2023-09-29 14:59:10
There in the corner of the terrace, where the camera used to be screwed on, for a year and a half, protected by a small housing, he happily took photos every ten minutes, which was sent directly to a server, every day. and night time and across all seasons, until in the end there were well over seventy thousand. There in the corner now stands the two meter high sculpture “1000” by Horst Antes and looks down on Cologne no less emotionlessly than the technical one used to apparatus did. And the camera? Hanspeter Kottmair doesn’t blink for a second. “We returned it,” he says, “we’re not photographers. We just had an idea.” And then he adds: “We took it as a thank you for allowing us to enjoy such a view.”
Freddy Langer
Editor in the features section, responsible for the “Reiseblatt”.
The Kottmair couple have been living on the top floor of the Brügelmann House on Kurt-Hackenberg-Platz for thirty-five years. The view is so spectacular that the real estate ad that drew their attention to the apartment barely referred to anything else in its two lines – and that they had to pull themselves together in front of the agent so as not to immediately lose all leeway in the price negotiations lose. “North side!” was the only argument they meekly uttered against the orientation of the terrace.
Until the sky is bathed in orange, red and purple
But doesn’t it have to be that way that the sun rises on the right and sets on the left, just like it would do over a map? And so in the morning it gently strokes the south facade of the cathedral, as if it wanted to ignite the dozen or more delicate pinnacles that flank the central and side naves like slender candles, and in the evening it billows powerfully behind the cathedral until the sky turns orange , is bathed in red and purple and makes the church appear like a silhouette of a mighty, stranded sailing ship.
Photo gallery
Cologne Cathedral: Imposing at any time of day
Elmi and Hanspeter Kottmair agree that every day, no, every hour, a new picture appears and each one is beautiful and wonderful and unique. And as if we needed proof from above, in the short time we spend on the terrace, the sky turns from rich blue to gloomy black. The wind suddenly comes up, causing the hydrangea hedge to wobble and the lavender in the pots to lean to one side. And rain is on the way. But how did they then select the 285 images from the more than seventy thousand photos for their opulent illustrated book “Dom”? Hanspeter Kottmair bites his lip and looks at the cathedral as if he expected help from there. “We didn’t,” he finally says. “We had someone else do it. It simply overwhelmed us.”
The automatic camera system that Hanspeter Kottmair chose was developed by Christian Rall specifically for architects so that their customers can later track the construction of their buildings using thousands of images in a kind of time-lapse. Kottmair, who runs a large architectural office in Cologne, was not concerned with further development with his idea, even though the cathedral will probably be under construction and repairs for the rest of the days – and the new building of the Roman-Germanic Museum at the foot of the cathedral The view from the terrace will be a little cloudy for the Kottmair couple in the coming years. The illustrated book “Dom” is not a document of the time. It is a document of light and what it does, how it determines the effect of a building, in such extremes that it sometimes highlights the filigree of the ornate architecture, but can also make the cathedral appear like a roar and thunder carved in stone.
Published/Updated: Recommendations: 14 Freddy Langer Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 3 Ben Kuhlmann Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 29
One would think that anyone who has such a view doesn’t need anything else. “We won’t leave here anymore,” they say. And if you have to travel, to other cities? Then we think of the Bläck Fööss, they say, and the refrain of their Spain song: “He only sees from the balcony, the view from the cathedral.” They don’t just say it. They hum it in tune.
“DOM – May 21, 2017 to September 12, 2018”, edited by Elmi and Hanspeter Kottmair with Peter Füssenich. With an essay by Martin Stankowski and several short reflections by Henriette Reker, Yilmaz Dziewior and Tom Buhrow, among others. Publisher of the bookstore Walther and Franz König, Cologne 2023. 296 pages, 285 photographs. Hardcover, 120 euros.
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