In 1946, the plan for rebuilding Rotterdam after the second world war was formally established. Its name, the Basisplan (General Plan), was entirely appropriate for a plan whose defining quality was its neutrality. By reducing the urban plan to lines and spots, it became spatially neutral; architecture became liberated from urban design. To understand what Rotterdam looks like today, this article examines how this freedom has been translated into architecture in different ways at different times. @en

As part of The Persistence of Questioning, critical reflections for the future: ‘What is the state of architectural culture?’, Sereh Mandias explains why she – together with Elsbeth Ronner – launched the narrative podcast Windoog, her reasons for engaging in architectural criticism without using images, and the importance of architectural criticism that does not focus on the object.@en

In recent decades, the field of architecture has witnessed a fundamental shift under the banner of ‘ecology’: from the innovation in energy technologies to the use of circular materials and climate-neutral building solutions – today, more than ever, the construction of a building seems to be dominated by an ecological awareness. At the same time, such sustainable thinking often places ecological questions outside of the design itself, in the hands of experts and within the logic of quantitative calculation, while the building disappears into the ephemerality of life cycles and network models.

By focusing on the intersection between ecology and aesthetics in architecture, however, this issue of OASE situates the thinking about such issues at the heart of the discipline. It asks: how do ecological questions materialise in architecture? And what aesthetic practices are able to shape the perception of these ecological questions? Through a series of concrete projects, the contributions in this issue explore the field of tension between architectural aesthetics and issues of energy, technology and materiality. Ecological practices in architecture must not only be effective in providing solutions, but inevitably raise questions of beauty, affection and perception as well.@en

Het depot van Museum Boijmans van Beuningen opent vandaag officieel zijn deuren. Sereh Mandias bezocht voor Vers Beton het nieuwste ontwerp van MVRDV in het Museumpark. Het depot is op z’n best als het zijn radicaliteit omarmt, maar biedt het op termijn wel voldoende ruimte voor voortschrijdend inzicht?@en

As the transformation of existing buildings is an ever-larger part of the architect’s portfolio, the research into the value and quality of existing structures gains importance. This research has long been the domain of art historians, who, in their cultural-historical investigations, evaluate (mostly monumental) buildings by positioning them within their time. Because these investigations only gives a limited understanding of the qualities of a building, this paper discusses the largescale physical model as a tool for the architect to understand the architectural qualities of a building and the relevance of using this knowledge as a basis for architectural transformations. This paper is based on a research project into the architecture of the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The original museum of 1935 was extended three times over the past century, making the ensemble an architectural collection that represents the changing insights into museum building over time. The museum is currently planning an overhaul that includes the demolition of its latest two extensions in favour of a new wing. The project’s hypothesis was that a study using 1:5 models as an analytical tool could enable an intimate understanding of the qualities of the museum. This could then lead to the design of a series of small-scale interventions, as an alternative to the unsustainable and expensive logic of demolition and new construction. Based on visit to the building, and therefore on a concrete, physical experience of its architecture, a series of six fragments were chosen that represent key architectural moments within the ensemble, such as a fragment of a façade or a threshold between two galleries. Together with a group of master students, these fragments were built at scale 1:5, using concrete, wood and plaster, mimicking the act of building the museum itself. On the basis of this study, a series of six transformation proposals for the museum were developed, varying from the adding of a staircase to reorganise the circulation through the museum to the introduction of a window to improve the relation between inside and outside. These interventions were based on the architectural themes present in the models and informed by the issues the museum organisation wished to address. Through the act of building the fragments of the museum in the studio, it was possible to acquire a refined understanding of the haptic qualities of the building’s architecture. In doing so, the models introduced a specific way of understanding architecture, one that locates the quality of the existing architecture in its details and its physical, material presence. This clearly influenced the transformation proposals, which all reinforced specific existing qualities of the building and acquired a similar precision and material quality as the 1:5 models itself. The project therefore shows how the act of largescale modelling can foster the skill to design precise, small scale interventions. In doing so, it shows the potential of the 1:5 model as a valuable addition to the tools of the architect when engaging in transformation projects. @en

This publication is the result of a MSc2 design course of the Chair of Interiors Buildings Cities (Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Technical University of Delft) in the spring semester of 2019 entitled Babel: Interventions in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.@en

In het zomersemester van 2019 heeft de leerstoel Interiors Buildings Cities van de TU Delft een ontwerpstudio gewijd aan het Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. Naar aanleiding van de voorgenomen transformatie van het museum, deden 13 internationale masterstudenten onder leiding van Sereh Mandias (TU Delft) en Tomas Dirrix (Atelier Tomas Dirrix) onderzoek naar mogelijke toekomstscenario’s voor het museum. Het vertrekpunt is het behoud van zoveel mogelijk van het bestaande ensemble, dat gezien zijn stapsgewijze groei zelf beschouwd kan worden als een verzameling, die veranderende opvattingen over museumarchitectuur in de 20e en begin 21e eeuw vertegenwoordigt. Door middel van het bouwen van grootschalige modellen zijn de kwaliteiten van het bestaande museum onderzocht. Hierop voortbouwend hebben de studenten specifieke interventies in het museum ontwikkeld. Het resultaat is een reeks fysieke, architecturale stukken - een verzameling van zorgvuldige aanpassingen aan het Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. De tentoonstelling toont zowel het onderzoek naar de architectuur van het huidige museumensemble, als de zes ontwikkelde interventies. Het bestaat uit een reeks tekeningen van het museum en zijn uitbreidingen, en gebouwde fragmenten op schaal 1:5 van specifieke architectonische momenten. De interventies in het museum worden gepresenteerd aan de hand modellen en tekeningen die de interventies en hun betekenis in de context van het museum als geheel verklaren. @en

Wherein lies the attraction of the roof? Why is it always an adventure to enter a roof, to become part of the skyline or peek over the edge, as if you had suddenly surfaced from something you had been unknowingly immersed in all along? For the occasion of the Rotterdamse Dakendagen 2019, Sereh Mandias looks for an answer to these questions. The essay explores the possibilities of the flat roof and the different ways in which these have been transformed into architecture – touching upon various points in history and loosely accompanied by a number of buildings by French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier.@en

Every station makes a statement about the encounter between rail and city. In this article Caspar Frenken and Sereh Mandias discuss two recently completed station buildings: Rotterdam Centraal and OV-Terminal Breda. The authors investigate how the interiors of these buildings derive their meaning from their relationship with the city, a motif architects returned to throughout the history of the design of railway stations.

eder station doet een uitspraak over de ontmoeting tussen spoor en stad. In dit artikel bespreken Caspar Frenken en Sereh Mandias twee recent opgeleverde stationsgebouwen: Rotterdam Centraal en OV-Terminal Breda. De auteurs onderzoeken hoe de interieurs van deze gebouwen hun betekenis ontlenen aan hun relatie met de stad, een motief dat als een rode draad door de geschiedenis van het ontwerp van het stationsgebouw loopt. @en

The publication 'The New Craft School' investigates the architecture of the vocational school and its role in society. It does so by situating the school within larger cultures of craft and specific networks of people, places and knowledge, in which education forms a crucial link. Based on the notion of architecture as an environment in which social relations are negotiated, it emphasises the importance of the building to create, foster and transmit these cultures.@en

Essay@en

Wat maakt een huis tot een thuis? Sereh Mandias bekijkt drie Parijse woningen waarin de verlangde grens tussen privé en publiek op een bijzondere manier vorm kreeg.@en

Wat maakt een huis een thuis? Sereh Mandias bekeek huizen in Parijs en schreef daarover. Vlaams-Nederlands Huis deBuren vroeg negen jonge schrijftalenten om zich te buigen over het thema geluk, in de aanloop naar de Nacht van de Geschiedenis.@en

De Nieuwe Ambachtsschool is the result of the research project 'De Ambachtsschool Revisited' into the architecture of vocational schools and was initiated by Susanne Pietsch, Eireen Schreurs, Sereh Mandias and Dolf Broekhuizen. It was funded by the Creative Industries Fund over a period of two years. The research and this publication are now further developed into a book, to be published in 2018.@en