Published: TASCHEN catalog, Fall 2004 | by Dian Hanson

 

 

 

Several months ago I received an email ticked out in hot pink lettering surrounded by hearts and flowers. I spottet it as a fan letter, but as I read how he enjoyed Naked As a Jaybird and the Roy Stuart volumes, the writer revealed himself as more than a fan, devoted not just to my books, and not just to TASCHEN books, but to TASCHEN the company and the concept.

For the last year Philipp Strafehl has been expressing his admiration for TASCHEN by building precise 1:1 scale models of our greatest books. The first was Helmut Newton´s SUMO. Using only photographs from TASCHEN´s website and catalogs, Philipp built his dream book. He emailed me photos that looked so much like the real thing I thought it was a joke. He assured me he had never been near a real SUMO, though it was his greatest desire to own one. He added that he was finishing the Philippe Starck display table, and shortly thereafter I received a jpg of the completed masterpiece.

A couple of months later I clicked on an email and there was the familiar pink text. It seems Philipp had a new dream book, the magnificent Muhammad Ali tribute, GOAT. This was a bigger challenge, because GOAT came in two editions, included signed photographic prints and a spectacular piece of original art.

Philipp was undaunted. Philipp kept me updated with photos through the production of the two GOAT editions, the prints, and the Jeff Koons sculpture. I forwarded some on to Benedikt, saying we must make Philipp a TASCHEN star for his devotion and artistic obsession. Benedikt agreed and I sent Philipp a list of questions about his life, his models and his love to TASCHEN. He chose to answer in his native German, which we have translated and present here along with photos of his amazing models for the pleasure of all TASCHEN fans.

 

DIAN HANSON: Philipp, tell us where you live, what your occupation is and how you learned to build such amazing models.

 

PHILIPP STRAFEHL: I live in Herford, a small town in North Rhine-Westphalia, I´m 26 years old, and in a few days I´ll be finishing my training in retail sales at a building supplies outlet. Before that, I worked for a well-known model builder who made warships and cruise ships in 1:100 scale for museums and private clients. One of my favorite models was the Titanic on which I got to bring in a lot of my own ideas, for example adding the famous stairway to the model, which was very tricky. My boss always left the extremely fine work to me. That´s where I learned my enthusiasm for creative work.

 

DH: How and when did you become aware of TASCHEN books?

 

PS: I first noticed TASCHEN in 2001 because of my fondness for Helmut Newton. I still remember how excited I was the first time I saw SUMO. Unfortunately, up to now, I have only seen pictures of the book, but I can imagine how thrilling it must be to leaf through the book itself. I was fascinated by the size and quality of the images. Images by Helmut Newton are great even on 20 x 30 cm format, but when I imagine seeing them in 50 x 70 cm format, even stretching across both pages...Wow!

That is how I first became acquainted with the world of TASCHEN and I then began to wonder what else the publishing house did. I did some internet research, had a catalog sent, and became more and more fascinated by TASCHEN. That´s how it all began.

 

DH: What is your favorite of the TASCHEN books you own?

 

PS: I would say Roy Stuart 1-3 and then Roy Stuart: The Fourth Body, Naked As a Jaybird and Helmut Newton: Work. These are the favorites of mine that I like looking at again and again.

 

DH: What TASCHEN book would you most like to own?

 

PS: SUMO!!! For me, this is the greatest and most beautiful book. It would be the heart of my Helmut Newton collection and would receive a special place of honor.

 

DH: What makes TASCHEN, the books and the company, different from other books and other publishing houses?

 

PS: First, the quality. I think no other publishing company values quality as much as TASCHEN does. Second, the themes. TASCHEN is very diverse and publishes lots of interesting books, for example on photography, art, architecture, sex... There´s something for everyone´s taste and I like that. And through the books I have become interested in themes that I had never before paid attention to, for example the book on Leonardo Da Vinci - I happened to see it in a shop window and was totally fascinated! Thanks to TASCHEN I am more interested in art, architecture and also design, for example Philippe Starck. Third, the elegant and stylish ambience of the TASCHEN stores, especially the one in Beverly Hills. I´d really like to browse around in there and soak up the atmosphere. I have to admit that I can´t say this about other publishing houses. There´s no other publishing house that I´m interested in as TASCHEN.

 

DH: What inspired you to make your models of the SUMO and GOAT books?

 

PS: Everything began with SUMO. I saw it and I wanted it. But it cost a lot of money and I tried to force it from my mind, but without any luck. At some point I had the idea of building a model of it in 1:1 scale. If I didn't have the money to buy the real thing, the I would simply build myself my own copy. The same was and is the case with GOAT. I saw it and was totally thrilled and when I´m thrilled by something, then I´m thrilled 120%! So I had to build it too, I just wanted to see what it was like when I had it right in front of me. So I first built the Collector´s Edition and was totally overwhelmed. It lay around for a while until I had the sudden idea of building the Champ´s Edition too. At first I wanted to build just the books, but that wasn't enough, so I also built the boxes the books come in, right down to smallest detail. Everything had to fit or else I would have flung it in the corner. Luckily, everything did fit and I am satisfied with the final result. At the moment, I´m still working on the complete Champ´s Edition, including the artwork by Jeff Koons and the four silver gelatin prints, everything you can get for $10,000! (Philipp has now completed the Champ´s Edition)

 

DH: Explain how the models were made, the materials used and were you obtained dimensions.

 

PS: Unfortunately, to the present day I have never seen either a SUMO or a GOAT in the original. I´ve made everything only on the basis of pictures and the catalog descriptions, and everything with the simplest of means. I built SUMO from a 6 cm thick polystyrene sheet, for the jacket I enlarged a 50 x 70 cm image and glued it to the polystyrene. The biggest problem was the designer table by Philippe Starck. After long consideration, I built it out of metal broom handles and aluminum bars. I did all the dimensions by eye since unfortunately I didn't have any concrete descriptions. But I think the result is quite okay. With GOAT I went a little crazy and wanted to feel what it was like to lift a 34 kg book, so I forgot about the polystyrene and built the book entirely from wood. It is made of three 28 mm thick pieces of kitchen countertop, two 4 mm plywood sheets, and a 15 mm wood panel that I used for the back of the book. All this pieces glued together made up the base. Then I scanned in the cover, enlarged it, and attached it. For the gilt edges I used self adhesive gold foil, then sprayed the back of the book and the lettering in pink, and my GOAT was finished. And I think the weight is just about right on target! I built the boxes from 8 mm chipboard, a closed version for the Champ´s Edition (I´ll keep it on the footstool) and an open version for the Collector´s Edition.

 

DH: Are you a great fan of art books in general?

 

PS: I have leafed through a few other art books, but since getting to know TASCHEN for me there are no more beautiful and better quality books. If I am interested in an artist, I first check to see if there´s a book about him from TASCHEN.

 

DH: Are you also a fan of Benedikt Taschen the man?

 

PS: I respect Benedikt Taschen for everything that he has accomplished. When you think about how he started and where he is today, that´s something not a lot of people achieve. From the first comic to a store in Beverly Hills... yes, I´m a fan of Benedikt Taschen. He sets an example.

 

DH: What would you say is most inspiring about his work in publishing?

 

PS: Every book by TASCHEN is a small work of art. People are offered the chance to get close to something special and out of the ordinary, and I think it´s possible to learn a lot from that. This is what I find so fascinating about the books and what makes them so different from other books.

Planned but unpublished | by Dian Hanson

 

 

 

Fabulous Philipp Strafehl, TASCHEN´s Fan of All Fans, has really topped himself this time. Seeking a palate-cleansing respite from his hobby of building exact scale models of his favorite TASCHEN books (see his SUMO and GOAT models in the Fall 2004 catalog), Philipp switched to architecture. The results are stunning, as evidenced by his just completed model of Philippe Starck´s marvel of Franco/American design, the TASCHEN bookstore in Beverly Hills, California. To collect the intimate details on this newest monument to the TASCHEN empire Sexy-book editor Dian Hanson once again interviews Philipp at his design studio in the romantic town of Herford, Germany.

 

DIAN HANSON: Philipp, you wacky genius, why build a model of the TASCHEN Beverly Hills store?

 

PHILIPP STRAFEHL: I wanted to do something completely different. After building models of the biggest, most expensive, heaviest, and most dazzling TASCHEN books, I just had to try something else. But what? I thought about it for a long time and wondered how to do something even better and show how much TASCHEN books and everything to do with them mean to me. I had always liked the stylish ambience of the TASCHEN stores in Paris and Beverly Hills, but especially Beverly Hills, so I decided to build a model of this store, exact to the last detail. I am fascinated by Philippe Starck´s design and think the store is the classiest and most dazzling "bookstore" ever created.

 

DH: Are you a fan of Philippe Starck´s other, non architectural, design?

 

PS: Yes, I like a lot of things about Philippe Starck. I first became aware of him through SUMO. I find that Newton´s book and Starck´s table go together perfectly, virtually merge into one another resulting in a fantastic artistic synthesis. I wanted to know more about this artist and bought STARCK, a truly interesting book with a lot of things I really like. He is very versatile and it´s astounding how a man can come up with all of that. Among my very favorites are his watches and vast variety of furnishings.

 

DH: How long did it take you to build this incredible model?

 

PS: I needed about three months to do it.

 

DH: And so the readers can better imagine it, what are the exact dimensions of this model?

 

PS: The model is 1.70 m long, 57 cm wide, and 36 cm high. It takes a really large amount of space here at my studio.

 

DH: How many reference photos did you use to get it so perfect?

 

PS: I basically built the entire model using only three photos from the TASCHEN catalog. For areas where I wasn't one hundred percent sure, I used pictures from the website. For example, in the case of the Albert Oehlen collages that decorate the walls and ceiling of the store, I needed additional research. Because I´m a perfectionist, they had to hang in exactly the same place as in the original space and for that I needed various perspectives not available in the catalog. But that´s all I needed.

 

DH: Those appear to be real TASCHEN books on the shelves. How did you manage this?

 

PH: In the case of the books, they are made up of exactly 308 inividual book covers that I scanned from the catalog and reduced in size. After cutting them all out I pasted them into the shelves. If you look very carefully, Dian, you can see that at the front right in the first row of shelves, all of your books have been included. That was simply a must.

 

DH: You are too kind, Philipp. I notice there is only one figure in the store. Who is that gorgeous woman? A fashion model? A Hollywood film star?

 

PS: For all those who have not yet realized it, that good-looking woman is none other than Dian Hanson! But then you should know that, Dian, since you sent me the photo...

 

DH: Ah, yes, how silly of me to forget... Moving on; does having this beautiful model substitute for actually visiting the amazing Beverly Hills TASCHEN store?

 

PS: I really enjoyed building this model and it turned out really well, but it´s still my greatest desire at some time to visit the real TASCHEN store in Beverly Hills.

 

DH: Hard to imagine anyone not wanting to visit Philippe Starck´s grandest design, this modern artwork as functional space. Whenever you, Philipp, or any TASCHEN fan, is in the Southern California they´re welcome to experience the original at 354 North Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills.

Philipp, I´m sure someone out there is looking at this incredible modeling wondering if you would ever consider selling this, or any of your other amazing TASCHEN-inspired models.

 

PS: The models mean a great deal to me, but how did Helmut Newton once put it, "As far as I´m concerned, everything is for sale, it´s only a matter of the price." That´s also how I see it.

 

DH: Well put. It´s been a pleasure visiting with you again Philipp, and I know TASCHEN fans, and you own fans, would never forgive me if I didn't get some hint from you about your next project. More architecture, or more books?

 

PS: At the moment I´m working on something very special, Dian. A very special architecture project. But I´m not going to reveal any more.

 

DH: Always the tease!

Published: gatsby Magazine

Nov/Dec/Jan2007/08

IN YOUR POCKET. Luke Tebbutt

 

 

 

We meet a fan of TASCHEN who builds models of his favourite books, the publisher´s stores and even their houses and revisit TASCHEN´s success story

 

 

 

Philipp Strafehl loves TASCHEN. In fact, he is probably their biggest fan. Ask him if he had to save his personal photographs or his collection of 42 (and counting) TASCHEN books and the choice is clear. "My TASCHEN books," he says. "I can´t live without this amazing books."

 

So much so that he has built full-scale models of the ones he can´t afford, which he keeps in his apartment in Herford, Germany. It started with SUMO, TASCHEN´s limited edition collection of Helmut Newton photographs, which was published in 1999. Weighing 30kg, it is the largest book ever produced in the 20th century, but at $1,500 it was also beyond Strafehl´s budget.

And so he reasoned that if he couldn´t buy the real thing, he could at least build his own copy, and set about sticking sheets of polystyrene together, enlarging an image of the cover, and hacking off bits of metal broom handles and aluminium bars to reproduce the Philippe Starck-designed stand that accompanied the book.

 

Next came models of GOAT, TASCHEN´s tribute to Muhammad Ali (which trumped SUMO when it was unveiled in 2003, weighing 34kg), and David LaChapelle´s Artists & Prostitutes (retailing at nearly $4,000).

"I saw these books and I was totally thrilled, and when I´m thrilled by something I´m 200% thrilled," says Strafehl, who even managed to get his GOAT replica to weigh the same as the original. "I just wanted to see what it was like when I had it right in front of me."

 

It is 29-year-old Strafehl´s latest works, however, that are his most intricate. One is a scale model of the Chemosphere, the Los Angeles home of founder Benedikt Taschen, which resembles a flying saucer on a stick. The other is a reproduction of TASCHEN´s Beverly Hills bookstore, complete with lights and 308 book covers scanned from the catalogue and reduced in size. Perfectionist? Certainly. Obsessive? Possibly. Isolated? Definitely not.

 

A scan of TASCHEN´s website reveals a cult-like following as diverse as it range of books. There are endorsements from the New York Times, Snoop Dogg and Heidi Fleiss ("TASCHEN books are sexy") among others, and messages from Mexico to Malaysia in the online guestbook. (One from Serbia gushes: "OMG! I adore your books. But, please, stop publishing them! I just don´t have money to buy ALL I want!")

Such devotion, you could say, borders on fetishism. But that´s hardly surprising given TASCHEN´s ability to fetishise everything from vintage 70s car ads to corporate  logos in its books. Even some of the covers have feel appeal, one with raised felt lettering, another in shiny metallic pink. "There´s something for everyone´s taste," says Strafehl. "And I like that."

 

One woman who knows a lot about fetish is Dian Hanson, editor of the division that TASCHEN is perhaps best known

for: Sex. She says she wouldn´t be doing her job properly if her books didn´t arouse readers. 

"It´s not like every photo has to scream `Drop your pants and whip it out.´ But every sex book produced by TASCHEN should result in arousal," she says. And Hanson is experienced in the art of arousal, having worked behind the scenes on porn magazines for 25 years, including editing Juggs and Leg Show, where sexual arousal (and release) bacame her professional raison d´étre.

 

"Nobody ever wanted to hint that men were taking themselves in hand when they looked at these magazines, so I decided to acknowledge masturbation regularly and constantly, " she says. "With the photo shoots I would have the women telling the men to masturbate, encouraging them, and I had a rabid legion of fans who were happy masturbators."

 

One of them was Benedikt Taschen, who contacted Hanson after reading Leg Show, which features lingerie, leg and foot fetishes and female dominance. She joined the company in 2001.

 

"Benedikt appreciates masturbation, and this was one of the things that really drew him to me. I understood that men masturbate. I understood that they feel shame about it, and that there´s no need to feel shame." Indeed, one of Benedikt Taschen´s famous catchphrases is: "We do not make masterpieces. We make masturbation pieces."

 

Still, Hanson and TASCHEN have a way to go before the rest of the world catches up. The sex books are a "very important" part of TASCHEN´s brand, says Hanson, but they are by no means the biggest selling division.

 

"The fact is, it´s hard to get this books in stores," she says. A case in point is her six volume History of Men´s Magazines. The first four volumes were beautifully displayed in bookstores across England, but the last two, which focus on the 70s, made it onto very few display shelves. Likewise, when SUMO was published in America in 1999 the cover, featuring a nude woman, could not be shown on TV and booksellers wanted the nipples airbrushed off promotional posters. And last year Hanson´s The Big Book of Breasts came wrapped in a transparent dust jacket with a black bra that concealed the naked cover image. 

 

No, it´s the art and design books where TASCHEN´s bread and butter lies, says Hanson, with titles like 1,000 Chairs selling long after their initial print run. After all, it was art books that really launched TASCHEN. Back in 1984, when Benedikt Taschen´s comic book business was failing to deliver the Deutschmarks, he took a gamble and baught 40,000 leftover copies of a Magritte monograph. They sold out and the next year TASCHEN published Picasso, the first in its Basic Art series, which is still in print today and has been translated  into 25 languages. Now the Basic Art series covers everyone, from Delacroix to Duchamp with equal rigueur, and at an affordable price providing regular cashklötze for the company.

 

"TASCHEN´s brand has many facets," says Julius Wiedemann, who edits design and pop culture books at the publisher.

 

"One is great value. People know they´re going to get a lot for the price they pay. But it´s reliability as well.

You know you´re going to get something that´s going to help you. It´s not going to stay there on the shelf."

 

Another facet is Benedikt Taschen himself, a man variously described as an egomaniac (by himself), a madman (by Helmut Newton), and a genius (by many). "Certainly that is one of the highpoints of the company. It has a very established personality, which is his personality." says Wiedemann. He sees stuff that nobody sees, and when everyone is taking one direction he´ll try to take another."

 

Dian Hanson is more direct. "We don´t make any book without Benedikt wanting to make that book," she says. "Particularly with the Sex books."

 

She recalls a meeting with Benedikt when she first started at Taschen, having gathered together material for a new project. "He sat there and held these sheets of slides up to the light and said `I am not horny. I am not horny.´ 

I learned that it´s supposed to be material that he responds to." It´s one of the reasons why Taschen doesn´t produce many gay sex books, says Hanson, even tough they often sell well.

 

"Benedikt fearlessly makes books for heterosexual men, and it´s a very unpopular erea. It´s quite politically incorrect, but Benedikt is a heterosexual man."

 

It´s this willingness to make books regardless of the consequences that sets Taschen apart from its competitors.

"We don´t have the kind of meetings that go on at other publishing companies, where they sit around and go

`Who´s our target audience? How can we make this young and fun?" says Hanson. Benedikt goes with his gut instinct, often responding to proposals in under a minute, she says. "And I think we have plenty of proof that his gut knows what it is doing." The company is notoriously secretive about its figures, but in 2005 Benedikt Taschen said it would sell 15 million books worldwide, and annual sales were estimated at $49.5m. Not giving too much away, Hanson simply says the company has experienced double-digit growth, and that "Taschen is growing very comfortably".

 

"There are a lot of Taschen fans," says Paul Duncan, who edits film books at the publisher. It´s something that has helped him gain rare access to directors´ photo archives. Meeting greats like Antonioni, getting locked in Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven´s house, and hanging out on the set of Michael Mann´s Collateral are all part of his job.

"Michael Mann had all the Taschen architecture books already, and his wife is an artist," he says.

For his latest book, Cinema Now, he had complete access to Pedro Almodóvar´s archives, as well as photos taken by Spike Jonze on the set of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. The book also includes a three-hour DVD with an exclusive short film by Mexican director Carlos Reygadas and behind the scenes footage of Gus Van Sant films.

 

But it´s his next project that he´s really excited about - a book and DVD on Ingmar Bergman which was started before the director´s death, and with his full support. Duncan is promising "lots and lots of never-before-seen material", including photographs, home movies and Bergman´s first-ever film script.

 

Meanwhile Dian Hanson´s latest book - a tribute to American porn star Vanessa del Rio - has been published in time to add spice to Santa stocking the world over.

 

And as the Christmas lights go on in Herford, Germany, Philipp Strafehl can´t wait for the arrival of his most expensive Taschen book yet: a signed, limited edition copy of Jeff Koons, worth a cool $ 750. It doesn´t have as many pages or weigh as much as GOAT, and it doesn´t come with a Philippe Starck stand like SUMO, but it should go some way satiating his passion for Taschen.

 

"It looks fantastic," he says. "And it would make a good model."