The Spiegelkantine was the famous cafeteria of the German newsmagazine “Der Spiegel”, built in 1969 by Verner Panton for their building in Hamburg. In 2011, it was removed from the building and has since found a permanent place in the Museum für Kunst & Gewerbe Hamburg as a unique record of the 1960s design. Candida Höfer chooses one of the long red dining corridors for her setup and composes a classical perspective with long diagonals and a symmetrical balance between floor and ceiling. Her image of the Spiegelkantine with its bright red colours and purposely designed floors, walls, ceilings, lamps and chairs shows the rigorosity of the structure of this very playful design, its repetitive pattern which becomes almost suffocating and seems to exist just for itself – l’art pour l’art and not a place where you could imagine a normal day-to-day routine in.
“ I feel good about the space, that simply exists, that doesn't overwhelm or intimidate me. „