Icontradictions, have always been attracted to so Lucien Kroll’s office was and still
is fertile ground for me. The discipline’s Janus-faced aspect appeared a long time before I even started thinking of becoming an architect: on one side was this intriguing building called “La Mémé”- a project impossible to understand without the necessary background and maturity - which I discovered as a teenager, while on the other were the selfish dreams of creating beautiful buildings for others one day. It was over three decades ago when “La Mémé” was constructed about two kilometers away from where I grew up in the east side of Brussels. My first job at Kroll’s office was the result of coincidence and some luck, and the shape of architecture’s contradictions grew visible. I slowly understood Kroll’s varied and even contradictory personality. “La Mémé” initially appears to many as the natural manifestation of a collectively conceived design process, fully inspired by participatory design. The building is at the same time totally designed by the one and only Lucien Kroll himself, in such a brilliant way that it is now listed for conservation as a monument. The Zilvervloot, Dordrecht, D. Boutsen, L. Kroll,2006,
“La Mémé” is one of the first examples of “Open Building”, combining a concrete structure with flexible infills and changeable facades. The ultimate controlled design represents openness and possibilities of evolution in time. And the origins are, I know now, truthfully based on participatory processes. Janus with two heads, or more? History insists in any case that this building is part of the architectural history.
Images of design workshops related to The Zilvervloot (2001–2003)
The participatory design processes in “La Mémé” in combination with construction techniques based on flexible components have been influencing many other projects in and outside Kroll’s office in numerous ways. A major project with a number of literal and less literal reminiscence to “La Mémé” is situated in Dordrecht, The Netherlands. “The Zilvervloot”, a building complex commissioned by Woonbron and completed in 2006, is the first phase of the revitalizing of the Admiraals Square in Wielwijk. This housing and shopping project clearly complements the current, one-sided discussion of the renewal of post-war cities by creating exceptional residential quality. The banality of the existing situation is complemented by a sturdy showpiece. Different material choices, color patchworks and architectural tools are deployed in every possible way.
La Mémé, Maison Médicale, L. Kroll, 1970
La Mémé, L. Kroll, 1970 connection of visually related, but different, components
The Zilvervloot, Dordrecht, D. Boutsen, L. Kroll,2006, chain of stylish different objects
Broad cultural depth in a
environment:
The research climate at Sint-Lucas school of Architecture is based on openness to the mental models of others. Guaranteeing this openness is also what I aim at by introducing fragile as a lens through which all the different issues and problems presented and elaborated upon in the school can be viewed. Hence fragile 2010-2011 is becoming something like a central concern underpinning and driving all theoretical and design production at Sint-Lucas, including research. Fragile manifests itself intuitively as the general, overarching quality or question in the light of which both the studio itself and the theoretical answers it produces are examined.
http://www.sintlucasfragile.be “La Mémé” and the Zilvervloot similarly appear as a complex patchwork; the Zilvervloot is however not composed by the means of a technical grid unifying the whole. The Zilvervloot also contains a variety of architectural signs and symbols, which have not been designerly abstracted as in “La Mémé”. The Zilvervloot is much more a chain of different stylish objects and less a connection of visually related, but different, components. There is an obvious correlation between the slow and fully participative design process and the aesthetic outcome of this project. Its resulting uniqueness strengthens the involvement of residents in their immediate surroundings in order to experience the residential building as a collective object. This architecture is based on different types of trust. As a matter of fact, the mentioned correlation is currently a subject of my PhD research.
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