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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.

I t was to be a documentary for the ARTE channel. Working title “Happy in Concrete”. closed the folder and sighed. Of course, he knew about the harsh criticism of such major
projects. And then, as if he were encouraging himself: “In the 1920s, they conceived a
About the frowned-upon office buildings of the 1970s: honeycomb ceilings, board-mar-
ked entrance halls, open-plan offices. Forgotten and suppressed, gone from the media motorway residential settlement, but I have actually built it.” He smiled, impishly, as if
as well and, if shown, then as a cautionary example. As were and are their architects. he had done something forbidden but wonderfully boisterous. I always wanted to call
We wanted to change this. We saw something in these buildings, an impact, a radical “thank you” as when shooting a feature film, the sentence seemed to me so felicitous as
will to design, a courage to blaze new trails. In the aftermath of the landing on the moon, a final statement, but, alas, here I was sitting facing a contemporary witness of the Berlin
on earth as well everything had to be “modern”, superhuman, perfect and relentless. We during the Weimar Republic and the encyclopaedia did not say much regarding his bio-
researched the architects, wrote letters, explained our project. Who might be the people graphy. “Bruno Taut. We lived in one of his developments. My parents, my brother and
behind the “brutal” concrete buildings of those years? Fantasists succumbed to giganto- I. My father was a competition draughtsman for successful architectural offices of the
mania, dreamers far from reality or even cynics who deliberately disregarded the users time. These large charcoal drawings with plenty of light and shadow, a pasty sky, even
to assert their rigid aesthetics? There were not many replies. Of course, some of the pro- the bosses were not able to do them.” His narrative halted, he looked at the project fol-
tagonists had died, some were also too old to still be able to react. But maybe there was ders, his thoughts somewhere else far away. “As of 1933, there were no more contracts.”
also a kind of exhaustion among those who remained silent in view of once again having I nodded. “Ah, because of the economic crisis.” “No …”, he hesitated, then continued:
to comment on the projects which had been branded as failed in the public discourse. “According to the new racial laws, I was a half-Jew, I had to quit school … we built the V2
“Good day, so you want to make a film about my office buildings?” A Berlin architect got … an external camp of Dora-Mittelbau.” He looked out the large windows into the garden,
in touch, we had not been counting on him, he was among the most published architects at the treetops already bare of leaves this autumn. A kind of tension, a concentration on
of the 1960s, 1970s, his works filled reference books: factories, residential buildings, so- the memory became noticeable. “I was put into a camp, my brother was separated from
cial settlements, office buildings …. An abundant oeuvre, among it also a motorway re- me.” He needed time to finish the sentence. “He didn’t come back.” An abyss. The whole
sidential complex and the Evangelisches Konsortium, a silvery shimmering office tower setting, the office, the folders, my questions, the Evangelisches Konsortium, I myself,
which, with aluminium panels, rounded stainless-steel everything slid into this abyss. “My grandparents were then
windows and a Y layout did indeed somewhat remind of a also taken, from their flat, on a truck.” His voice became
spaceship. A voice on the phone, no entry in the encyclo- brittle, soft. “At noon, in bright daylight. Everyone could see
paedia any longer. Friendly, matter of fact, almost shy. Yes, it.” Then he kept quiet and – only now did I see it – fought to
one could meet sometime for a preliminary talk. No, not in hold back tears. A feeling gripped me and poured over me:
the city, privately, in his home in Berlin-Zehlendorf. A brick shame. Then he got a grip on himself, talked about his studies
villa on the periphery of the city. A Jaguar E type coupé in in Berlin and London, his teachers and his architectural idols,
the parking bay. The host called out from the entrance: “I about the Bauhaus and Erich Mendelsohn, whose “horizontal
hardly drive this anymore. Just to get cigarettes” and asked line” he said had inspired him. He insisted he abstained from
me inside. “We are going into the office.” Pop Art on the Entwurfsskizze von Georg Heinrichs zum Jugendgästehaus, Berlin 1962 the “German vertical”. We went into the living room, he
walls, parquet on the floor, two Wassily Chairs in front of the showed me his collection of art, the plaster relief by Oskar
drawing tables. I wanted to sit down in one of them. “No. Schlemmer that Tut Schlemmer had given to him and the
Please don’t! Those are still originals. Covered with “Eisen- wall-high Modulor Man by Le Corbusier, carefully carved from
garn”. They can no longer handle us.” He smiled. A slight, wood. “This is the cast model for the Modulor at the high-rise
almost shy smile in a narrow, serious face lined with wrin- building at the Olympia Stadium”, he had wangled off the
kles. We sat down in two more recent cantilever chairs. “I builders, “for 50 marks and a crate of beer”, and he smiled
only buy those for the packaging.” He dug out a cigarette box, Regie brand. “Blue is my again, subtly and shy. At the end of our talk – I was exhausted, like a deep-sea diver on
favourite colour. This used to be well designed. Until they have now messed up every- his way up – he showed me another folder, filled with his concise, graphic architectural
thing.” He grumpily pointed to the thick, black-and-white warning message, lit a cigarette sketches. On each page having defined the outlines of his buildings with just a few, broad
and looked at me: “Well then, what interests you?” There are only few talks that one re- lines. Many of them in his favourite colour: blue. “May I take one of them?” Gosh, what
members, more than simply the view, the liking or hostility of the person vis-à-vis or the had I said!? He hesitated: “But nothing about the motorway …” I nodded. Took out the
weather on the way. As regards this talk, I remember, even after so many years, almost page: a youth hostel at Landwehrkanal, built in 1962. He leaned forward, looked at his
every single word. It is one of the basic rules to start the preliminary talk for a film inter- drawing made decades ago. “The stepping was intended to react to the Shell Building
view with a solid compliment: “The proportions, the grid of the horizontal windows and designed by Emil Fahrenkamp. It stands opposite”. Nothing became of our project. The
the aluminium panels, that is perfectly balanced, in your first office tower, the Evangeli- television stations no longer make films about the topic of architecture. “This doesn’t in-
sches Konsortium!” I beamed at him. “That is vacant. They don’t know yet what they terest a single soul”, the chief editor explained to me. Some months later, I received a
want to do with it, probably tear it down.” He briefly let his gaze wander across the draw- small parcel. A book, the architect monograph of the person I had interviewed. A perso-
ing tables of his already vacant office. “I always design everything myself, from the un- nal dedication on the first page. I keep taking it in hand from time to time whenever I
derground parking to the house-number plates.” He got up. “For the motorway resi- struggle with the current architecture in general and with myself as well. I read it atten-
dential complex, I developed a specific kind of font.” It was only now that I became tively and remember what architecture can be: nothing less and nothing more than the
aware of the folders on the drawing tables. One for each of his building projects, with design of a better world: “For someone interesting with an interest in the development
sketches, plans, photographs, newspaper articles, everything painstakingly prepared for of architecture in the international modern age which here, during the Nazi era, had been
our talk. He opened one of the folders, showed me a clear, horizontally organized font. interrupted which, in turn, had caused me to try and attempt to take up again and con-
“Wow”, I exclaimed, “reminds me of Mendelsohn!“ ”Yes, he is my inspiration“, but he tinue these ideas. November 2003, Georg Heinrichs.” (1926-2020)

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