Creating a Home: Wallpapers and Collections
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Castle Scheres in Baarlo became our family home in 1962, when Ferdi and Shinkichi Tajiri were looking for a larger living space after outgrowing their apartment in Amsterdam. The castle quickly became the heart of our family, a place where three generations of Tajiris lived and worked side by side. It’s where my mother and aunt grew up, and where my younger brother Shakuru and I spent our childhood, running through the long corridors, getting lost in its many rooms, and discovering something new every time we visited.
The house became Tajiri and Ferdi’s personal canvas, almost a Gesamtkunstwerk in itself and the place they truly called home. Every corner seemed to hold a story. The rooms were filled with collections and artifacts they had gathered over the years. For Tajiri, this passion for collecting went back to the tragic loss of his childhood home and all his possessions in San Diego during World War II.
left: Self-portrait in his studio, Baarlo, the 70's / right: Shinkichi Tajiri and Ferdi with her Hortisculptures, Baarlo, 1968, © Leonard Freed (Courtesy of Magnum Photos / Brigitte and Susannah Freed)
His collection was eclectic: race cars, airplanes, and locomotives stood next to cameras, Mexican masks, Japanese dolls, and tin toys. Mementos from their travels to Japan and Mexico brought color and life to the walls. At one point, he even dreamed of turning Castle Scheres into a children’s museum where adults would only be allowed to enter if accompanied by a child.
When I think back to my own childhood, I remember the feeling of walking through the rooms when we visited my grandparents. There was always something new to spot on the shelves or hanging on the walls. Shinkichi mixed memories of visitors and little objects he received by post with his own artworks, so that the house itself became a living collage. Even the drawings and paintings that Shakuru and I made for his birthdays as children were proudly displayed on the walls.
Coloured slides of various rooms in Castle Scheres, Baarlo, 1968. © Leonard Freed (Courtesy of Magnum Photos / Brigitte and Susannah Freed)
Most of the castle’s rooms were used as studios, with the living quarters tucked away on the top floor. In a 1968 issue of Ideaal Wonen magazine, Tajiri said: “Living is secondary for us; we live in this castle to work. That is why we hardly have any comfortable chairs. We do not have time to sit comfortably — and if we did, we might become lazy.”
Despite the focus on work, the castle never felt cold or empty. Ferdi and Tajiri managed to create a world of their own within those walls, a place that was full of warmth and personality. In the same article, Ferdi said: “I love figurines, little animals, and other fun small objects. They do not need to be valuable, as long as they are colorful or amusing.”
Their love for creating their own environment started early on, even in 1953 when they were living in a much smaller space. In his 1960 book Uit de Doeken, Simon Vinkenoog described how Tajiri and Ferdi transformed their tiny apartment behind the Gare Montparnasse in Paris into a private world. The space, just 1.80 x 3.50 meters, somehow fit a bedroom, toilet, kitchen, and studio, all covered with one of the twenty wallpaper designs Tajiri created during his time at Rasch Tapetenfabrik in Bramsche.
left: Giotta Tajiri in her room in front of the wallpaper Paris, Amsterdam, 1960, © Shinkichi Tajiri
right: Ferdi, Ryu and Shinkichi Tajiri with the wallpaper Louisiana in the background, Amsterdam, 1960, © Leonard Freed (Courtesy of Magnum Photos / Brigitte and Susannah Freed)
Two of those designs, Paris and Louisiana, later decorated the walls of their Amsterdam home. After moving to Baarlo, Tajiri continued designing wallpapers, printing his 1970 designs himself on a second-hand offset press and using A4 sheets to cover entire rooms of Castle Scheres.
In 1993, while working on his book Autobiographical Notations, Tajiri decided to include photographs of every room and every view from the castle’s windows, after Thei Voragen, the former director of the Museum van Bommel van Dam in Venlo, suggested adding them to the book. Voragen was fascinated by what Tajiri jokingly called his “collection of junk,” lovingly built up over thirty years. The resulting images captured the deeply personal, colorful, and creative spirit that made the castle not just a house, but a reflection of the people who lived there.
