Until German reunification Ulrich Müther, who was born in 1934 on the island of Rügen up in the Baltic Sea, went about his business behind the “Iron Curtain”, which is why his designs went largely unnoticed for a long time. That his artistic endeavors nonetheless took their cue from edifices far beyond the East German horizon is evidenced by their strong echoes of the oeuvre of Mexican architect Félix Candela Outeriño, who pioneered the use of reinforced concrete shell structures. In the course of his career, Müther designed more than 50 such structures, which earned him the title of “mastermind of building shells”. However, his remote location on the edge of East Germany also granted him some free scope from the socialist state system. Continue reading »