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The New Pavilion 2014 Yourtopia by SeARCH
United Kingdom Architecture News - Apr 18, 2014 - 11:41 2290 views
AN OASIS OF CALM IN THE MUSEUMPARK
From 29 May through 28 September 2014
Museumpark 25
Rotterdam
+31 104 401 200Opening hours
Tue–Sat 10–17
Sun 11–17
Construction of The New Pavilion starts on 5 May. This summer Het Nieuwe Instituut is building a temporary house designed by architecture firm SeARCH on its grounds, directly opposite Sonneveld House. The pavilion opens its doors to visitors free of charge on 29 May. Bjarne Mastenbroek, founder of SeARCH, describes the design as a Yourtopia, a vision of 21st-century living that is as personal as it is utopian. Social themes such as the influence of globalisation, the longing for privacy, and the almost perverse imbalance in prosperity have radically altered the role of contemporary architects. In the pavilion design SeARCH returns to a fundamental question: what is the minimum needed to achieve a maximum quality of life?
PLACE FOR CONTEMPLATION
The innovative steel structure of the dome-shaped pavilion consciously refers to traditional nomadic forms of living such as the igloo and the yurt. The space is 14 metres in diameter and its exterior is covered in grass. A small tunnel leads visitors to the actual pavilion entrance. Once inside, they encounter strange and unknown plants and trees that evoke the sense of an exotic oasis. Light enters freely through a rooflight. A place of silence scarcely penetrated by the world outside, the clear interior invites contemplation in visitors. The New Pavilion is expressly utopian, an interior that is both controlled and constructed, an oasis of calm.
BIENNIAL
The New Pavilion by SeARCH is the first in a series of pavilions to be commissioned by Het Nieuwe Instituut over the coming years. Every two years, to coincide with the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR), a Dutch architect, designer or theoretician will receive this commission. Reflecting the programme of Het Nieuwe Instituut and that of the IABR, they will offer their vision on the changing relation between inside and outside, the public and private domains, interior and landscape, culture and nature.
With these temporary interventions, Het Nieuwe Instituut not only hopes to fuel discussion about current social relationships and how they are expressed spatially, but also to boost the Museumpark as a public space. The pavilion is therefore open to the public free of charge and should become one of the public amenities in the Museumpark.
From late May until the end of September, the design by SeARCH will spark numerous lectures, performances, workshops and other public events.
LOCATION
The location of The New Pavilion lends the project a very specific context. In the late 1920s the city authorities in Rotterdam earmarked the open countryside at Hoboken as an expansion zone. Shortly afterwards, Sonneveld House was built on the former farmland, and ever since the house by Brinkman & Van der Vlugt has epitomised the progressive and modern doctrine so typical of 1930s architecture. Use of the area for cultural purposes acquired more definition after the war, thanks in part to the conditions set by the former owners of Hoboken, and today the area is known as the Museum District.
Located a stone’s throw from the Dutch Functionalism of Sonneveld House, Het Nieuwe Instituut occupies a building that reflects the architectural ideas of the 1980s and the influences of postmodernism. And it is precisely between Sonneveld House and Het Nieuwe Instituut that the full-scale model by SeARCH will be built. Bjarne Mastenbroek calls it Yourtopia and says it is an exploration of living in the 21st century: liberated from imposed rules and regulations, and born out of reflection on the merits and shortcomings of our society.
YOURTOPIA BY SEARCH
Bjarne Mastenbroek: ‘Despite calls for sustainability, current consumerism is characterised more by a growing ecological ‘footprint’, and the same is true of how we live. Extreme examples are the private residence of Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai, with over 50 floors. And Zaha Hadid recently designed an ‘unfortunate cross between a control tower and a spaceship’ for Naomi Campbell. Despite these extremes, the role of architecture should be to focus on ‘ordinary reality’. Yourtopia expresses a ‘back-to-basics’ attitude with an elementary quality. What is essential? What has potential?’
SEARCH
According to SeARCH, the task of architecture today is to make spaces that are democratic, sensitive, sustainable and tolerant in the sense that they are open and flexible. SeARCH strives for an architecture that enhances the surrounding landscape and advocates spaces that are ‘dramatically transparent’, light and welcoming. Innovative techniques serve to optimise the practical value of spaces and contribute to a sustainable treatment of our everyday world.
IABR
The pavilion offers visitors a spatial experience that invites contemplation and self-reflection. At the same time, the pavilion comments on the relation between living and the urban landscape, in this case by setting an exotic outside in an almost enclosed inside. That approach connects with ‘Urban by Nature’, the theme of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2014 (IABR). The biennial commission for a summer pavilion is deliberately timed to coincide with this international event. The objective, therefore, is to reflect not only the programme lines of Het Nieuwe Instituut but also the themes chosen for the IABR in order to strengthen both of them and to offer visitors to both a rich and varied programme.
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