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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.

H ow forgotten must a place be that it is not even remembered when it is to be de- island of Schlossplatz was designed by Kammerer & Belz, the Mövenpick restaurant
Red Spot by Justus Dahinden. Both were absolutely unpopular at the time. One be-
molished? And yet the demolished building was once known, even famous. It
was mentioned in architectural guides, shown on television, presented in colour in the cause they had poured so much concrete opposite a baroque castle, and the other
Merian travel magazine. And today? Even on the Internet one searches for it in vain. It because his wild lust for the material, his gaudy colour range and his unbridled de-
disappeared, crushed and shredded together with its location, the Kleiner Schloss- sign ideas no longer suited the era of "no future" and architectural asceticism. "This
platz. Even I would not know it either, had not a coincidence brought me to this place. madman" said our building construction professor and showed a slide of Dahinden's
But was it a coincidence? Or was it fate, destiny, an inevitable compulsion? wooden, pyramid-shaped holiday home on Rigi Mountain with a grin. Later, even
Stuttgart in the middle of summer, the heat accumulated in the valley. I had a four- much later, I learned that the head and inventor of the Mövenpick restaurants was a
hour stopover, four hours until the departure of the connecting train to Lake Con- trained hotelier from Zurich named Ueli Prager, who, when the other restaurant ope-
stance. Bicycle tour with my cousins. Long planned, surely very exciting. At the age rators still worked with liveried head waiters, endless waiting times and interiors with
of 15, every bigger city is a big city, and to me as a provincial teenager Stuttgart see- the design charm of venerable funeral parlours, had wall-sized photographs by hippie
med very metropolitan. Even its train station! My whole home village would have star photographer Will McBride hung in the entrances of his Mövenpick restaurants;
easily fit into the hall five times. As if by magic, I got into a subway passageway, clim- who developed olfactory concepts for the dining areas and calculated their olfactory
bed to the light somewhere, found myself between sleek 1920s buildings and trotted effect from lobster (in orange-backlit aquariums) to seating leather and woods for
through the numb, motionless heat of the main shopping street Königstrasse as if wall panelling; who in the 1970s had telex machines and real secretaries ready to type
driven by a strange, unyielding force. Finally, tired and exhausted, I stopped in front his guests' business mail; who installed opulent show kitchens with changing chefs
of a bookstore, its dusky quietness and air-conditioned coolness drawing me in. On from exotic countries; who offered meticulously clean toilets with Bossa Nova sounds
the ground floor there were the new publications, on as background music, hand-washing and air-drying at
the upper floor the antiquarian bookshop. Buying a the touch of a button; and who even made the act of
cheap little book for the train ride made sense to me. paying a happening. The bill was paid with a punched
One of them, it was lying in a display case slightly off card at futuristic Plexiglas cash registers. Ueli Prager
to the side, caught my eye. The cover shimmered sil- identified the young architect Justus Dahinden as the
very, the typography was modern, in Bauhaus style. It congenial créateur of these sensual gastronomic
resembled a Zeppelin book, the second volume of worlds. He gave him so much creative freedom that one
which I had been looking for a long time. I opened the square metre of Dahinden could today serve as a reser-
display case, opened the book and immediately closed voir of ideas for at least four or five complete restaurant
it again. I looked around, the shop was empty, and facilities. So, I too had marvelled at the lobster in the
opened the book a second time. In 1931, as the cover Red Spot, smelled the cedar wood and paid at the Ple-
stated in its factual Futura typeface, it had been publis- Grafik: Benjamin Reding, nach einer Shunga-Zeichnung aus dem 18. Jh. xiglas cash register. In the toilet, listening to Bossa Nova
hed in Leipzig, by the Anthropophyteia Publishing sounds, I alternately played with the foot button for
House for Basic Instinct Sciences and showed and ex- washing hands and the hand button for activating the
plained on the following 653 pages and "164 partly full- air dryer. On, off, on, off. And then I remembered: the
page illustrations" in all accuracy what the book title train! I rushed to the station, ran up the stairs in the en-
indicated: The Sex Life of the Japanese People. I turned trance hall, like a swimmer after a too long dive, and,
and turned the pages and plunged through all the shel- the conductor whistling already, plunked down on the
ves, showcases, floor slabs, walls and barriers, even through the city layout with cel- plastic seat of the local train, breathless and soaked with sweat.
lars, sewers and subways, right into another world: open, honest, sensual, strange, The Kleiner Schlossplatz and its Red Spot have long been history. Another time came,
uncensored, powerful. And completely different from television, school, homework with different themes: nuclear arms race, dying forests, AIDS. There was no more room
and squats in sports lessons. "The books in the display cases are not actually to be for the Mövenpick zeitgeist with its boundless euphoria for the future and its sensual,
touched!" A salesman approached me with the stern face of a teacher. I put the book almost erotic architecture. Today, the site is occupied by a museum, cool, smooth and
back so quickly that the display case almost fell over. I ran out onto the extremely immaculate. — A few weeks ago, I saw it again. It was lying on the side of the road, in
bright Königstrasse, was carried back towards the station as if by a surf wave, and a gift box for books: The Sex Life of the Japanese People. I leafed through it and noticed
only woke up from my primal trance at Schlossplatz: Thirst! Skaters jumped with that the content was no longer as wonderfully exciting as it was when I was 15. But the
their boards from dramatically wide, dramatically high steps. I followed the steps gastronomic architecture of Justus Dahinden, it has remained so!
and found myself in a nested world of exposed aggregate concrete, where even now,
in the bustling city centre and the scorching afternoon sun, it was quiet and dusky. One final remark: The column was almost finished and Mr. Ivo Dahinden had kindly
I squatted down in front of a restaurant with tables and chairs and umbrellas, orde- supported me in my research, when I received his note that his father, architect Justus
red a coke "with lots of ice" and heard my pulse pounding in my ears. And that's all Dahinden, had passed away. I mourn with Ivo Dahinden and thank him from the bot-
I would remember, if the waitress hadn't asked me to pay "at the cash register" in- tom of my heart for his help and information. I would also like to thank Mr. Walter
side. So, I opened the circular, red door with the Pop Art lettering Red Spot and en- Bernet from the Mövenpick company archives, who tirelessly searched for the Red Spot
tered. Later, much later in my architecture studies, I was to learn that the concrete despite a corona disease he had just overcome.

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