tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57788702011-09-26T16:56:02.636+02:00Our world, seen by one of usAlexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.comBlogger551100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-88362748337999721872011-07-18T17:02:00.005+02:002011-07-18T17:24:18.829+02:00

Even the title refers to its opposite. "A good chair is a Good Chair" is the name of the Donald Judd furniture show currently running in Munich's Pinakothek der Moderne. Of course, things aren't as simple as the headline promises. From a cultural criticism (or curatorial) perspective, a good chair is always more than "just" a functioning seat. Everything else would be boring. And if an artist

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-27327267871610421142011-01-23T10:59:00.006+01:002011-01-23T11:36:07.772+01:00

What a name: the most scary-impressive of all tourist settings on the Canary island of Teneriffe is called „Playa de Las Américas“. Baudrillard would have loved that. Wandering the premises, I had to think back to another reading: To Peter Sloterdijk’s 2004 „Schäume“. Here are some clashes of theory and imagery. „Nicht nur Musik ist dämonisches Gebiet, auch das Raum-Design bezieht sich, wie vor

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-52378774992645717902010-12-27T14:07:00.006+01:002010-12-27T14:35:54.237+01:00

The most impressive piece of art at this year's Turner Prize show is not part of the show: It is the recently decommissioned fighter planes that artist Fiona Banner presents in the Duveen Galleries (and that Turner Prize visitors have to pass). Banner's pieces engage with the fighter plane as the ultimate, history-writing weapon, an iconic object of war that sums up the most abstract ideas that

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-59410814441876981352010-10-18T17:50:00.003+02:002010-10-18T17:53:26.356+02:00

“Wünsche als Wirklichkeit“ is the subtitle of the aptly named exhibition “Realstadt“ in Berlin’s “Kraftwerk Mitte“. And indeed, the collection of 250 architectural models is as much about dreams as it is about reality. What is real here? Each model reflects the dreams of its builders, of the institutional context in which is was created, as much as of the viewer, who can add context or

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-14183658608671586292010-07-23T08:51:00.002+02:002010-07-23T09:03:00.387+02:00

Funny: The owners of Milton Keynes shopping center don't want their complex to be listed as valuable architectural heritage. There is, of course, an economic rationale behind this (listed building = no change). But this also points to a fundamental social disagreement regarding what is architecturally valuable and should be preserved. What of all these past visions of concrete from the 1970s?

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-47138673269855235052010-01-28T16:44:00.002+01:002010-01-28T16:53:35.431+01:00

At this year's DLD, the thing that struck me most was the work of artist Aaron Koblin. His data animations were all over the place. What is beautiful of them is the way they use globalized capitalist activity to create collective artworks. Capitalism itself becomes the artist here, with its planes starting or the date sent out by the performance of Radiohead. His "Ten Thousand Cent" piece is

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-54044145641983108082009-12-23T22:34:00.002+01:002009-12-23T22:49:00.444+01:00

What an amazing building. What an amazing non-building. The New Acropolis Museum in Athens is everything that makes architecture so strong and so weak today. It is a building that is not really a building, for its core, its essence is the Parthenon temple on the mountain top, visible from every floor in the museum. What is more, with the third floor of the museum having exactly the shape of the

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-61807078726618949742009-09-18T23:23:00.002+02:002009-09-18T23:40:58.191+02:00

Scientists say that Africa and Europe used to be one continent. Probably they are right. Every day, ships start from Southern Spain, carrying one day visitors to Moroccan Tanger. Yesterday, one of them took me, too. The landing of thousands of European tourists from Spain is creating in Tanger multi-level post-urban experience. The place I have been to was obviously a simulation—of a lot of

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-16681084339081286242009-09-06T18:59:00.002+02:002009-09-06T19:09:00.838+02:00

Urban space in central Berlin is all about creating historical references where there were none. Rebuilding the Stadtschloss is a sign for the frantic search for an idea of the historical. It seems to be this spatial evocation of history that Allora and Calzadilla had in mind for their piece in the Temporäre Kunsthalle. Positioned at the future entrance of the Schloss, they artificially reduce

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-26099418575627471162009-05-26T07:01:00.004+02:002009-05-26T08:13:08.647+02:00

When visiting a city, we are used to reading it through the eyes of its arts, its exhibitions and artists. In Shanghai, this is quite easy, and a rather difficult thing at the same time. On the one hand, the city has understood the tourist demand for a "gallery quarter", where nice-looking young locals sell something that can be hung to a Western wall and explained as the result of a certain city

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-5365037566666157192009-05-21T13:18:00.004+02:002009-05-21T14:08:33.585+02:00

One of the first impressions in the hyperbusy streets of Shanghai is the omnipresence of brands. However, it is not enough just to claim that Shanghai is a city thriving on the economics of branding. It would even be insufficient to show that the city is branding itself strategically, although of course this is what is happening, and will be happening to a much greater extent next year, with the

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-32489819704817534362009-05-04T06:51:00.004+02:002009-05-04T07:24:27.311+02:00

You enter a room and watch comboys at a campfire. Beautiful, and seen in so so many movies good and bad. There is also a woman in front of a house, on another screen. And an outside view on an apparently deserted Western town. Then the Cowboys start talking.This is a bit of what you see in Julian Rosefeldts video "American Night" that I encountered yesterday during Berlin Gallery Weekend at Arndt

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-87419283531896224462009-04-11T16:40:00.006+02:002009-04-12T00:51:31.944+02:00

Is this place beautiful or ugly? Is it weird to live here, nice, or just "okay"? Interestingly, no one seems to ask these questions in "Cliff Hotel", Baabe, island Rügen. None of the up to 530 people sleeping here per night. (By the way, Rügen is Eastern Germany—just to be precise. Or rather, to be utterly unprecise? For what does that "Eastern" mean today, if anything? Is that information still,

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-83241531652591114592009-04-06T21:58:00.005+02:002009-04-06T22:44:10.701+02:00

What a place. One square, you turn around and are captured by the full intensity and scariness of Berlin's architectural desires and dreams. All the ideas of national grandesse, of wanna-be Paris. The Unter den Linden 1 Bertelsmann house, reevoking the idea of the grand boulevard, a boulevard that never was. And this thin plastic wall, sponsered by an energy company, reminiscing the Schinkel

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-53755111624816289282009-03-29T21:10:00.003+02:002009-03-30T11:13:32.076+02:00

Been to Berlin Zoo today. I must admit I am a great fan of zoos. Whenever visiting a new city, I try to find out whether there is one, and here I am, staring with fascination at all the poor ones, amit bored children and parents trying madly to remember what they have heard about just this weird Lama thing some years ago. After all, this is a place to spread knowledge, they seem to think. Apart

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-57875556694422337832009-03-12T16:02:00.002+01:002009-03-12T16:12:29.501+01:00

German musician Peter Fox ist offering an impressive tribute to Berlin with his "Schwarz zu Blau", giving voice to the areas that really make this city unique; areas like the Kottbuser Tor. Here, the city shows its ugly, torn, honest face: drugs, gang fights, architectural monsters of an incredibly fascinating intensity. The drug scene is apparently becoming an ever more pressing social problem.

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-7340663974328036412009-02-24T18:06:00.004+01:002009-02-25T11:43:19.130+01:00

Hafen City Hamburg is remarkable in many respects. For one, the project is huge. It actually extends the inner city by a staggering 40 percent. It also connects the formerly rather discinct worlds of the financial district and the port. And this point is connected to another unique festure that you become aware of when walking the many streets in there that are finished today: The architecture,

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-61875744071067948202009-01-28T13:02:00.003+01:002009-01-28T13:17:52.606+01:00

Some years ago, Germany staged the most embarrasingly postmodern phenomenon. It was called Ostalgia, meaning the ahistorical play with references to the East's GDR past. In typical postmodern quoting and pastiche production, people went to Ostalgia parties, listened to the ridiculous Eastern German pomp rock and drank Rotkäppchen Sekt. All this underlined with the subtext that somehow, the GDR

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-89940956198392641972009-01-04T20:39:00.002+01:002009-01-04T20:52:09.741+01:00

Yeah yeah, families are having a hard time and all that. Big discussion in Germany, as usual very fundamental: either you have a kid and hence assume that all singles are barbarians. Or you don't, and claim that parents with kids destroy all urban culture. Which then leads to the with-kids starting a general sermon on how hard it all is, how society does nothing for them. Well, quick example that

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-17072796235096332732009-01-01T18:06:00.002+01:002009-01-01T18:14:43.233+01:00

Anish Kapoor in the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin. Smart, beautiful, original, obviously. Perhaps the greatest bit of this piece is that it makes us rethink notions of objects and spaces. Here, the object becomes space, and the space transforms into something object-ive. You look at his tremendous piece from three sides. You never get the whole of it, and from one side, you look at the inside of

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-53912306119256290312008-11-26T09:01:00.004+01:002008-11-26T09:26:34.650+01:00

It is beautiful in a melancholic way: London is mourning the loss of the "cool Britannia" vibes of the 1990s. And just as the economy goes down and newspapers tear Labour to pieces for getting back to old-style Labour politics, Heathrow's new Terminal Five seems to memorize the crazy self-confidence of the 1990s, the British version of "we can". The airport extension is a design clearly developed

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-71693963922597482352008-11-07T22:24:00.004+01:002008-11-07T22:36:21.707+01:00

Here's something beautiful and smart from the last Berlin Art Forum: Dionisio Gonzalez, confronting in his works favelas with lofty arty architectural designs. Clearly, this is more than common-sense criticism of social inequality. Rather, it seems to be a reflection of the mental situation of your classical bourgois arts friend. Obviously, in his search for unpainted walls and naked concrete,

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-62936463747510744672008-10-17T08:59:00.002+02:002008-10-17T09:18:53.553+02:00

Theorist Anthony Vidler had years ago coined the term "architectural uncanny". His claim was that architecture in modernity is always connected to a certain darkness, an unexplicable fear it produces. On an abstract level, this is what creates the fascination of buildings, or entire urban settings such as cities. The experience of South-East Asian cities such as Bangkok are very much connected to

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-50981422669046793482008-09-05T16:18:00.002+02:002008-09-05T16:28:01.952+02:00

Seen the film "Cloverfield" yesterday. And yes, I liked it, although its viral marketing-inspired "look how authentic you can be when sticking to a handy cam" is getting on one's nerves after a while. But the way the monster can never quite be seen in full made a lot of sense to me. After all, the monster is here more a virtuality than a reality. Of course, after 9-11, all non-human monsters have

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-11936250069815398012008-05-22T18:51:00.005+02:002008-05-27T04:09:35.414+02:00

Once more, David Lynch was the one to see. In "Inland Empire", after myriads of incomprehensible twists of story, life and nightmares, the heroine dies on—Hollywood Boulevard. Lying next to bums and beggars, in the dirt. This is the small death the dreams and expectations of visitors to Hollywood Boulevard also die. There, in the heart of phantasy land, where at the Kodak theatre the Oscars are

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-12128982319538675652008-04-06T09:59:00.003+02:002008-04-06T10:22:29.773+02:00

There is nothing as strange, but also as fascinating, as a grandezza that it not quite there anymore, that exists only virtually. The "Grand Hotel delle Terme" in the Sicilian place Termini Imerese is one of the places to encounter this virtual grandness. The hotel still has the architectural ingredients, the ambitious lobby, the glitzering bar "Zeus" to perform as an age-old place of the utmost

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-37662898062637626222008-02-07T11:11:00.000+01:002008-02-07T11:34:24.486+01:00

I saw a very interesting film last night: "The Brave One" with Jodie Foster. It's about a young New York radio journalist whose fiancé gets brutally mordered in a remote area of (I think) Central Park. Afterward, Jodie brilliantly plays a woman on a revenge tour: She buys a gun, and with the new-felt power fights back the threat of the city: First, she shoots a guy attacking a sales woman in a

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-13496993071676231532008-02-05T16:04:00.001+01:002008-02-07T11:11:22.246+01:00

Of course, Germany did it as well. When it comes to finding new ways of regulating people's behaviour, then suddenly this country can react really quick, avant-garde-style even. So here comes the smoking ban in all pubs in Bavaria.Now, however, something interesting happens. Bar owners set up "clubs". Why? If a pub is a private club, and has the club rule than smoking is allowed, then apparently

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-82283069391113741862008-01-10T11:47:00.001+01:002008-01-12T09:21:52.059+01:00

Discourse among European intellectuals has a favourite enemy: the USA with all their nasty inventions. One of these inventions are gated communities. The European city is usually presented as an alternative model where we all live together happily. Interesting, then, to ask whether in prototype European-city-model places like Berlin Prenzlauer Berg, there could be similar urban developments. This

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-76559479399657576342007-11-10T08:58:00.000+01:002007-11-10T09:42:25.301+01:00

In his book "Kingdom Come", British writer JG Ballard brings us to a weird world at the outskirts of London, a place called Brooklands, where consumerism reigns supreme: The whole area is dominated by a gigantic shopping mall, which creates its own microworld: a parallel universe without classical politics, but with own rules of social engagement, own values, and even its own TV channel. (Here's

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-4255241923277176822007-11-05T07:53:00.001+01:002007-11-05T22:09:15.059+01:00

Airports are, as Marc Augé told us, nonplaces: No history, no urban integration, no soul. But what if a former airport becomes abandoned and is used as a background for an even more soulless business district at the outskirts of a normally very cozy, picturesque city? Then I suppose things get really nasty.Well, this is exactly what happened in Riem, in the Eastern suburbs of Munich. Whereas the

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-92013206569953407632007-10-01T18:29:00.000+02:002007-10-01T18:59:04.651+02:00

If someone would ask Europeans about their favourite US west coast city, 99.999 percent of the votes would probably go to San Francisco. The rationale: 'Oh, it is somehow so nice, so...so European.' San Francisco inded has some elements which seem cozy, and could be seen as European: Lower houses, orderly streets, a relatively slow lifestyle... (The money spent to finance this lifestyle is of

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-3518016564219726582007-05-16T19:09:00.000+02:002007-05-16T19:55:21.003+02:00

Some decades ago, a bunch of Italian film makers had the brilliant idea of venturing into an all-American genre: Western movies. The Spaghetti Western was a subtle, subversive, hilariously funny invention. Not only did people like Sergio Leone get rid of the simple heroisms of Hollywood-produced Western movies. Their films can also be seen as a cynical commentary on ideas of male heroism,

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-33339719880558979982007-05-15T18:50:00.000+02:002007-05-16T16:15:49.364+02:00

The writers of TimeOut travel guides are the most positive-thinking people on earth. They find something interesting, beautiful, loveable in the most awful cities. So what does it mean when the only praise they come up with for a place is "so bad you have to love it"? It possibly means that there seriously is no kind of scenic beauty to defend a place for.It is with these words that TimeOut "

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-50528372018372520342007-04-09T13:25:00.000+02:002007-04-09T13:47:58.724+02:00

Do you know Braunschweig? You might if you are from Northern Germany. For the rest: Braunschweig ist a middle-sized city that once hosted the "Welfen", a bunch of kings of regional importance. And the town had a castle, too. Now, it has one again, one that looks like the old. The castle, destroyed in 1960, has been rebuilt. So will, apparently, be some other destroyed castles - in Hanover, for

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-56360178789812928462007-03-19T17:10:00.000+01:002007-03-19T17:23:35.753+01:00

Some days ago, I sat in a beautiful, even if slightly 80s, Brussels Jazz bar, close to the Bourse. The bar was run by a guy who, as he told me shortly after I had ordered a beer, was originally from Albania. Then he asked me where I came from. Next, in came a group of young, well-behaved young people. They soon started discussing their where-froms, too.Even more than classical "world cities" as

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1165182852026689722006-12-03T22:27:00.000+01:002006-12-03T22:54:12.186+01:00

Hemingway did it, and a lot of hippies did it. They bought houses or flats in the cozy little American sea town Key West. Good idea, moe and more people think these days - and do the same. They buy flats in former hotels that are being transverted into condo placs. This, however, the hippies in Key West don't like. So they do what old hippies do best: get angry and start semi-political initiativs

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1164820739611047932006-11-29T15:43:00.000+01:002006-11-29T18:18:59.696+01:00

In Miami's Biscayne Bay, next to Downtown, there is a tiny island called Brickell Key. Well, tiny in a way, huge in another, for the small thing is packe full of massive architecture - high-rise condo towers, hotels, some office spaces.And gates. Many gates. Some of them with control guys, most of them without. It is not as if the gates did actually prevent anybody from driving through. They just

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1120838176090900932005-07-08T17:49:00.000+02:002005-07-08T17:56:16.096+02:00

The reactions of the city of London to the terrorist attacs were just great. Cool, professional, not panicking at all. That's the spirit, as Bertie Wooster would have put it. From a German perspective, this seems even more remarkable, as in this country, even the smallest problem, challenge, change leads to big discussions, loud complaints and a general feeling that terrible things are being done

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1107716632412810712005-02-06T19:53:00.000+01:002005-02-06T20:03:52.413+01:00

The band "Kings of Convenience" makes sweet music. And I mean really sweet. In fact, the music is so sweet that when you listen to it, you come to ask yourself whether you are still within the area of good taste. For nobody wants to be regarded as a kitsch-fan. Well, we who live in the kingdom mentioned above are clearly not. Kings of Covenience are not kitsch. To the contrary. The music is

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1093791770506959002004-08-29T16:51:00.000+02:002004-08-29T17:02:50.506+02:00

I have been, jobwise, to some conferences recently. The topic was, more or less, always the same: the future of marketing and PR. The funny thing is that on these conferences, there prevails a rhethoric which is as negative and depressive as the your average funeral speech: "How can we ever have a better...", "when will the companies finally learn that...", "Why is it that we are still so

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1091101857858856222004-07-29T13:35:00.000+02:002004-07-29T13:50:57.856+02:00

How much of an international focus does a city need, and how much is indeed good for it? I keep asking myself this question while wandering the busy streets of Athens these days. The city is breathing internationality: Olympia is coming. The football surprise in Portugal helped establishing a spirit of no longer being at Europe's edge. And primarily, the many young people coming back after having

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1090413388274557182004-07-21T14:25:00.000+02:002004-07-27T12:51:14.870+02:00

Those who were happy enough to have attended schools in Western Germany in the 80s have learnt to praise the Marshall plan, the US help scheme for German reconstruction after WW2. The story told was one of unambiguous progress: First the Americans beat the evil out of us, then they helped the good in us out. Now, we are strong and good. Of course, that was a naive story. Today, Germany looks

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1089905735486536452004-07-15T17:15:00.000+02:002004-07-15T17:35:35.486+02:00

Sunshine might brighten the world, but for some people, too much of the yellow big one seems to be harmful. Have you noticed that in the much-walked-on passages in traveler-attractive places, in my case, Chania, Crete, all males walk in exactly the same way? The faces: bored, kind of looking tired. The Walking style: slow, seemingly weak, with feet pointing outward in the front. The upper body:

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1089623290557481482004-07-12T10:52:00.000+02:002004-07-12T11:08:10.556+02:00

I am writing these lines from Crete, where I spend days swimming, drinkling iced coffee and eating in fabulous Tavernas, shown to me my my great island guide Maria. So, if somebody would attack my with the words "stupid tourist", I would have some difficulty arguing with him. The more shocking it was when I read yesterday what a scientist has found out: That after sommer holidays, the average

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1077208622848980922004-02-19T17:37:00.000+01:002004-02-19T17:38:58.653+01:00

You know how teenagers are kind of cute when they make their first political steps - angry, wild, naive and not quite getting the complexity of it all, but undenyably charming. However, this is not what old men look like when they don't get it all, or do no longer. Unfortunately, it is these men that the German public seems to be most interested in. The theatre writer Rolf Hochhuth recently

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1074717287666990172004-01-21T21:34:00.000+01:002007-11-05T08:30:20.024+01:00

In Germany, as in many other countries, there was recently a show on tele which consisted of nearly-celebrities performing disgusting tasks in order not to be voted off the show. Of course, a lot of cultural critics said that that is all tasteless and shatters the public moral. What it shows much more, according to another cultural critic (me) is that people have lost the talent/need to really

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1072035192764207532003-12-21T20:33:00.000+01:002007-11-05T08:30:20.231+01:00

The other day, my boss gave a big speech. Kind of an end-of-year-we-have-to-improve speech. 70 people around him listened. Well, nothing else to do, really - no cheerleading appropriate, no buffet available. What struck me was the way they (and presumably me as well) looked while they listened. They all had really grave, important-looking, even touched expressions on their faces. Now, judging

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1071944945243212002003-12-20T19:29:00.000+01:002007-11-05T08:30:20.240+01:00

We are living in an essential non-smoking world now. Smoking great cigars in cigar longes occasionally is okay; but the normal, nervous day-to-day consumption of cigarettes is banned from offices and generally seen as bad. As bad? Or not rather as weak? Probably the latter. And it does look rather weak indeed when small crowds of smokers gather on cold and wet winter days in front of their

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1071770564588132532003-12-18T19:02:00.000+01:002007-11-05T08:30:20.248+01:00

You know how people in service functions can become real poets when complaining about the hardness of their existence? Endlessly and with the most well-chosen words they can go on about the chaos around them, the unbearable stupidity of customers, the inefficiency of their superiours and collagues and the nastiness of life in general. This is why I heard today when calling my doctor (for I have a

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1070997299603981412003-12-09T20:14:00.000+01:002007-11-05T08:30:20.256+01:00

Do you know Harald Schmidt? For those of you who don't: The man is the smartest comedian in Germany. He developed comedy into new heights. First by proviking people through being politically incorrect, then by provoking them by doing all sorts of discusting stuff. Now, he provokes in the way which one could say is the most radical one: By doing what he really wants. Like stating the coolest

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1069963431659069222003-11-27T21:03:00.000+01:002007-11-05T08:30:20.262+01:00

Going to a rock'n roll concert seems a slightly old-fashioned thing to do these days. It is a strenuous one, too - in case of a big concert, you have to get to rather off-centre places; you also have to pay a lot of money and share one, even if big, room with loads of people you don't know or feel related to. Especially if the band you happen to be interested in is Motörhead. There, you see a

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1063967516585276742003-09-19T12:31:00.000+02:002008-02-05T16:02:46.818+01:00

Architecture is a topic which lends itself readily to strong opinions and heated public debates. Usually, moral or political arguments are mixed in these debates which aesthetical ones. People ask whether architecture reflects in one way or the other values, lifestyles or behavioural patterns which are considered socially valuable or appropriate. In the 90s, this kind of thinking brought about

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1063106915936612782003-09-09T13:28:00.000+02:002007-11-05T08:30:20.275+01:00

Entering London from the West by car is one of the most thoroughly urban experiences imaginable. The M4 becomes a kind of superterrestrial flyway into the metropolis, some 20 meters above the rooftops of Hammersmith. The landscapes of roofs, chimneys and office towers forma suburbian promise of density, vibrancy and urban mixture that the real city finds it difficult to deliver. Clearly the

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5778870.post-1062947330490758562003-09-07T17:08:00.000+02:002007-11-05T08:30:20.282+01:00

One of the core assumptions of neoclassical trade theory is that international trade benefits everyone because it allows everyone to do what he or she can do best. What occurs is a kind of resource pooling. This is one key ideas behind the thinking of why globalisation is a good thing. And, well, it is. Sometimes at least. This Weblog has been made possible by a pooling of international resources

Alexander Gutzmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05440114764143405263noreply@blogger.com0