WINY MAAS, MVRDV o projektach, Polsce i wyzwaniach w architekturze! | #ŁADNIE #PA 103

Well, I don't know exactly how to tell a lot about Poland in general because I didn't see everything yet, but it was fun. It was very good for many reasons. I think that, of course, the lecture — to give a lecture for me personally, also to do an effort in this week where we face so many global changes. So in Palestine, in Kyiv the bombardment, and the appearance of Trump, new president, with all his decrees immediately — and that gave me then also inspiration to talk here on this place about Europe. Yeah, it was a very special lecture.

Well, of course you have the big fairs like Milan and Expo, and anyway, when you give a speech there you are surrounded by noise. Because it's like in the middle of the fair, people just walk by and go further, and you have almost to yell out to get the attention. So the good part in 4 Design Days was that the conferences were not on the show where people were walking, but just aside, and it made it also more concentrative. And I think that's needed. And it was good because it was kind of an open corner, so there were lots of people that came. So that is also different from that kind of environments. And it was quite well organized. When I compare it — a minute last, I spoke in Prague in Designblok, and that was kind of beautiful. It was super improvised. Like when I arrived there, it was in a cellar, like in a corner, and then they said, 'Oh, we expected only like 20 people would come and then we would have a kind of small talk.' So they had only kind of a television screen. So I said, 'No, no, we cannot do that.' And so we reorganized that cellar immediately, was getting chairs everywhere, made a mess basically out of the space to fulfill then ultimately the amount of people that came and also the atmosphere of a kind of dialogue that was happening. So now it was more theatrical in your case.

But it was also — I mean, the listener, the viewer might wonder what can an architect say about politics or about the European Union. But I try to explain it in a spatial way. And what can we do as architects in order to make this quality of Europe, to make it even more special? I mean, I believe in and love Europe because there are so many differences in language and culture, in architecture, and in urban treatment, let me say it that way. And so I put a finger, I think, especially on two elements: on urbanism as a tool to enlarge those specificities. Whether it's Copenhagen or Kraków or Prague or Amsterdam — because there's a tendency, of course, to make cities more generic. You see everywhere currently blocks coming, grids, and of course there are slightly more trees in the streets than before, there's a green roof on top, they make it out of wood but then with square windows again, and it's all the same. And I think it deserves more character. And that can be done by looking at the qualities of the cities and the differentiation as well. Give way for local architects and designers also.

So an architect can completely change the approach to a place that used to be just dull and not boring, and give it light, give it life. And you changed the parking lots to places where there are trees and plants, and people love it. Although it's difficult to get there because they don't have parking spots there too easily. But we managed. Also, a bike — it's a flat country and it's an area, and it's easy to go around.

Well, I can tell about certain techniques that we also applied in the Netherlands on such an issue. But one, of course, is what you also experience now — that we're in a traffic jam, which is annoying. And it happens also in Czech Republic with the D1, it's also overloaded. And when you go to Broumov, it's like a wall of lorries that cannot pass through that kind of passageway. So somehow these kinds of disasters help. And remember, we were advising for a city in the northern part of the Netherlands, in Groningen, to pedestrianize it. But then there was a referendum and they voted against that. So what we talked with the alderman and with the mayor — what should we do now, the coming five years, because we cannot do it? And he said, 'Maybe we stop all the traffic lights from functioning and see how it goes.' See how it goes. That was terrific. After a year, they were so pissed off that everybody was yelling for a tramway and for pedestrianization. So then we could go on. So it took a year. So it's a bit of an apocalyptic technique that you see happening. It doesn't work always, because yeah, in climate change also this warning of the Club of Rome and after — some people are simply pissed off by it and get a fatigue out of it.

Oh, what normally very much helps is showing the alternatives. That is simply a nice city where you can bike. And in Paris, the success of the past is so enormous. And secondly, already built tramways — like the tramway in Bordeaux was an instant success after it. So it depends a bit on the zone and on the case.

I remember that in Rotterdam, like ten years ago, when we started with the Rooftop Days — which was one weekend in the year — we invited people to come on the roofs of Rotterdam. Rotterdam, because of the bombardment, has the highest amount of flat roofs, I think, in the world in a city. And they're not so used, but when you go up you have a phenomenal view over the city. And so this festival over the years was also like a proclaim or a manifesto — to see the roof as a podium and also to advocate more density on the roof, so that people could build on top of it or can use it as parks or use it as water basins for water storage and for access. So over the years we did interventions, from a theater on the roof to making, I think, the most public stair ever made in the planet.

Yeah, and also what happened in those days of the stair — because every year we do another kind of statement. So in the case of the stair, it was on the Station Square, just after the terror acts in the station of Cologne. So it was also an act of courage, courage to encourage people. And yes, it was safe. So we had a lot of police issues or elements around it, hidden, and safety. And we had a lot of, say, financial government — this was mixed, government mixed — the government financed it partly and also a series of builders, real estate people. Because what we also discussed earlier — but I want to finish that because I think the listener wants to hear — the stair was one, but a year later we made bridges between the roofs and made a walk, and a bit prefabricated. And people loved that again. You see that people start to love the city, make viewpoints, selfies. There were concerts on it. And actually it's about densification of the city, so it made the city more popular and more acceptable.

Rotterdam has indeed a very open setting. It is not a historical town, so not frozen. And I think it invented the technique of making beautiful interventions in a city. That comes out of nostalgia, in a way, because the bombardment has given some pain, and now they want to improve the city. And by this kind of interventions — that can be architecture, can be museums, can be whatever — that is in the city, makes the city very prominent in its interaction. Well, you can go around there now — you see that actually the city is an urbanism of the collection of interventions, and that makes it kind of exciting. Because the architecture that you haven't seen before is fresh, and all the generations that work on the city in these fifty years are also participating. So I can see the style of the seventies, and I respected in my Markthal the window towards this — shows also the beauty of the seventies. So it's a kind of respect, mutual respect, that is what this collection is giving. And that's new, I think. That is done by authors, by good architects, by good artists, and that then you also respect their work. And that's the principle, the fundament of trying of combining diversity with direction, with respect.

Well, it gives in general. There is a good fund. In general, it's good to raise funds for architecture and art — can be private, can be public. In this case it's a public fund, the Stimuleringsfonds. And there, young artists but also young architects can ask for a budget to have a publication, to make a film, to have an exhibition. And that helps enormously, especially for young architects to speak out. Because everybody can do it. You see also the diversity of architecture increasing, and also the architects involved, the younger — they know that they have to specialize in order to be different, in order to be deep. So I think for a country that's very helpful to have a variety of architects, so that you can work not only on one style — which happens so much in Germany — but in a case of like celebrating the difference that is there and encouraging them to make more quality with that language that they have. So that is — how much do they get? I think it's something like 25,000 euros to do it. And I find that a beautiful tool. It's amazing because it's not only the fund, it's also the criteria, the committee that's behind it that changes over time. So it should not be the dinosaurs on the board only one type. But that has created over thirty years, I think, that it exists, a continuous emerging factory.

That's what you beautifully said — the backbone is what we have to build up. Yeah, we are the physiotherapists of our society. So this is something that is really important, and that's what Platforme Architectuur and Fundacja WAD is fighting for, to make some changes. And I think the spreading of the information is so important, because during the 4 Design Days we had so many talks and there were so many different approaches, not only to architecture but also to the problem of politics. There was Anna from Georgia, who was running for mayor of Tbilisi, and that it's really important that architects are also involved in some politics. She made a very beautiful statement, and I confirm that also publicly — which is kind of dangerous — but it's like: she said we have to work on communities, and communities are the base of democracy, and in their emancipation — we use that word — can grow to a strong voice in society. I thought it was so beautiful that she said that. And I can understand in a situation like Georgia, that is heavily under attack, that needs support to do that. And also it's a message for us wealthier countries, and somehow safe — not only spur them, also look to ourselves, because we don't give so much support to communities. Developers are skeptical — they think, 'Oh my God, they're going to complain. I want to do my thing, so I'm not going to do that.' So they tell to the mayor, 'Don't give me this kind of burden. I want to go through it.' There are politicians that are also saying, 'I want to do action, and then I have to talk with people too long, then I cannot do that.' So it says also something about us: how can we make a society where they participate, is fully integrated somehow, is respected without becoming blocked?

Al, it can also be beautiful. Yeah, you touch a little bit cynical tone now in your observation, but I think adaptation of our volumes to certain kind of qualities that you have not seen before, and that maybe comes from the neighborhood, is also fair. And I give you an example. We make a building in Rotterdam, the Depot, which is the archive of contemporary art, which is like a big bowl of mirrors that mirror the city. Because it was the place where people were escaping to during the bombardment — so when the flames were in the back, it's a beautiful picture of the past, of that moment where thousands of people were on this meadow and on the back you saw the whole city in flames. And then to have an open depot that's very symbolic — that all what is our richness, our collection of art that is hidden normally in a barrack somewhere outside, that you put it there on this place where the flames have not come. And then to surround it with a mirror that reflects the growing of the city as a compensation of it. There was a debate about what we call it. That created a certain kind of pride among people. But next door was the main hospital — it's the main hospital downtown, which I like because I hate that hospitals are outside of the city more and more these days because of traffic jams. And I think it's fantastic if you can bike to the hospital to deliver a baby. No? That's kind of — yeah, I did it. We did it, and we were there, really, during COVID that was happening — the babies, my twins came. Wow.

Well, I have a relationship with the hospital, not only because of the delivery and of the twins, but also because at a certain moment, together with Adri Duivendrecht, you were supervising center of the city, and we told the hospital, 'You must be happy that you're in the city.' 'No, I want to go.' 'No, no, you have to be, but you have to behave a little bit like a citizen.' So we want to have two streets through your building, through your big building. Okay. Which is like cuts through the building. They had a two-billion operation of buildings to make it done, but the cuts are made, the tunnels are made. So it happened. On street level, yeah, on street level. And I think you would enjoy that passage. So that goes through — it becomes an urban passage that connects north and south and east and west.