Thank you for inviting me here. And so somehow I know Anna, I know that you're better than this other conference here in town which I have never attended. So that is very good that you do it. Why? Because it gives kind of personal touch to our world. And so you were challenging me to give a lecture not in a kind of high-speed format but to try to somehow analyze myself and the influence that it has given to me. So of course your title is like a contradiction, like you are not allowed to talk about architecture and only about what is an impossibility. So yes, I say I will show projects but in another way. It's a kind of selected autobiography that I try to take you through why, in order to understand myself. And of course it was inspired by a podcast maker, a journalist that is like asking or making a series on like people and how did they become the coming out if somehow what. And everybody starts at a moment of nothing. No, like there is this kind of moment of pure coincidence when you are born and from there it takes long but actually that coincidence is quite amazing. It's like a refinement of your own DNA and the refinement of your existence as a base for further existence. So this construction of existence fascinated him and also now a retrospective somehow also me. And that is like this construct is then like how to grow into destinations is a bit the scenography that we have to embody today and maybe to discuss later in the conversation.
I mean, I'm north in a way. This is a picture how when I was coming of age, that somehow every day or every month, that's where my placement. I don't come from the mountains, I come from a place where climate change will be at its highest effect to be imagined. I come from a place where this endlessness was also like inspiration. There was no claustrophobia at all. And it was about perspectives that we would like to paint. And also in those, as I mean then we talk about the 70s, beginning of the 70s, and I was there playing with my Lego blocks. And of course like every architect is doing as one of the sources somehow to be. I was on television endlessly, this was there and it was the go on and go. And this has somehow so influenced me and more I think a whole generation. It took in that way 40, 50 years to deal with this observation that they ate. Then the second element is that at a certain moment my mom started to become a florist or became a florist and my dad became a garden architect. And so they did that in a very ugly design. So here I grew up and I was not only forced but I enjoyed it to work in it. So I started as a florist with my mom, I went to do the shopping to get all the flowers and then to arrange them while I was going to secondary school. And make gardens with my dad because he was only very technical and economical and to give it some kind of a taste in it. And so what can I do then afterwards? And this was all happening in a place which you don't know, that is like in that Noord-Brabant area. And but this was his village and it has a church and it has like small street and cute street. And then the Americans came and bombarded in '45. So this is the village variant of Rotterdam is what we could then. They made this. So I am born and grown up in a lot of ugliness and what to do then with that.
So then I was 17, 18 and I wrote this letter to the mayor. So Mr. Mayor, I mean I live in an ugly place and I'm on the threshold of going away and I would like to ask you to make now a kind of idea competition with architects and designers to think about this. And not being aware that actually this letter has influenced me so much. So he wrote back, dear beloved Mr. Maas, Mr. Schulten, and they say, 'Yeah, good idea. I really like that you do it, so I come back to you.' Fine. 35 years later, what happened? It took him a while because he stayed in the Netherlands, you stay as a mayor and you can continue. So, and it was yeah. And I made some buildings and he saw that in the press and then maybe it's better to get him back in that town. Normally you don't because you run away and you never go back to your hometown but in this case I went back and seeing this place that turned into that. And he asked me what do you want to make and I said, and I dreamed about it. I said why would I want to make something? Yeah, because I want that everybody knows Schijndel in the future. Make a skyscraper 400 meter high and you can see it from Paris and from Copenhagen and from London. And he took it serious. He wouldn't have done it when I was 18, 17 but then he became like okay, started to talk about it. And then he got a kind of political crisis because nobody wanted that, that was clear. Then he said okay, you have one chance still to do that. So then you go. And I still remember very much it is then because I try to explain it especially for the students how do you react in what is happening. It's like a Dutch system of politicians so you have like about 18 parties in the Netherlands and from say ultra right, sorry you're not right, but that, and from to ultra left. And then you have to negotiate like in two months every week you have to go to talk with them what could be done there. They go back to their party and then you get, you know the system. So what happened? And it's like how much should the building then be? And I went here and then so like this. Yeah. And then I go to there. No, it should be this. So how wide then? And then back there. And it was like this. So and how high? Like the neighbors and then what kind of shape.
So what happened was this that they then could imagine on that place which is very Freudian. This also to me was very Freudian because this is kind and you have 500 of them of the same characters and they want to put that down there. So how logical can it be? So we analyzed then all these houses, these farmhouses and we compared them and we made the average. So to calculate how far is now this if you look at the average which is very statistic then it's actually this. And they said this. So of course in two seconds I said yes that's what we are going to do. So which is I think very symbolical because it's a bit like you know, calm, I'm small and you are big. And then you have that also with second tier cities like Barcelona versus Madrid. So to have how to, so you are bigger than you are. And so and then the doors are like this et cetera. And so the mayor was troubled, he said okay we take it but now it's enough, one joke is enough for my town. So now what do you mean? Yeah, now material should be normal. No, so that means like a brick, that means like straw, wood, glass. Yeah, glass also okay. So we put, here we made the elements and then we made it, we selected only one, only glass. So because it is because then you can do everything about the history of the town in it. I could burn it into it. And what happens then when you do all this burning act, there's an architecture of 2 millimeters that you then do but inside you have the biggest fresco or the biggest rose window. So everything was there cooking in that kind of with a glass eating in it. There's a collective house and there's a certain kind of proud because it becomes a lantern in the evening so that you know that it fits in this town but two times as big as an average part. So that was funny to see because somehow it attracted some people and the mayor who didn't speak English, he had to learn English a little bit to help in the BBC to explain that the town was now somehow visible to the world. So this explains I mean the irony that I put into it with it again with the technology that is new is a kind of double attitude that you have I think when you're born in a place and you want to escape and you go further and then to bring it to give that back. I'm actually very proud and who was of course very proud is my mom who had to defend that always on the market against others what is your son doing there in that place. I said and you don't talk longer she tells her on headphone then I don't talk with you anymore if you hate it. So she became a little bit guerrilla and which I simply adore that she tried to do that.
So then I went to another inspiration that pushed me indirect direct to be an architect. I went to Beekvliet. Beekvliet is a school and that existed 200 years. So I escaped my village to go to another village which is like so very Catholic. So like a seminary where you become priests there and even the first year I had to sleep over in that. So they make bishops and popes come from there. And during the year these are my teachers. And it was the first year with also girls in it, like half half. To imagine what is interesting I think about that school but I didn't expect that it was the prisoners of war were there. So all the ministers that didn't run away to London in the second war had to be put there. There was the brain of the Dutch society was born on that place. They were together. And during three years they manufactured the idea after the war was conceived there. And I'm very happy now to make their museum and to hear their story on that that was happening in my place. I didn't know that. So what happened being in a village being then given to this kind of situations made me for me and this is this complex how they built out of it. And so here I am sitting in this park and how I became, I started to talk more, I wanted to come out. I don't look to the hair coach but like this day it was that moment of time. And so I became the president of the students organization and I wanted to talk out. I learned from all the teachers that were there and this helped me a lot. Honestly, I would love that you would have such a kind of education. I would because there this was like better than my secret history of Donatart where you would, I mean some of you might have read it what happened in those gardens. So it continued with this and then just before I left they went from this to a new building. This is maybe a reason that I became an architect. It was so bad that cheap as a survival act but that you I come from this but all my stories sleeping on top of this drinking in this garden having here let's say my first motor ride there in this hill we had our beer and we put some chemistry in that hill to make our own genever and gin in it. And now you give it to transport that into this is what so what happened then. So here you see it happening they move from there to there.
Couple of years later, phone call comes. Can you do something about that? We have this thing and we want to have a new kind of to meet each other. So, we try to do that and simply and the budget for schools are terrible in the Netherlands. You cannot, one toilet already is the max you can finance for the kids, poor kids. I found it a bit boring. So I wrote a letter again like in the same to Carl who's the dean and I said to her I think it's a bit boring we have to do something what shall we do. So we had a Zoom call with each other and we started to paint over it and with all this participants in it. And the idea was actually to ask people to think about the stories of the school, 200 years of that. So there are so many stories in the history of our and let's show them further. And we put the stories on a around that school and we start to imagine how the stories can somehow be put on top of the building on the position. And that has been done with an artist Ian Kirkpatrick from Canada to show them that there was this kind of room where we smoked and that there was this place where my favorite Dutch teacher was writing and give me and inspire me to read in the end in my life all the Dutch characters. Or how what we did in the forest or what we did in on writing and made pamphlets in the evening. But also the buildings that surrounded, Maaskant, my favorite architect, it's close to my name but is that who was there and how he went to different bars and how he traveled, how he had a terrible accident also accident in '83 with some casualties. And how the former rector went away and how the new came and how people become more Americanized that you have that also your secondary place that you have to throw this hat now up stupid but it's like copied of the past. And then how the new building emerges and that's what this building is now about, comes together all the stories in the entrance and then you spill out on this blue plaza to be together.
So we did only with students and in this case they were intending to get rid of architecture on the technical university. So you protested and we made was in the moment in '89 when there was a Czech spring for instance we said okay let's if the iron border is leaving there then we take it here to protect our university. So here we are building that iron wall. We combined it with all kind of architecture in it and surrounded the building with that action. And then we made our workshop collaborating with Japanese about the future of Delft. This is Delft but actually the mechanisms below about the water system which is there and to see how that could inspire the city. Then there's '96 we continue the exploring the world of shadow. Last week in Frankfurt at the Alte Oper you see the article probably have read it that we had this age of modernism which was about light and now we come in the epoch of shadow because of climate change. So the exploring the darklands with Herman and with Zaha we did this and we looked to how much light could we need and tested that zone with each other. In '98 we continued further. I was showing fire, max in my way. In 2000 there was a kind of discussion from cosmetics, decoration to mechanics in architecture and to try to celebrate that. And then in 2007 we worked on the legacy. What do we leave behind 50 years after us and we try to show that by slogans of 50 years later. And then we show it in the city. So here you see how we interfered in this neighborhood, how we thought what can we do with other kind of groups in it, how to deal with the city center and made one place like this. So the Times Square will be one for all in Rotterdam to celebrate architects that show their vision. So you can do a lot. The only thing studying is nice, give me a lot this kind of conversations but my dad said I'm not going to pay your study. So there was so I had to do some jobs. So I worked with different ones. I show you two elements that came across to my part. I didn't go to the US. I didn't go to the UK, but I worked for UNESCO and for instance in Lamu in Kenya. I made with Italian architects. Basically, this transformation showed how I would do a market hall, the first market hall in Africa than them to do. And then I came back again. And so you see even with young kids that I haven't seen before of my family often because I was away I went back to Suakin which is in Sudan in between the war of Chad and Eritrea and which is a beautiful island town. Maybe some of you have been there and this is what we but I was sent there to check if it was still there. So if you check it here this is what the map showed. So all the buildings were gone because they have marble. Huh. If I would be rich then I can buy sell it. So what only thing I could do and this is now an image how it is now is to enlarge this water basin around. So they've completely ponded two dredgers. They made it in a month time so that it could be protected say from one easy protectable zone. Yeah. Should I have done it or should these people have been more money by having it? But this was my mission that I had to do and then I could go back. And then I met Rem somewhere on a plane in an airport and I went to graduate with him and but I went afterwards to OMA and I want to and because yeah Rem said Africa so you weren't there Morocco what kind of building do. The first curve was made in OMA to make a kind of synopsis of the landscape of the dunes and turn that into the center. But more another project that I would illustrate that inspired me so much and actually the discussion that we need to have with you two later on what it is. I take you to La Défense was in the book that they made somewhere in Paris and it looked like this. Say they made a grand and then it was surrounded by basically by buildings that you don't want to see that was and how to deal with that. So was that of course in the past this dichotomy of doing do we dare to do that. So what we calculated is simply your maintenance program, a facade 10 years gone, a structure 40 years gone. So the economical value of if you calculate that over time that at a certain moment say in 50 years from now you would have something beautiful peeled away like in this is what the scratches and this could be the new future. So this is a discussion now what do we keep endlessly the same as we have or is there a moment of full recycling. So you see here how we then imagined the different carpets coming in and to make that possible that inspired me for lightness. Heaviness is one but lightness is another one in fact to think about buildings that can redevelop, can be reused to think how also Rotterdam can use this kind of sequence and how we gradually can transform it when we need it in order to what kind of techniques to use then to turn that into a kind of hyper changeable environment was my dream and we build it in at the moment in OMA world. So yes, inspiration counts as I wanted to show for architects that I now started and then it ended with Rem, Philip, you know the one Philip Johnson that was. So I went with Rem on a trip to New York to talk about like how to collaborate but the relationship between Philip and Rem was historically not so good. So that is so okay now he was older. We went into his building. There's his office. So here you see how we were talking. So you come into the office from the elevator and you see someone there with big ears and then ah on black that's Philip to do that. Rem had to go to the bathroom after a talk and so and then he came to me and monkey, monkey, how long are you working for them? Two years maximum two and a half years. He eats you. He consumes you. This was the best warning I have had. I mean, I love Rem. But also, how not to stay too long was actually the message. So, we went and made MVRDV, the first images of our office. We won a competition in Berlin to make something different out of that endless sequence of blocks. And in Hannover, we could then construct this. And this, I think, is still for me the moment that urbanism, landscape architecture, and architecture come together. And that you stack the landscapes that it then became a ruin in the best German tradition. This year could be Wagner involved. Somehow I liked it. It was Dutch territory so it could be done but now it's overtaken by an office and becomes reused. And that is so and then in Rotterdam we continued. I want to show you that this agenda that I had based on the Club of Rome that somehow with this Depot I think this forest on the roof is a contribution. So yes you have to deal with CO2 and with carbon but you have also to deal with cooling, with birds, with biodiversity and with water management. We continued in Amsterdam with this rock to make that livable and to the finally a rock in the Netherlands and in Paris now where this is nearly finished as a rack. And then back to Rotterdam and now what we just handed in is a building that somehow can be overgrown by new techniques and hopefully gives a kind of message to this planet that goes beyond say what we know and use also new constructions to inspire people. And of course what I learned from Rem is making books and books are so nice to what in the collection that we do because it give you a way to talk and to think to make a structure and to study because I still love it what we did with Benham in this place. And now I'm trying to make after KM3, KM4 to address time and from capacity to time is what we do. Yes. And the ultimate one is of course the students. I couldn't have done that without universities. This is such a plea that we do share our knowledge with younger generation that we try to make things where we can fantasize of the future even if there's a traditional education as in even if that was the university where we went in. And then when the students came in it got into fire. I mean what a coincidence is and then I have to speak outside that we made it build it up again and I could make this and inviting people I think that's what it is about to get more togetherness and always good to travel around and to be together on more places to deepen your thoughts in triangles of extremities that in this case construct the future cities and then piece by piece can be made. And that leads now with a trilogy of landscape with humans, with animals and you humans next year coming out with stuff and humans that lead to calculations from the carbon to say the complete metabolistic. Finally after the Japanese time we make a new metabolistic architecture that is talking about this relationship. And then we can theme of transforming this for thinking this as cityscapes and imagine then that the planet would transform into a biotopia is what this dream is done. And with that we try to apply this came out in this conference here with the bus boosters of calculating how we have to compensate our behavior in this town, how it leads to new kind of boulevards, how we do it with universities at AAU, this kind of that all the students of the Czech Republic to manifest against their regime at the moment to see what the Czech Republic should do in Europe to fight for a better future, make a map with all the ideas that they have, 200 students and to indicate what should be done in order to make that place better is what comes out now and goes then to the parliament and to the Senate in September. Member to address it. This is what I learned from the Club of Rome that they speak out and that you formulate that on the way and that we transform it then to the platform with that. And with that I selected for you a sequence and which there architects not architecture. This paradox is somehow illustrated and where it became an art of coincidence, a construct of existence with emerging destinations. Thank you very much.
