Our exhibition and new office in Berlin are the result of almost 30 years of hard work! In this video produced by PLANE—SITE, our Founding Partner Jacob van Rijs talks about the long journey between his first collaboration with Winy Maas and Nathalie de Vries, the 1991 project Berlin Voids, and the opening of the Berlin office in September. On the way, he gives us a brief glimpse of the archive currently on display at the MVRDV Haus Berlin exhibition, discusses the ideas that drive MVRDV’s work, and explains the difference, in his view, between Dutch and German architects.
After the multi awarded Moriyama San, Tokyo Ride is a new step of Bêka & Lemoine’s immersion within Tokyo’s busy daily life. Revisiting the genre of the road movie in a very diaristic and personal way, the film takes us on board of Ryue Nishizawa’s vintage Alfa Romeo for a day long wandering in the streets of Tokyo.
More than a portrait, in the classical sense, of one of the most talented and celebrated Japanese architect of today, the film renders in its pure spontaneity the experience of this friendly urban drift. Ryue Nishizawa narrates along the way his strong relationship with his home town through some sites he personally affectionates, buildings that have influenced him, and some of his own architecture projects.
The film questions how rooted architecture practice is and how much the built and cultural environment feeds and shapes our imagination.
“We’ve never neglected the social hierarchy,” say Jens Thomas Arnfred and Søren Nielsen from the prizewinning Vandkunsten Architects. In the video, the two Danish architects talk about the importance of planning in a way that gives the residents “a chance to meet each other and be together about something.”
“We never used the realtor style with cadastres and gardens, and here you can be standoffish.” The architects talk about how they have always tried to make rooms as social as possible, which is in high demand today: “There’s a thirst for community among house buyers.” Though they are clear that they, as architects, can’t decide the community, they can set the stage: “In the plans for our dwellings we try to stimulate the sense of community.” Finally, the two architects criticise the Freetown Christiania for having become the worst petit bourgeois in Copenhagen: “They’re palace owners.”
Vandkunsten Architects is a Danish architecture firm founded in 1970. Their philosophy is designing architecture for people – creating housing “designed for the ways that people live, work, play, and think.” The firm works within the full range of architectural practice – from landscaping and city planning to site plans, urban renewal and renovation of both residential and commercial architecture. Moreover, they often take on projects for institutions with a social or cultural purpose. Projects include the Modern Seaweed House in Læsø and the Blue Corner in Copenhagen’s Christianshavn district. Vandkunsten Architects has received numerous awards such as The Eckersberg Medal (2014), Alvar Aalto Medal (2009), and the Fritz Schumacher Medal (1996). Moreover, they have been nominated five times for the Mies van der Rohe Award. For more see: https://vandkunsten.com/en