Idea

The scheme of the Blitz Beton Workshop 2001 was simple: design the missing plinth for the building of TENT.. An assignment that, similar to previous Blitz Beton assignments originates from the conviction that architecture has a strong ‘knowing through making’ component. By making with ones own hands the possibilities of the element becomes clear. With a length of 90 meters, a height of 1,75 meters, exposed to the scrutinizing glances of passer-bys from two streets and within the time limit of 6 days, we had the opportunity to test our proposition.
The topic of the plinth, or more general that of the facade, is within the architectural practice traditionally the domain of composition and proportions. However, it is not a purely esthetic issue because a facade forms both the face and the epidermis of a building. To accommodate this double function there exists roughly two approaches; from outside and from inside. Under the influence of the ‘modern’ the understanding of a neutral facade prevailed. The facade as (white) background. Ordered according to industrial schemes and seen as a separate element draped around the structural skeleton. A development leading to the modern ‘curtain wall’ and its mediocre potencies. Taking the modern skin of several centimeters thickness as decor, we asked ourselves how this position changes as a new facade is added, but now made out of a structural material: sprayed concrete or shotcrete. In other words, what will happen if the curtain becomes a carrier?

Location

Bearer and simultaneously exposé for our temporary skin is TENT. in Rotterdam, a center for modern art. Important characteristic of its exhibitions is their notion of art as a domain that is continuously developing, open to new influences. To communicate this notion, their policy is to simultaneously organize exhibitions with overlapping timing. In this way there is always a productive mixture of building up, exposition and clearing out. This dynamic of TENT. is hidden behind  the classical composition of their facade, a former girls school in the Witte de Withstraat. Itself a street with its own dynamics of the ‘regular’ Rotterdam street life.
The location offers two worlds that rarely meet. Our experiment was to find out what would happen if these different worlds would be confronted with each other. If in other words if something would be done about the borderline in between both: the facade. An assignment that also is interesting from an architectural point of view because the composition of TENT.’s facade is classical but incomplete. Its rustic plinth is missing!

Supervisors

To afterwards design a plinth for an exhibition space that (temporary) binds the street and exhibition is a complex exercise. An assignment that asks for much and for a lot of different input from experts. The didactic exercise in this workshop was therefore seen as a relay race. Four different architects were asked to join the project for 24 hours each. The rely team existed, in order of appearance, out of Bart Macken, Niklaas Deboutte, Karel Vendenhende and Klaas Goris. Besides their tutorship for one day each of them held a public lecture on the eve of their supervision.
The choice for sheer Flemish architects is no coincidence. For several years an architectural practice develops in Flanders that appears extremely effective in a fragmented and layered context of urban situations. In this approach contextuality, pragmatism and commonplaceness are combined in various ways. It is striking that the products are down to earth and realistic without becoming simplistic or boring. After a long lasting disdain for the chaotic urban landscape of Flanders the situation has changed. A manner is developed  for working with fragmentation. An approach that appeared in all lectures by emphasizing notions as straightforwardness, separation of public and private in relation to the absence of ‘tabula rasa’, the practice of the extension, the washhouse, the scullery and the storage space and the surprising perspective when old and new are intertwined.

Result

The result of this bombardment of information was of course chaos. After three days of discussions and presentations, the goal: to collectively design one plinth, seemed further away than ever. Every attempt to come to agreement between the different ideas failed. The only solution seemed to introduce a less subtle and less contextual but in every regard a Flemish approach; zoning. The whole surface of the plinth was rigorously divided in more or less equal plots. Using this zoning plan a troika of ‘master planners’ was chosen from the students. Within a few hours they had to draft a basic layout for the works. The rest of the students formed like-minded groups. The sizes of these groups were used to assign a number of plots to be used. Afterwards a timetable was pronounced in which the master planners would announce ever more detailed plans and regulations. With two more days to go a process started of negotiations (and bribes), construction, judgments, demolishing and new starts. The assignment immediately changed from an architectural into an urban planning one. Suddenly the previous endless discussions appeared to be fruitful. There was no blockade anymore from a comprehensive architectonical image. In stead there was a will to achieve an urban scheme. Helped by the structural freedom of the material a collection of ideas aroused. Ideas visually far apart but connected by the starting point of zoning. It became a series based on the notion of the façade as utensil, a façade to sit on, to lean at, to stand on and to touch.

Olv Klijn