Editorial
Articles
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The extended 1990s, the period from 1989 to 2001, was not only an important period of growth for Dutch architecture but also a key moment for the Dutch in reflecting on their identity. Crucial to that reflection, according to critic Bart Lootsma, was the publication in 1987 of a book by British-American historian Simon Schama on the culture and mentality of the Dutch golden age: The Embarrassment of Riches.1 Schama argues in his book that Dutch culture since the golden age has been characterized by a collective fear that inflated egos would turn prosperity into adversity. Therefore, the great social dilemma in the Republic, according to Schama, was how to reconcile wealth and morals. With the help of Calvin and Erasmus, the Dutch chose to renounce outward show and pompous behaviour as much as possible.
The topicality of this history lies in the fact that the present Dutch consultation model – the polder model – and a mentality of ‘if you act normal, that’s already crazy enough’ could very possibly have its roots in this moral dilemma. It is likely that the problematic position of the concept of luxury in Dutch architecture and design is also related to this. According to Bart Lootsma in his book SuperDutch: New Architecture in the Netherlands, the Dutch spend the least money on clothing of all Europeans. Building costs are many times lower than in the rest of Europe. And just as the wealthy burgers of the golden age built their mansions in the countryside and played down their size and opulence when they were in town, today’s owners of some of the most important country homes commissioned over the past years – the Dutch House by OMA and the Moebius House by Van Berkel & Bos – prefer to remain anonymous and keep their addresses secret.
The extended 1990s, the period from 1989 to 2001, was not only an important period of growth for Dutch architecture but also a key moment for the Dutch in reflecting on their identity. Crucial to that reflection, according to critic Bart Lootsma, was the publication in 1987 of a book by British-American historian Simon Schama on the culture and mentality of the Dutch golden age: The Embarrassment of Riches.1 Schama argues in his book that Dutch culture since the golden age has been characterized by a collective fear that inflated egos would turn prosperity into adversity. Therefore, the great social dilemma in the Republic, according to Schama, was how to reconcile wealth and morals. With the help of Calvin and Erasmus, the Dutch chose to renounce outward show and pompous behaviour as much as possible.
The topicality of this history lies in the fact that the present Dutch consultation model – the polder model – and a mentality of ‘if you act normal, that’s already...
The extended 1990s, the period from 1989 to 2001, was not only an important period of growth for Dutch architecture but also a key moment for the Dutch in reflecting on their identity. Crucial to that reflection, according to critic Bart Lootsma, was the publication in 1987 of a book by...
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Luxurious housing is expensive. But expensive housing is not by definition luxurious. This is evident from a comparison between luxury apartments in the cities of Amsterdam and Berlin. A luxury apartment in Amsterdam is finished with spray plastering and steel lipped doors, while people in Berlin turn up their noses at that. The size of the average living quarters in the two cities is also poles apart. What underlies these differences?
Market demand, implemented policy and historical factors determine the conditions for what is sold as luxury. This essay attempts to shed light on the possibilities and impossibilities of developing luxury apartments by comparing the two capitals. It associates market demand and policy with the level of services and finishing and with the quality of the floor plans of the dwellings.
Luxurious housing is expensive. But expensive housing is not by definition luxurious. This is evident from a comparison between luxury apartments in the cities of Amsterdam and Berlin. A luxury apartment in Amsterdam is finished with spray plastering and steel lipped doors, while people in Berlin turn up their noses at that. The size of the average living quarters in the two cities is also poles apart. What underlies these differences?
Market demand, implemented policy and historical factors determine the conditions for what is sold as luxury. This essay attempts to shed light on the possibilities and impossibilities of developing luxury apartments by comparing the two capitals. It associates market demand and policy with the level of services and finishing and with the quality of the floor plans of the dwellings.
Luxurious housing is expensive. But expensive housing is not by definition luxurious. This is evident from a comparison between luxury apartments in the cities of Amsterdam and Berlin. A luxury apartment in Amsterdam is finished with spray plastering and steel lipped doors, while people in...
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A little over a century ago, São Paulo was still an insignificant provincial town in an unimportant state of the Brazilian Republic. Thanks to the cultivation of coffee and later to the strong growth of Brazilian industry, São Paulo was able to transform itself over the course of the twentieth century into the country’s economic and cultural centre – and one of the largest cities in the world. Nowadays, one out of ten Brazilians lives in the metropolis, and 20 per cent of Brazil’s GNP is generated there. The city has the greatest concentration of wealth in the country, but also harrowing poverty, social segregation and inequality.
From the nineteenth century onward, São Paulo developed so quickly that the expansion of infrastructure could not keep up with the growth of the city. Around the central zone, there arose a belt of poor districts that remained bereft of good infrastructure and facilities such as schools, healthcare, police and public greenery. Until the 1970s, São Paulo’s wealth was out of sheer necessity contained within a vigorous central area where the facilities were in good order.
A little over a century ago, São Paulo was still an insignificant provincial town in an unimportant state of the Brazilian Republic. Thanks to the cultivation of coffee and later to the strong growth of Brazilian industry, São Paulo was able to transform itself over the course of the twentieth century into the country’s economic and cultural centre – and one of the largest cities in the world. Nowadays, one out of ten Brazilians lives in the metropolis, and 20 per cent of Brazil’s GNP is generated there. The city has the greatest concentration of wealth in the country, but also harrowing poverty, social segregation and inequality.
From the nineteenth century onward, São Paulo developed so quickly that the expansion of infrastructure could not keep up with the growth of the city. Around the central zone, there arose a belt of poor districts that remained bereft of good infrastructure and facilities such as schools, healthcare, police and public greenery. Until the...
A little over a century ago, São Paulo was still an insignificant provincial town in an unimportant state of the Brazilian Republic. Thanks to the cultivation of coffee and later to the strong growth of Brazilian industry, São Paulo was able to transform itself over the course of the...
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In E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End Margaret Schlegel, the central character of the novel, observes with a mixture of disgust and melancholia the emergence of large flat buildings taking over the street which for decades has been the adopted home of her liberal German immigrant family. It is the voice of the cultured foreigner, one may assume, that the writer uses to express his own deep resentment against the appearance of these large ‘promontories’ with their ‘cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms’, sweeping away the politely inconspicuous Georgian houses with their graceful proportions and unostentatious demeanour.1 Forster’s rejection of the new large buildings is partly informed by a rejection of the brash commercialism and the nouveau-riche pretensions associated with them, and by the fear of the middle class of becoming the victim of yet another violent wave of speculative urban development. The destruction of the street represents the rapid and disturbing development of modern society in a period of rampant capitalism and imperial expansion; ‘the kind of scene that may be observed all over London, whatever the locality – bricks and mortar rising and falling with the restlessness of the water in a fountain, as the city receives more and more men upon her soil.’2 The mansion flats in Margaret Schlegel’s neighbourhood are not merely an eyesore, they attack the very foundations of the culture with which the writer and his character identify and testify to the congestion of the modern metropolis and its negligence towards honoured notions of Englishness and modest propriety.
In E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End Margaret Schlegel, the central character of the novel, observes with a mixture of disgust and melancholia the emergence of large flat buildings taking over the street which for decades has been the adopted home of her liberal German immigrant family. It is the voice of the cultured foreigner, one may assume, that the writer uses to express his own deep resentment against the appearance of these large ‘promontories’ with their ‘cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms’, sweeping away the politely inconspicuous Georgian houses with their graceful proportions and unostentatious demeanour.1 Forster’s rejection of the new large buildings is partly informed by a rejection of the brash commercialism and the nouveau-riche pretensions associated with them, and by the fear of the middle class of becoming the victim of yet another violent wave of speculative urban development. The destruction of the street represents the rapid and...
In E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End Margaret Schlegel, the central character of the novel, observes with a mixture of disgust and melancholia the emergence of large flat buildings taking over the street which for decades has been the adopted home of her liberal German immigrant family. It is...
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Since it became the subject of scholarly reflection and theoretical debate, housing in France has been the subject of my research and my position consists of confronting spatial arrangements with the evolution of customs and life styles. The relations between architecture, culture and living practices are explored, combining the examination of architectural doctrines and the analysis of changes occurring at the same time in French society. These investigations, which are considered on the one hand as part of social history and of a reflection on architectural conception, for example in the two volumes of Architecture de la vie privée,1 also concentrate on an ethnological examination aimed at understanding new ways of life and the modes of evolution of contemporary buildings, as in Urbanité, sociabilité, intimité.
The period between the two World Wars is a particularly rich source for this discussion because it marked the rise of a reflection on minimum social housing and because the fact that one of the rare revolutions in domestic architecture implies the inversion of a trend. In fact, for the first time in France, facilities developed for the working class such as the fully equipped kitchen (1905, Groupe des Maisons Ouvrières – Philanthropic Housing Group) were adopted in luxury housing. Furthermore, a spirit of invention among architects led to iconic buildings that were frequently imitated outside France. However, the official historiography of the Mouvement Moderne has lead us to only consider as modern those architects who rallied to utopian discourses, the rhetoric of rupture and the tabula rasa, and as a consequence, it became unpopular to acknowledge the qualities of the bourgeois house. My intention here is to draft a concise genealogy of bourgeois housing in Paris during the interbellum by describing the evolution of and trends in housing types, but also the exchanges, adaptations and borrowings that took place between the two main categories.
Since it became the subject of scholarly reflection and theoretical debate, housing in France has been the subject of my research and my position consists of confronting spatial arrangements with the evolution of customs and life styles. The relations between architecture, culture and living practices are explored, combining the examination of architectural doctrines and the analysis of changes occurring at the same time in French society. These investigations, which are considered on the one hand as part of social history and of a reflection on architectural conception, for example in the two volumes of Architecture de la vie privée,1 also concentrate on an ethnological examination aimed at understanding new ways of life and the modes of evolution of contemporary buildings, as in Urbanité, sociabilité, intimité.
The period between the two World Wars is a particularly rich source for this discussion because it marked the rise of a reflection on minimum social housing...
Since it became the subject of scholarly reflection and theoretical debate, housing in France has been the subject of my research and my position consists of confronting spatial arrangements with the evolution of customs and life styles. The relations between architecture, culture and living...
Interviews
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The luxury apartment plays a modest role in the history of Dutch housing. Since the early 1990s, however, there has been a growing interest in stacked dwellings as a satisfactory alternative for street-linked dwellings. In addition to increasing appreciation for the luxury apartment as a form of housing, the strategic value of this typology is also gradually becoming recognized.
After all, stacking potentially offers interesting solutions for such topical issues as density and inner-city housing. Vesteda has grown since the late 1990s into one of the specialists in the field of luxury rental apartments in the Netherlands. Under the guidance of CEO and Chairman of the Board Huub Smeets, the company has completed bespoke projects in Maastricht, Eindhoven, Amsterdam and Rotterdam over the past several years.
The luxury apartment plays a modest role in the history of Dutch housing. Since the early 1990s, however, there has been a growing interest in stacked dwellings as a satisfactory alternative for street-linked dwellings. In addition to increasing appreciation for the luxury apartment as a form of housing, the strategic value of this typology is also gradually becoming recognized.
After all, stacking potentially offers interesting solutions for such topical issues as density and inner-city housing. Vesteda has grown since the late 1990s into one of the specialists in the field of luxury rental apartments in the Netherlands. Under the guidance of CEO and Chairman of the Board Huub Smeets, the company has completed bespoke projects in Maastricht, Eindhoven, Amsterdam and Rotterdam over the past several years.
The luxury apartment plays a modest role in the history of Dutch housing. Since the early 1990s, however, there has been a growing interest in stacked dwellings as a satisfactory alternative for street-linked dwellings. In addition to increasing appreciation for the luxury apartment as a form...
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As a housing type in the Netherlands, the apartment is not immediately associated with luxury. In various parts of the world, however, this combination has a long tradition. Cities where skyscrapers and high density are the norm clearly see the stacked form as a way of fulfilling the housing requirements of their diversified residents. Dutch-born architect Winka Dubbeldam lives and works in New York, where she and her firm Archi-Tectonics have designed, among other things, various dwellings and residential buildings for the higher sector of the market. The Greenwich Street Project (2004) combines a renovated and heightened old warehouse with adjoining new construction in downtown Manhattan. It comprises 25 apartments for loft-style living with shared facilities.
As a housing type in the Netherlands, the apartment is not immediately associated with luxury. In various parts of the world, however, this combination has a long tradition. Cities where skyscrapers and high density are the norm clearly see the stacked form as a way of fulfilling the housing requirements of their diversified residents. Dutch-born architect Winka Dubbeldam lives and works in New York, where she and her firm Archi-Tectonics have designed, among other things, various dwellings and residential buildings for the higher sector of the market. The Greenwich Street Project (2004) combines a renovated and heightened old warehouse with adjoining new construction in downtown Manhattan. It comprises 25 apartments for loft-style living with shared facilities.
As a housing type in the Netherlands, the apartment is not immediately associated with luxury. In various parts of the world, however, this combination has a long tradition. Cities where skyscrapers and high density are the norm clearly see the stacked form as a way of fulfilling the housing...
Case Studies
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The rise of privatized luxury domains, combining private residential, collective and commercial functions, has become unstoppable in Brazilian cities. Described as condomínios fechados, these impenetrable, closed enclaves are in effect vertical urban neighbourhoods. The Hygiénopolis neighbourhood in São Paulo marked the start of this development in the twentieth century. Along with their collective and commercial functions, the condomínios fechados are epitomized by the apartments’ large surface area and luxurious materialization. The city’s collective programme withdraws behind high walls, where it becomes the exclusive domain of privileged residents. Parque Cidade Jardim in São Paulo is a prime example of such privatized stacked luxury.
Parque Cidade Jardim is situated on the Marginal do Pinheiros, formerly the city centre ring road, now São Paulo’s main traffic artery. The arrival of residential and other functions in this originally non-descript environment appears to have boosted the public character of the Marginal. But this is just an illusion: the public character has morphed into a fenced-off collectivity. So it has in Parque Cidade Jardim.
The project consists of nine residential tower blocks perched atop a collective programme. Two parks have been built on the fourth and sixth floors. Together with the shopping mall underneath, they constitute an extremely exclusive, new kind of urban space for a metropolitan target group.
The rise of privatized luxury domains, combining private residential, collective and commercial functions, has become unstoppable in Brazilian cities. Described as condomínios fechados, these impenetrable, closed enclaves are in effect vertical urban neighbourhoods. The Hygiénopolis neighbourhood in São Paulo marked the start of this development in the twentieth century. Along with their collective and commercial functions, the condomínios fechados are epitomized by the apartments’ large surface area and luxurious materialization. The city’s collective programme withdraws behind high walls, where it becomes the exclusive domain of privileged residents. Parque Cidade Jardim in São Paulo is a prime example of such privatized stacked luxury.
Parque Cidade Jardim is situated on the Marginal do Pinheiros, formerly the city centre ring road, now São Paulo’s main traffic artery. The arrival of residential and other functions in this originally non-descript...
The rise of privatized luxury domains, combining private residential, collective and commercial functions, has become unstoppable in Brazilian cities. Described as condomínios fechados, these impenetrable, closed enclaves are in effect vertical urban neighbourhoods. The Hygiénopolis...
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40BOND is a complex and contradictory experiment that anticipates a new type of building: a combination of townhouse and apartment building, a so-called diversité d’habitation (Stefano Casciani). Its mix of ingredients includes: dwelling type, artfully applied materials and a ‘close reading’ of the urban context and its graffiti ‘tags’.
The building is a radical reinvention of the traditional cast-iron warehouse that epitomizes the Bowery District in Manhattan. Herzog & de Meuron’s reinterpretation has produced a crystalline structure of specially cast glass wrapped around the façade columns of reinforced concrete. This concrete structural frame allowed the architects to create free plans.
40BOND is a complex and contradictory experiment that anticipates a new type of building: a combination of townhouse and apartment building, a so-called diversité d’habitation (Stefano Casciani). Its mix of ingredients includes: dwelling type, artfully applied materials and a ‘close reading’ of the urban context and its graffiti ‘tags’.
The building is a radical reinvention of the traditional cast-iron warehouse that epitomizes the Bowery District in Manhattan. Herzog & de Meuron’s reinterpretation has produced a crystalline structure of specially cast glass wrapped around the façade columns of reinforced concrete. This concrete structural frame allowed the architects to create free plans.
40BOND is a complex and contradictory experiment that anticipates a new type of building: a combination of townhouse and apartment building, a so-called diversité d’habitation (Stefano Casciani). Its mix of ingredients includes: dwelling type, artfully applied materials and a ‘close...
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What makes Detroit special is the discretion with which an impressive and ambitious programme has been inserted into the urban fabric of the Amsterdam Eastern Docklands.
The ‘luxury along the river IJ’ development consists of a big assortment of rental apartments (82 units, 106 to 238 m2, with rents ranging from €1,500 to €5,000 per month), 2,840 m2 of commercial space (where project developer and investor Vesteda has its offices and where it has set up its woongalerie or showroom) and several communal facilities, including a health club with swimming pool, saunas and fitness room, guest accommodation and a laundry.
Vesteda insisted that the apartments’ floor plans could be transformed to meet tenants’ wishes. With raised floors that can be linked as desired, only the position of the toilet, bathroom and built-in storage is fixed. It meant that first tenants could choose between three to five different layouts per dwelling type.
What makes Detroit special is the discretion with which an impressive and ambitious programme has been inserted into the urban fabric of the Amsterdam Eastern Docklands.
The ‘luxury along the river IJ’ development consists of a big assortment of rental apartments (82 units, 106 to 238 m2, with rents ranging from €1,500 to €5,000 per month), 2,840 m2 of commercial space (where project developer and investor Vesteda has its offices and where it has set up its woongalerie or showroom) and several communal facilities, including a health club with swimming pool, saunas and fitness room, guest accommodation and a laundry.
Vesteda insisted that the apartments’ floor plans could be transformed to meet tenants’ wishes. With raised floors that can be linked as desired, only the position of the toilet, bathroom and built-in storage is fixed. It meant that first tenants could choose between three to five different layouts per dwelling type.
What makes Detroit special is the discretion with which an impressive and ambitious programme has been inserted into the urban fabric of the Amsterdam Eastern Docklands.
The ‘luxury along the river IJ’ development consists of a big assortment of rental apartments (82 units, 106 to...
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Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oíza had intended Torres Blancas as a logo for construction company Huarte. Juan Huarte, who built some of Spain’s most prominent buildings in the 1960s and 1970s, was the initiator behind the ‘white towers’, the plural indicating that the original plan provided for two towers. Only one was built; the other became a horizontal office building. The completed tower block is a beacon, marking the entrance to the city from the Barcelona motorway.
Torres Blancas is an experiment in building the vertical green city. Sáenz de Oíza designed a building with freehold properties, which puts Le Corbusier’s ideas about the villa and the garden city to the test: a vertical version of his immeuble-villas (1922). The architect was also indebted to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower (1952): unity of form and structure, biological analogy and tree structure, coherence between overall form and detailing, and a circle-based geometry. The sculptural shape of this radically organic, reinforced concrete building marries the opposing styles of rationalism and organicism.
The 71-m tower consists of two basement floors, where cars can be parked around the base of the tower, below the entrance-level terrace; 21 floors with dwellings, including a mezzanine for technical facilities. These are topped by two floors with communal facilities: a large reception room with a circular bar, commercial space, a restaurant and a large service area with a kitchen. Located atop are a cafeteria, multifunctional rooms, a conference hall that seats 120 people, and four guest rooms. The rooftop terrace features a meandering outdoor swimming pool.
Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oíza had intended Torres Blancas as a logo for construction company Huarte. Juan Huarte, who built some of Spain’s most prominent buildings in the 1960s and 1970s, was the initiator behind the ‘white towers’, the plural indicating that the original plan provided for two towers. Only one was built; the other became a horizontal office building. The completed tower block is a beacon, marking the entrance to the city from the Barcelona motorway.
Torres Blancas is an experiment in building the vertical green city. Sáenz de Oíza designed a building with freehold properties, which puts Le Corbusier’s ideas about the villa and the garden city to the test: a vertical version of his immeuble-villas (1922). The architect was also indebted to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower (1952): unity of form and structure, biological analogy and tree structure, coherence between overall form and detailing, and a circle-based geometry. The sculptural shape...
Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oíza had intended Torres Blancas as a logo for construction company Huarte. Juan Huarte, who built some of Spain’s most prominent buildings in the 1960s and 1970s, was the initiator behind the ‘white towers’, the plural indicating that the original plan...
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Lake Point Tower is situated on North Lake Shore Drive in downtown Chicago, just north of the Chicago River. The foot of its Y-shape points northwards and overlooks the city (west) and Lake Michigan (east). With its undulating glass structure, the 197-m, asymmetrical tower block is based on two Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designs: an office building on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin (1919) and a 30-storey skyscraper for an imaginary location (1920-1921). The two tower designs were conceived along similar lines: stacked, level floor constructions, a free floor plan and a glass shell. It was the first commission for Mies’s former students and colleagues at the Illinois Institute of Technology, George Schipporeit and John Heinrich.
The tower block sits atop a green-glazed-brick base with a four-storey car park, lobby and other communal facilities, and is bordered on all sides by roads. In turn, the building is the centre piece of the Skyline Park, a ‘private paradise’, with exclusive access for residents and their guests to relax and enjoy the view. The architects opted for one tall building instead of the originally requested three lower structures to accommodate a more spacious park around the tower block. The tower, initially conceived as a cruciform with four rounded wings, was eventually built with three rounded wings at an obtuse 120º angle, to prevent residents from looking into their neighbours’ apartments. This building form is also better equipped to withstand the wind load, although more expensive to construct.
Lake Point Tower is situated on North Lake Shore Drive in downtown Chicago, just north of the Chicago River. The foot of its Y-shape points northwards and overlooks the city (west) and Lake Michigan (east). With its undulating glass structure, the 197-m, asymmetrical tower block is based on two Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designs: an office building on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin (1919) and a 30-storey skyscraper for an imaginary location (1920-1921). The two tower designs were conceived along similar lines: stacked, level floor constructions, a free floor plan and a glass shell. It was the first commission for Mies’s former students and colleagues at the Illinois Institute of Technology, George Schipporeit and John Heinrich.
The tower block sits atop a green-glazed-brick base with a four-storey car park, lobby and other communal facilities, and is bordered on all sides by roads. In turn, the building is the centre piece of the Skyline Park, a ‘private paradise’, with...
Lake Point Tower is situated on North Lake Shore Drive in downtown Chicago, just north of the Chicago River. The foot of its Y-shape points northwards and overlooks the city (west) and Lake Michigan (east). With its undulating glass structure, the 197-m, asymmetrical tower block is based on...
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The most striking housing development in The Hague during the interwar period was that of the ‘residential hotels’: large apartment buildings, designed especially for people returning from the Dutch East Indies, who were used to the luxury of staff but were now unable to afford it. Residential hotels like Huize Boschzicht, Parkflat Marlot, de Nirwanaflat, de Hogenhouck, de Willemsparkflat en Duinwyck had communal kitchens, a shopping service and all modern conveniences, such as central heating.
Because of the variation in room numbers and locations no ‘standard floor plan’ was ever developed. However, a closer look at residential hotel Duinwyck in The Hague, the last to be completed and advertised at the time as ‘a residential El Dorado’, is certainly worth the effort given the added value of the communal facilities (licensed restaurant with reception rooms, reading room, laundry, shop with sub post office, guest rooms – attached to the smaller apartments, but also available separately – serviced garages, bicycle storage and a semi-sunken boiler room).
The building, designed in the style of the late New The Hague School, has a U-shaped floor plan and consists of five floors, of which the top is recessed. A central stairwell and four stairwells in the two lateral wings, each with both a residential and a service lift, provide access to the apartments via a network of landings and corridors. Midway, the lateral wings are bisected by lockable passages to the inner courtyard where, under the watchful eye of a porter, cars can be parked in one of the garages.
The most striking housing development in The Hague during the interwar period was that of the ‘residential hotels’: large apartment buildings, designed especially for people returning from the Dutch East Indies, who were used to the luxury of staff but were now unable to afford it. Residential hotels like Huize Boschzicht, Parkflat Marlot, de Nirwanaflat, de Hogenhouck, de Willemsparkflat en Duinwyck had communal kitchens, a shopping service and all modern conveniences, such as central heating.
Because of the variation in room numbers and locations no ‘standard floor plan’ was ever developed. However, a closer look at residential hotel Duinwyck in The Hague, the last to be completed and advertised at the time as ‘a residential El Dorado’, is certainly worth the effort given the added value of the communal facilities (licensed restaurant with reception rooms, reading room, laundry, shop with sub post office, guest rooms – attached to the smaller apartments,...
The most striking housing development in The Hague during the interwar period was that of the ‘residential hotels’: large apartment buildings, designed especially for people returning from the Dutch East Indies, who were used to the luxury of staff but were now unable to afford it....
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At the start of the twentieth century, Dutch building regulations placed severe restrictions on high-rises. The maximum number of storeys in Amsterdam was four. Not surprisingly then, plans for high-rise buildings never left the drawing-board. The general public was not in favour of highrises and cherished the ideal of the detached house with a private piece of land.
F.A. (Philip Anne) Warners (1888-1952) was a true pioneer of the multi-storeyed house in Amsterdam during the interwar period. The ‘multi-storeyed house’ offered distinct advantages through communal facilities, and more luxury and comfort than the average private house. The multistoreyed houses did away with the cramped entrance lobby, gloomy corridor, the tiny kitchen and the steep staircases of their counterparts. They also provided ample store rooms and storage space for fuel. These multi-storeyed houses would facilitate a more modern, more efficient way of life because their labour-saving layout and the use of electrical equipment would reduce the time spent on housekeeping.
At the start of the twentieth century, Dutch building regulations placed severe restrictions on high-rises. The maximum number of storeys in Amsterdam was four. Not surprisingly then, plans for high-rise buildings never left the drawing-board. The general public was not in favour of highrises and cherished the ideal of the detached house with a private piece of land.
F.A. (Philip Anne) Warners (1888-1952) was a true pioneer of the multi-storeyed house in Amsterdam during the interwar period. The ‘multi-storeyed house’ offered distinct advantages through communal facilities, and more luxury and comfort than the average private house. The multistoreyed houses did away with the cramped entrance lobby, gloomy corridor, the tiny kitchen and the steep staircases of their counterparts. They also provided ample store rooms and storage space for fuel. These multi-storeyed houses would facilitate a more modern, more efficient way of life because their labour-saving layout and...
At the start of the twentieth century, Dutch building regulations placed severe restrictions on high-rises. The maximum number of storeys in Amsterdam was four. Not surprisingly then, plans for high-rise buildings never left the drawing-board. The general public was not in favour of highrises...
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Auguste Perret (1874-1954) did not shun contradictions, neither in his finished work nor in his writings. Twin concepts such as frame and infill, order and chaos, and permanent and transient play an important role in both his theoretical treatises and his building practice. Perhaps this love of polar opposites explains why the brilliant student Perret suddenly left the École des Beaux-Arts to start work at his father’s construction company.
During this period he created a building that in some respects exemplifies the rest of his career and oeuvre. The nine-storey apartment building on the Avenue de Wagram in Paris, which was completed in 1902, is a synthesis of Louis Quinze and Art Nouveau and a model of modern architecture. The building’s symmetrical façade features five bays, of which the outer two overhang the pavement.
The sixth storey is accentuated by a colonnade, which also marks the end of the plant motifs that decorate the building from the ground floor up. The sixth floor is crowned by a floor with a cornice, which in turn is topped by the mansard roof.
Auguste Perret (1874-1954) did not shun contradictions, neither in his finished work nor in his writings. Twin concepts such as frame and infill, order and chaos, and permanent and transient play an important role in both his theoretical treatises and his building practice. Perhaps this love of polar opposites explains why the brilliant student Perret suddenly left the École des Beaux-Arts to start work at his father’s construction company.
During this period he created a building that in some respects exemplifies the rest of his career and oeuvre. The nine-storey apartment building on the Avenue de Wagram in Paris, which was completed in 1902, is a synthesis of Louis Quinze and Art Nouveau and a model of modern architecture. The building’s symmetrical façade features five bays, of which the outer two overhang the pavement.
The sixth storey is accentuated by a colonnade, which also marks the end of the plant motifs that decorate the building from the ground...
Auguste Perret (1874-1954) did not shun contradictions, neither in his finished work nor in his writings. Twin concepts such as frame and infill, order and chaos, and permanent and transient play an important role in both his theoretical treatises and his building practice. Perhaps this love...
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Albert Hall Mansions, directly adjacent to the Royal Albert Hall in the exclusive London neighbourhood Knightsbridge, consists of three blocks of luxury apartments. They were designed by architect Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912), who received the commission in 1878, two years after he had been hired to draw new façades for a design by architects Driver and Rew. At the time when the Albert Hall Mansions were designed and built (1876-1886), the English saw apartment buildings as housing for the poor. But the high density of this type of housing was a reason for speculative builders in the luxury sector to seek solutions that might appeal to the wealthy. Investors in such new buildings faced immense risks. So it should not come as a surprise that the development of Albert Hall Mansions was blighted by indecision, delays and, ultimately, a phased completion. The block documented here constitutes the first phase (completed in 1881) and is a great deal more complex than the two later blocks.
The apartment building, approximately 70 m in length and 30 m in height, overlooks Kensington Gardens, the western part of Hyde Park. Shaw has tried to mitigate the building’s large scale through articulation. A two-storey base appears to support three large townhouses topped with neck gables. The upper floor features recessed balconies. The walls between these projecting ‘mansions’ are set back approximately 1.5 m and feature the dwellings’ outside spaces in the shape of loggias and balconies.
The three main entrances are not situated park-side, but at the rear. Each main entrance has two doors: one leads via a lobby and an inner courtyard to a central stairwell, the other opens directly on to a service staircase. The apartments are set around these stairwells in pairs. Each of the three central stairwells and service staircases leads to eight large apartments. Shaw provides daylight by placing each apartment adjacent to two light wells. The first illuminates the central stairwell and the service staircase, the other the (entrance) lobbies of the apartments themselves.
Albert Hall Mansions, directly adjacent to the Royal Albert Hall in the exclusive London neighbourhood Knightsbridge, consists of three blocks of luxury apartments. They were designed by architect Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912), who received the commission in 1878, two years after he had been hired to draw new façades for a design by architects Driver and Rew. At the time when the Albert Hall Mansions were designed and built (1876-1886), the English saw apartment buildings as housing for the poor. But the high density of this type of housing was a reason for speculative builders in the luxury sector to seek solutions that might appeal to the wealthy. Investors in such new buildings faced immense risks. So it should not come as a surprise that the development of Albert Hall Mansions was blighted by indecision, delays and, ultimately, a phased completion. The block documented here constitutes the first phase (completed in 1881) and is a great deal more complex than the two later...
Albert Hall Mansions, directly adjacent to the Royal Albert Hall in the exclusive London neighbourhood Knightsbridge, consists of three blocks of luxury apartments. They were designed by architect Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912), who received the commission in 1878, two years after he had been...