The Building
In 1988, a competition was held among six architects to find an architect for a new building. These were: Jo Coenen, Rem Koolhaas, Benthem Crouwel Architects, Wim Quist, Luigi Snozzi and Ralph Erskine. Koolhaas’s design was the favourite among the specialist press and was also favoured by Riek Bakker, the director of Rotterdam’s Department of Urban Development. However, the NAI awarded Jo Coenen the commission, the decisive factors being the blending of the design into the surroundings and the references to the history of architecture.
After an intensive period of renovation, the NAI opened its doors on 1 July 2011. The most salient part of the renovation was moving the entrance to the pond level. The restaurant was extended. An exhibition room and additional space for educational activities were also added. At the site of the original entrance is now the DoeDek, a hands-on area where visitors can experiment with Lego, large blocks and cut-outs. As the original building’s architect, Jo Coenen was also responsible for its renovation.
Read more about this topic: Netherlands Architecture Institute
Famous quotes containing the word building:
“A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence, like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely it is obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in the sky that does not change like the clouds of the sky.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)