Who would have guessed that the little comics bookstore that Benedikt Taschen opened in Cologne back in 1970 would become the behemoth publishing house it now is? Volume by volume over thirty years, Taschen has parlayed both his name and his prodigious love for books, movies and arts into beautifully produced coffee-table tomes and art monographs.
And it’s not surprising that for this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, Taschen would want to do something special. For help designing his company’s booth as well as to commemorate the 3oth anniversary, Taschen turned to Japanese architect Shigeru Ban.
The resulting elongated C-framed blonde wood structure is clad with a basket-weave shell into which is inserted oversized cutouts of the publishing house’s best-selling tomes; and it only takes a moment before you realize that Ban has referenced the silhouette of his celebrated Centre Pompidou-Metz.
All of which, leaves you very much looking forward to the next thirty years.
