Bnieuws 54/04 - Taboo (2020-2021)

B 54/04

Colofon Bnieuws Volume 54 Issue 04 February 2021 Contact Room BG.Midden.140 Julianalaan 134 2628 BL Delft bnieuws-bk@tudelft.nl Editorial Team Christopher Clarkson Federico Ruiz Inez Margaux Spaargaren Robert van Overveld Oliwia Jackowska Jonas Althuis Contributors Katarzyna Soltysiak Ecaterina Stefanescu Alessandro Rognoni Ana Herreros Jin Chang Juliette Khoo Ulf Hackauf Anne van den Berg Raven van der Steen

CONTENTS 04

Your Teacher and You

06

A Subjective Take on Greenwashing

10

Calling It Like It Is

12

An Introduction to The Invisible Architect

15

I Read it on the Internet...

16

The Dutch Factor

18

Taboo in Translation

20

Back to the Cinema. Please.

23

The Berlage Questionnaire: Emanuel Christ of Christ & Gantenbein

24

Take It Seriously

28

Gordon Matta-Clark: Poetic Anarchy

33

Artefact: Ulf Hackauf

Cover Raven van der Steen Printed by Druk. Tan Heck © All rights reserved.

Although all content is treated with great care, errors may occur.

bnieuws.nl

Editorial

TABOO Taboo is the theme of this edition. That is to say; those things which are implicitly prohibited by cultures or groups are exactly the thing we aim to discuss here. Everybody has things they’d prefer not to discuss… perhaps it’s their country’s political background, or that subject they failed twice. And similarly, as groups of people, there are things that are generally accepted to be improper to mention or discuss with each other; perhaps it’s that table you got with your housemate which is actually just a little too big for the space, or the fact that everyone pretends to be emotionally strong and stable all the time.

Taboos seem to be pretty conventional phenomena of group dynamics. Almost every group of individuals, when brought together, eventually will encounter something which will subsequently never be discussed again, because it’s just easier to ignore it. Just like how we Bnieuws editors simply prefer not to speak about the old Bnieuws website,which we only realised existed after we built the new Bnieuws website… (p. 15) Anyway! At Bnieuws we thought maybe this is not the healthiest approach to things; sweeping uncomfortable truths under the rug works for a while, but eventually, the rug gets difficult to walk on. So we’re going to remove all of the societal detritus that has gathered there under the rug and bring it out into the light for all to see. This edition is aimed to look at those things that we would prefer not to speak about; that is: we as members of Bouwkunde faculty (p. 04), we as working architects (p. 10), we as serious architects (p. 22), we as male architects (p. 12), we as filmgoers (p. 18), and we as sustainable designers (p. 06).

We understand that these are often quite sensitive or emotionally draining topics, but we do intend for you to enjoy our edition. We hope that this collection of uncomfortable but honest thoughts inspire some introspection for yourself, or maybe even an honest conversation with somebody about what has been committed to words here. Have a break between articles, think about it, meditate, and go vent about it to your friend!* *If it’s not too uncomfortable of course...

#Bnieuwd

To do / BAU The whole month of March is BAU month. Every week there will be events helping you kickstart your career. Do you want to know to write the perfect CV, a portfolio that gets you noticed or be the best you during your interview? BAU can help you with that. Or if you are looking for inspiring companies or that one unique internship maybe the speeddates or business fair BAU got it for you. Even if you are not ready to think about your career, lectures by Powerhouse Company or Fokkema & Partners will inspire your next design project.

23.02.2021 - 24.03.2021 Virtual: ONLINE, https://stylos.nl/bau/nl

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To do / Forward Festival Munich Forward Festival Munich 2021 promises live-streamed and in-person events including talks, workshops and interactive formats from all areas of the creative industry.

The event discusses the transformation of society through digitisation in the creative industries and raises questions about the virtualisation of our lives and our work, especially during the "new normal".

Participants include graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, digital artist Ines alpha and photographer Martin Parr.

12.03.2021 Location: Munich, Germany Virtual: forward-festival.com/munich

To do / Earth Bits at MAAT This four-part data-driven installation at Lisbon's Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) unpacks and compares carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions and their annihilating effects on life on Earth.

Through graphic and digital wallpapers, animated videos and an interactive station, visitors are able to visualise and understand the implications of their choices on the environment.

18.03.2021 Location: Lisbon, Portugal Virtual: https://www.maat.pt/en

#Bnieuwd To watch / Mole Man From the creator: “Mole Man tells the touching story of Ron Heist, a 66-year-old man with Autism, who has been working on an elaborate building in his parents’ backyard since 1965.

Built without cement or nails, the building has fifty rooms by now. The structure can bear its own weight due to the careful way it has been stacked. Although his continual building process keeps him happy and satisfied, his family and friends are beginning to worry about Ron. Where will he end up when his 90-year-old mother passes away?”

Documentary, 2017 Rated IMDB: 7.9

To read / OMA Rem Koolhaas: A Critical Reader The activities of Rem Koolhaas and his staff were widely discussed even before the foundation of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in 1975. Today, many contributions on the work of OMA can be found in the international architectural press, including Koolhaas' own writings.

Publisher: De Gruyter

To listen / Failed architecture A combination of personal stories, research and reflection, the Failed Architecture podcast seeks to explore the meaning of architecture in contemporary society. The discussions surround unconventional narratives, ranging from the architecture of data centres to the influence of video games on our urban experience.

Latest / INSTAGRAM Keep updated on our recommendations on upcoming events through our instagram account.

Don’t forget that our voice is also yours, so send us or tag us with anything you’d like to share with our followers. Feel free to contact us via instagram or facebook! @bnieuws on Instagram / search Bnieuws on Facebook.

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From the editors

YOUR TEACHER AND YOU Words Robert van Overveld

In the first years in primary school, teachers had a hard time telling if I was a good student or not. I could occasionally be very bright in some areas, but sometimes I would fail at the same subject. That changed when I went to grade 7, the year that I had teachers that I absolutely adored. My grades went up significantly in every area. You, my readers, can probably tell similar stories about times where a teacher made all the difference for you.

Today, I would like to talk with you about student-teacher relations since we often don't formally express the negative impacts that some teachers have on our lives and performance at school. I guess that many students avoid confrontation after a course because "what's the point, some people are just !@#$%&".

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There are a few things that I want to address: the situation at the architecture faculty in the bachelors from a student's perspective, the hierarchical positions and the experiences and thoughts you guys have.

The bachelor's design courses at the architecture faculty have often left me with a feeling of stress and uncertainty, and I'm probably not the only one. The battle with perfection and time can make the bachelor intense and chaotic from time to time. God bless; we have a teacher that guides us during these times... Or not...

There she/he is, the teacher that just isn't your match. Relatively quickly, you realise that you aren't going to be best friends, but you try to make the best out of it. For now, everything is fine.

Unfortunately, everything you do is pushed off the table during the sessions. You realise that you have a few options; you defend yourself and try to communicate in the best way possible, or you keep silent and try to obey. Both are bad options… If the teacher is not feeling you, then you are most certainly fighting a losing battle here. The only chance you really have at this point is making sure that you meet the required. At least it won't be possible to fail you, probably...

There they are; the deadlines. Unless you schedule your course well, towards the deadlines, things get even more exciting. Your capricious relation with your teacher leaves you clueless about how good you're doing and if you're going to make it. To make it even worse, during one of the last sessions, the teacher disagrees on aspects you had from the start or are directly connected to the concept.

The result? Well, probably; stress, frustration, fear, chaos, panic, etc.

The problem with this teacher-student relationship is that it is unequal. On a professional level, that is understandable; the teacher has more experience than you. On an emotional level, it leads to complications. For a teacher, there is no direct consequence if they behave or teach poorly. For a student, that's different; their grades are likely to suffer from it, something most of us desperately try to avoid in this competitive society.

I need to stress that most teachers try their utmost best to be good teachers and humans, highly valued by all students. Some other teachers probably do as well, but maybe we should start to acknowledge that this doesn't lead to good outcomes all the time. Which is nothing personal, rather something very human. And lastly, the people that are just not cut-out for teaching.

Teachers at the UvA need to fill in a survey before they start checking students’ work. In this survey, the teacher is asked about his mood, the weather, Image: http://jangheungjournal.blogspot. sleep, etc. This is to avoid students being "victim" com/2012/06/corporal-punishment.html of factors that negatively impact the teacher’s emotions and, therefore, students’ grades. Maybe we should start something similar at the faculty of architecture. After every course, the teacher is evaluated on his performance as a teacher; whether they are engaged, fair, honest, thoughtful, active, etc. The result; a bit more reason for a teacher to try to be the best version of themselves. If a teacher performs poorly, their supervisors can talk to them. Does it happen often? Well, the university should consider whether they want teachers that negatively influence the emotions of students. I truly think this assessment would have avoided many frustrating situations in my studies.

This brings me to the final part; the experience of you guys and girls. We would like to invite you to share your experiences with teachers and what you think about this topic.

Have you been able to solve your troublesome relationship? Or are you still puzzled every time it happens? Or do you have any other interesting information or thoughts?

Please, send us an email with your name and the date/time you can briefly meet. If there are enough reactions, then we can continue to discuss this topic in future editions.

Email us at bnieuws-bk@tudelft.nl

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Pen pal

A SUBJECTIVE TAKE ON GREENWASHING Words Katarzyna Soltysiak & Ecaterina Stefanescu

Katarzyna and Ecaterina graduated from the Architecture department of TU Delft a couple of years ago. Soon, they hit a wall - not because of the economic crises but because of the ignorance of the industry. Nonetheless, the problems started earlier, they believe. In the following talk, they discuss greenwashing, misunderstood concepts of sustainability and reuse in academia and the industry.

The topic of Taboo inspired their few-hours-long conversation. Below, you can find its most important ideas.

KS: I know that you are quite ambivalent about the topic of greenwashing, which I asked you to talk about.

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ES: So much has been already said about greenwashing and yet, it still happens.

KS: Let us begin from the early stages of our personal experience then and refrain from big words. How many times have you seen a visually pleasing, interesting studio project and then, only for the sake of passing the building technology module, a student adds on random gimmicks to it? Solar panels being the most obvious.

ES: Currently, the bar for sustainability is so low, anything is better than nothing. Tutors accept this approach knowing that “at least the students had thought about it”. In a way, also students having so many things to touch upon, simply focus on the formal design. It is often accepted that if a project is good, you can ignore the “sustainability part” or just add a green roof somewhere... and this is not challenged.

KS: Learning ‘step-by-step' may be a reasonable excuse here but then, the issue of “sustainability as

an afterthought” is taken to the professional practice...

ES: Let us consider the mainstream architecture, or what is perceived as such - for example, BIG Architects...

KS: Bjarke Ingels has been recently called "this Century’s Frank Lloyd Wright” on one of the most popular design websites. A few weeks earlier they made a masterplan for the planet, supposedly a sustainable one ...

ES: On the same website, BIG's projects are hailed as leaders in sustainability and very few contest this.

As little autonomous bubbles, BIG’s projects might appear extremely sustainable at a superficial level.

But then, you look at the scale of their developments, or even location, like the Middle East. The buildings on their own do not pose an environmental threat – it is the whole system and the industry. This, to me, is greenwashing at a deeper level: on paper, a project is “green”; but, together with its overall context – physical, economic, social, etc. - these mega-projects are actually green merely in colour.

Adding hanging gardens and a state-of-the-art ventilation system is not good enough if you are

CO2 emissions in imported goods as a share of domestic emissions, 2014. Map souce: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-othergreenhouse-gas-emissions

ignoring fair working practices or the fact that your client actively rejects the idea of climate change.

KS: With all this in mind, I wonder, if we can diminish the role of Ingels in giving character to sustainability. In making it ‘fun’ and ‘cool’. There is a terrible tendency in a majority of LEED and BREEAM-certified buildings to homogenize their design. If those certifications are equal to buildings’ minimal impact on the planet – this is another question.

ES: I think around when BIG started, they came up with the idea of “hedonistic sustainability”, that sustainability shouldn’t be a chore but a fun thing.

My understanding is this: you keep your capitalist, consumerist, hedonistic lifestyles and still have a sustainable project with our ‘smart’ approach. But can a project that reinforces capitalism and consumerism, which are intrinsically unsustainable, claim to be sustainable?

KS: The idea that if capitalism and all its workings brought us here and can also get us out of here: we just need to invest in the right solutions. The so-called technological approach... I wanted to believe in this idea, it seemed so easy, full of opportunities – especially for an ambitious student.

Well, this lasted about as long as the time between being accepted at a school of architecture and entering it.

ES: And by the time of your graduation, you became an outspoken critic of it...

KS: Looking into CO2 emissions per country per capita, you see that countries investing in technology - or leading manufacturers - are characterised by high emissions. On its own, this comparison does not link technical sustainable solutions with pollution. Yet, it can give us something to think about. Why are rich countries, with the generally more regulated building industry, the leading polluters? And then, we start to

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look into carbon trades: large amounts of resources are their carbon footprint follows. This is still driven by the market. As a rule of thumb, developed countries tend to import carbon with products, while developing countries - with generally fewer climate regulations - export it.

This story was the start of a project in which bad policing, neoliberal economy and greenwashing clash. Schiphol Group - the owner of the third biggest airport in Europe - invests in an air recycling plant to allow a new terminal construction with additional funds from the Netherlands Green Fund.

Carbon emitted by aircraft is recycled here into diamonds - an idea I had after learning that captured CO2 can be further recycled into…fuel - a perfect, never-ending cycle. As the air traffic increases, the resources multiply; emissions of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide increase.

ES: Where is the twist?

I simply hope this shows that designers should take into consideration the social, environmental and political impact of the materials they use. We need to think about more local, smaller loops. And perhaps, put more faith in low-tech solutions?

ES: I agree. For example, the renovation project at Cove Cottage (with Sam Eadington) was driven mostly by the small budget. But because we had to make materials at our disposal and our own labour go a long way, it forced us to come up with inherently sustainable solutions. Everything that could be saved was reused; even nails that had to be pulled out carefully, so we can reuse both the wood and the nails. We had to make the most of what we had, and reduce our construction waste as much as possible. This also resulted in choosing local suppliers.

KS: Have you consciously decided to make this project sustainable or was this a by-product of your labour-intense search for cutting down the costs?

ES: It was consciously sustainable in the sense in which it was an inherent part of our design ethos in general terms: about reuse, about adapting what we’ve got, reducing waste, hands-on working, which are intrinsically sustainable. At Cove Cottage we wanted to maximise what was already there, so put most of the work and budget towards insulating, changing windows, and buying the absolute minimum of new materials.

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Pollute and Create at Schiphol Airport, digital collage by Katarzyna Sołtysiak for The Circular Brave New World, a.k.a.

Diamond Factory, 2018

KS: Do you see this approach being scaled up, not doing all the work on-site yourselves but the works being commissioned to contractors?

KS: As the entire process was based on scientific research, it was clear that a huge amount of energy will be required by this process; yet, it was impossible to calculate how much exactly will be required. What was possible, on the contrary, was to calculate the amount of steel in the design and then the carbon footprint of the material. It was immense.

By some very rough estimates, it would not be vacuumed by the building in its life-cycle.

ES: Cove Cottage was a small, self-built project, but the lessons can also be extrapolated for bigger projects, it’s just more challenging. The projects by Lacaton Vassal show that it can happen on a bigger scale, it just requires a lot of care, ambition and skill from the architects. They put a value on adaptability, reuse, flexibility, and seeing previously obsolete buildings as opportunities, and waste as a resource, and it ended up way cheaper.

native forests to grow bamboo for construction?

How about solar panels after their 25-year-long life-span?

It is particularly interesting in the Dutch language how the word for sustainability is “duurzaamheid”, meaning something like “longevity”, or “durability”, which brings in a very different take on the subject.

Talking about duurzaamheid the focus is placed on practical, environmental, or material aspects of sustainability.

This makes me think that ’sustainability’ has become a banal word and its vague meaning is rarely disputed. Young practitioners need to position themselves towards the topic and build their unique understanding.

Cove Cottage Renovation - Sam Eadington inspecting a pile of old resuable materials in the corner of the living room. Image: Estudio ESSE.

On the other hand, Sala Becket by Flores & Prats required the architects to be on the site almost daily, coordinating the trades, materials, and overseeing the construction actively. Finally, they admitted that they made no money from the project because it was so demanding and it did not allow them to run the office on a daily basis. The contractors, the local craftspeople made a profit on Sala Becket, which is great, but the architects didn’t make any money.

KS: Ironically, I do not think your renovation project or Sala Beckett would receive any ‘green’ certification… and this is again the problem of narrowing down the understanding of sustainability.

The misconception of sustainability as energyefficiency may be understandable due to the pressing issues of climate change, especially in the capitalist narrative of austerity. But to build resilience, long-term solutions are needed and these need to involve communities, systems of funding and the well-being of local species. How about cutting down

ES: Yes, but this is where it starts from, and that's why I think there isn’t enough of a push for thinking about it more holistically, as an inherent part of the design. What happens to the projects, especially student projects, with a focus on different aspects of architecture, that are more theoretical?

KS: Well, can we even afford to build non-sustainably at this point? I understand that other aspects need to be explored, especially in academia. The worst thing that happens though, is when you end up designing completely ignorant of sustainability, and then at the end, you end up adding tons of solar panels just to tick off a check-list.

ES: Exactly. And that’s greenwashing!

Katarzyna Soltysiak, currently a member of Delft’s Team for Solar Decathlon, practices in many design fields and actively investigates topics of the circular economy. Ecaterina Stefanescu co-founded Estudio ESSE and is an architecture tutor at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. For more information, including sources of research, see our online version of this article.

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From the editors

CALLING IT LIKE IT IS Words Christopher Clarkson This is a Bnieuws article, and you are reading it. I wrote this article because I’m being paid to and because I have obligations to the editorial board to do so; because it’s my job. The world is not often discussed in this way, because it’s not usually a very comforting outlook on the world. It can at times, as shown in my opening sentences, bleed the colours out of everything even remotely interesting.

This article aims to do exactly this: ‘call architecture like it is’. But is architecture a defined thing- or can it be what you want to make of it?

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We live in a capitalist, consumerist society: people do things for money so they can afford to survive, and spend their money on stuff they think they want.

Describing the world in this way is different, for example, to if I opened this article by saying: ‘I’m working for this magazine because I’m passionate about the idea of narration, and putting ideas to words and then words to paper so you can read it’ (which is the real reason why I do this); but I must confess, being paid is a pretty strong incentive on the days where I don’t feel particularly passionate about things.

In dreams my designs are being constructed, and I walk through the load bearing construction before the façade has been mounted and anything is installed. Walking next to me is the supervising engineer. As we walk through my design, I - of course- marvel at its spatial qualities, and I’m simply ecstatic to be within a space that I designed. The engineer points to one end of the building and begins to explain that my design lacks stability, and just like that, the whole thing comes crashing down on us.

In nightmares my world is in the familiar neutral grey abyss of Rhino 6. I am furiously trying to click points to create lines that make a detail; it seems to be coming together nicely, until I realise a fatal error,

and suddenly Rhino is crashing and my detail isn’t saved. You begin to realise what you’re doing to yourself physically and mentally once you start having nightmares set in Rhino. Am I doomed to be working in CAD programmes till 1am every day for the rest of my waking life, and then continue working in them during my sleep until 7am the next day?

‘What day is it?’ is a question I often find myself asking, and often multiple times in the same day. As I make myself yet another cup of Lipton’s Yellow Label I can’t help but think of J. Alfred Prufrock, measuring his life with coffee spoons… I suppose my life is being measured in teabags. “Have a teariffic day!” the yellow label says to me. What day is it, again?

In real life my tutors tell me that “Architects are the prostitutes of the built environment.” And “10% of the work is creative if you’re lucky, 90% is managing, budgeting, following laws, correcting people’s mistakes, arguing, and making sure every line is where it’s supposed to be.” They advise cautiously, “Perhaps you should go into writing, or philosophy.”

And I wonder myself sometimes: ‘What made you so sour hm? I will go and find out for myself, thank you very much.’ And I soldier on to my next lecture about climate installations, or to continue wrestling

with the load bearing plan of a design or some management course. I am scared. Scared that all these miserable architects are not merely bitter and jealous of a life they didn’t live, but that they speak some kind of truth with the clarity of a hindsight I don’t yet have…

I am, admittedly, a romantic. For me, it’s easy to fall in love with the following ideas: the architect as judge: equalising spatial inequality. The architect as artist: challenging our perceptions of what architecture is, and making things that are beautiful.

The architect as therapist and counsellor: changing the way that people view each other and themselves and societal relations at large. And the architect as philosopher: making broad claims about the nature of our existence by way of his or her constructions.

But if we’re going to call it like it is, then what is architecture, ultimately? It isn’t prostitution, that’s for sure (I’m going to assume I don’t need to explain why…). But it is a profession, which people do in order to afford living, which means they get money, and I’m doing my best to avoid saying it but: Architecture is a business. Clients pay money, and architects design a building. Having just begun an internship myself, I’m beginning to be confronted with this reality, in which design solutions are eventually selected based on some kind of mixture between what looks ‘cool’ and what achieves functional goals optimally. At the end of the day, it is the slick catchphrases and slogans that sell a project.

The purchase of a design is dependent on the immediacy of developers’ and clients’ abilities to understand the building, and if they think the design is dazzling and looks cool enough. It isn’t all that much different from any other commercial product: adverts scream and tell you what’s wrong with your life in order to sell you the solution to a problem you didn’t know existed. What are architects doing that’s so different?

Aside from my own cynicism and assumptions, there are some facts to analyse. In the ‘real world’, in which TU Delft scholars such as Alejandro Prieto Hoces provide research showing that a large portion of architects think that the most beautiful façade is ‘one which meets its functional requirements.’ Which to me is akin to saying something like: The most delicious meal I’ve ever eaten is the one which provided me with the correct amount of nutrients.

But for me nutritional value does not equate with deliciousness. Neither does functionality equate with beauty. So either I’m delusional, or architects seem to enjoy enslaving themselves to their profession because we lie to ourselves about what we are actually accomplishing with these romantic stories.

Stories of the architect as philosopher, or artist, or therapist – as if we have some kind of ethical duty to continue working, day in, day out, pumping out more mediocre buildings with a catchy title so people want to buy it.

I must confess, part of me somewhere is still hopeful that Architecture can be a little closer to those romantic narratives I mentioned earlier if I want it to be. Maybe this article ‘calls it like it is,’ but I hope to one day ‘make it like I want it to be’. So I choose to revel in these narratives, and I tell myself these romantic stories to keep going till my next cup of tea... which is never very far away.

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From the editors

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE INVISIBLE ARCHITECT Words Inez Margaux Spaargaren

If a gender – specifically women – is portrayed invisible, it can have consequences for the next generation. A visible person, like a role model, would help that next generation. A generation with women in architecture seems the most normal thing.

However, women who have experience in the male profession of architecture intimidate, and sometimes surprise the other gender. Women in architecture aren’t much of a role model. Why do people often think of a male role model, when they hear the word architect?

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Women are invisible in the field of architecture. This became quickly apparent at the conference ‘De Kracht van de Nederlandse Architectuur' in the end of 2018. There was undoubtedly a fuss, but why? Ten men were invited as keynotes. That was unintentional, swore Harm Tilman, editor-in-chief. According to Tilman, female speakers were 'hard to find'.

The tradition that women are 'hard to find' in architecture must be broken with…Woman as architects must become visible! Let’s start with the works that are attributed continuously to men. Journalists and critics regularly attribute female works to male colleagues, they may or may not do so consciously, but it happens. This struck not only me; but Merel Pit noticed it as well. Merel Pit is founder and editor-in-chief of the architecture magazine A.ZINE, and also the issue of Mevr.

Architect. Her premise for this issue was that visibility matters to others. After her graduation, she looked around for examples to start her career. However, there were just a few female architects to get inspired from. While according to her, role models are essential for emancipation in architecture.

In an article of the Volkskrant, she expressed several indications of invisible important female architects. "Consider Scott Brown; she studied at

'Duck' - Getty Images

Las Vegas in the 1960s. A duck-shaped grill bar led her to the term duck to help describe buildings whose form symbolizes function, the boxy hotels with front gables she called decorated sheds; terms that grew into classics of architecture. Ultimately, her partner, Venturi, received the Pritzker Prize in 1991 for Venturi's Duck, assuming that he was the genius, not Brown."

Another example is Dikkie Scipio, co-founder of KAAN Architects. She also doesn't always get recognition for her work. Because of the architectural firm's name ‘KAAN Architects' works are often associated with Kees Kaan. Knowing that her works include: the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the renovated Paleis Het Loo, and she did the finishing touch on renovation of the Koninklijk Museum van Schone Kunsten in Antwerp. Scipio herself responded that she is extremely disappointed about this. Scipio pleaded for a new name for the agency, but men at the office decided they wanted the 'brand' KAAN.”(Merel Pit, Mevr.

Architect) The above quotes could slightly shape the underlying idea that men are very powerful in architecture, with not much The Kunstmuseum Antwerpen, KAAN Architecten - image Stijn Bollaert room and recognition for women at the top. Constantly fighting to go to the extreme is typical of this profession. Architecture has not yet made room for a change, which makes it even harder for women. Women, in general, spend more time on housework and caregiving than men. In doing so, society still hasn't adapted yet to the double lives (a career and a mom), which gets in the way of making a career in architecture.

(Just a thought that came across my mind; it remains necessary to make your career at the same time women have children. Because after that, it's too late, and one is quickly portrayed as too old to rise even higher. Different standards for career possibilities would start in this transition and even discard the double lives of women.)

The intro to this article began with the invisibility of women. It has become clear that women are often replaced by men, whether overtaken or not in the position to follow the same career path. Another example of the invisibleness of the woman is explained in the book "Invisible Woman". Women are made invisible in their work and in data, which affects their daily lives. This book discusses women's invisibility in everyday life by the lack of so-called "gendered data". There is a significant gap in research and statistics on how women use cities, offices, homes, or streets and how man uses them.

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Think, for example, of snow ploughing on roads. Usually, you would think that is not at all sexist... However, the opposite is true; public spaces, including the sidewalk and public transport, are most used by women. How come? Women tend to have more stops in their getting from A to B. These stops, like the supermarket, daycare, picking up grandma etc., are easier to handle by foot or bike. Men, on the other hand, go from A to B, from work to home. They use the car, tracked by computers, producing ‘one-sided’ data. And if that is not the case, that is precisely what is cleared of snow.

If data becomes our future, and will also provide a guiding thread in architecture. Does anyone think of small alleys with no lights between buildings? About security? For men, not that important, I would say. Through new accessibility of female data, much more becomes apparent in mobility, which leads to the urban network lagging, and indirectly making women in the built environment invisible again.

Now that we have talked about invisible women, it becomes crucial that we start working on two things. First, women must be given the opportunity to become role models for the new generation of architects, predominantly female, and this should become the guiding thread for their architecture career. Besides, we see that data determines a large part of our current environment and has a lack in female data. Female architects will have to re-examine the ‘gendered data’ now and in the future.

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A call to all women, but also for men! Architecture has a macho atmosphere in the profession, in which women, the figures show, do not thrive very much. Of all architects, 23% are women, and that while the university ratio of men to women has been 50-50 for years. Time for a change, in 2021, women should be as much a role model as men and don't get run over, become an architect and speak up!

This article is an introduction to a topic we would like to talk more about: women in architecture. We're eager to hear your thoughts on the subject, so let us know!

From the editors

I READ IT ON THE INTERNET...

Words Jonas Althuis

Bnieuws has always been a print-based magazine. It’s our tradition, our sacred way of connecting with the students and staff of the Faculty of Architecture. That made the idea of going digital a taboo, something we were often thinking but never dared saying, and now that’s exactly what we’ve done. Here’s why.

As you have hopefully noticed, Bnieuws launched a website at the start of February. Knowing it would be an immense amount of work to set up, we spent a long time considering whether or not a website was the best way to go. On the one hand, the world around us continues to become more digital and international, a topic we explored in our previous edition. The internet is a fast way to share stories, information, imagery and more. A website allows for new types of content that haven’t been possible in the past; gifs, videos, interactive experiences, something we’re already spending a lot of time thinking about.

On the other hand, reading on a webpage doesn’t feel the same as the tactile experience of holding a physical book, magazine or even a printed image.

Besides, creating a website and maintaining it; keeping it up to date with new content and features is no small task, and it’s a task we don’t want to half-ass.

In the end, the second lockdown that started in December proved to be the deciding factor for us, as we really wanted to share the things we’re working on and thinking about with our readers. With the faculty closed for the foreseeable future, that wouldn’t really be possible without a new platform.

One of our goals is to create opportunities for discussion within the faculty, something we’re really

missing with the lockdown. So talk to us! Let us know how you’re feeling, what you’re working on, what’s inspiring you! Say hello; send us an email, or a message on instagram.

Another aspect that we’re very excited about is how the website has allowed us to bring new life into older editions of Bnieuws. This is a work in progress, but we are planning to digitalise as many older editions of Bnieuws as we can, going back approximately five years. A side note on this: we still have many physical copies of a variety of editions from the past few years. If there’s a specific edition you like and would like to have a printed copy of, let us know, we will check if we have any copies left and try to get you one if we do.

We have many ideas for the future of the website; from the way it looks, to the content we create for it.

For now, we found it important to have a strong basis on which we can develop further. Some of the ideas we have are: more opportunities for reader interaction (such as comments or likes) on editions and articles, an improved search system and better ways to come into contact with interesting articles from our past editions. We’d also really like to hear from you about this: what are your first impressions of the website? Have you looked through it? Do you like it? Are there things you’re really missing? What would you like to see us do with it?

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can find our new website at Bnieuws.nl, take a look!

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BK Report

THE DUTCH FACTOR Words Federico Ruiz

For many international students, there is a moment in their first months at BK when they are surprised by how the skills, motivation, and sense of responsibility of many of their Dutch colleagues is not as high as theirs. After a while, they learn that, academically, their Dutch peers are a crucial and unpredictable factor that has the power to define the outcome of any group assignment, for better or worse. But, why is this “Dutch factor” so determinant?

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This article is a consequence of many conversations with international students from different tracks. In those, we would discuss the feeling that our programs were not pushing us forward, but instead they were forcing us to go back to deal with situations that, we thought, had no place in a Masters program of a renowned faculty. As it was said in the introduction, this feeling did not have to do so much with the actual content of courses, but rather with study group dynamics and the efforts that were needed to work with some Dutch students, who lacked skills, had low motivation and hardly engaged in group activities. In these discussions, we would also agree about the fact that this situation was not to blame to Dutch students themselves, but to the Faculty and, by extension, to the Dutch system of education. The main reasons behind this statement are three.

First, there is the academic dimension: there are Dutch students who have been automatically admitted into the masters after three years of bachelor, working together with internationals who have gone through a very competitive selection procedure. Students belonging to this second group have typically graduated as the best of their class and for many (usually the non-EU internationals) it is common to have five years of training and one or more years of professional experience. This is

reflected in many aspects: the speed at which they can turn concepts into projects, their storytelling capacity, the knowledge they have of how things work outside academia and the level of their representation.

Then, there is the institutional factor. This is a university that works as a public and democratic institution for Dutch students and as an exclusive and high-cost school for the non-European world.

Besides this, there is the European framework that equals the trajectories of European bachelors and internationals, even if they are evidently different in terms of accumulated knowledge and skills.

Although it could be said that this raises the level of BK, it could also be said that it lowers the internationals’ level. A whole argument about colonial practices around knowledge could be made here, but that is a discussion for another article.

Third, there are expectations, both financial and academic. For internationals, being here is a privilege with a high cost: many either have bank loans or their families are making a huge investment in their education. For them, the two years at TU Delft must be worth it. Similarly, their academic expectations are high even before arrival: if everyone went through the same as they did, this place must be very good. This creates a sense of urgency and

commitment that is not shared by many Dutch, which then inevitably leads to disappointment.

Frustrated by this situation, a colleague of mine exploded one day. After five years of bachelors, she was a licensed architect in her home country and, before joining BK, she had been a project leader at a well-known office for three years, as well as a studio teacher for one. Now, she was feeling that besides having to pay for an exaggeratedly high tuition fee, she was also partially in charge of the education of the inexperienced Dutch students in her work group.

A perfectly valid point considering her trajectory, which qualifies her to be a practical replacement of teachers that will never have the time to “level-up” those students with the more dramatic knowledge and motivation gaps.

Here, an interesting question arises: are the efforts of studio coordinators to have mixed groups following a legitimate attempt to promote diversity? Or is this a well-intentioned strategy to make the gap between Dutch and internationals’ academic level less evident? It may sound paranoid, but the results of not mixing can be disastrous. Take an Architecture studio of last semester: all Dutch enrolled in it either failed without the possibility of a repair (three of them) or dropped out before finals (one of them), while of thirteen internationals, only one failed and one dropped. What happened in that studio seems to be more than just an anecdote, but this is something we will never know for certain unless the faculty starts monitoring the impact of professional and academic background in students’ performance. In responses to different emails, Erik Ootes, from the Education and Student Affairs department of the faculty, and Aart Oxenaar, director of education, wrote that this kind of monitoring was not currently implemented at the faculty, and that there were no future plans to do so.

This, I believe, is a lost opportunity to understand all the consequences of being a diverse place, using all the data there is. Instead, BK seems to be focusing

only in highlighting the parts that help sell itself to the world, while conveniently avoiding those discussions that should be everyday practice in a university, and a country, that sees itself as tolerant and open to diversity.

Here, as a sort of caveat, it is worth saying that this is not intended to be a trial on Dutch students. They can be hard-working people, and even if they are not, they are in their right to take it easy with their studies. Subsidized access to education allows them to try things and decide if they like them or not halfway through the process. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could do that? Unfortunately, the unequal world we live in does not allow for that, so we must think about alternatives.

As usual, it is easier to diagnose a problem than to fix it. Nonetheless, I believe that post-master programs are an interesting option to be explored.

Their admission process, which focuses on the actual experience of students, could be open for high-level Dutch and European bachelor students. To make the programs more attractive, they should also allow their graduates to practice professionally in the Netherlands (something they cannot easily do today.)

Yet, the faculty seems to be moving away from these programs: the European Post-master in Urbanism (EMU) was defunded and is set to be shut down after this year, and the haute-couture program of the Berlage is now the only unrealistic option for post-master students (they only admit 13 students per year).

To conclude, I invite the reader to think about this situation not as a problem of two confronted sides, but by considering that this is an unfair situation for all students that the faculty has been unable to tackle. Is it fair for some students to feel that they have extra academic pressure while their parent's pockets are being drained? No. Just as it isn’t fair for the Dutch factor to have a weight it should not have, lying between excessive expectations and a system that equalizes what is not equal.

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TABOO IN TRANSLATION TA B O O IN

O

Words & Images Oliwia Jackowska

Taking advantage of the international and multicultural community of TU Delft, we collected national traditions or beliefs that only make sense in given communities.

We might not understand why they exist, but this is what makes it special. Let’s respect each other and enjoy the beautiful Romanians love to eat pure pig fat, mixture of traditions and taboos but its fine, it is healthy because they all around the world! Enjoy. ry eat it with raw onion or garlic.

The Dutch are ve proud of their infrastructure.

If you cycle

ROMANIA

S

NETHERLAND

SPAIN 18

otective with too much pr do not gear it means you trust it.

socks is No sandals with u are yo s les the rule. Un d an sh iti a proud Br .

German tourist

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC When you want your parents to meet your girlfriend, make sure she does not cut the cheese peel off too thick, your parents won't let you marry her. Too lavish.

SAUDI ARABIA During beverage rounds do not accept your chai too quick, you are there for the people, not for the drinks!

Dominicans have a lot of pride in their sense of style, and would rather wear tight clothing even in highest heat, than look too comfortable.

CHILE When preparing your drink, you need to ALWAYS put pisco (alcohol) first, the n the ice and lastly the coke.

If the order is wr ong, you have nothing to look for in here!

INDIA POLAND Queuing is a national sport. Nobody will talk about it, but Polish use all kinds of cutting through techniques and strategies! Always stay focused, otherwise you lose your spot.

COLOMBIA

have it packed in a black bag.

UNITED KINGDOM

Colombia is known for its ama zing dancing culture all over the wor ld. You are unlucky if your moves and rhythm always fail you. Not knowing how to dance is social suicide!

is nsensus on what There is some co th wi tea r of your the perfect colou ays be a heated alw ll wi it t milk, bu .. y end with tears. discussion, it ma

ITALY

PORTUGAL The critique of bacalhau in an y possible form, can get anyone in a lot of troub le!

Female sanitary products are seen with suspicion. If you buy it at a store you will

is something Ketchup on pasta t talk about. that you just do no

BELGIUM When a guest, only accept a drink offer the second time, as it is not polite to do so straight away. Beware, you might be in for a draught if the offer does not come second time.

?

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Pen pal

BACK TO THE CINEMA. PLEASE. Words Alessandro Rognoni

If there is a type of space that we could easily call resilient, that is the cinema.

The screen in itself, more than the architecture around it, has been a source of adaptation, capable of carrying images projected in any different format, of any different content, from any part of the globe. Cinemas somehow always survived, through dictatorships or democracies: during WWII, they became both a source of distraction and information on the ongoing conflict; after the oil crisis in the 1970s, they turned to accommodate lower-budget, independent or pornographic productions. Being it watching a film or something else related, people always wanted to do it in rooms that are vast, dark, fetid, and funky.

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They also wanted to do it in what is, ultimately, a public space. Despite having been drastically commercialized, cinema-going is an event that eventually implies the important choice of escaping our private sphere, giving ourselves to the city, and traveling to what, eventually, is a very dirty chair. “[...] the darkness of the cinema is the color of a diffused Nonetheless, many of us still cherish moviegoing eroticism, by its human as an unmissable ritual. Is it for the grandiosity condensation, absence of of it? Or is it some sort of unmissable chance to worldliness and relaxation of depart our preoccupations and engage with postures.” fiction? The magical paradox of the cinema, that - Roland Barthes: “Leaving the is how deeply we can perceive the effort of our Movie Theatre” (1984) senses while being so brutally placed in front of a flat screen, is now common knowledge.

However, there could be more to the cinema than just a fun night out, as we are never too sincere when justifying our appeal to the screen, especially when dealing with our more voyeuristic, almost perverse motives. Such dishonesty might reflect our deep attraction for the framing act as a chance to see without being seen, and the lookingthrough-the-doorlock nature of being in a dark room, with a license to stare, and glare, without consequences. At the same time, while indulging our weirdest selves, at the screens we are in the company of others yet alone, in public yet in odd privacy. The excitement of such perversion is what makes us go back. We return in groups, or sometimes alone (if we are obsessed enough).

It is this strangeness that makes it all so alluring, especially as an urban ritual. Urban participation, quoting film critic Devika Girish, shares in fact the same paradox of “collective solitude” with the moviegoing experience, where urban dwellers find themselves in an exciting state of perpetual loneliness in which they practice the art of curiosity toward the others, avoiding any sort of engagement.

Now, we might agree or not with the contradictory aspects of moviegoing, but why is it so important for people to come back?

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Jean-Luc Godard - “Les Carabineers” (1963)

This crisis might, in fact, be a particularly tough one. While referring of course to the spread of Covid-19, the challenge for cinemas was already in place, and a crisis had begun way before last year. Let’s think of the rise of streaming bullies, the down of the middle-budget production, the intense polarization between venues for artistic and popular distribution, and the consequent rise in ticket prices. These were all conditions that slowly escalated since the digitization of cinematic production and, more recently, of cinematic reception. The virus might have given the final push in restricting our moviegoing experience to a mere extension of our social media world, equivalent just to an open Google Chrome tab on the top-left of our computer screen. In this stage, we find ourselves depressingly inactive and ignorant, as we get fatally distracted, even for the five seconds required to check our Twitter feed.

Distraction means lack of engagement, a sad ending for the magic of socially accepted voyeurism. Can the cinema, then, become the architect’s battleground?

Too often we exploit terms such as “appropriation of space”, “user-driven”, “bottomup”, or other tactics that imply a degree of responsibility given to the public within the

practice of urbanism. We usually do it without acknowledging the way people might negotiate between our architectural ideologies, when projected onto public space, and their individuality and diversity. Since these marginal audiences are often not automatically active or contestatory to spaces given to them, could cinema be a place for individual empowerment? At the screens, people find themselves to be immersed in imaginary spatial settings (in films) while being themselves in public space (at the cinema). Planners and architects might have taken this particular condition too superficially, simply considering the commercial performance of these places. How can cinemas provide new and outlandish ways of engagement between the public and their urban surroundings, once creatively reimagined as truly urban entities?

We must realize that moviegoing, in all its bizarreness, counts as one of the most defining and significant collective activities of our cities. We must realize, as agents of the built environment, our responsibility to give cinemas another shot.

This will be either by adapting its premises or re-evaluating them as pivotal urban components. Either way, people should go back to the cinema. If they do it differently, architects shall try and accommodate this change.

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The Berlage x Bnieuws

THE BERLAGE QUESTIONNAIRE: EMANUEL CHRIST of CHRIST & GANTENBEIN Words Ana Herreros & Jin Chang

Based on the late-nineteenth-century parlor game, made fabulous by answers from Marcel Proust, The Berlage Questionnaire is a series of questions posed to guests after their public online lecture about their lives, thoughts, values, and experiences to reveal their wit, character, and personality.

Your favorite character in history. Alexander von Humboldt.

Your favorite virtue. Sense of humor.

The building you’d like to wake up in. Hotel New York in Rotterdam. But that is my nostalgic side because I was unable to travel to the Netherlands for this lecture. Otherwise an ocean liner on its way to New York City.

Your most influential teacher. Hans Kollhoff, who was an amazing teacher.

Your favorite architectural text. Le Corbusier’s Voyage d’Orient.

Your idea of earthly happiness. Convivialité, as the French say, sitting around a table with family and friends. The act of eating and drinking is extremely beautiful. It is in this moment in which you are doing the most basic thing, the sharing of food.

Your favorite color. At some point in my childhood, I decided blue.

The last book you read. Hotel Florida, about the Spanish civil war and the artists and journalists who met in a hotel in Madrid during this period, such as Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn.

Your ideal collaborator. Christoph Gantenbein! We met as interns at the office of Herzog & De Meuron, and afterwards studied together with Hans Kollhoff at the ETH Zürich. Before completing our diploma project, we both needed one last elective, and chose the easiest course to earn the credits needed: Building Economy. We had to complete a feasibility

study for an empty plot of land and selected a piece of land on which we, after the course ended, we were fortunate enough to realize our first built project together: the Studio House Zollikon.

Your favorite indulgence. Good wine.

Your favorite musician. Johann Sebastian Bach. His music is very typological.

The building material you like the least. I like most materials, am I entitled to a joker?

Your favorite occupation. Being an architect; and more and more being a teacher.

Your favorite artist. Gerhard Richter.

Your favorite city to live. Basel, under the condition that once in a while I can get out.

Your most marked characteristic. Communicative.

The current societal issue that will determine the future of architecture. Political Correctness.

Your agenda for tomorrow. I’ll get up early to pack to go skiing with the family for the weekend;, then do design reviews for various projects in the office; visit the hairdresser for an appointment that I had to cancel twice due to busyness; and then I rush out of the office to miss the traffic jam to the Alps.

This questionnaire was adopted by Berlage students Ana Herreros and Jin Chang after Emanuel Christ’s remote lecture on February 11, 2021, as part of the Berlage Keynotes. See https://www.theberlage.nl/ for more information.

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From the editors

TAKE IT SERIOUSLY Words Federico Ruiz

This story begins in Zaandam. I went there to visit the Inntel Hotel, a building that I find to be hilarious. Its façade consists of a bunch of traditional wooden houses, stacked on top of each other in the least traditional of arrangements. The comical effect was even stronger as I considered how architects usually despise humour in architecture.

While standing in front of it, I couldn’t help but ask: what was going through the mind of the architect? I went to Wilfried van Winden, the author of this colossus, to try get an answer to this and other questions I had about his work.

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Van Winden is a soft spoken, 65-year-old man. When he opens the door of his office, the first thing I notice is his shirt. It is black, with a silver floral embroidery on the chest. “He is as decorated as his buildings,” I think, “that makes him a very coherent architect.”

Later in the interview, when I ask him about the tension between historical continuity and disruption in his work, he reveals that this connection isn’t only in my mind: “I remember [that] when I was in primary school, I could always choose my own clothing. And then [other children] laughed at how I looked. But I supposed that they were very jealous, it didn’t make me think I had to do something else. I didn’t mind. It is not a goal to be disruptive, but I don’t mind if it happens.”

When we sit at his large, black wooden table, I first ask him about his years at BK. He tells me how he enrolled in 1976 and opened his own studio together with Joris Molenaar in 1985. New responsibilities came with work, and at a certain point he was not sure about finishing his studies. Then, different personal and professional reasons made him reconsider this decision, and he finally graduated in 1987. At the time, he tells me, BK was faculty with a clear preference for modern architecture. Despite this, there was some room for dissidence. For

instance, together with other students and teachers, they would have informal meetings for discussing architects and preoccupations that were outside the mainstream canon. Their interests were broad and included in the Catalan architect Josep Jujol and the Italian Villas of the XV and XVI centuries. The latter theme earned a special place in van Winden’s heart after an excursion to Rome with teachers Rein Saariste and Vincent Ligtelijn, in which he also me Joris Molenaar.

This idea of broadening their field of interest was, perhaps, the main thing that stayed with them from BK: “it started during our studies […] and it became part of our work.” This way of proceeding, taking things from different times and cultures in order to produce something new, was eventually given a name: First, it was Radical Eclecticism, following Charles’ Jenks short essay for the 1980 Venice Biennale. Later, after van Winden started his own practice in 2009, it became “a more positive and inclusive notion named Fusion”. In WAM architects’ website, Fusion is defined as “a mindset rather than a style, a strategy that stands for an inventive way of mixing and interconnecting present and past, East and West, tradition and innovation, and high and low culture.” Following this definition, van Winden

has allowed himself to playfully switch and mix styles and influences without any architectural shame. I must admit this is something I admire. After years of hearing my teachers and colleagues constantly legitimising their ideas for how monolithic and “non-temporal” they were, it was intriguing to finally find someone who could fly by those nets.

When I ask him to explain Fusion to me, he explains that this idea has always been in continuous transformation. To illustrate this, he uses the Essalam Mosque as an example. It is located in the South of Rotterdam, next to the train tracks and in front of a park. The project was originally promoted by a politician who wanted to give a proper space in the city for the Muslim community. It was 1999.

After a few discussions and a failed first design proposal, there was consensus among everyone involved that the building should be built in a traditional Islamic style. Then came September 11th 2001, and something in the political environment radically changed “when the populist party Leefbaar Rotterdam came into power.” There was “a kind of oppressive thinking from the white point of view:

‘What we do is good, and it is good for everybody.’

And this was also what happened in the mosque.

The ruling political party, which was very much against the mosque, said ‘ok, it will be better if you take off the minarets and chop-off the cupola, make it a bit smaller, and make it look like a box.’ It was a very interesting point because, in fact, it was a very traditional [Dutch], kind of nationalistic, view, but they linked very much to the modern architecture.

And they wanted to strip those iconic [features] of this mosque, so you wouldn’t recognise it as such anymore. Then it would have been like a hidden or clandestine mosque. On the other hand, it was hardly surprising, because modernists strive after homogeneity, and the mindset of homogeneity excludes and prefers dirigisme [i.e. state-led control].”

This whole process made van Winden reconsider some of his views. “Until then, there was a strong idea that architecture was a kind of autonomous thing. And then there came a kind of notion that it might be bit different […] That it is part of politics.”

This is an obvious realisation, but also a very revealing one. With architects such as van Winden, it is often assumed that the design is a product of a whimsical and impulsive design process. But truth be told, even the most unconventional building must undergo a long and exhausting conventional bureaucratic process where countless negotiations and compromises challenge the architect’s supposed freedom. This requires of a degree of patience that leaves no space for ephemeral tantrums. Somehow, in architecture you must always take it seriously.

Façade of the Inntel Hotel Amsterdam-Zaandam. Courtesy of WAM Architecten.

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Essalam Mosque in Rotterdam. ©Ossip van Duivenbode. Courtesy of WAM architecten.

Villa Kooimans Rhoon. Courtesy of WAM architecten.

This is emphasised by van Winden when discussing the Zaandam hotel. When asked about the role of humour in the building and in his work, he quickly clarifies that: “It is funny, I don’t mind if you call it funny. But of course, it is not only funny, it was in fact quite serious.” This is something he repeats several times during our dialogue. Although he does not deny the possibility of fun, he also clarifies that it has never been his intent to be funny. In fact, just like with the mosque, this building also had to fulfil the needs of all the parties involved. When recalling the moment in which the scaffolding was removed and the façade of the hotel was finally revealed, he recalls how “That was amazing. Like, you [would] get a smile on your face. But in the meantime, it is just a hotel. It is a successful hotel, by the way. In the beginning, when we were designing, the existing hotel had 70 rooms, and then the programme for the new one was 120 rooms. And then, because we made some improvement of the plan, we could put more rooms, so we had 160 rooms. It was better for the clients.”

funny guy entering the village. They don’t know what to do with it, and then they find out that it is not so bad.”

The hotel is perhaps the most well-known of his works, not only for its design but also for the controversy that surrounded it. After its completion, the building was object of a plagiarism claim that was later proven to have no basis. Besides this, some of the residents initially saw the project as an offense to the region’s traditions, even though it was supposed to pay homage to its wooden architecture.

Eventually, it was embraced both by inhabitants and public authorities, and even used in advertisings of the Amsterdam region. For van Winden, the whole situation was like a situation in which “there is a

In fact, the hotel is a tremendously “funny guy.”

Apart from the obvious fact that houses do not stack in the real world, this is a building full of contradictions and conceptual misalignments.

Although it is supposed to represent wooden houses, all the façade panels that cannot be touched with the hand (i.e. most of them) are made of cement composite. The meeting rooms are built over a concrete viaduct that clearly contradicts the traditional construction system of these houses. To ease cleansing, the muntins of the windows are not holding any glass and are instead fixed to the façade.

The interior decoration of the rooms is suspiciously clean and missing decorations (it was not designed

by WAM). Just like in Venturi and Scott Brown’s concept of the “decorated shed,” which they theorized after studying Las Vegas’ Strip architecture, you could say the hotel’s façade is completely dissociated from its functional interior.

Earlier this year, Bernard Hulsman, a design critic for NRC who was reviewing a newly inaugurated bicycle shed near the hotel, described the whole urban project as an attempt to “bring Las Vegas and Florence to the Zaan region.” Although van Winden accepts the interpretation of his design as a “decorated shed,” he adamantly rejects Hulsman’s opinion: “It is not Las Vegas. It is Las Vegas when you build this in Las Vegas. They built Venice in Las Vegas, but if you build here it is Zaandam in Zaandam.” I propose a small change to this

The Cloud, a visitor centre in Zaandam. Its design was inspired by paintings as the one on the right. Courtesy of WAM architecten.

assertion: perhaps, it is more like an intensified version of Zaandam in Zaandam. He nods while laughing: “It is like drinking a cola together with a coffee.”

But, where does that “high intensity,” come from?

Going through WAM’s website, especially the descriptions of each project, offers an answer to this question. Voluntarily or not, part of van Winden’s humour seems to come from the use of literal references and assimilations: a residential tower in Leiden next to the observatory with ornamental constellations, a house in Delft with has a window that is “placed like a brooch” on the façade, and a visitor centre in Zaandam that is shaped as the clouds of old Dutch landscape paintings (sadly, it was bever built). On the other hand, his humour also seems to be related to the way in which he assimilates every architectural language or movement as a mere style. The most extreme case is that one of a house outside Rotterdam labelled as “neo-modern,” even though it could pass as any other contemporary design. Also for me, a millennial who never got to see the “modern world” being built, assimilating modernity as a style is an irreverent move. While this makes me realise how, despite all my efforts, I still worship modern architecture, it also makes me wonder if there is anything sacred for this man. In the end, everyone must define what is sacred and what is taboo to feel that they belong to something.

In the case of van Winden, that touchstone seems to be postmodernism. When ask him if he considers

View on the Amstel Looking towards Amsterdam by Jacob van Ruisdael. 1671 - 168. The Fitzwilliam Museum.

himself as a postmodern architect, he shows little doubt: “Yes, absolutely. What else could I be?”

Then, when questioned if postmodernity can also be a style, he also reacts quickly: “No, it is not a style. I describe it [...] as an attitude, not as a style. It is a way of looking at things in a way of judging things and a way of coping with things.” For someone who “sees in styles,” denying the possibility of becoming a “subject of style” seems like a contradiction. Still, I empathise with him. Anyone who passionately follows an idea inevitably loses critical distance in the process, and then is left to deal with the contradictions that come with that compromise.

But even then, when we have defined what we stand for and compromises have been made, there is a moment in which another kind of humour is possible. I first encountered this idea some months ago, when I asked about humour in architecture to Herman Hertzberger. He considered it to be a problematic theme, as in his view it jeopardised the durability of architecture over time by bounding it to a specific time and space. However, he admitted another kind of humour that, as he said, had to do “with putting things in perspective. Having a standpoint which is more lucid, more over things. […] I would say ‘never be too serious in what you do.’ So, in that sense, maybe, humour comes in.”

Van Winden agrees: “Take it seriously, but not too seriously.”

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Article Exchange

GORDON MATTA-CLARK: POETIC ANARCHY Words Juliette Khoo

By the time Gordon Matta-Clark completed his architecture degree at Cornell University, he was determined to pursue art as a career.

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During his studies, Matta-Clark mingled with the students in the art department instead of his own and helped to organise the first Earth Art exhibition held in 1969 at Cornell. Matta-Clark outwardly expressed his distaste for the architectural education he received: “…the things we studied always involved such surface formalism that I never had the sense of the ambiguity of a structure, the ambiguity of a place, and that’s the quality I’m interested in generating what I do.” His views continually conflicted with the tenets of high modernism: the endorsement of science and rationalism, an adherence to rigid form, and the detachment of architecture from the political, social and economic order.

In 1969, Matta-Clark returned to a chaos-ridden SoHo, marked by violent civil protests against the Vietnam War and the government’s plans to demolish entire neighbourhoods to build a steel and

high modernism, preferring to engage in what Robin Evans terms as positive interference: a change that permits “an expansion of possible actions but does not produce any restriction of existing possible actions”. The group met weekly at FOOD Restaurant, which Matta-Clark co-owned, to socialise, cook, perform and chat over a meal.

Matta-Clark’s idea of dissecting a building originated from renovating the space by cutting up the existing counters and walls.

ONE: UNBUILDING Due to the urban blight, many of the buildings in Lower Manhattan had fallen into a state of neglect and disrepair. Matta-Clark began to utilize these “free properties” for his building interventions, explaining that he felt a need “to relate to those buildings that have been abandoned by a system that doesn’t look after them, that imposes the rise and fate of property only as an end in itself.”

“ANARCHITECTURE ATTEMPTS TO SOLVE NO PROBLEM BUT TO REJOICE IN AN INFORMED WELL-INTENDED CELEBRATION OF CONDITIONS THAT BEST DESCRIBE AND LOCATE A PLACE.” Gordon Matta Clark, written notecard, c.1973 glass metropolis. Despite beginning his artistic practice in this tumultuous period, he formed a tight-knitted artist collective later colloquially known as the Anarchitecture group (1971). The group opposed the systemization and machine tradition of

One of his first dissections was Bronx Floors: Threshole (1972). Rectangular holes were cut through the floors of deserted buildings located in the South Bronx, then displaced from their original homes and exhibited in an art gallery. The South

Bronx was an area of widespread poverty and crime that the government had let deteriorate until they could start slating derelict establishments for redevelopment. Matta-Clark’s choice of location was an expression of the failure of the urban utopia ideal that modernism promoted. The act of razing through both floor and ceiling mirrored the verticality of the superstructures that would soon replace them.

Rather than ‘destruction’, Matta-Clark enacted a form of reverse building that exposed the underbelly of the edifice. Some of the holes align with internal thresholds- door frames and windows- enhancing the sense of the vertical extending beyond the horizontal plane, freeing up the liminal space from within.

TWO: WALLS In Splitting (1974), Matta-Clark performed a bolder move, making a direct vertical cut through the middle of another abandoned house that was soon to be demolished. As its title suggests, the house literally appears as if it were frozen in time, about to split into two separate halves, with the split receding in size as it reaches the base of the edifice. Slivers of daylight seep through this crack, imbuing the once pitch-black space with an ethereal quality.

Photocollages of the work by Matta-Clark show how light carves out new spaces in the building, and video documentation depicts how the boundaries of these spaces change with time.

Collage of silver gelatin prints that form a "sectional model".

literal sectional cut through the building. The act of sectioning the building creates transient, alternative spatial compositions instead of clearly defined spaces. Although Matta-Clark himself could not deny the “clean-line brutality” of his building cuts, the consequential views they offer are introspective, transformative, perhaps even subliminal.

“I would make a labyrinth without walls. I would create a complexity which is not about a geometry, not about a simple enclosure or confinement, and also not about barriers, but about creating alternatives which aren’t self-defeating.”

Gordon Matta-Clark in an interview for Avalanche, 1974

Stephen Walker notes that Matta-Clark disapproved of the domineering, deterministic nature of the traditional labyrinth that could only be easily navigated with access to the plan, an “omnipresent view” that forms the basis of architectural drawing conventions. In Splitting, Matta-Clark created a

THREE: FROM THE OUTSIDE, IN In 1975, Matta-Clark adopted an abandoned warehouse along the Hudson River which had fallen into decrepitude. Described by Matta-Clark as a “nineteenth century industrial relic of steel and corrugated tin looking like an enormous Christian

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basilica”, the building embodied a past era that would soon be excised from the fabric of the city.

This work, titled Day’s End: Pier 52, marked a shift in the building cuts from straight edges to curves, from frames to apertures. Unlike the previous domestic buildings, the warehouse had a singular, open interior, a dark volume of space owed to the lack of proper windows. The artist created several incisions in the warehouse, the main one being a teardrop-shaped “rose window” along the west wall facing the river. The incised piece of metal was hung from a chain and reattached to the hole, forming a partial eclipse. These punctures allowed different amounts of daylight to filter in, along with glimpses of the gushing river, creating what Matta-Clark termed “a sun and water temple”. In spite of the rational pragmatism promoted by high modernism, Matta-Clark continued to harness the intangible elements of nature in his architectural interventions to transform the warehouse into a sacral space.

However, Matta-Clark’s illegal adaptation of the warehouse led to the city filing a lawsuit against him shortly after completing the project.

FOUR: THE SEVERED EDGE A month after Day’s End: Pier 52, Matta-Clark created Conical Intersect, his most seminal work of art. As a contributor to the ninth Paris biennale, Matta-Clark was allowed to use two townhouses that would be demolished in a redevelopment of the Les Halles-Plateau Beauborg district. The Centre Georges Pompidou, a new cultural center named after the late French president, was being built adjacent to the townhouses. Matta-Clark’s schematic shows a truncated cone with its central axis at a forty-five degree angle to the street driven through the two townhouses. To create this, a line of concentric circles that receded in diameter had to be cut along this central axis. At some points, the apertures were intersected by other arcs, creating even more spatial complexity. The trajectory

appeared to point towards the Pompidou as if a ballistic missile had been launched at it. Each end of the cone looked onto two diametrically opposing eras: the Centre Georges Pompidou on the smaller end and the ruins of demolished buildings on the wider end. The exterior coalesces with the interior, conveying a strange subliminal quality, a contradictory stillness in spite of the physicality of the act. The severed edge of the hole, lined in white plaster from the walls it bore through, produces what Matta-Clark called “the element of stratification… which reveals the autobiographical process of its making”.

Matta-Clark extensively documented his cuts through photography, collage, and film, as part of an ongoing narrative of the building. As he progressed from drawing schematics, to choreographing cuts, performing them, then photographing and filming them, representations of the work metamorphosise from two dimensions to three dimensions and back to two, uncovering new perspectives at every stage.

This medium fluidity is also evident in his other works, which include puns, poems, photos, films, collages, graffiti and performance art— countering Clement Greenberg’s view of “medium purity” in modernist art.

Despite the fact that he was labelled as a rebellious anarchist and as someone who “violated the sanctity and dignity of buildings”, the artist himself expressed his wish for the audience to look beyond the alleged surface brutality of his work. These were not blind acts of rebellion against authority. Matta-Clark’s

oeuvre represents a branch of anarchy that deals with the more metaphysical aspects of the human condition that were repressed by the overbearing modern movement. By instigating the act of cutting, Matta-Clark foreshadowed these buildings’ eventual destruction, the predetermined fate that they were resigned to. However, this act also released confined spaces from the very boundaries that defined them.

His voids were breaks in an impervious barricade: by allowing light to permeate these forgotten, imprisoned areas, he reminds us of the innate ambiguity of space before walls and roofs defined them. To him, these abandoned buildings symbolised the plight of the lower classes, who had been failed by a system that abetted social stratification and racial segregation.

In retrospect, it is questionable whether his intentions were successfully conveyed to a wider audience. For instance, Pamela Lee notes that “groups of pedestrians are seen scratching their heads while staring up at the buildings" in the film documentation of Conical Intersect, as if perplexed by the sight of the huge void. His building dissections could be criticised as too insular, too removed from society to be termed political and social activism.

The artist himself acknowledged this, choosing to participate in more community-based work such as the Resource Center and Environmental Youth Program for Loisaida (1976) nearing his premature death from cancer in 1978, aged 35. Despite his early passing, Matta-Clark’s architectural eloquence left a legacy that continues to redefine how we think about space.

“What I do to buildings is what some do with languages and others with groups of people: I organize them in order to explain and defend the need for change.”

Gordon Matta Clark, Proposal to the workers of Sesto San Giovanni, 1975

This article was published in “Anarchy” - Issue 15 of the student-led magazine at the University of Bath Paperspace. As part of this article exchange, we can share some of the work from different architecture student magazines in the world. For more information about the article, view it on our website.

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Artefact

KITCHEN KNIFE Words Ulf Hackauf

‘Artefact’ is a recurring two-page spread, which features a beloved object presented by one of the BK City staff members. Every month, the author passes the ‘Artefact’ contributorship to the next. Last month, Amber Leeuwenburg nominated teacher and researcher Ulf Hackauf, who works on the relation of urban metabolism and urban morphology at the section of environmental technology and design.

After my toothbrush, my phone and computer, this kitchen knife is probably the artefact I use most. In the morning to chop fruit, in the evening to prepare dinner and since corona also to prepare lunch for me and my partner. Preparing food is always a welcome break from work. Your hands get to do something different than typing. And you get something done: Cooking a meal is like a small little project, where you actually do meet the deadline. A very rewarding experience.

When I was young, I started baking before I got into cooking. After all, self-made cakes and tarts are essential to German family life. Only later, as a student, I got into cooking.

Baking and cooking seem similar, but are actually two very different ways of preparing food. For baking, good planning and precision are required. If your dough misses the right amount of yeast or soda, you will later not be able to repair the failed cake.

Cooking is much more forgiving. A lot of dishes can still be tweaked until the very last moment. A good chef is not necessarily a good baker and vice versa.

You could compare this to researching versus designing. While you can tweak the design of a building until close to the deadline, research is less flexible and requires stricter planning. Maybe this difference makes it so very challenging to combine the two, in practice, but also in education. How rare is it to be a really good researcher and designer at the same time? And why do we expect designers to be good in research, while we do not expect researchers to be skilled in designing?

The short moments of chopping an onion and preparing a meal are great times to let your thoughts wander off…

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And then we whispered.

Was it fear? Was it fire?

Closing the eyes and shutting down.

Refuse to use, refuse to drown.

We are triggered, Withdrawn in the waiting room.

Flooded with the silence, Unspoken, imbalanced.

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Here are misunderstandings, Words without endings.

Stirred up, swallowed, Skewed looks, walls narrowed.

Whereas the windows still open, Not meant for only staring.

Blame it on us, shame on you, Ascend through and shatter, Taboo.

Words by Anne van den Berg, Image by Raven van der Steen.

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NEXT ISSUE: COLOURS Before 1856, people had to catch 12.000 snales to produce 1,4 grams of the colour purple, that's why you don't see purple flags until recent times. In west-african cultures people used the colour blue during death and bereavement ceremonies, which is why slaves who worked on the Southern plantations sang about "the blues" in their songs. There are many stories, symbols and associations with colors, that's why the next's edition will be all about colors. Each writer will be matched with a color, so which color are you going to write about?

Bnieuws 54/05 due April 2021.

Bnieuws INDEPENDENT PERIODICAL OF THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT TU DELFT VOLUME 54 ISSUE 04