I was essentially appalled at the way that the Mullerpier in Rotterdam was designed, urbanistically and architecturally. To give you an idea: the urbanist wanted to express the original harbour function of the pier, so he got a couple of architects into a workshop and told them to design boxy building of that type, with that many dwellings, etc… The boxy form was to create an industrial port atmosphere. Then, when the architects were done, he distributed the buildings onto the land. Then, some adjustments were made to the design.
This whimsical, almost tabula rasa approach really bugged me. I had to see it to believe it. But you know what, it wasn’t that bad at all. the spaces are not bad, and the buildings themselves seem like they could house several different functions over the course of the years. That means that they’re not your archetypical houses with sloping roofs and stuff. I could definitely see potential there. I think that the Mullerpier could be a prototype of new city-building. Imagine a superblock with traffic all around, and high-rise on the edges, mixed with low rise inside the block, the spaces building slightly angled to charge an otherwise bland space. With underground parking, mixing of functions and multiplication of these superblocks, a city with wide avenues and cosmopolitan appeal could develop, yet remain safely walkable and playable inside. Cool, right?
So although the process was wrong, the result isn’t, which goes to show that not all thought experiments and mental exercises are applicable in real life.
Peter S
