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Soeters in the Wrong
The Prix de Rome architecture competition reached its conclusion last Thursday as the candidates in the final round presented their projects to the public. The presentation was to have been followed by a discussion with academics and developers intended to shed light on the relationship between architecture and entertainment. As it turned out, events took a different course. Architect Sjoerd Soeters expressed his agitation with the Prix de Rome design assignment and, in the process, roundly attacked the entire Dutch architecture education system.
The Prix de Rome organisers set a trendy, contemporary assignment for the final round: to convert the vacant CSM factory in Halfweg into a multifunctional events complex. The designers not only had to come up with an architectural design but also offer a vision on current society, on cultural developments and on the coagulating Randstad region. The participants were not to be thrown off course by all that rhetoric,
and each of them pursued their own fascinations. Winner of second
prize Theo Hauben, for example, elaborated further his interest
in 'movement as attraction' in which the car is not a problem but
a source of pleasure: 'a lunapark of parking garages'. Marion Regitko
(basic prize) shunned more emphatically the context provided and
simply opted to continue the study into form initiated in the preliminary
round. Intriguing forms inspired by coral reefs, reworked on the
computer into intriguing spaces where diving and ice climbing coexist
with lunching office workers.
Economic geographer Kloosterman kicked off the ensuing discussion by portraying today's young generation: 'For an evening out they choose between the Leidseplein, Scheveningen or the Maasvlakte. To them the Delta Metropolis is a reality.' But though, with six million inhabitants, it is comparable in scale to such metropolises as Berlin or Paris, it lacks a distinctive identity. And it lacks such essential places as a large public space for mass gatherings, like as Potsdamerplatz or the Champs-Elysées. 'Non-places like Halfweg lend themselves very well to creating such a distinctive identity for contemporary mass entertainment,' declared Kloosterman, 'but they must be unique, varied, surprising and public'. Kloosterman declined to say whether any of the presented projects met these criteria. The other speakers - Mommaas of the Catholic University in Tilburg and Dasbach, commercial director of Multi Vastgoed - were also reluctant to pass judgement. There was clearly a gulf between the leisure industry and the architecture presented. Mommaas succinctly expressed the discrepancy thus: 'in the leisure industry the programme is the problem, not the design. In the Netherlands we are not yet particularly good at large-scale entertainment. Many initiatives fail, among them the Miracle Planet in Enschede and the Van der Ende Studios in Aalsmeer. Even the Arena in Amsterdam is losing money'.
'So the assignment was a futile one,' argued Soeters, whose designs include the Java Island in Amsterdam. 'It's completely unrealistic, cut out all this nonsense, too embarrassing for words. Education should start addressing serious matters again. The younger generation only discovers what the world is like after fifteen years. To them it's a matter of gleaning magazines and copying images - it's not grounded in reality, pure incest', Soeters seethed with contempt. And there the discussion changed completely. Not entertainment, not the Delta Metropolis, but architectural education and the reveries of the architectural elite came under scrutiny. Soeters advocated an education that addresses serious problems. And to him, serious problems are urban problems. He echoed Vittorio Magnago Lumpugnani, who in the foreword to the Prix de Rome catalogue criticises 'the reality of the embalmed city centres and the bleak peripheries'. 'Why should we suck the life out of the cities and move activities to peripheral locations such as Halfweg?' he asked rhetorically. It seems to have become something of a tradition: older architects who seize competitions for young designers to vent their spleen. Carel Weeber paved the way with his TV performance during the awards ceremony for the ideas competition 'Het aanzien van Nederland'. Remarkably, both are in favour of design assignments that are more in touch with practice and are averse to what Soeters calls 'idle daydreaming'.
And was Soeters right in using this debate to express his irritation
once again with the elite of architecture and Dutch architectural
education? No: because if he had listened more attentively then
he would have heard Kloosterman state that the non-places beyond
the cities could be significant in defining the identity of the
Delta Metropolis; because if he had looked more carefully he would
have seen designers who were not ruffled by the design assignment
and who consciously charted their own course (though perhaps not
to Soeters' liking; and because if he had sensed the mood better
he would have realised that he could have played a more honourable
role in this debate than that of a grumpy old character. Postscript:
Frido van Nieuwamerongen, Arconiko Architecten translation: Billy Nolan informatie: |
