Benjamin Klapper was 17 years old when he bet with a friend that he would get into the Guinness Book of Records before his 50th birthday. Now Pulheimer is 49 years old and is working on a structure more than three meters high made of beer mats.
He almost forgot about this agreement. After all, it was 32 years ago that Benjamin Klapper made a bet with his friend Alex that he, Benjamin, would make it into the Guinness Book of Records by his 50th birthday. Now Klapper has again found a piece of paper where the two 17 year old teenagers wrote down their bets. Benjamin Klapper of Pulheim, now 49, decided to get to work.
Klapper can now be found in an empty shop in a large shopping center on the outskirts of Cologne. Behind him were boxes filled with beer mats, in front of which stood a wall of beer mats half a meter high. And it continues to grow. Klapper placed tiny house after tiny house against the wall, according to a simple construction principle that was always the same: two square lids leaning against each other, with three round lids on top. The record hunter wants to finish by the end of the month, so the covered house must be three meters high, with external dimensions: five by five meters. Klapper estimates he’ll need up to 80,000 cardboard lids for this. This will ensure entry into the notebook.
There is still a lot to do until then. But Klapper can’t stress. The person who created this fragile structure appears to have stable nerves. He welcomed media representatives amidst the cover structure. He explains to passers-by who stop by his place in between their purchases, what he does with beer breaks – and keeps building at the same time. He simply secured his construction site from uninvited intruders with two loosely placed planks. He didn’t seem too worried about anything collapsing. Klapper acted with the poise of a veteran.
Like almost all kids, Benjamin Klapper built his first beer mat structure at a young age while waiting for food at a restaurant with his parents. He couldn’t explain why this had turned into a lifelong obsession for him, for everyone. One day his father brought him a big pack of beer mats and the things got even bigger. Lego and Playmobil are just a brief phase in his biography. “Too many specifications, too many limitations,” he said. With a beer base, Klapper feels free in his creativity.
As a high school student, he built his first large-scale sculpture in the school auditorium. In old photos you can see him standing high on a ladder amidst an impressive tower of beer mats – with a confident grin on his face, as if to say: I can go higher! That’s when he made a record bet with his friend. “Unfortunately, it collapsed prematurely,” he said. At that time, he didn’t understand how he should connect the three parallel outer walls to support each other.
Over the decades he has improved his technique. He willingly explains to his viewers how he creates stability. He makes no secret of his approach. Basically, Klapper says, anyone can do it. It takes a little patience. But at every step you can see that a master is at work here. Klapper holds a stack of lids in his left hand, and with his right hand he always takes two lids from the stack at the same time and puts them on. He balanced them on his fingers as if they were chopsticks from an Asian snack bar.
Ultimately, there will be 33 or 34 tiers of stacked beer mats; any unevenness at the lower levels will inevitably result in collapse at the higher levels. However, Klapper works without any tools, without a spirit level, he balances everything with his eyes. And there are a lot of things to balance. Relevant specialist literature states that a square beer mat in Germany has a side length of 9.3 centimeters. But Klapper’s collection refutes this theory. Sometimes it’s a millimeter more, sometimes it’s a millimeter smaller. For him, this was nothing to worry about – and there was no reason to get a new, uniform material. He stuck to his old cardboard, however imperfect.
Over the decades he has collected caps with the logos of various beer brands and breweries. And with each large-scale sculpture he brings out another. “I keep running into old acquaintances,” he said. Currently he is holding a lid in his hand that has the date 8/8/87 written on it. “I was eleven then.” Another cover read: “Receive transfer!” Klapper suspected it was his father’s writing. He wrote himself underneath: “165 DM accounts.”
Klapper builds a new factory every few years. In between, he allowed himself to rest longer, after all he had a family and a job. Klapper worked as a photo engineer, media technician, and lecturer at a technical university. With his beer pedestal sculptures, he says, he brings his artistic streak to life, sometimes experimenting with sophisticated curves, sometimes with mysterious illuminations. He didn’t care about the size. But this time it’s all about that. After all, he has to win an old bet with his friend Alex. A case of beer is at stake.
afa
