Recommendations

There are never only Ubiger's own pages on the desk. On top: The Emotional Power of Space by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine. It all began with this book. Full of pencil marks and highlighter.

Then the films by Bêka and Lemoine. In Koolhaas Houselife, the housekeeper leads us with bucket and mop through a famous house in Bordeaux. In Moriyama-San, a man in Tokyo lives among small white cubes. Together they are his house. And a conversation in Venice between the two of them, Jacques Herzog and Tatiana Bilbao. More than an hour long. On YouTube.

Next to them, a picture book about London lies open. A book about atmospheres. A bird guide to Pembrokeshire with dog-eared pages. Some books provide facts. Others a question. A whole chapter hangs on it.

And then the rooms and landscapes themselves. The Welsh coast. The streets of London. The journeys in Molly. The travels to Central America and southern Africa. They stand on no shelf. Rooms. Landscapes. Light. Atmospheres. They have fascinated Ubiger since childhood. Above all the Pantheon in Rome. Ubiger has been there twice. Light falls through a round opening in the dome and moves across the floor. Without all of this, the novels would not exist. These are the books behind the books.

Recommendations to follow.