Post Box for the Open Society
Online platform for the exchange of ideas and designs on the subject of the open society
Open: A Bakema Celebration
The Dutch entry to La Biennale di Venezia’s 14th International Architectural Exhibition
Posts
Entry: Wednesday, May 28, 1947
Submitted by:
Jaap Bakema Study Centre
Country:
The Netherlands
Category:
Housing
For the 1955 CIAM meeting in La Sarraz Jaap Bakema presented a basic grid of the elements for the new city extension of Rotterdam, Alexanderpolder, as produced by the Rotterdam CIAM group of Opbouw. In an attempt to address the general theme of Habitat, which was the key issue for CIAM in the 1950s, it presents a catalogue, that ranges from the smallest element of the single house to the largest of a slab block reminiscent of Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation of 1952. The various typologies accommodate families from all walks of life. Together they create a modern cityscape based on patterns of mobility and the logic of mass production in the building industry.
Comments: [3]
Entry: Wednesday, May 27, 1953
Title: De Lijnbaan
Submitted by:
Jaap Bakema Study Centre
Country:
The Netherlands
Category:
Public space
The Lijnbaan opened in 1953, as the main pedestrian street in the new shopping district. It was a highly symbolical project of hope and progress, the epitome of the new, reconstructed Rotterdam after the old city centre was completely destroyed during the bombing of Rotterdam by the German Luftwaffe in May 1940. It combined the universalism of the welfare state with the new consumer culture of the post-war decades. Within CIAM circles it became a model for the idea of 'core', or the heart of the city, the 1951 theme of the CIAM congress in Hoddesdon, UK. The project was planned by the firm of Van den Broek en Bakema in close cooperation with the various shop owners and the city department of planning. To accommodate the demands of the individual shop owners a basic typology of shops was developed with a catalogue of different spatial configurations including voids and shop windows. To create a comprehensive streetscape, a rigorous facade system was developed of repetitive, concrete elements together with a continous canopy, with which all individual shops had to comply. Other street elements included kiosks, telephone booths, benches, art pieces and greenery. The highrise slabs of appartments were designed by among others Hugh Maaskant.
Comments: [46,964]
Entry: Sunday, January 14, 1962
Title: Van Stoel tot Stad (video)
Submitted by:
Jaap Bakema Study Centre
Country:
The Netherlands
Category:
Inspiration
'Van Stoel tot Stad' [from the chair to the city] was a lectures series by Jaap Bakema broadcast on Dutch national television in 1961-1962. Standing in front of a blackboard Bakema explains his ideas about man and his existence in what he calls 'Total Space'. He speaks about his ideas for housing every citizen, building the new cities and creating a modern society. The lectures series was directed and recorded by Leen Timp for the AVRO public broadcast company.
Comments: [0]
Entry: Thursday, May 28, 1964
Submitted by:
Jaap Bakema Study Centre
Country:
The Netherlands
Category:
Critique
Bakema's famous TV lecture series 'Van Stoel tot Stad' [from the chair to the city] of 1961-1962 was published as a book in 1964. It was illustrated with many sketches in Bakema's hand to explain his ideas about man and his existence in what he calls 'Total Space'. The sketches explain the principles behind the numerous projects by Bakema, especially housing projects, the way scale, space and interrelations should be considered by architects and what sort of society architects could help to create. It is also a story about a new modern identity for the Netherlands, in terms of its own identity in relation to the landscape and its polders and in relation to the larger context of post-war Europe.
One of the key statements reads: ‘What could be the architecure of an open society? Surely, at the very least the forms we build, should make clear that everybody has a right to a conception of life that is his own.’
Comments: [0]
Entry: Sunday, May 28, 1972
Title: 't Hool Eindhoven
Submitted by:
Jaap Bakema Study Centre
Country:
The Netherlands
Category:
Housing
't Hool in Eindhoven is one of the best demonstrations of Bakema's ideas for housing and his concept of the visual group. The project was developed together with the city of Eindhoven and with employees of Philips, who initiated the planning of the new city district and who asked Bakema to become the architect of their project. The concept of the visual group is based on the idea that each district or neighbourhood should be a reflection of the larger society as a whole, and that each household type from the single individual to the family to the aged couple should be provided with a proper home in such an inclusive district. It is an idea derived from social studies, neighbourhood planning and social engineering policies, that are commonly associated with the Western European welfare state of the post-war period.
In Eindhoven this resulted in a living environment characterized by generous outdoor spaces and an unmatched variety of housing types: from highrise appartments to walk-up flats, to all sorts of row houses, patio houses, detached houses and so-called growing houses. The architecture style is a laconic kind of brick architecture with natural painted wood with special attention paid to transitional elements as porches and doorsteps. It is both ordinary and generous in the way it allows for the everyday practices of appropriation by its inhabitants.
Comments: [2]
Entry: Sunday, May 28, 1972
Title: City Hall Terneuzen
Submitted by:
Jaap Bakema Study Centre
Country:
The Netherlands
Category:
Public space
Bakema and his office Van den Broek en Bakema designed the new town hall of Terneuzen as a meeting point. It is situated between the old city and the new districts and it sits against the dyke overlooking the sea and the Westerschelde estuary. Because of its bold and sculptural concrete architecture it acts as a point of orientation for the citizens of Terneuzen while connecting the various elements of the larger environment (old and new, sea and land, government, administration and community). The architecture is reminiscent of infrastructural engineering works that serve and protect, rather than the representation of authority. The spatial lay-out of the building is like an upward going spiral; by way of a split-level system public and ceremonial spaces are connected with the offices of the administration.
Bakema calls the building an 'open structure', because of the interrelationships between the building as a democratic representation of the city and the larger community and because of the concrete structure that opens up at the top of the building awaiting future appropriation.
Comments: [0]
Entry: Monday, June 2, 2014
Submitted by:
Team Gunday - Hemant Pawar, Francesca Agresti, Zhen Zhang, Hugo Corbett, Thomas Ponds
Country:
India
Category:
Housing
Team Gunday seeks to explore the changing role of the architect in Ahmedabad as the city expands, rejecting nostalgia for the traditional Indian village, embracing the contradictions of contemporary Indian culture and acknowledging a new urban paradigm characterised by strange adjacencies, rapid expansion, form following finance, a paradigm which is unreflecting, contested, flexible and irrational.
On the edge of Ahmedabad, one of Asia’s fastest growing cities in one of India’s wealthiest states, Modi and friends welcome large housing developers at the expense of local democratic processes, informal settlements, ecologies and ‘Architecture’ (in the city of Kahn, Corbusier, Correa and Doshi).
Comments: [2]
Entry: Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Submitted by:
Ethel Baraona Pohl
Country:
Spain
Category:
Housing
The most recent issue of Quaderns [the Journal of the Association of Architects of Catalonia], is called ‘House and Contradiction’, and it’s focused on the contemporary need of rethinking the concept of housing, based on the idea that ‘Contradictions’ – whether political, social or economic – should act as triggers capable of pulling all the strings of architecture.
Comments: [0]
Entry: Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Title: The Good Life
Submitted by:
The Berlage Center of Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design
Country:
The Netherlands
Category:
Inspiration
Comments: [0]
Entry: Friday, June 6, 2014
Title: BIM is beautiful
Submitted by:
NL Architects
Country:
The Netherlands
Category:
Inspiration
Building Information Management (or is it Modelling?) is the new key to successful projects. Potential failure can be prevented by erecting a complete virtual model of the building. It allows all partners in the planning process to work together on the same ‘drawing’.
Comments: [0]