Some of the most inspiring thoughts about addressing issues of social justice through design and the arts has come from the world of architecture. Creating shelter for humans, a basic and fundamental form of protection (a basic right really) is tantamount to architecture. Humans and the human body are at the center of this practice.
In the summer of 2016, Fab City took place in on Amsterdam’s Java Eiland. This exhibition explored how technology and social design can bring innovation to an urban living space, including the buildings we inhabit, with the goal of making the quality of life better in the city.
L: Fab City sustainable design principles, R: Architectural experiment at Fab City
During the Fab City event, an architectural historian lectured on the history of social housing in the Netherlands. (I am still searching my notes for the historian’s name.) One example she gave was a home from the 1920s which incorporated a vegetable garden as part of its design. This was, she stated, because there was an assumption that the poor didn’t know how to eat properly. Biased social views of a certain class of people affected the design and form of the home. The other speakers went on to discuss how architects, builder and developers, could work more with the citizens inhabiting the spaces. The origins of the structure for a space was questioned: Does the architect know better than the user? Does the user lack the skill set and vision of the architect? What is the balance? And how does a city balance economics with livability for all? One of the other panelists was a city planner for the recent developments in the Houthaven district of Amsterdam. After his talk, he was bombarded with questions on how the original vision for Houthaven as an equitable neighborhood, was in fact becoming a place for the 1% of Amsterdam.
Some Architecture of Rotterdam
If we look at the Netherlands in simplified terms, Amsterdam is a city that preserves the architecture of the Golden Age. Rotterdam feels much more contemporary, with taller buildings and streets more like American car-culture streets (although the biking is still extremely safe). When I think of contemporary architecture in the Netherlands, Rotterdam is the city that comes to mind. Partially due to the devastating bombings during World War 2 which left much of Rotterdam needing to be rebuilt, it has become a testing ground for contemporary Dutch architecture, much of it experimental. With my friend and artist Samantha Thole as guide, I have bicycled through Rotterdam several times seeing the buildings shaped like pencils, the vast interior of the Market House, a swimming pool converted into a mushroom farm and restaurant, and the block houses by Piet Blom. I was lucky enough to stay in an Air BnB in one of the Block Houses with its sloping walls and windows than opened down.
When it came time to bring the CSW students to the Netherlands in 2017, I called on Sam’s partner architect Jasper de Haan to guide us around the city. He took us on a bicycling tour of Rotterdam to see social housing, the repurposed Van Nelle coffee factory, his own houseboat, and other innovative architecture of Rotterdam. He came to it as not just an architect and architectural educator, but also as a resident of Rotterdam.
During my own work last spring I met with Jasper to get a feel for his own architectural practice, and to learn more about Dutch architecture, and architectural education. I was interested in how he created, taught, and thought about architecture as a maker and as a Rotterdammer.
His own interest in architecture began as a child when his family built a new home. He loved examining the models and seeing the process of the house being built; it was his first awareness of design. De Haan went on to study at the University of Delft, the premier architecture school in the Netherlands. He was interested in studying with Rem Koolhaas, a Dutch architect who now teaches at Harvard. Koolhaas is a well-known and innovative architect who questions and challenges the spaces we live in.
"The City is an addictive machine from which there is no escape"
(from Rem Koolhaus's book Delirious New York).
To be sure this quote alone is an oversimplification of Koolhaas, and now (as always) I want to jump down the rabbit hole of learning more about Koolhaas. In 2020, Koolhaas will exhibit Countryside: The Future of the Worldat the Guggenheim. Countryside will show his research into the rural/non-urban as overlooked, with what he considers political and cultural ramifications.
Jasper de Haan (on the bakfiets) leads CSW students on bike tour of Rotterdam, here biking on an alternate EU flag designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.
Out of the rabbit hole and back to de Haan.
During the interview, de Haan’s appreciation for two things became clear.
An appreciation for the rules and methods of a Bauhaus education and the solid foundation it can make, balanced with the usefulness of chaos and rule breaking, but with thought and context.
This is very apparent in his work, which you can see more comprehensively at his website linked below.
There were two events in de Haan’s education that were significant influences. The first was his first-year architectural program at University of Delft which was based on the Bauhaus foundations. De Haan said he likely learned more that year than any other in his life. The Bauhaus is a huge and interesting topic that I cannot do justice, but there is no shortage writings on the school, its philosophy, and the artists associated with it. The Bauhaus was developed post WWl in Dessau, Germany. It responded to industrialization of the times by teaching students to value craftsmanship, and to master a variety of materials and techniques. It had specific pedagogical steps in how to learn the theories behind form, color, and various formal elements. While this sounds very regimented (and maybe was in some ways), there was a very spiritual aspect to it. Not in the religious sense, but as a reckoning with the chaos of Europe that brought them WWl. They wanted nothing to do with pre-war aesthetics of ornamentation and extravagances. It was a rejection of the culture and values that preceded this devastating war.
The Bauhaus Curriculum wheel
The rules and the craftsmanship were seen as a foundational. It was the walking before you run. It is what many art-foundation programs in the US based their pedagogy on for years. This basic aspect of art education that applied to de Haan’s education, and mine, as well as most art schools, only recently being questioned. (I was lucky enough to catch the Bauhaus exhibition at the Boijmans while I was in Rotterdam. There will be more about this in a future posting.)
"Architects, sculptors, painters—we all must return to craftsmanship! For there is no such thing as “art by profession”. There is no essential difference between the artist and the artisan. The artist is an exalted artisan. Merciful heaven, in rare moments of illumination beyond man’s will, may allow art to blossom from the work of his hand, but the foundations of proficiency are indispensable to every artist. This is the original source of creative design."
Walter Gropius, founder of Bauhaus, 1919
When I asked de Haan about contemporary Dutch architecture he said post WWll architecture had become very specialized, that the building aspect of architecture was separated from the planning part. He joked that contemporary architecture could be seen more as “decorators” in the current climate. One could see this as out of balance, the design without the making. It does not follow the Bauhaus pedagogy. De Haan spoke about the importance of tacit knowledge that came from Bauhaus ideas of craftsmanship and learning from the hand. He also thought beaux arts approach to drawing (rigorous, observational) was missing from contemporary Dutch architectural education, and has to do with a tacit knowledge as well. I have seen a lack of drawing at Dutch art schools and have been (very) critical of the lack of being able to construct a visual image that often accompanies this. Drawing teaches you to make as well as see.
Before the economic crisis of 2008 aesthetics were more the focus of architectural design, and now the euro has more weight in determining the aesthetics . He says it is slowly getting better as the economy strengthens. This makes me wonder how economics determine values, and how in turn that might affect a skyline. Rotterdam’s building are so exemplary and varied, with a good sense of play. In the US there are new neighborhoods popping up in cities which a friend refers to as “Little Indianapolis”, meaning they look the same wherever you go. The McDonaldization of urban spaces. It is determined by economics in the “name of progress” (read “luxury apartments” and a Whole Foods) but are unresponsive to the specifics of the cities they land in. It could be a kit.
The second event that was meaningful in de Haan’s education was the fall of the Berlin wall in 1991. De Haan was in Berlin at the time. “We were studying and somebody had a small car. An orange one. And we drove to Berlin at the end of 1989 to see ourselves what was going on….dance parties, dinners, bars, shops, etc. a bit like the squatting scene in Amsterdam at that time. There were a lot of contacts between the squatting scenes in Netherlands and Germany.”
Berlin in the 1980s
The time in Berlin affected de Haan. He recalls thinking “there are no rules” anymore. Everything could be experimental.
The walking was done, now it was time to run.
Dada as a Tool
He gave a lecture I wish I could have attended, called “Dada As a Tool”. It addressed the “logic of ridiculousness”. Concepts might have a root in the insane, but when using this logic, do it seriously.
A question I circle back to is how do you teach students to ask why not? How do you make the impossible possible, and how do you teach students to look for that?
De Haan’s teaching practice shows students asking “why not?” In his work and teaching there is an embracing of the Dada “ridiculousness”, of learning to break the rules.
I struggle with how to teach this embracing of the ridiculous, of the possibility of impossibility. Students often ask me how to take risks, wanting specifics. Their desire for clarity, and direction is understandable, but of course it doesn’t work like that. There is a larger opening of the self to chaos, chance, and ridiculousness that is needed. Ista Boszhard and Cecilia Raspanti of TextileLab (see blog posting What Happens When a Clothing Designer Looks Through a Microscope) talked about sneaking in the idea of playing with rules while teaching. For them it was about creating an environment where experiments happen and unexpected connections are made. I am also beginning to focus on the idea of proximity, but more on that later.
Kijkgrip: Crawling from the Wreckage
L: Student work from the Kijkgrip Project, R: Aerial view of the Bijlmermeer
In the Kijkgrip project de Haan supervised students from Amsterdam Academy voor Bouwkunst (Amsterdam Academy for Architecture). This project took place in the Bijlmer, a planned neighborhood in the South East part of Amsterdam with a fascinating history (link below). The project reused materials from one of the last Bijlmer apartments to be torn down, the Kleiburg Apartment Building. The project title Kijkgrip refers to a self-serve grocery store, with the idea that students were to use the building detritus as their supply. This ties into contemporary ideas of a circular economy: there is no waste, but reuse.
One end became another beginning.
It makes me imagine Rotterdam rebuilding after the wreckage the war left behind.
Severe Houses for Nice People
A project of de Haan’s own that engages with the ridiculous is the Smirnoff Button Room at the Winston Hotel in Amsterdam (2000-2002).
In de Haan’s words:
“The guest enters the room through a chrome-plated steel door. Above the bed, the same bed is suspended from the ceiling. The walls are bright red. At the head of the bed there is a bright red emergency button with a sign under it:
DO NOT TOUCH BUTTON
If the button is pressed, nothing seems to happen at first. Then strange sounds emanate from under the bed. Weird singing in an unknown language fills the space. All of a sudden, with an overwhelming noise, chrome-plated steel rolling shutters drop down along all four walls. In front of the window, in front of the button, and in front of the phone. In the meantime the temperature of the room has unnoticeably dropped. Locked up, with music that is anything but soothing.
After a few minutes, monitors light up in the suspended bed. The hotel guest realizes he has been filmed by five hidden cameras for some time. After about 15 minutes, with the same noise, all four shutters open simultaneously. The light and temperature return to normal. The whole room is exactly as it was before the transgression.”
The bedroom, a room to escape to, becomes a room to escape from. What is worse is you put yourself there.
It might have roots in the ridiculous, but it is pursued with seriousness.
De Haan mentioned how architecture professor, O.M. Ungers (a professor of Koolhaas’s) encouraged students to engage with impossible possibilities. He had students design a house a week with prompts such as: make a house with no windows, make a house with a swimming pool that doesn’t fit the house, etc. The impossible was a weekly goal.
You can see the influence of this with de Haan’s project names and designs: Rusty Houseboat, House with One Door, Underground Picnic, and my personal favorite: Severe House for Nice People.
de Haan's Severe House for Nice People
I am also pleased to see a picture of Legos on de Haan’s website.
Making is learning. The impossible is a beginning.
Above: Darkroom
*Portrait of de Haan, and all images of his work are from de Naan's website with permission. I encourage you to see his website for a comprehensive look at his work.
Pedagogical thoughts my talk with de Haan leaves me with:
(Again) how do I create that space where the ridiculous can be pursued? (the idea of proximity keeps popping in my head lately)
We have had many students interested in architecture, so how do we (CSW) bring in pedagogy to support this? I asked Igor Marjanović, and architecture professor from Washington University a few years back, and he said it wasn’t so much about making maquettes, as it was about understanding space and how humans interact with it, and how to read the decisions that have been made about this space. This is very much what colleague Doug Healy and I did with our Mapping Meaning curriculum. But now how to do it in the courses I teach solo?
How to balance and more importantly to integrate the need for hands-on skills with the more conceptual and ridiculous. This has always been a question for me, as I think they are often posed and practiced as opposites or at best yin and yang. But how to see and teach them as the same thing?
(Jasper’s website talks about the "poetics of the realistic")
What is the 1980s Berlin of current times? The thing you thought would never happen which shifts the way we see the world it’s possibilities?
LINKS to People Places and Ideas Mentioned
Jasper de Haan Website
de Haan’s Twitter (in Dutch)
Fab City
Learning in the Bauhaus School: Five Lessons for Today’s Designers.
Simple Rem Koolhaas bio:
Jasper de Haan’s interview with Rem Koolhaas
Rem Koolhaas and OMA show Countryside at the Guggenheim
O.M. Ungers
Social Design Insight podcast
Artist Samantha Thole
The Bijlmer (so sayeth Wiki)
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