Berlin! While pretty much everyone loves Paris, you must be a real city-lover to fall for Berlin’s charms. I have fallen, in May 2009, when we finally decided and got to visit Berlin, despite my brother’s constant complaining about how he “hates  cities” and his subsequent promise to “try to look interested”. With the knowledge that our extended weekend will not turn into us watching my brother’s annoyed expression, we set off for Berlin.

The journey there was hell, mainly due to a myriad of traffic jams in West Germany and around Berlin. Instead of 8PM, we arrived at midnight. But enough about that. The next two days we spent in Berlin, and on the third day, we went to see Potsdam, and then went home.

Berlin is a strange place. Many people, from tourists, to historians, to architects comment on its various layers of past being exposed, on top of each other and visible in many places. And nowhere in the world is history more tragic ( sometimes self-inflicted), traumatic, and safely observable than in Berlin. The city is literally littered with monuments. To Poles, to Jews, to Germans, to victims, to heroes, to rulers, to the victors, to the losers and to the fallen. Every square meter of the city is stepped in history, from East Berlin, its wall and its wide, Communist avenues, to the pluriformity and the pulsating life in West Berlin. To the modern skyscrapers in the places which were only recently wastelands in the city center, to the patched up bullet holes on the Dom or the Reichstag. The Reichstag is amazing. The best thing is that for a major historical and architectural landmark, it’s free, though you do go through quite a thorough security check.  Foster’s dome replaced the one which Hitler set on fire. A fitting metaphor for the rebirth and reconciliation of one united, democratic Germany.

In East Berlin, the best thing to do is to see the East Side Gallery (also free) and go into the tower at Alexanderplatz. Great panoramic views that won’t stress you out, even if you are afraid of heights as I am. Alexanderplatz is strange. I consider it ironic that the fist time I went to Dunkin’ Donuts was in the former place of pride in East Berlin.

East Side Gallery, currently being restored. As with any concrete wall in any city, vandals always do their thing.

East Side gallery, cool as ever.

Karl-Marx Allee. The wide boulevard was almost lifeless, compared to the rest of the city.

East Berlin plattebau. In a very good condition and location. Again, quite surprising, as it's usually the other way around.

It's definitely worth the €10 to go up there.

Neue Wache: The memorial for everything. And I mean everything.

Unter den Linden, not as grand as Champs-Elysees, but still a great avenue.

Reichstag dome by Foster. It really goes against the fundamental laws of the universe. It's fun and it's free.

Inside the dome. Typically Foster-cool (in both senses of the word).

Neue Staatsgalerie by Mies van der Rohe. The windows should obviously be transparent, now it looks like an abandoned warehouse.

Charlotteburg, West Berlin. When the castle got too small, the royal family moved to Potsdam.

That bombed church on that street. I alway misspell both. The name of the street is often abbreviated to Ku'damm. West Berlin

Victory Column, Tiergarten. West Berlin

Nefertiti, in Altes Museum, while the Egyptian museum is being restored.

"Circus" tent roof on the Potsdammer Platz

Potsdam was different. The difference between the metropolis that Berlin undeniably is and the provincial, post-Communist town of Potsdam was disturbing, and further showed the flawed architectural and urbanistic interventions of a failed system. It instantly reminded me of my first home. Though driving through the rolling East-German countryside before going on the motorway was actually very comforting (this I attribute to the gentler, more natural landscape that Holland so sorely misses, even ‘nature’ here is manufactured by man).

Nevertheless, the palaces of Potsdam were magnificent, though I would advise you to go see Potsdam before you go see Versailles. Seeing the latter first could leave you feeling slightly disappointed, mainly due to the sheer size of Versailles. It is actually very interesting to see the interaction of the different buildings at Potsdam and their spatial relationships. This is actually something that can hardly be done in Versailles, which is so vast that a human cannot see more than one fragment at a time.

Sanssouci, one of the more "modest" palaces in Potsdam. At least when it comes to its size, obviously not its location.

Charlottehof, a small palace for a princess, by Schinkel. By 1800s, the grounds are more picturesque and less baroque.

Neues Paleis. The red of the brick is painted, as even the royal family could not afford to buy so many red bricks (so I've heard).

That’s all from Berlin and Potsdam. See, I said that I’ll make it all up.

Peter S,

PS: Sorry for some of the pictures not being rotated. They really are, but wordpress does not seem to recognize that.

56% of the Swiss people do not want any more minarets in their country, and their government, though disapproving, will respect their decision. There are two things obviously wrong with this. The first one is the 56%. How many Swiss actually turned out to vote on this. If it were 50% of the population, then it’s only about 28% of the total amount of voters that could have voted are against the building of minarets. Sadly, none of the media cites the precise statistics, and it leaves me wondering whether really over half of the actual population of Switzerland is composed of xenophobic, nationalistic, narrow-minded people.

The fact that there are only four whole minarets in that country seems irrelevant. Anyhow, the above mentioned 56% of the Swiss are concerned about the ‘islamization’ of their country and would like to put a stop to it. I would rather say that the Swiss are actually afraid of fundamentalism-isation, but I guess they do not see the fine nuances in this as they should. The same church with a tower kills Romanian nuns during exorcism (happened a few years ago), as the one that marries gays in the Netherlands. Therefore, the morphology of a building does not necessarily represent a specific set of moral principles (no matter how much we disagree with those principles). Moderate as well as radical Muslims pray in a mosque with a minaret.

This would not bother me that much, because let’s face it: intolerance will not be tolerated and no-one wants to live next door to someone who would blow you up rather than have a cup of coffee with you. All that is good, but isn’t banning minarets ‘fixing symptoms’ rather than fixing the ‘problem of fundametalism-ation’. If anti-islamists compare ‘islamisation’ with a disease, then banning minarets is like putting a thick layer make-up over the acne. Rather than actually living healthier, practicing regular hygiene, etc… these Swiss chose the easy way… just cover it up. If this is how they handle all of their problems, I don’t want to be in Switzerland when the problems come back and bite them in the ass.

A second point could be made that minarets spoil the traditional European skyline. This is even more of a crap excuse to ban them than before. Anyone architect and urbanist should know, and indeed point out, that building in Europe is incredibly regulated by plans, committees, the government, etc. Therefore, if this is not yet so in Switzerland, it could be proposed that all new-built minarets follow a strict set of aesthetic guidelines, which integrates them better into the European cityscape.

And for that, I consider the 56% of the people who voted to ban minarets stupid… incredibly so.

Peter S.

PS: And I though Switzerland was the last place of retreat when this world finally goes mad. Guess I’ll have to look for another country in case of emergency…

I have already said that Amsterdam is not my favorite place, it’s too much of a mess at the moment, and provided that the weather sucks, it feels even worse (the wind-chill factor is something that affects not only our perception of temperature, but also the built environment, I think). When we visited Huis Sonneveld in early October (I think), I foolishly bought a passepartout for the Biennale in Rotterdam. So one free afternoon, I was more or less forced to go see the Amsterdam branch of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) 09. I had enough time not only to view the exhibition, which was quite compact and comprehensive (compared to the information monster at NAi in Rotterdam), but also visit a part of the IJplein neighborhood nearby, which was designed in the 1980s by Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA – Rem Koolhaas et al).

But first, the exhibition. It consisted of nine proposals which would guarantee the continuation of Amsterdam as a free state. They were all produced by young, but upcoming urbanistic firms (don’t ask me for their names, I forgot). Some called for the creation of extensive arts zone in the Western docklands of the city, others proposed creation of save havens for free thinkers etc… Here they are photographed and explained. (I had the luck to be there during a guided tour, I even managed to get a bottle of Coke for free).

Some sort of amusement park, I didn't really pay attention during this one

Preserving the historical center- freedom from destruction.

Safe havens for free thinkers, freedom from oppression.

Freedom to build one's own house on a parcel of one's own choosing.

A proposed housing estate in which the individual houses can be expanded when the need arises. Freedom to grow. Also, model made from LEGO.

Preserving countryside around the Amstel river. Freedom from the city.

A mega-structure which connects micro-structures in different Amsterdam neighborhoods. Freedom of movement and culture.

Creating a night-time recration area by festive lighting. The area is currently not used very much. The freedom to be lazy.

A meeting Space between Schiphol Airport and the city. The freedom to meet and travel.

Artists taking over the Western docks of the city. The freedom to make noise and mess.

That’s really all that was exhibited, apart from some student projects, which were not really architectural, but were submitted by students of higher education from all over the city. (No comment).

Now that that’s done, let’s recap a few things about A’dam Noord (North). It’s only about two minutes by a free ferry from the Amsterdam Central Station. But it is a world apart. It’s quiet, residential mixed with remnants of the old docks, and slightly dilapidated. These are two different views from the ferry.

Looking toward Amsterdam Central Station from A'dam Noord.

Arriving in A'dam Noord.

I won’t write all about the charms of the IJplein, or how I got there, except to say that nowadays, they would probably build some horrible luxury apartment building facing the waterfront. Not so in the 1980s. This is mainly residential, lower-income housing (judging by the state of it). OMA originally wanted to build a couple of tall towers so that everyone would have a view on the IJ river. This was rejected, so they decided to organize the buildings in stokes which adjoin green spaces in the direction of the IJ.

The IJ-plein development facing the waterfront.

I only had enough time to view the smaller part of the development, whose typlogy is a transformation of the unbuilt Stadt ohne Hofen project from 1927 in Berlin. Well, they have the urban villas and slab apartments, so that’s all good. I was actually surprised to see that there were some people outside, mainly children and their parents, but you expect less on a cold and windy October afternoon. The architecture is quite sober, but it’s from the time that Kees Christiaanse worked at OMA, so that’s not really a surprise. One thing, though, plaster and Dutch weather don’t go together very well, unless the buildings are painted regularly. This part (the western part of the development) is very modernistic, considering that OMA is really an office whose work is usually hard to classify as anything.

I was surprised to find small ponds. Little touches like this make a huge difference. Looks like something from Le Corbusier's dreams (though it's a bit low for that).

A green line of sight. Since some idiots built a school there, it's useless in its intended function, and could use some trees. (I didn't photograph the school).

Space between urban villas and the slab-building.

And with that, I leave you. If you like OMA, I might post some pictures of the tram-tunnel stops they did in The Hague. It’s really way better than your average subway station.

Peter S.

PS: I promise, Berlin will come eventually).

Feeling emotionally, physically, intellectually and otherwise drained, I have very little to report except updating my progress with the chair. As you might have known, I am currently working on a chair design, which in the beginning looked promising, but got really muddled in the middle of it all. The “N”-frame chair wasn’t very promising. It might have been nice-looking, but not much else.

After that, I made a decision to go with a chaise longue, which took some time to figure out it should be (shape, construction, image). I want to make a rocking design, so I went with a rocking chaise longe. Here are all the sketch-models that I made, including different things that need to be researched (concerning the construction).

The problem of base

The Rocking Frame

Structural Possibilities

Peter S.

PS: Later, I might post some images from my little excursion to Amsterdam-Noord, where I went to see the IABR exhibition and then went to have a look at part of OMA’s IJ-Plein housing project. Oh and some pics from Berlin from last May.

This week, we had two major presentations about the House of the Future design that we’re supposed to be making. Over the weeks, we’ve perfected our spiral concept, the transition between private and public, and the size of the windows.  This is the version we called Home 6.0.  In it, we also integrated the car (at my insistence), we got the garden right we introduced a void connecting the sleeping quarters with the living room, and speculated about a sloping roof, which is the often seen as the formally archetypal sign of a home. The design is by Ceciel and I.

Home 6.0, Photo by Ceciel van Rinsum

We’ve also started a little sketchbook in which we record principles and detail-sketches of things that we believe can accommodate the feeling of a home (in Dutch: thuisgevoel). Home 6.0 would be really located in a sort of suburbia that everyone who doesn’t live there despises. When we presented this, Jack Breen (the associate professor who’s running the minor) said: “That’s all good and well, but how is this a contribution to the future”. The point was, as another instructor pointed out that it could very well be a very good house, a third generation of a Frank Lloyd Wright house, but it is not per se future in anything.

Therefore, Ceciel and I had a week to come up with something that would fall into a non-Utopian future. We finally thought up of a scenario for the future, in which we could carry out our home concept without  making the context more important than the concept. We finally came up with the  following future scenario:

In the future, due to the rise in sea levels and further sinking of the ground in the Netherlands, a choice will have to be made. Ultimately, only the larger cities and the land that is used for agriculture will be still kept dry, with the other land being flooded. This will mean that suburbs like Ypenburg will have to go. All these people will migrate to the cities, as the other land is only reserved for agriculture.

Future Scenario

The cities will become more populated. But rather than building sophisticated, high-tech, super compact, super high-rise dwelling machines, we believe that people will first try to fill up all the unused spaces in the city. Below elevated highways, above railway tracks, or above light-industrial sites, like this:

Before, and after: Increasing density without decreasing dwelling size

So, in the city of the future, people will live in the places that most people now would not. Also, due to certain technological developments, such as the wide introduction of the electrical car, noise near roads will be reduced. Also, traffic won’t increase too much, since almost everyone lives in the city, commuting is no longer necessary, while most can and do use public transport. Therefore, spaces like this:

Beneath an elevated highway, The Hague (Google street view)

Can in theory become a place like this:

A Semi-Detached House of the Future (Google street view)

Many people thought this was an OK idea. Dick van Gameren, the professor of Dwelling who commented on everyone’s presentation today, said that ours was promising, but needed to be worked out better (no, really). We can actually use everything we learnt in the preliminary stages in making this design. Making a home in an ‘unhomely’ setting.

Our own instructor (Onno) said that he actually thought that our first context was OK, and that we needed to communicate our work better in our presentation (which is true), but even then, we’d end up with a good house, not a good house OF THE FUTURE. So we’ll see how things will work out.

That’s all folks!

Peter S

There are two things in life that are not to be doubted. One is the innocence of a child, the other one political correctness of the BBC. I saw a news item on BBC breakfast yesterday morning that caught my attention, and I will share the following thoughts with you.

So the BBC found out something shocking. You might not have known this, or might not have cared, but apparently, there are those cheap rubber bracelets in different colors, with each color representing how far a person is willing to go (sexually). It starts at yellow and goes all the way to God-only-knows-what color. As the presenter (Sian Williams) put it, the first two represent “kisses, then hugs… and then things which are too explicit to say on television” and added that “children as young as 8 are wearing the bracelets”. I thought: “Big deal, it’s not like those kids know that, they’re just wearing those things because they think it looks nice”, or as it often happens, out of peer pressure.

The funny thing was the kids did know that those bands means everything, from your XOXO’s to the XXXs. I was especially touched when one of the children interviewed said he knew what they means (hugs and kisses), but that he also knew of, but would not do those other “disgusting things”. I bet that in ten years, if he’s not doing those “disgusting” things, he’ll be at least be wanting to do them.

I am not for people to be all sexed up at young age, but there are two things that we need to clarify.

One: Who the hell gives these “darker connotations” to such stupid cheap items?

Two: Is this newsworthy? There must be tens of thousands of items in schools with sexual undertones. Beginning with tables…

Peter S

Miraculously, despite my lack of real Photoshop/ Illustrator/ Indesign skills, I have been involved with all three covers of our faculty’s monthly this year. The September issue, the October issue, and as of now, the November issue as well. Working for a magazine actually de-mystifies the whole experience, and making covers does the same. While it does take skill and time (I’m not that skillful and very impatient), I think that the covers have turned out quite well.

The first one is the September issue cover. I have actually have that in my mind for quite some time. We wanted to make more “interactive” cover art. I proposed that we should make a coloring picture. This was more appropriate to do in September, as one of the first thins you learn in the first year is drawing and coloring in. I had made a photograph of our faculty, which we traced in Illustrator. Then we redistributed the headlines in a way that would compromise the “wholeness” of the image. I added the blue spot to bring in extra color, which was needed as the cover would be very blank and bland otherwise (the roof actually has that dark-blue-grey color, so it was OK). The Color sequence was made by Daan de Leeuw, who insisted we follow it. He also sorted out the headlines…

September 2009 cover

This was actually OK. We knew what we wanted and went for it. It was a bit of a joke, but it was well-meant and didn’t get any complaints.

Things were tougher for the October issue. We had a big piece about Pieterskerk, a church in Leiden, that was restored with the help of good folks from RMiT (one of the departments of the faculty). We had a great photograph of the organ, which would be a departure from the traditional covers that usually depict either something modern, something abstract or something fun. Unfortunately, the picture wasn’t sharp enough, so we got rid of that and had another one of our big stories, Bob Allies (from Morrison & Allies) interview about his upcoming lecture about “cultivating the city”. He sent us some pictures in the hope that we will use them for the article. We did, but we also chose it for the cover. However, we had a dilemma. How do you put in the headlines without disrupting the image. After some time, we decided to place them vertically rather than horizontally. I put down the basic structure, Marcello Soeleman than changed the color of the letters (from grey to light-green) which turned out really nicely. Because our “interference” was so minimal, the cover art was credited to Bob Allies.

October 2009 cover

For the November issue, well, you can read all about it here. We then decided to use a picture by Anna Ghijs, my colleague who was covering all things Biennale (IABR). It was from the Parallel Cases @ RDM, which will be reviewed in the magazine this month. The photo is one of the winning proposals of the student exhibition (which is what Parallel Cases is). We wanted to keep the cover quite minimal, and the image was not large enough by itself, so I cut out the competition entry model, which we placed in the middle of the page. First, we had the headlines running through the image, but Anna did not like it, so we tried to see what would happen if we put the text above the image. This worked well. Since the headlines are actually a flowing paragraph of text, we differentiated these by changing the size of the font, and we used an “old school” font just to keep things classy. This was really more Anna’s work (intellectually, that is) than mine, but I guess since I did the dirty work, I guess I deserve some credit. So this is a collaboration with Anna Ghijs, and Marcello also changed one or two things (as the end-editor of that issue).

November 2009 cover

Peter S.

It’s been 20 years.

20 years since my freedom has been fought for. 20 years since people in Czechoslovakia freed themselves from the Communist regime. While I don’t remember it at all (would you, if you were 7 months old), I guess it has a powerful message. A child. All the Eastern European children of ‘89 were given a chance to grow up in a democratic society. Where they could write what they want to write. Say what they want to say. Go where they want to go. We weren’t revolutionaries. Our parents, uncles, their friends, and students were. They risked their lives to give us and themselves a better one. One with choice. One with freedom of speech. One where you did not need to stand in line for oranges. Or bananas. Or anything.

They had ideals back then. Do they have them now? How many things did not turn out the way they wanted them to? How many people are still poor? How many others are richer still due to corruption, crime, backhand politics. No, things are not ideal.

But we’re here. A new generation. We are just coming of age. I can’t speak for others, but I try to use the opportunities given to me. I write, I speak, I shop and I travel. I think. I want to make their time and effort worthwhile. I want them to see that they created opportunities for a better world for all their countrymen, past, present and future. And eventually, I also want to be able to inspire and fight for the freedom of others. So that they will receive that gift, just as I did, and they can do with it as they please. Just as I did.

I can’t remember November 1989. But I can’t forget about it. I’ve had opportunities, met people, and experienced things that I might never have had otherwise. And for that, above all, I want to thank them.

Peter S.

Autumn seems generally a good time to have disturbing dreams, mainly because a lot of things happen in a very short period of time. Days start getting darker, school and stress kick in, the weather turns miserable, and the time shifted by one hour. No wonder my brain gets soft and I start having weird dreams. While some dreams are not worth remembering, and some are worth forgetting, the one I had lats night was extremely bizarre.

As some of you might know, there is a resistance group at our faculty, they’re anonymous, so I’ll just call them PURSE. Anyway, last week, on of the PURSE activist googled the name of their organisation and got to my blog. While I won’t repeat the whole story, let’s just say they took something without my permission and misinterpreted something I wrote. This was all fine, though I thought it rather embarrassing. Then yesterday, I wrote a piece about PURSE (which is password protected, ha)… That’s where my dreams began… (The dream sequence that follows was a DREAM, NOT REAL, I am NOT ACCUSING anyone, I am recounting the workings of my bizarre mind).

While the piece was very impartial, un-serious and uncritical toward them, I know that ‘fuck context’ attitude can also be applied to the written word. Nevertheless, the nightmare started when one of he PURSE people got hold of it, and basically started ranting on their blog (they are anonymous and have a blog) against my a-political stance and using the ‘if you’re not with us, you’re against us’ rhetoric.

This hurt me, especially since they got hold of a nude picture of me, that they posted on that site (I haven’t any nude pictures of myself, just that you know, and btw, you could just see my face and bare shoulders.). Somehow, they managed to conclude I was twelve, and all the comments (there were lots), posted their nude childhood pictures. This was especially disturbing, because their comments carried the same tone as the article.

Then I woke up, I actually went to check the internet, if everything was OK. It was.

This is this year’s nominee for my weirdest dream award.

Peter

Hey, y’all.

First of all, I need to clear the air of few things. Let us assume that I am me, and not who I work for, what I do in my free time, what political systems I prefer, or any of that really irrelevant nonsense. Let my person be dematerialized, until only my name (Peter S.) and my thoughts (and writings remain). As Rem Koolhaas would say: fuck context!!!

Let us assume that I need to construct a tale, in order to get my point across, for anyone who reads this is neither so finely attuned to my thoughts as to get my subtle hints and place them in a context relevant for him/her, and people generally empathise with the human experience.

Now, let us assume there is a school. A faculty at a university, if you will. Now, it’s not such a bad school, but it’s not all that great either. Let us say that this faculty has been experiencing some financial problems lately, problems whose source is irrelevant for the solution that I shall propose.

Now let us also imagine that there is a group of people, its size, composition and identity are irrelevant, who believe that they can find the ones who are to blame for the situation the faculty is in. They form an anonymous group, let us call them PURSE (I know, what a thinly veiled reference), hang up posters and write a manifesto against those who are to blame for the unhappy financial situation at the faculty.

So, PURSE wants to remain anonymous, in order to face those who are to blame to address the whole student body, and in order to prevent the debate from getting personal. The fact is that while people do voice their support, there is really not much of a debate. There seems to be no-one who is capable of taking the daunting task of actually debating and solving problems together with those that are to blame (according to PURSE).

How to solve this? I believe that PURSE should debate with those who they believe are to blame. But how can one enter on that stage and remain anonymous? Enter the Wizard of Oz.

Anyone who has seen the classic tale, will know that the Wizard, is just like anyone, except he hides in a big box, in order to keep his identity secret. Yet, he manages to talk to people head-to-head. A perfect solution!!!

Please take what you’ve just read with a grain of salt. I am a-political. Politics is far too dirty for me to concern myself with it. All I want is that people use their heads. So far, humanity has shown me plenty low-points, and some high points. If PURSE do not like the Wizard of Oz approach, let someone come forward, who will debate and ask, but have their mind not only clear of the neo-liberal agenda of those who are to blame (according to PURSE), but also be clear of the neo-marxist agenda of PURSE. We need someone ho thinks for themselves, and does not let philosophers (who are already dead) do it for them. We need someone… Or else Imma gonna have to do this shit myself. Again.