Reimar von Meding is the chief architect for KAW architects and advisors in the Netherlands, which specializes in urban design and social housing renovation. KAW architects work in three Dutch cities - Groningen, Rotterdam and Nijmegen, as well as outside the Netherlands - in Barcelona. In all these cities, architects are trying to breathe new life, give them a new impetus to existence and development, which would include not only urban planning and architectural, but also a social aspect.
As a lecturer, Raimar von Meding turned out to be a very witty and not devoid of a sense of humor, who endeared the audience literally in the first minutes of the lecture. Only a true Dutchman can laugh so ironically at his homeland. Although von Meding is a German by birth, he came to study and stayed in the Netherlands. But, as you know, the point is not who we are, but who we feel ourselves to be. He no doubt feels like a Dutchman, building for the Dutch and thinking about the Dutch. During the lecture, more than once there was a feeling that in the projects of the KAW Bureau, architecture is relegated to the background, the people who live in it and their universal and individual needs are more important.
Modern architects, according to Raymar von Meding, think about the basic human needs - food and a roof over their heads, but if you take into account all aspects of human development, then you need to think about education, work, spiritual development. The projects of the KAW bureau strive to combine all the needs in order to develop a person's individuality, give him a higher quality of life, as well as freedom of choice. All these problems are solved by the example of the reconstruction of neighborhoods and individual blocks of social housing of the post-war period in Dutch cities.
Initially, social housing blocks in Holland were blocks in which houses were located close to each other, which made the courtyard insufficiently lit. Then they began to build larger blocks with a more explicit connection between the houses, organized passages to the neighboring building, etc. After World War II, the problem of social housing turned out to be especially acute: architecture had to be put on industrial rails, and the structure of cities had to be made more open. So the post-war construction in Holland resembles our Khrushchevs - five-story houses from ready-made factory elements. Just as the Khrushchevs were once the pinnacle of happiness for people who moved from communal apartments, so for the Dutch, these houses have become a symbol of a high quality of life. But that was 50 years ago. Since then, many things have changed dramatically, including the concept of the quality of life. The architects of the KAW bureau proposed the next step in the development of the structure of these blocks - to make them open and create a landscape around them.
So, in one of the quarters of Rotterdam, KAW architects proposed to change the size of traditional blocks with social housing inside the old space. In addition to housing, a school was built in this quarter, which makes this place more attractive for families with children. In another Rotterdam project, the architects decided to take a "step back" and return from open structures to more closed ones, creating an enclosed space with a courtyard. Each house had a rebuilt entrance, which until then looked more like a bus stop than the entrance to an apartment building. With the new transparent vestibule, the building looks completely different and more attractive to residents. In another project, in the city of Eindhoven, the social dimension is even more pronounced. His idea is that people, when they get old, stay in the same quarter in which they have lived all their lives. For older people, this is important, because in old age, changes are very difficult. But, on the other hand, the lack of local infrastructure for old people gives them great inconvenience. Therefore, the buildings were equipped with wheelchair ramps, a small medical center was built into each block, where there is a pharmacy, doctors, and an ambulance.
According to Raymar von Meding's definition, the concept that his bureau is developing in all of the above projects is called the English word "rich". It should be translated into Russian as “spiritual wealth” or “enrichment”, which gives people new opportunities and freedom of choice in life. Raimar von Meding sincerely believes that the concept of social housing, which includes both architectural and social aspects, provides new opportunities for the development of a person as a person.
According to the director of C: SA Irina Korobyina, Raymar von Meding's lecture on the renovation of social architecture in the Netherlands was another step towards the festival of Dutch architecture, which will be called Lucky Dutch and will be held this November at Winzavod. The connections and mutual interest of Russian and Dutch architecture today are more than obvious, starting with the Russian avant-garde and "De Stile", ending with Dutch architects who have designed in recent years in Moscow. We have never been rivals, rather partners in ideas, often like-minded people, wisely borrowing the best advanced ideas from each other. The 1920s of the Russian avant-garde became an inexhaustible source of architectural concepts and forms for the Dutch, I would like to believe that the upcoming festival of Dutch architecture in Moscow Lucky Dutch, in turn, will inspire Russian architects to come up with crazy and bold ideas, maybe even to build graphs and diagrams. …
Raimar von Meding also spoke about the relationship between Russian and Dutch architecture. The social housing that his bureau works with in the Netherlands has a Russian equivalent - the already mentioned Khrushchevs. It is interesting to observe what a different fate the same buildings have in different countries: in Holland they are being rebuilt, in our country they are being demolished. Extreme categoricality as a feature of the Russian mentality and the too high price of land are the determining factors here. As a result, the structure and height of the city is changing more actively in Moscow.
