the library of Andreas Züst

A book lover's dream weekend.

N. and I stayed for a weekend at the Alpenhof in the Appenzell region in the northeast of Switzerland. A few years ago, the run down hotel was taken over by people from the art and literature scene. It is still a hotel, very nicely renovated with an amazing panoramic view, but also hosts events, exhibitions, lectures - and since 2010, it is the home of the library of Andreas Züst. Andreas Züst (1947-2000) was a "glaciologist, weather watcher, photographer, painter, creature of the night, publisher, film producer, bibliophile, art collector, and patron of the arts", an important figure in the Swiss art scene.  His library contains 12'000 books on topics ranging from art, literature, photography, music, film, meteorology, glaciology, ethnology, space travel, to UFOs and drugs.
After a brief first visit some time ago, I could finally spend a few hours in the library. Here's my meandering, patchy tour through this wonderful collection, with an emphasis on the cover designs.

(I also happen to have grown up  in the village where the Alpenhof is, but long before it became the interesting place it is now.)

There were several books by the Swiss UFO-believers of the FIGU society, previously featured here.

Need a break? Take a look out the window. It was a foggy day, not much to see of the beautiful panoramic view. 

Back to the books then.

tentative modernism

Some photographs produced for a small town furniture store in Switzerland, 1950s and 1960s. 

Of course most people still prefered interiors like in the following picture, and most of the pile of photographs I flipped through looked like this. British readers will immediately spot the mistake/insult in this picture of the "Old English" set.

new games

Andrew Fluegelman / Shoshana Tembeck, new games, die neuen spiele, Ahorn Verlag, Pittenhart-Oberbrunn 1979 (original: The New Games Book, Headlands Press, San Francisco 1976)

Previously featured here from the same publishing house: Maskenspiel part I and part II.

AG Geige

A week after I had seen Frank Bretschneider perform at the former GDR broadcasting studios in Berlin (see this post) I found an LP, Trickbeat, of his former band AG Geige by chance. It was recorded only a few weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. AG Geige was part of the GDR cassette tape subculture, but somehow found their way into Lutz Schramm's niche programme of the state youth broadcasting station DT64. This lead to the release of the LP Trickbeat on the state-owned Amiga label. The band was based in Karl-Marx-Stadt (today: Chemnitz) and existed from 1986 to 1993. AG Geige members Olaf Bender and Frank Bretschneider later founded the Rastermusic/Raster-Noton label and are still active.
There's a brand new documentary about the band (I haven't had the chance to see it yet). The photos above are from the film's facebook page and from the Band's homepage.