Katja Reichard and Ursula Tax run Pro qm, a renowned design bookstore based in Berlin. While the two ladies stay out of the spotlight, Pro qm has become a stalwart and powerhouse in the design and bookstore scene, thanks to its tight curation of books that range from urban research, architecture to sound studies and more.
Which three books would you recommend?
If You Lived HereMartha Rosler
If You Lived Here: The City in Art, Theory, and Social Activism (1991) by American artist Martha Rosler was a very important book to us. It documented her project at Dia Art Foundation in 1989: part research-based artwork, part group show with public meetings, on and around the subject of homelessness and housing in America. This publication stirred the desire in us to open a bookstore and discursive space in Berlin.
The Carrier Bag Theory of FictionUrsula Le Guin
The famous science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin gives us in great and humorous prose the timely insight into how the human species initially evolved: it was thanks to the carrier bag, which, by carrying berries and babies, helped us to survive. The carrier bag (and not the arrow or the bow or the hammer) as the most important early technology – how wise indeed!
Design is Invisible: Planning, Education, and SocietyLucius Burckhardt
Lucius Burckhardt, Swiss sociologist, professor and founding father of strollology (theory of strolling) is key for us as an astute critical theorist in design, architecture and urban planning (all while being quite funny as well). He called for a broadening of the design perspective to include invisible aspects like social relationships, lifestyles and user operations, and demanded the democratization of design and planning. The titles of his other books speak volumes: Who Plans the Planning? Architecture, Politics and Mankind, and Why is Landscape Beautiful? The Science of Strollology.