Archi.ru:
The topic of our conversation is public buildings and the role of local identity. In our time of the Internet and ethnic diversity, a time of some confusion, in your opinion, a public building should not be an icon building, but it should be something special so that people can identify with it, which, of course, makes it somewhat more expensive. But how can one and the same building be perceived as belonging to different ethnic groups? How can an architect work with this?
Mikhil Riedijk:
- I believe that if you are working on a project for a public building, then you should try to design it for everyone. The social aspect is what unites our society, what unites you with me, with unfamiliar passers-by. We all have in common, and this is common - social life. But now there is almost no room for that; the spaces where the public can fully unfold are all shrinking and disappearing. The public domain is being privatized more and more, railways are closing stations to outsiders, etc.
But here, in Rotterdam, the Central Station is just an example of the opposite: the city continues all the way to the platform
- But there are turnstiles everywhere too! And someday the "Netherlands Railways" will close its doors, and it will be impossible to enter the building, or go through it to another part of the city. We see that the public (both as space and as an element of people's lives) is changing and shrinking; goes inside buildings; hiding behind doors, protected by zones. Different mechanisms provide for semi-private or collective use of space. This is the first phenomenon we observe, the second - in our global world, there is an increasing need to create something that would correspond to this particular place. Shenzhen, Kuala Lumpur, Moscow, New York and Houston are becoming more and more similar to each other - both in the organization of spaces and in architecture: glass surfaces, mirrored boxes with a rigid, unfriendly transition to the ground level. In our public buildings, as ambitious as it may sound, we always pursue the goal of creating something local, something that forms a local identity. So that everyone feels this local: it is not necessary that they understand and love each of its levels, but that they must feel this identity. And we strive for this for two reasons: as a counterbalance to "averaging" as a result of globalization, when everything is the same everywhere and it is not clear where you are: in Shenzhen, Moscow or Houston. We must understand where we are in the world. And the second aspect is that the building forms a temporary community.
And such a community cannot be constructed without the use of ornament?
- You can, of course, without ornaments. But I think that this is all - a construction related to materiality. The most important thing is to form a local meaning, a place to which you are attached. And this is inseparable from the creation of a very precise material expression, bearing a certain iconography, "communicating" it. And the ornament can be one of the means of this communication. The ornament forms the attitude of the perceiver and can carry a semantic load. For example, in the Rozet cultural center, a rosette is both literally a rosette and an expression of a Penrose diagram consisting of tetrahedrons or triangles that can be endlessly repeated so that a slightly different motive is always obtained. This is a metaphor for knowledge. Our knowledge repeats itself, but always in a new configuration, in a different manner, but the general is always a triangle.
Very interesting! By the way, the three buildings you built, the cultural centers Rozet and Eemhuis and the Museum "aan de Strom" in Antwerp, are united by another common theme - the special significance of the staircase. Do these staircases express the public character of the buildings?
- I think that the stairs, and in the case of Rozet, a long staircase that runs through the entire building and opens onto the square (with a branch leading to the terrace on the roof), such monumental staircases have a pronounced public character. For us, stairs are more important than corridors, because corridors are more programmed, the pressure of functionality on them is felt stronger. In all of our projects, we try to find a building element that is less subject to the pressure of a functional program, so that there is no temptation to convert it to something else. And for a staircase it is very difficult to come up with any additional "heavy" function. Although we use the staircase for arranging exhibits and display cases, balconies for reading and study sessions are also associated with it. From the point of view of the program, many square meters of "gross" area can be attributed to the stairs, and all square meters of "net" can be given to the functional elements of the program, and then a very economical building will be obtained.
With such an organizing role of the stairs, how do you solve the problem of accessibility of the building for the disabled?
- Ah! Rozet has many mezzanines that can be accessed from an intermediate flight, and there are stairs and elevators to the side, so all levels can be reached.
What inspired you when designing Rozet facades?
- Complex issue. This building is located on a narrow stretch between the historic center of Arnhem and the new city built after the war. The general plan for the regeneration of this part of the city was developed by Manuel de Solà-Morales. The building had two goals: to articulate the path from the station to the square in front of the church and to connect the historic center with the river. In architectural terms, it was necessary to link the historical center of the 16th – 17th centuries with the buildings of the 20th century, that is, a regenerated territory. We designed the building that is modern in its materiality, well combined with the "concrete architecture" of the 1960s - 1970s. and, at the same time, the structure of the facades, their filigree response to the architecture of the historic center. Since the building is located on such a narrow area, we studied different perspectives of perception, and therefore we designed facades with deep flutes, which are processed in different ways, so that in a sharp longitudinal perspective, the facade turns out to be plastic. The flutes are designed so that they form large “frames”, industrial reinforced concrete elements. Facades do not give an idea of the height and number of floors; the building is perceived as a single volume.
“When I first saw this building, it reminded me of a“textile building block system”(textile block building system)…
- Frank Lloyd Wright! Absolutely right! Both the principles and materiality itself are very similar. We designed long “textile blocks”, which we brought as a whole element to the construction site, and from which the entire facade was made. Wright wanted everyone to be able to make "textile blocks" by himself, but we had such a narrow construction site, or rather, it was almost absent, and we had to assemble the facade from our "textile blocks" right from the truck.
Wright's customers chose the ornament for themselves and could identify with it, get used to it and love it. And at Rozet you have chosen a decorative motif not for one family, but for many people. And what will happen in 10, 20 or 30 years? And if they get tired of him?
- Yes. You can't be sure about that. I think that this is not what we should strive for. We are creating a building for today, and in 30 years, maybe people will think that it is outdated, or maybe not, and it doesn't matter. There is no need to strive to design a building that would not be a product of its time. Everything we build is, by definition, from the 2010s.
Should an architect try to improve the taste of the public, to bring it up to his level, to educate the customer and the consumer? Or can an architect do what is understandable and pleasing now?
- The building does not have to be didactic, so that everyone can immediately understand how it is constructed; but there must be clarity of structure, clarity of the general structure. It should be clear where the supporting structure is and where the facing elements are.
I think a building should always push the boundaries, be more than you expect. In Rozet, for example, it is that public activity rises from the first floor to the fifth: this is unexpected for the public, and the customer did not believe at first that it would work. And now this is exactly what the visitors admire. From the point of view of typology, here we have achieved the educational effect that you are talking about. Different institutions and organizations interact in new ways in this building.
Different organizations have different working hours. In order for the building to function as the "beating heart" of the city, it would be good to program it to operate continuously. Ideally, the building should be open 24 hours
- Yes, I would like to achieve it. The higher, the less intensively the building is used. Downstairs - a restaurant and library, upstairs - reading, music and educational rooms. Due to our building concept, the library is now open longer than before.
- The Eemhuis library, museum, archive and art schools building in Amesfort is an example of glamor in the province. It is executed with Versailles luxury. There is a perception that Dutch architects are particularly good at designing minimalist, functional buildings, they are more inventive on a limited budget, and when there is a lot of money, the result is less impressive
- The architects are then completely at a loss.
- Of course, this is only a cultural stereotype
“Compared to Rozet, Eemhuis is a completely different building, with a long façade (over 70 meters) over a large area. This facade is formed by three overhanging volumes, similar to chocolate bars wrapped in foil. Each of these volumes has its own educational function: music, sculpture and painting, dance. Below is a large podium, and at the very bottom is a parking lot. Inside the building there is a monumental square, rising to the top with terraces, where people can work, read books.
Such a huge workplace! Do people manage to concentrate there?
- Quite: visitors perceive these workplaces as very comfortable and intimate, because although the space is very large, you have your own cozy place with your own lamp and work table, and the acoustics there are simply great.
Is this spectacular ceiling acoustic?
- Yes. In fact, this is not an expensive building at all! It consists of the necessary elements: a frame, infrastructure and an aesthetically thought-out acoustic solution. The only expensive item is the wooden floor.
Is the scale of the whole complex not too large?
- At first, the municipality planned to build four buildings (museum, archive, art and music schools) nearby, and we combined everything together. Square meters were calculated separately for four buildings, and if they are combined, then due to the joint use of office premises, spaces that provide circulation, it becomes possible to arrange a spacious common hall.
The effect of cooperation
- Yes, literally. It turned out to be a kind of "People's House", like Rusakov's club in Moscow.
- Yes, and the very architectural solution with three cantilever volumes resembles Melnikov's creation. And the city museum of Antwerp "an de Strom" reminds me of the models of the VKHUTEMAS or Bauhaus
- Yes, we really made an amazingly beautiful layout for this building. In Antwerp, the museum building is located on a pier between two docks. This site has been known since the 17th century, when a Hanseatic house stood there, but then it burned down, warehouses and warehouses were built, and recently the place had a bad reputation: truckers from abroad were selling something here, etc. A competition was announced. At the beginning, we suggested organizing a route with museum pavilions, creating a vertical element and a square connecting the city center with the docks. Then the whole idea turned into a vertical volume - a public tower, from where the public could view the entire city. An outdoor gallery with escalators leads to the top of the visitor. The floor plan (gallery and exhibition halls) rotates each time, which makes it possible to see different panoramas of the city.
- This is the principle of the Guggenheim Museum
- Yes, exactly, but the Guggenheim turned inside out. We have a spiral outward. There are no vertical load-bearing elements on the facade, all loads are borne by the central core of stiffness, and the surfaces of the curved glass perceive the wind load.
What unites all these projects?
- All three buildings are very popular with the public. These buildings are from the same "family". In them we worked on one topic - the connection between public life and architectural form. The basis is the creation of a public space inside the building: it is either a staircase, or a route with escalators, or a system of large internal squares, as in the center of Eemhuis.
