Chapter IV
Frederiksplein 1 Amsterdam - Office Winhov
The former insurance bank building on the Amsterdam square Frederiksplein was constructed in 1967 and designed by Arthur Staal (1907-1993). It was a unique project for this fierce modernist who had a challenge in forming a relationship in the façades between two historical adjacent buildings. The result is a singular office building that is modern while still referencing the past – albeit abstractly. After years of neglect and ad hoc renovations, the building needed to be restored and made more sustainable. With respect for Staal's design, Office Winhov’s transformation strengthens and reveals the building’s original character. While the façade had to be replaced to fulfil today’s sustainability requirements, the original’s sense of plasticity, rhythm and less-is-more attitude were retained – along with Staal’s signature roof endings. The building itself served as a source of inspiration for Office Winhov’s new interior design. With already low ceilings, a vertical structure of shafts was chosen to enhance a sense of space. This also lent itself to a simple layout with a transparent central core and a surrounding open network of meeting rooms. The top floor of the building, where Staal opted for an expressive roof finish, houses an office restaurant. In short, the overall result of this project is an integral transformation in which the usability is restored and the quality of the existing building is made visible again. The building is now ready to provide a comfortable and inspiring workplace for decades to come.
Photo credit: www.winhov.nl
Sculptured Facade
As working part of the natural stone company called ‘Sunstone’, we worked as the façade contractor of the retail building by ‘Louis Vuitton’. This building was existing yet the façade had been designed by the artist called ‘Seçkin Pirim’.
We provided all engineering and project solutions and services for the façade designed. In addition, we carried out the preparation of production, application, static calculation, steel infrastructure, insulation systems projects, natural stone supply, production and assembly whilst carrying it out from drawing phase to finalizing at the construction site.
Graphic Curtain
As working part of the natural stone company called ‘Sunstone’, we worked as the façade contractor of the retail building by ‘Louis Vuitton’. This building was existing yet the façade had been designed by the artist called ‘Seçkin Pirim’.
We provided all engineering and project solutions and services for the façade designed. In addition, we carried out the preparation of production, application, static calculation, steel infrastructure, insulation systems projects, natural stone supply, production and assembly whilst carrying it out from drawing phase to finalizing at the construction site.
“Seeing the drape as a primal source of architecture undermines our conventional understanding of architecture as a stable and slow discipline. The architecture of the drape is basically an architecture of the provisional, the temporary; the tent and the tabernacle, not the patio house or the temple, are the primal types of this architecture. From this angle, the drape denotes a difference, in this case a difference in time; and in tragic terms, it denotes the temporary and transient nature of human nature itself. A second important difference that the drape denotes is a difference in space, between inside and outside. As a metaphor, the dialectic pair of inside-outside is capable of supporting the organization of a cultural model. The interior becomes the place of the self and the subject, the exterior that of the other and the object.
The interior is a space that has been cleared within the expanse of the world, a space of appropriation, colonization and occupancy by the active subject. The lining of the wall constitutes the inner horizon of this space. Window and door occupy a special place within this organization: they are the openings between inside and outside, and vice versa. This applies just as much to the spaces of the threshold, balcony and garden. They offer a view of the outside world, from the known to the unknown, from self to
other, and also, to use Heidegger’s words, from the earth to the sky. He calls this room the ‘in-between’, which has been allotted to human living. Here, in this ‘in-between’, inside and outside are simultaneously separated and brought together. The exterior is interiorized, domesticated, the other is appropriated. The other way round, this is where the self mirrors itself in the other world, measures itself against it, determines its own value.” [1]
[1] Quoted from OASE 75: “INSIDE OUTSIDE: On the Work of Petra Blaisse and the Architecture”, pg. 287-288, Written by Dirk van den Heuvel
Façade Curtain: House of Ekria, Maslak, İstanbul
Photo credit: Şevki Pekin Architects