre of the façade untreated. And we mar-
modern-neat with a strange penchant for the monumental. Leather-covered walls, velled at the care taken with the details, the confident handling of the mighty vol-
golden-shiny table legs, precious-wood veneers, marble floors, tapestries. A breath of umes, the obvious intention of creating a city within the city. We would have loved
Hollywood drifts through the suites. And of the to also take a look at the interior architecture
director general’s living room. There is also an but the roof-high entrances looked so forbid-
accompanying text, in three languages: “The bar ding, we didn’t even dare try.
is part of the main route to work and yet it must Who was Irene von Tibus? I make enquiries at
not disturb this route at the start of the festivity. the Amt für Denkmalschutz und Denkmalpflege
As the free leg, it follows the supporting leg of der Stadt Köln: And I get the PDF file of the 105-
the cold buffet.” And: “Excellent interior furnish- page book Bauten des Gerling-Konzerns by the
ing keeps to the parameter of dinner jackets and former der city curator Hiltrud Kier e-mailed to
cocktail dresses yet has to be prepared for tails me. In it, Frau Tibus is not mentioned with a
and evening gowns just as for occasional lounge single word but Herr Gerling and Herr Breker
suits.” Irene von Tibus must have been among are. They were said – one assisting the other –
the busiest interior architects of her generation. to have designed the group headquarters. So
The book lists projects in Cologne, Munich, Arno Breker, the muscle-modeller of the Führer,
Düsseldorf, Mannheim, Hamburg, Vienna and after all? There are people who collect art by
Toronto, shows director’s offices larger than Breker. And they should know whether and
ballrooms and casinos with dimensions like what he built. I establish contact. It turns out to
indoor pools. What may have become of her, of be difficult. The keepers of the Breker grail fear
her creations? I search on the internet and find: nest fouling. Thus there is only this much: Irene
nothing. What? Nothing? Whole encyclopaedias Foto: Dominik und Benjamin Reding von Tibus? No, everything in the Gerling central
are posted online about every participant in the administration was by Breker. From the door-
Dschungelcamp T.V. series and not a single line bell to the banisters. I feel that the whole issue
about a successful interior architect from the starts to get spooky. Has Irene von Tibus lived
years of the reconstruction? at all? Maybe there is a curse on the book, a dark secret hiding between the colourful
I take a look at the book again. It appears cagey. No office address for Frau Tibus, no office pictures which is better not touched upon. Unless one wants to end up like
reference to the clients, just vague information on the places and functions of the Howard Carter after opening the grave of Tutankhamen. Again I leaf through the
architecture. The announcement by the publishers is still stuck behind the dust jacket pages, smile about the leather-covered directors’ offices and the bar counter of zebra-
and is dated “Christmas 1960”: Interieurs. Herausgegeben von Irene von Tibus. 22 x no wood designed by the once so successful and today so forgotten Frau von Tibus
30.5 cm, Leinen, 32.50 DM, Verlag Kiepenhäuser & Witsch. Beside it, maybe not all and put the book back on the shelves. Into one of the deeper, not so easily accessible
that accidentally, a reference to the new publication Die Doppelrolle der Frau in compartments. Two days ago, the phone in my office rings. A friendly voice with a
Familie und Beruf. I send an e-mail to the publishers and receive a confusing answer. Rhenish touch: “Irene von Tibus never existed.” I swallow. “But Irene Gerling, she was
No, the book could no longer be found in the complete list of the publishing house my mother. And I am Brita Gerling, her daughter.” And Irene von Tibus? “Was her
since 1949, a Frau Tibus was unknown. Hm … maybe the book gives hidden hints? In pseudonym as an interior architect. She designed it all, the complete furnishings of
mirror writing or with invisible ink or in the form of symbols mounted on top of the the Gerling buildings.” “And the book?” “Was not to be sold but intended for the
photos or … with an emblem on a glass door! “Office of the group management” employees, as a present.” Do the rooms in the book still exist? “No, the old Gerling
reads one of the captions. It could be the emblem of the Federal State of Northrhine- headquarters is currently being converted into apartments; most of it has been lost.
Westphalia. On the next page, a photo of the panoramic window in the director’s A pity really, don’t you think?”

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