Jo Coenen: So, doing architecture is also speaking with many counsellors, with many partners. So in the middle, is in the heart of the society and this is one of the best messages that I can give also about our profession: it is in the heart of the society.
My name is Jo, Jo Coenen and I have been working since my 17th [birthday] I think in designing, but I am still working in the field of architecture, city design, but also regional design.
Jo Coenen:
The library in Amsterdam, it’s Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam—that means OBA—it’s built on a semi-island, so it’s the Oosterdokseiland. There was already the outlines of Erick van Egeraat[‘s] masterplan. To work within these strict lines was not easy at all. There was given a period to find this solution, it was, I think, half a year. We made a lot of sketches and small models.From this, you make the next step to more detailed composition. So I had a huge discussion with the feasibility guys about how to deconstruct their vision; and their vision was just standard layers after layers with books, and then another books of history and other models, hobby, and so on. For me, it is still difficult not just to shape, but also to express it was a library. I need something like a nose, because you cannot read me as a public building, it’s impossible.
If you look here again, to the main idea of the building, so this is the public, we have to find the first floor in that part. Then there will be this library sector, like this, with the floors. Of course, then we will end, if you go and climb up, or you take the elevators, you go to the top. There are eight floors that you make, how many staircases are these, and so on, so at the last step you arrive over here.
And we give you, as a surprise, we will give you, as a result of climbing up, this magnificent overview over the whole city silhouette that you never saw before. The main entrance and the escalators are organized immediately when you enter the building. So there is the message of, “All is clear over here.” There is clarity, don't mind it’s not a big building. You will find your orientation.
After all these discussions I decided to find something, to get back with my second plane. This is the outline of this box. Doing that I thought, also will give me the possibility of light as deep as possible because here it was not so easy, light as deep as possible, and then I had to define this box in the system of structural over reputation of these huge squares. You will find them anywhere, everywhere around the box.
This is normal for such a huge building. There should also be pieces of art in it. And so we selected many, not many, but five or six artists. In this case, Claudy, I knew her before. If you go to the Loire, the castles, those periods, they all have these tapestries, on the ground but also on the wall because of the climate, and so on and so on. So all this history, if you can deal with this in a new way, and she was doing this already. So it was easy for me to choose her and to bring her in as one of the most important masterpieces. So she is a huge talent.
Jo Coenen:
So as we know the NAI, is built already 30 years ago, as a result of a competition. What we see is a huge park at the rear of the road coming from the railway station. In this way, we know there is an existing museum over here. At the other side [of the] hospital is an extension, the new museum of OMA, by Rem Koolhaas and [another] small villa, also museum.At this side will be—this is the spot, [the] location for the new Netherlands museum. I decided to line up with the road, with the main road. Then they had this program of three-four functions; archiving the banana and overhanging as a sign over it, administration and library. Here then, starts the road, the existing road. Here is the existing road, and I made a volume over there, the banana shape; like this and like that, and the banana shape is following the main street like I said.
The banana shape has two levels, not big, and I lifted it because if you are on the street you like to have an overview always, to the atmosphere, of the non-built, and in this case, in the nature of the park. Next is how to link this volume to this shape. So, I decided to make this orthogonal, this meeting [space]. To give an openness here, brightness, and to link it with the visitors for the museums in this geometry of this square.
We see as a result, such an open, also nice, perspective. And opening of this road, which is running to the park from here, giving this link to the arcade over here, as simple as possible, I think, but with many wonderful views; overviewing the park, seeing these nice links to the old museum, to the part over here and then of course, such a point, such line has to be defined again within the frame of the green spaces over here and also here. Because, like that, we see the surrounding in this box in brick and in the context of the greenery yards and the water. It's not the building, it's the composition of the symbols!
Jo Coenen:
To start with an explanation, maybe you have to know from the start that at this spot, it was empty. There was no context. For me, it was something very difficult. I made it myself, the context. Because we got a chance, an exclusive chance, after years I understand this very well, to build a new part of the city, of a nice city, an old city.I set up a team: Siza, Snozzi, Galfetti, Rossi, Botta, and so on. Aldo Rossi, he started over there with the museum. Mario Botta, at that side and he is also, if you ask Mario, he will define in five minutes how it has to be, because he has a stamp already, in his head. Then I asked him to intervene together with Siza who has another nature, more complex. After that, we started to make architecture from this.
So the next scale. I think this was the most important [part] to speak about: the DNA of the building, the spiral, the fast connections, the easy comfortable surrounding, acoustically, but also without the division, without the noise. The building had to be in the heart of the new part of the city. It has to be linked to the other, already existing urban spaces in Maastricht. We have to define this place as this, as open, transparent. It has to be linking inside and outside. It has to have an image.
So, it has to give this importance—some call it monumentality. This monumentality could become one of the items for this building that could lead us, guide us, in the next phase. Then it starts also with the program. There are so many books to show in the library. You are looking for books, you are looking for colleagues, you are looking for a space to work.
What you see, there is a kind of spiral movement. And what you see in all of the public buildings that I constructed are these voids with specific space form, space composition. We organised all those books around this lightwell, where the light is not from the above but from the side. The light from the side is mostly better I think. To give also shadow, to give a more natural feeling.
On the ground floor, plus one minus one—and I am always playing with this as a public space in the city—ground floor, plus one minus one, always. Then, next step is acoustics. And I don't like this separation, because from the start it had to be open. The acoustic… there are pieces with dots and small holes, but you don't see it, it's not loud.