(原文)
Kazuo Shinohara (1925–2006) has influenced some of today’s greatest architects. His Umbrella House inspired and stimulated the architectural discourse in 1960s Japan. In order to safeguard it for posterity, the house, first built in Tokyo in 1961, has now been reconstructed on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein. Its opening was accompanied by a book launch, presenting a new publication about the Umbrella House created in collaboration by Rolf Fehlbaum, the Vitra Design Museum, and Zurich-based architects DEHLI GROLIMUND. It was followed by a talk with Christian Kerez, architect and professor at ETH Zurich, and architecture critic Hubertus Adam.
“What are they afraid of?”
We went to see German star photographer Thomas Struth in his Berlin studio and met a man both concerned and enraged about the ongoing attacks on our liberal values and democracies.
“Culture, concerts, theatre, dance, music, and museums bring people together to have a shared experience about something that is not clearly defined. It is free-floating, and that is a democratic quality.”
“It’s an acknowledgment of a community to try to understand life by seeing other interpretations of life. Interpretations that are not yours.”
Struth witnesses attacks on cultural institutions all over the world and sees both art, artists, and cultural institutions like museums as prime defenders of democratic rights and values:
“Right-wing institutions try to control culture because of its free-floating opinions. They want to control arts and culture. Often I think: What the f… are they afraid of? But this is what they are afraid of. They are afraid of the freedom of mind.”
Thomas Struth was born in 1954 in Geldern, Germany, and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was part of the first generation of artists to study photography with Bernd and Hilla Becher. Comprehensive solo exhibitions of Struth’s work have been presented at institutions including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, The Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museo del Prado in Madrid, the Museum Folkwang in Essen and Haus der Kunst in Munich. Between 1993-1996 Struth was the first Professor of Photography at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe. Struth was awarded the Spectrum International Prize for Photography by Kulturstiftung Lower Saxony.