The Dutch School of Architecture is undoubtedly one of the most notable phenomena of modern architecture. There are dozens of very strong architectural bureaus working in the Netherlands today, which with their projects demonstrate a qualitatively new stage in the development of urbanism, which for many countries, including Russia, still seems to be a distant tomorrow.
The curator of the festival, Irina Korobyina, decided to explain the essence of this phenomenon, highlighting five basic principles of national architectural consciousness that determine the artistic method, figurative language and appearance of modern architecture in the Netherlands. Density, artificiality, optimization, organicity, conceptuality gave the name to the five sections of the exhibition, which contain projects that implement these postulates. However, such a division is rather arbitrary, since the projects presented in the exposition, as a rule, have several, if not all of the above qualities at once.
These five qualities are symbolized by the five bright colors that are used to decorate the minimalist stands with projects located in the White Workshop. Vertical slabs form the shell-walls of the central pavilion, the exposition of which consisted of five cubes-screens showing video installations. The screens are also mounted in the improvised white "propylaea", decorating the entrance to the exhibition, on the same structures, the five "whales" of Dutch architecture themselves are painted in detail. And along the walls of the workshop, there are narrow lightboxes with panoramas of the Dutch landscapes, as if seen through the modernist ribbon windows. And in fact, it turns out that the exposition is a kind of metaphor for a project, which is “approached” through the “propylaea” of five principles, then a building is built on their basis, and it becomes not a self-sufficient volumetric statement, but a shell for important social processes.
According to Irina Korobyina, it is this approach that distinguishes Dutch architecture from all other national schools. “In the design ideology of the Dutch, form has never been seen as an end in itself,” says the curator's message. "Behind every truly Dutch project is a careful study of the subject and an idea that does not need to be proven of its practical importance to society." A similar approach to design, in which research becomes a necessary basis for the formation of the concept of a particular object, was approved by Rem Koolhaas in Holland, and today his numerous students and followers work in the country. Some of them are already widely known, for example, MVRDV, West 8, UN Studio, Vil Arets, Lars Spybrook, and some within the framework of “uDUTCH architecture” present their projects abroad for the first time. But regardless of the degree of "promotion" of the bureau, their work is united by one quality - a responsible and careful attitude to the environment and society for which projects are created.
Within the framework of this unified long-term concept of "sustainability", the Dutch are extremely effective in solving such painful problems of modern megacities as superdense development, shrinking natural resources, climate change, etc. And while in China and the United Arab Emirates skyscrapers are growing by leaps and bounds, which will be reconstructed in a maximum of 20 years, in the Netherlands they are thinking about preserving the identity of cities and finding alternative ways to increase the density of buildings. An example is the projects of residential complexes Parkrand and WoZoCo developed by MVRDV for the green belt of Amsterdam in the Western garden gates area. Despite the rather impressive area, these buildings are not monolithic, but picturesque and permeable structures.
By the way, even the "vertical" compaction of urban development in the understanding of the Dutch is not limited to banal skyscrapers. A vertical city is a new, modern formation that grows above the historical one, but not instead of it. For example, the De brug / de kade business center of the JNK bureau, which rises 25 meters above the old red-brick office building. Skyscrapers are becoming the lot of … pig farms. Yes, yes, according to MVRDV, precious vacant territories should be left to nature or people, but the construction of farms is quite possible to develop according to a vertical scenario, and one of the projects of this bureau envisages placing them in 75 towers - "swine polices".
The most elite housing in modern Holland is considered to be low-rise, moreover, located on the water. Dutch architects are successfully mastering all new water spaces, designing on them not only individual private villas, such as the Waterstudio. NL bureau, or residential complexes, like the famous Silodam MVRDV, but also entire microdistricts, and even cities. So, for the new district of The Hague Ypenburg MVRDV developed a concept for building an artificial archipelago, each man-made island of which has its own original master plan. And the West 8 bureau has developed a project for a floating city in the Rhine Delta for 10 thousand inhabitants, not afraid of seasonal fluctuations in water levels.
The scarcity of natural resources and a high level of innovative technologies lead to the fact that the "second nature" in the Netherlands is gradually becoming a full-fledged alternative to the natural one. In an effort to maximize the use of landscaping in their projects, the Dutch are increasingly turning to vertical gardens, which, together with landscaping of roofs and terraces, turn a building into a green hill, such as the Mercator sports complex by Venhoeven CS Architecten. And the observation tower of the SeARCH bureau, built in the arboretum for observing plants, is altogether likened to a tree. Imitation and artificiality become the main idea behind West 8's “stage” design in Rotterdam: with lighting, crane-like lanterns, boardwalk and ventilation mast pipes, it “plays the role” of the Port of Rotterdam.
The opened exhibition convincingly proves: the guarantee of DUTCH and Dutch architecture is that absolutely any project begins with a substantiation of its practical significance. With this approach, a building simply cannot appear, for which the entire surrounding area will then have to “pay off”. In the Netherlands, architecture does not follow the lead of the customer or the ambitions of the architect, but comprehensively and effectively solves the problems of the environment. True, having presented many proofs of the success of this model, the exhibition, of course, does not answer the question of how applicable the principles of the Dutch are in the conditions of modern Russia. However, this approach is unlikely to be the result of any outside influence; rather, it is a question of the personal responsibility of architects to society and the City, and the example of Dutch architects eloquently confirms this.