“Reuse, Redevelop & Design. How the Dutch Deal With Heritage "(NAI, 2017) - a large-scale study, formed the basis of the exhibition" Transform. Adapt. Save. Dutch Experience of Working with Cultural Heritage”. The exhibition is shown until November 4 in Moscow (Tokmakov lane, 21/2); then she will move to Petersburg. We are talking with the author of the study.
How did your research idea come about?
I work as an architect in the Netherlands and advise many on heritage issues. In the Netherlands, we value history and tradition, so we try to preserve any heritage. New architecture, redevelopment, and design are important things that must coexist with each other. Traveling to other countries, you understand that everywhere there are opponents and supporters of redevelopment. From this point of view, if you want to show how what we are trying to bring to many countries works, examples of good work are always needed.
First we opened an exhibition in the Netherlands, then we translated the book into English. The embassies of different countries invited us to them. The first overseas exhibition was held in Brazil in Portuguese, then we translated it into Japanese, then into English and now into Russian.
We do not want to point out how to create your own projects, but share our experience, show how we work. And yes, we are interested in how Russian, Indian, Japanese and other architects work to improve their level.
In what other countries are you planning to present this exhibition?
We are not planning - the countries themselves ask to hold our exhibition with them. There were requests from Japan, India, Sri Lanka and Brazil. Of course, I would like to hold similar exhibitions in every country, but the main thing here is interest. If you look at the experience of other countries, you can notice that in many countries there are excellent projects for the reuse of buildings, architectural interventions. But these projects, for the most part, are exceptions, there are only a few of them. We want to show at the exhibition that recycling can be applied to all types of buildings, cities - with a large investment or no investment.
What features of working with historical buildings are typical for Holland?
In the Netherlands, we ourselves created the country, people were the creators of the landscape. Buildings and monuments are part of this landscape. We have adopted an approach that can be called “holistic”: monuments are not something exceptional, we see our country as a single great heritage. And while we value our history, we like to be modern. We continue to transform heritage all the time.
What is more characteristic: in the Netherlands there is no special regime for determining whether it is a monument or not - we look at everything as a value.
Are there any other reasons to preserve the building, besides the historical and cultural "component"?
There are many reasons. One of them is that thanks to any building, regardless of whether it is valuable or not, you can study your city, try to identify it. The economic reason is that it is not necessary to build a new building, you can modernize the old one and, believe me, it will definitely not be worse! Yes, sometimes renovation is more expensive than starting from scratch, but it all depends on your degree of involvement in the project.
The most important thing is that, having reconstructed the building, you will be able to create what you definitely would not have succeeded from scratch. Once I designed a residential area on the site of an old industrial zone. If we removed all abandoned factories and factories and built houses in their place, then in the end there would be only houses in the area. We wanted to create a more attractive place for housing, so we left several buildings, declared that they are of historical value, but are not architectural monuments. In the former workshops, we opened bars, shops, workshops - these things would not be in this area, if we had not left a few buildings from the former industrial zone.
Your lecture within the framework of the project in Moscow was devoted to the principles of working with cultural heritage sites, the limitations and possibilities of preserving historical buildings. Can you briefly list the main principles of regulating work with heritage sites? What does the experience of the Netherlands show in this matter?
In the Netherlands there are different ways of regulation: we have monuments, there are many of them. But in our urban planning schemes, we can define buildings as of historical value - they are not monuments, but they are valuable. This means that we can remove some buildings and change the status of objects if they can prove to us that the situation will be better with redevelopment.
We are talking about the transformation of buildings that are of historical value. The most important thing is that you start working with the state of the building, and do not try to rank its main qualities in advance … What we are trying to do in our work is to say: this is an important quality of a monument, try to use it.
Zd about exactly when modern architecture is modern, but at the same time, it must be created taking into account the surrounding area. Old building? No problem! With an interesting composition, with a bright color or with a different material, it will look just as good as a modern one. It is a symbiosis of old and new. We always try to not only set the rules for do's and don'ts, but also inspire and challenge architects to give their 100 percent.
By the way, it's good that out of 30 important projects of the year in the architectural yearbook, half are buildings that have undergone redevelopment. Previously, there were only a few, but now such progress!
What are the advantages of redevelopment over development? After all, reconstruction is always more difficult and more expensive?
It is connected with society, with people. If you destroy something in a functioning city, then you are destroying someone's life, social connections - concepts that we in the Netherlands respect very much. Yes, you can build beautiful houses, but you need to preserve traditions, monuments, cherish your identity.
The advantage is that if you are using redevelopment, you can do a lot of creative programs. For example, to combine homes for the elderly with a kindergarten - the elderly and children always get along well, or to connect several small offices and convert the vacant space into a restaurant - all this cannot be done with a new development.
Tell us about redevelopment projects in which you yourself took part
I am not an architect who does the actual project, I do research and try to understand what is important and what is not, I set the criteria for creating something new. Sometimes we supervise buildings under construction or renovation. I also worked on the redevelopment of industrial zones, like the Philips factory building - it was decided there to convert everything into a residential area.
I also work in our government, which oversees the reconstruction of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, more precisely, one of the terminals that they want to make modern. But in order to understand how everything will look like in the future, you need to look into the past - how this terminal was built, what future was predicted for it, what was put into it.
Do you know any successful examples of Russian redevelopment?
You know, my opinion about Russia is limited to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Petersburg in general is interesting in itself, because it is an ancient city, very monumental, but at the same time incredibly modern. What place would I allocate there? New Holland! In Moscow, I like the industrial zone "Red October", "Garage", Gorky Park - it's great that these historic places for the city have breathed new life.
You became one of the leaders of the Russian-Dutch workshop, which took place as part of the exhibition project at the Button Factory. N. D. Balakireva. The workshop was devoted to practical work with historical buildings. What are the general impressions of the participants and the results of the work?
Awesome place! It is located a little far from the center, the factory looks somewhat dated, but at the same time modern. She is a witness to the history of Moscow, especially revolutions. Once upon a time it was probably a society in a society - workers lived and worked here. Now the place is empty … The question immediately arises: how to connect this place with the city again? I was pleasantly surprised by the energy of the students, with whom we argued and proposed different ideas. They see potential in dealing with historic buildings. Compared to other countries, Russian architects are very fond of talking, making plans. I really hope that one day all their ideas will come true, because architecture is more about implementation than plans on paper.
