20 minute read
Het Nieuwe Instituut
Discover the unique architecture collection, explore an exhibition about Nelly and Theo van Doesburg, and enjoy a coffee on the sunny terrace.
Model from the MVRDV archive in Het Nieuwe Instituut. Photo: Petra van der Ree
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Het Nieuwe Instituut
for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture
Het Nieuwe Instituut caters for design professionals in the Netherlands and for audiences interested in architecture, design and digital culture. The institute manages and provides access to cultural heritage, including the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning, stimulates research, and programmes exhibitions, lectures and debates at home and abroad. In the foyer, NAi Booksellers offers the latest titles alongside design classics. Het Nieuwe Café has a sunny terrace with a great view of the new Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen by MVRDV.
National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning Het Nieuwe Instituut manages the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning: 1.4 million drawings, 300,000 photos, 2,500 models and 70,000 books and magazines from the archives and collections of Dutch architects and urban planners. The collection ranges from rare folios from the 18th and 19th centuries to the digital archive of MVRDV. There’s a focus on the period 1900-1940, with archives from Berlage, De Bazel, Oud, Dudok, Brinkman and Van de Vlugt, and Van Doesburg, among others. The ever-growing digitised element of the collection can be accessed via the search portal: portalsearch.hetnieuweinstituut.nl.
Research Centre In the Research Centre, students, researchers and enthusiasts can meet, catch up and work. Visitors have access to the library collection and can consult original drawings, photos and other documents from the archives. For more information about visiting the Research Centre, see: research-centre.hetnieuweinstituut.nl.
Autumn 2021 Highlights MVRDVHNI: The Living Archive of a Studio The exhibition invites you to actively explore the MVRDV archive and work with the materials.
The Temporary Home From Home Take a new look at the domestic interior. Themes include (lack of) home safety, accommodation for homeless people, the dream home, and even the haunted house.
Atelier Nelly and Theo van Doesburg A fresh view of the work of Nelly and Theo van Doesburg, made possible by the recent restoration of their shared archive.
The Architecture of a Wonderful World How Walt Disney and his fantasy world have influenced the way we see the built environment – and ourselves and others.
Thursday Night Live! In this weekly programme, thinkers, designers and makers from the Netherlands and abroad discuss urgent issues, innovative research and critical reflection related to architecture, design and digital culture.//
For current and upcoming events, see: hetnieuweinstituut.nl/agenda
Student rates: Museum €7 (including Sonneveld House) Thursday Night Live! €3.50 Entry to the foyer, with the café and bookshop as well as various mini exhibitions, is free of charge.
Follow the National Collection on Instagram @ collection_nieuweinstituut or sign up for the newsletter: hetnieuweinstituut.nl/nieuwsbrief
Het Nieuwe Instituut Museum Park 25 Rotterdam
ARCHITECTURE AS A POLITICAL WEAPON
As architecture students we learn and experience that architectural design has an enormous impact on the health, emotion and behaviour of the users. If you want to give people a certain feeling, thought or reaction, you have to make the right design choices. Politicians know about this power too and have been using architecture as a tool for their own purposes since time immemorial. For interfering with the street scene, two intentions can be found.
Firstly, architecture can be used to show power. It can be intimidating, threatening or belittling if you have enough people and the right tools (read: money). In our history we know a lot of famous constructions of leaders who wanted to show how big a deal they were. Think of the Egyptian pyramids, the palace of Versailles, the powerful Church with all its incredible cathedrals scattered over the world and of course the Pantheon in Rome. All these buildings are huge and impressive for the modern tourist, but it is hard to imagine what enormous impact they would have had on people during the period in which they were built.
By using the street plan pattern, a work can even get more emphasis. An example for this is Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe, with 12 streets running directly to his masterpiece. In the modern day you can see this power play still in buildings which push the physical and technical boundaries. The Middle East puts itself on the map with their skyscrapers as weapons of capitalism, the Burj Khalifa being by far the tallest of the world: 828 meter of evidence that Dubai has the money and power to realise great things. The strong need to show off power was also the case for Adolf Hitler. He was obsessed with the idea of building the largest dome in the world in Berlin. When he learned that in Russia an even larger building was under construction, he was furious for he felt “cheated of the glory of building the tallest monumental structure in the world.” (Gordillo, 2014). Not much later he ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union. Coincidence?
Still, influence through architecture can go even further. It can impact the way you look at the world. Winston Churchill had the words to describe this in his plea in May 1943 to rebuild the bombed House of Commons exactly as before: "We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us." Imagine you live in a city where all apartment buildings look exactly the same, with facades in which you cannot make out your own windows. There is nothing unique or personal about your living environment, so why would you feel special? This is the foundation of communist architecture: it makes everyone equal.
There have been lots of politicians with strong opinions about which direction architecture should go and which movement to follow. Coming back to Hitler, he knew exactly how he wanted the architecture in his Reich. He was convinced that monumental buildings were powerful weapons to dazzle and intimidate multitudes, impeding them to act critically and assertively. Together with his chief architect Albert Speer he spent a lot of time developing plans for his land.
- Winston Churchill
POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS
Adolf Hitler and his party architect Albert Speer. Image Belga
"Koolhaas is in my opinion the biggest criminal against humanity" - Thierry Baudet
In the Netherlands, Thiery Baudet of Forum voor Democratie also has his ideas of what our country should look like. And what it should absolutely not look like. He once called Rem Koolhaas "the biggest criminal against humanity" (Beek & Liukku, 2017). According to him, we should go back to a more traditional style of building. He is a fan of architect Léon Krier, who is a prominent critic of the modernist movement and advocate of the New Traditional Architecture. This is completely in line with Baudet’s take on political viewpoints, no surprise that these would reinforce each other. And as a last example of political leaders interfering with the design of their city: North Korea. Everyone knows of the mysterious country where everything is being controlled by the government, as is of course the architecture. The book The Model City Pyongchang (Bianchi, 2019) gives a rare look into the capital city of the country. It shows that since 2012, when Kim Yong Un assumed leadership, Pyongyang has gone through a massive transformation shaped by Un's personal architectural vision. The new buildings look futuristic and “toy-like” (Bianchi, 2019), delivering us a message: North Korea is preparing for the future.
With all the above cases in mind, it could be interesting to look at our own country. Freedom is one of our most important values. However, the street planning and programming is done by the government. It is now clear that all architecture has a political dimension, in the sense that it expresses a set of values. So, do their choices have an influence on how we look at the world? Is Dutch architecture a cause, an effect or a projection of the norms and values we have? Are Dutch architects free to design whatever they want? Or is the politician actually the architect?//
Pyongyang's Monument to Party Founding. Image Bianchi & Drapic
SOURCES
1 Teerds, H. (2019, April 9). Leve de moderne architectuur, maar Baudet heeft wel een punt. Trouw. Retrieved from https://www.trouw.nl 2 Cutieru, A. (2020, August 16). The Political Dimension of Architecture Activism through Design. Archdaily. Retrieved from https://www.archdaily.com 3 Gordillo, G. (2014, February 2). Nazi Architecture as affective Weapon. World Architecture. Retrieved from https://worldarchitecture.org 4 Weessies, R. (2019, March 22). Video: Thierry Baudet over architectuur. Architectenweb. 5 Beek, M & Liukku, A. (2017, September 30). Thierry Baudet: Een groot deel van Rotterdam is lelijk. AD. Retrieved from https://www.ad.nl 6 Bianchi, C (2019). Model City Pyongchang.
LEGO
in the real world
LEGO in the real world
One of the things I always wanted to have as a kid were the LEGO city sets, so I would be able to design and build my own house. Apparently, this was not only part of my youth, but also of the youth of many others. When walking through the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment there would probably only be a handful of people who did not play with LEGO as a child. However, the funny thing is that LEGO may not only be a part of your past, but can also be a part of your future.
One of the newest techniques in the building sector, that is totally out of order, are the insulation foam blocks made by Gablok. These blocks are made out of different insulation materials and a thin layer of wood. And, as you may have guessed, these blocks can be stacked just like LEGO blocks can. The idea of these blocks is that people would be able to design and build their own house using these blocks. This would be a fast and easy way to assemble a building without drying time or enormous secondary constructions. Traditional building techniques are eliminated and replaced by newer techniques such as prefabrication. This means that there will not be any excess waste. Furthermore, because of the clicking system of these blocks there are no extra materials needed for the assembling.
What will the future be like if innovations such as these LEGO like blocks will take over the building industry? For starters, architects will not be needed anymore. Or at least to a lesser extent, due to the self-design option with these blocks. Besides the architect’s job, the whole building sector could be at risk. When building on your own becomes the standard for the building industry, large construction businesses, contractors and construction workers will be out of business.
Besides that, no one can assure you your house is safe to live in and is built according to the correct guidelines and rules. Without a certified expert to look over the plans, there is no guarantee the building will not collapse during the first windstorm. In addition, the blocks are made of isolation material and a thin layer of wood. This results in a light structure that may not be strong enough to hold up a house containing more than one floor.
These “LEGO” blocks for adults are meant to make the building industry easier and more accessible. However, by building your own house a lot of complications may come along, such as safety issues and a loss in jobs for the construction and building industry. So, this innovation has pros and cons. I am really curious about the further developments in this new technique and I am curious to see what these techniques will do to the set order in the building sector.//
Wall being built with standard wall blocks 1
Wall being built with standard wall blocks 1
SOURCES
1 Lakatos, G. (2021, 12 juli). About Gablok - Timber-frame selfbuild company. Gablok. 2 Selfie, S. (2021, 17 januari). Build your own house with Gablok insulated blocks. Startup Selfie. 3 Thakur, M. (2021, 11 mei). Gablok Insulated Blocks Let You SelfBuild a House. HomeCrux.
The un hidden BEAUTY of out of order ARCHITECTURE
Interview with Billie & Maarten Slagboom
We are climbing up the stairs, happy that we already made it to the third floor. We are dazzled by the Escher-like stairs that seem to never end. Suddenly, an alarm goes off. Our minds go spinning as we try to think where we entered the building. Hopefully, we took a picture that depicts it all…*
And yes, they got that picture (p. 28, picture at the top). In fact, it got chosen out of an innumerable amount of pictures to get published in ‘Hier woont alleen de tijd’ (translated as ‘Only time lives here’), a book created by Billie and Maarten Slagboom. Together, daughter and father travelled all around the world to discover the hidden beauty behind buildings that are out of order. Now they share it in their book, and in this edition of pantheon//, to let people think about the temporality of our existence.
“It all started in 2016, when I was just fifteen years old and bored at secondary school”, Billie tells. She already had been photographing for a while and made a list of places where she would like to travel to. “In my list, the Taj Mahal stood next to abandoned buildings. I did not really make a distinction between them, because they all looked beautiful to me.” Her father Maarten, who has loads of experience in photography, perceived that Billie wanted to go on an adventure. He read an article about the industrial city Charleroi, which had been acclaimed as ‘the most unattractive city in the world’. "My immediate thought was: why unattractive? We jumped in the car and decided to search for the hidden beauty.”
This led to an unstoppable fascination for buildings that were abandoned and partly taken over by nature. They started with photographing factories, but soon the fascination expanded to more intimate spaces like classrooms and residences. Maarten says the following about this intimacy: “You often see pictures of abandoned castles or cathedrals. However, we think those are less personal. You cannot picture yourself living in such a building, while you can when you are looking at a kitchen. We want to appeal to one’s imagination.”
That is also the reason that there is no text to be found in their book. “We do not tell you what you are looking at exactly. We want you to interpret it in your own way, so your life can be reflected in it”, Billie explains. Neither are the photos separated by chapters. Maarten elaborates: “We hope it works as one ‘Zone’. It does not matter which function a building has, or where it is located, because they are similar in a certain way. As time passes, all buildings grow towards each other. They smell the same and you hear the same sounds”. We left the building. There are countless things racing through our minds. We feel calm and happy. We feel void, in the best way possible. We are conscious about time and our temporality. We get into the car and for a moment, there is perfect silence. Then, we turn up the music and feel cheerful. A celebration of life.
Even though the pictures are not only about the buildings, architecture does play an important role in their book. They did some research and discovered architects who have the same fascination for ruins. Maarten brings up architect John Soane, who designed the Bank of England during the 19th century. “While designing, he fantasized about what it would look like when it became a ruin”, Maarten explains. Soane even let someone paint what the bank would look like as a ruin. “And he is not the only one,” Billie continues, “nazi-architect Albert Speer thought about designing buildings that would look beautiful as ruins as well, which he called ‘ruin value’”.
So, thinking about the long-term future, do Billie and Maarten have any future plans? “At the moment, we are searching for new places to photograph. We are also still imagining how certain buildings would look if they were out of order. But it is hard to tell which ones we can photograph, because many of them are being torn down or renovated,” Billie tells, “even some of the buildings that are pictured in the book, are gone now”.
While singing along with the music, we think about what we have seen. The building we visited felt like a person to us. She talked to us and she told us stories about everything she had been through. We listened, breathlessly. We wrote it down and took it home. Now it is your turn to read her story.//
*The text in bold is fictional, written by the writer but in the spirit of Billie’s and Maarten’s story.
30
Post Human Architecture
It is safe to assume that humans can be considered as the center of architecture, or even as the center of most (if not all) design. We create architecture so that we, and other people, can experience it. But what if humans were taken out of the equation? Clearly, architecture would not exist without humans, but what if we weren’t around to experience it anymore? Some agree that humans eventually will go extinct; to them, it is just a matter of when, not if. Then the question arises, what happens to our creations when we are no longer around to enjoy it? This is the existential-crisislike question that the concept of post-human architecture attempts to answer.
The idea of post-human architecture assumes that the human race will indeed go extinct, and that our structures will be all that we leave behind. It theorizes about what is going to happen, and what should happen, to structures after the time of humans. Now, this all sounds very morbid and depressing, but it stems from a slightly more upbeat and positive idea. This idea is that we should include more species besides just humans in our designs. Nature is full of a wide variety of species, but we only ever focus on one. Paying more attention to others instead of just to ourselves could help us create architecture that works and serves a purpose beyond the human experience. This could be taken as a sign that we should learn from nature and incorporate what we learn in our buildings. After all, nature is the basis of everything and structures that we see in ecology could be used on a larger scale in the human built environment and urbanism. Another way to interpret this is that we should prepare for after a building is no longer of use to humans.
This is where the extinction part comes in, because extinction means we can be sure that no building is serving their original purpose anymore. Humans are gone, so what is next? Assuming we do not take animals down with us, they are next in line to make use of our structures. An animal cannot do much with a solid concrete wall, but if this wildlife of the future is taken into account in the original design of the building, we can prepare for it. This also holds true for abandoned buildings that we see nowadays. Even without human extinction, there are many structures all around the world that are no longer in use.
The only ones that really use these abandoned buildings nowadays are maybe urban explorers, and nature. Overgrown abandoned buildings may become home to wildlife in the area anyway, therefore what if, these buildings were optimized to be used that way after their original purpose has been fulfilled? This is the idea that Ariane Lourie Harrison, an architect and professor at Yale School of Architecture, had in mind when she developed a façade that is perfectly usable for wildlife. The work called The Birds and The Bees is an art installation that brings small wildlife and humans together. It is a collection of wall panels that can serve as the façade of a building in which small pollinators can make their home. Firstly, cavities in the wall panels have been made the right size for small bird species to nest in. It is argued that common bird houses are very much insufficient for birds to make their home in. They are often modeled after houses for humans and the pointed roof is a perfect place for predators to wait for baby birds to come out. The cavities were made the perfect size for small birds native to North-America and the fact that they are literally just holes in the façade means that there is no place for predators to lay in wait.
Secondly, small holes in the façade are perfect for bees to make their nests in. This is purely meant for solitary bees that are not part of a beehive and are known to be less aggressive than their honey-making counterparts, because they do not need to protect a queen. Therefore, these bees do not exhibit dangerous behavior towards humans and are friendly animals to live around. Furthermore, declining bee populations all around the globe are a threat to flora and fauna as we know it, so providing a safe place for bees to live is beneficial to the overall climate in cities.
By making space for wildlife in our constructions, we shift the focus away from humans and towards animals. The Birds and The Bees installation makes it clear that even small interventions, like making small holes in a building’s façade, can contribute greatly to healthy wildlife in and around our buildings. While most of this stems from the idea that humans are bound to go extinct in the future, it is also worth noting that this can be beneficial while we are still around as well. After all, bringing more greenery into the city has always been viewed as a valid option to combat climate change. Bringing in more wildlife just takes this concept to the next step. The whole idea of post-human architecture is about human extinction, possibly due to climate change, but it is evident that it can also be used to combat the thing that is expected to become our downfall. In the process of combating global warming, we can create cities that are simply nicer to live in. Just imagine a city where humans and wildlife live side by side and climate change is no longer an issue in the back of our minds.//
1 2
3 Images: 1. Impression of The Birds and Bees Installation (source: Harrison Atelier) 2. The Birds (source: Harrison Atelier, 2016) 3. The Bees (source: Harrison Atelier, 2016) Sources: 1. Timur Zolotoev. “Posthuman Architecture: Rem Koolhaas, Benjamin Bratton, and Janna Bystrykh on scale and system.” July 5, 2017. Strelkamag.com 2. Ariane Lourie Harrison. “Posthuman architecture.” Pca-stream.com 3. Ariane Lourie Harrison. “The Birds and The Bees Installation.” 2016. Harrisonatelier.com
chepos
Chepos is the independent architecture magazine of study association Chepos of the Technical University Eindhoven. For every edition, Chepos and pantheon// publish one of each other’s articles.
