Japan Archive | malenki.net

Japan in der DDR – Meine Begegnung mit drei japanischen Häusern in Ostdeutschland

Robert Schlotter — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 13:08:42 +0000

From the authors foreword: “Japan in the GDR – My Encounter with Three Japanese Hotels in East Germany” is a project that began with my encounter with the still-existing “Interhotel Merkur (now the Westin)” building in Leipzig (…). Soon after this encounter (…) I learned that this was the first project of the Japanese company Kajima Corporation in Europe, a building that was one of four major turnkey projects. The other three are the “International Trade Center Berlin”, the “Interhotel Bellevue Dresden”, and the “Grandhotel Berlin”. (…) Of these four, I decided to focus my attention on hotels. The reason for this was my interest in hotels as theatrical spaces, often used as settings for films or novels. I also felt a strong attraction to the fact that in various sources on the Merkur, the word “hotel” was often replaced with “house”, as I had been interested in the poetics of the “house” for some time.

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Rund um die weiße, kleine Architektur: vom Punkt zur Linie

Robert Schlotter — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 12:23:20 +0000

From the foreword:
My interest in sericulture and silk spinning goes back to my father’s family. As a starting point for approaching the subject, I focused on the “architectural character” of sericulture and silk spinning. In the course of my work, which explores the topic of “architecture” as a photographic subject, I have come to see “architecture” not only as the buildings themselves, but also as the history of the city and individual places, as well as the traces of individual activities and their accumulation and spread. — Tamami Iinuma

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Real Estate

Robert Schlotter — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 16:15:02 +0000

„I visited Higashikawa for the first time in the summer of 2007. During my stay I became fascinated by the town’s houses… . (Later) I came to learn more about the houses in Higashikawa, which are based upon the „Act on Promotion of Construction of Good Rural Housing“. (…) The silhouette of each house is drawn to be in harmony with the ridge of the nearby Daisetsuzan Volcano Group. The pitch of the roof, the color palette and the distance from the sidewalk to the entrance are all considered,whist the use of local timbers is also promoted. The result is impressive, which each piece of architecture having a strong impact … . — Tamami Iinuma in Case Study:„A place that is truly photogenic“ – The gentrification of provincial towns in Japan

… photographic encounters generate stories that celebrate humanity and extol nature. (…) In order to provide opportunities for the emotional excitement that comes with photography, we the residents of Higashikawa hope to create a new world that embodies the best of the four seasons in our town, to build a community with heart that is open to the people of the world and a place that is truly photographic. —Photo Town Manifesto Higashikawa-cho, Kamikawa-gun, Hokkaido (June 1, 1985)

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Looking for my Japanese family

Robert Schlotter — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 13:43:34 +0000

We were in a train in Japan when my mother told me about my grandfather who died before I got the chance to really meet him. She explained to me how he had a son with a Japanese woman in the 70s. She doesn’t know her brother’s exact age or where he lives. She doesn’t even know his name. That’s how I began observing the faces of those men, aged 40, sharing Japanese and European features and started hearing an increasingly strong voice in my head saying “This might be him!”. Since that day I wonder who my uncle is. What does he look like? What kind of life does he have? 3 years ago I decided to look for him!

Looking for my Japanese Family is the chronicle of this quest where reality sometimes gives away to fiction, and where the new narration becomes part of the family history. — Julie-Marie Duro

Der Beitrag Looking for my Japanese family erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

Japan in der DDR

Robert Schlotter — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 17:02:06 +0000

Der Beitrag Japan in der DDR erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.