In The Hague, not only key international organizations are based, but also the central government of the Netherlands with all its departments. Now the country is pursuing a policy of cutting costs and the related reorganization of management bodies. These measures could not but affect the appearance of the city, where the majority of the population works in government institutions and political organizations.
Thus, it was decided to reconstruct a large administrative building on Reinstraat Street, near the central station. This structuralist building was erected in 1992 by architect Jan Hoogstad for the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. Now this department has been disbanded, and the building, upon completion of the reconstruction, will accept several institutions at once - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers. All of them used to have separate buildings in The Hague, but in order to save them it was decided to "condense" them.
OMA, working closely with the Hogstad, has developed a project to transform an ordinary office building into a flexible space for several large institutions: a total of 4,400 people will work there, a total construction area of 90 thousand m2.
In the spirit of the times, architects will give the building more transparency and open it up to the adjacent public space. The monolithic walls will be replaced with glazing, and the passages accessible to all citizens will be specially highlighted, which will more closely connect the building with the city.
In addition, if possible, the original elements of the Hogstad project, lost during the operation of the building, will be restored.
The project has a budget of 267 million euros and is scheduled for completion at the end of 2016, and employees will be able to move into the building on Reinstraat in early 2017.
