Neutelings Riedijk Architecten, Rotterdam

Established in Rotterdam since 1987, the agency created by Willem Jan Neutelings (*1959) and Michiel Riedijk(*1964) is renowned for its sculptural buildings with expressive textures resulting from strong concepts. Both have graduated from the Delft Technische Universiteit and belong to the few contemporary architects daring to use decorative elements. In their recent works, they even, for fun, used atypical motives printed or sculptured. The internal spaces are often piled up and interconnected, arousing discovery. Far from the architectural conventions, the specific use of forms and materials looking simple, motivate a strange feeling giving strength to the work. All the programmes are handled with pertinence. Housing projects, public buildings, museums, hotels, shops or office buildings show a special talent to exploit the site at its best and create peculiar set-ups that make them unique in their environment.

The Utrecht University Minnaert Building is original thanks to the special treatment given to the façades with red coloured concrete thrown on metallic wire netting. The architects chose a simplified aesthetic concept: the « waves » breaking the façade’s flatness are in fact different reliefs made by the pipings. Built on the lakeside, in order to take a maximum advantage of the location and the light, the five apartment buildings « The Sphinxes » are covered with grey unpolished aluminium panels, reflecting the water and the clouds. The challenge of the Image and Sound Hilversum Institute was to establish a dense and compact building, which would not occupy the whole site. The restriction limiting the height at 20 meters obliged to build five levels underground. Merging various institutes in the Maritime Forwarding sector, this training centre is an ambitious and special project.

Instead of a usual conventional horizontal construction, the architects preferred a 14-story building simulating the atmosphere of a vertical city. The Walterbos complex is one of the most important branches of the Tax Office. To unify with coherence the two new towers with the four others built in 1960, the architects have created a building base opening towards big underground patios. The main architectural element seen from outside is a water surface covering the underground building from where emerge two stainless steel cones providing daylight to the underground areas. This steel skin has a dragon imprint drawn by the Dutch artist Rob Birza.

New urban reference, the Museum aan de Stroom (Antwerp) dedicated to the town’s history, is a 60 m tower imposing itself by the façade rhythm. Covered outside as well as inside by red Indian sandstone the monolithic building is emptied in many places by large glass and corrugated panels enabling crossed views. Among the projects under way, let us mention two cultural centrums in Amersfoort and Arnhem. Organized as the piling up of different programmes, the first one - The Eemhuis - improves the continuity of the public space in the building.

At ground level, the public space becomes a covered piazza, foyer of the exhibition centre. The second one is drawn like a public way winding from the narrow streets of Arnhem’s medieval city centre. Another project which won an award at a recent architecture competition: the IDMC (International Dans en Muziek Centrum) is a compact construction in the centre of The Hague, the combination of various concert halls with a cupola on the top. The heart of the building is formed by a great atrium, the extension of the urban space.

Which is the common denominator of all these projects? It is perhaps to create an identity through monumentality and ornamentation. An anchoring point against the present buildings’ uniformity giving a direct answer to the local production conditions, to the geographic or cultural specificities. With always attention given to the urban integration. The buildings, precisely connected to the place where they are built, try to integrate the urban culture thanks to their materials, their forms, their colour, and their iconography. This cultural approach shows that liberty means also obligations. By definition, a building erected in a public space becomes a public act. Which supposes to take its responsibilities by contributing to shape the urban identity. Without speculation nor ambiguity.