WALTHER KÖNIG, Cologne

“Whenever you think you’ve seen it, there is another hidden room. Little by little, one discovers, floor by floor, more and more secret spaces – and I am sure I still have not seen all of them, filled with books upon books. It’s almost paradise. I’ve always thought of the König bookshop as a sort of paradise.”

HANS ULRICH OBRIST buys a book everyday. It is a ritual he started about 20 years ago. He buys the books at different places, wherever he happens to be. But he especially likes to perform this daily Tarkovskian ritual at a place he refers to as “paradise”: the Walther König bookstore.