24th June. Rotterdam is ugly, a Dutcher just told me so, “There is too much building, too much industry.” And I presume that is exactly why Rem Koolhaas decided to found OMA here, because he “liked the work ethic.”
For 26 kilometres, from the port unto the city, I drove through a never ending expanse of oil refineries, processing plants all with there own peculiar and chemical smell. Then began the office complexes, first Royal Dutch Shell and still in the thick of the industry, and then rather suddenly the city began. The trunk road became a street lined tower blocks and utopian ‘streets in the sky’, re-clad here as at home, when not demolished, in a new metallic envelope. And then I hit the waterfront. It is unquestionably beautiful, particularly in the sun like it was this morning and the numerous bland commercial buildings, one for each the major consultancies and more besides, certainly do not possess the power to spoil the landscape. I was far more captivated by a series of bold cantilevers. By some form of magic their levitating horizontal planes seem to achieve autonomy from the all-encompassing flatness in a way the towers, for all their height, certainly had not.
Still a little further and I passed the Erasmus Bridge, a very elegant piece of work mimicked frequently along the motorways but never matched. A little further, and signs for Museum Park pulled me away from the promenade into the city core. Finally as I emerged from a wide boulevard of narrow fronted town houses, separated by a grassy swathe of trees and a canal, I saw the Kunsthal. Dropping down from the dike I passed under and through it before turning around to view it from the west. The restaurant pressed beneath the auditorium was just as I had seen in photographs and I was desperate to walk thought the building to figure out all the questions the articles I had studied had left me with.
In archi-speak, the Kunstal is a coil of unease and restlessness squashed rather unsuccessfully into a Miesian box. Tentacles of hyper rationality reach out into the city and in return the city punctures the building. But how does one get inside it? I decided to approach it from the boulevard although entering from Museum Park would have equally gained me entry. On foot now, I dodged a group of workmen and proceeded down the ramp which divides the building in two. Immediately after one crosses the threshold, and where a physical gate can be dropped, the roof is punctured and a view of the great billboard tower, reminiscent of a fly-tower, is offered. Simultaneously the wall to the left is broken, bared only with mesh, and the service road beneath is revealed.
To the right is the ramp which connects the first and second galleries but it is behind glass. To the left, just after the tower is the entrance, marked by a pair of portholes and a flashing neon sign. There is first a small ticket office and then the auditorium. This use of the auditorium as a thoroughfare, and a great many other ideas, such as diverting public routes through the building, the ramped spiral circulation and not least the moments where views back into and through the building, were all reinterpreted and reused in the Seattle City Library a decade later.
One of the key things about the building is its ability to host a great number of shows, I was told twenty five yearly, it does not have a permanent collection. When I visited, the first hall was closed and was being prepared for the next exhibition, this was a little frustrating but the building was still perfectly functional. It was simply shuttered off by a series of large gates and an alternative route could be taken. The ramp gallery that links hall one and two was still in action as was hall two, three and the top and bottom halves of the side gallery, which sits inside halls one and two but is pushed to the side and formed between a solid and a glass plank wall. There the floor is mesh allowing views, light and sound to exchange between the twinned spaces.
I talked to a good number of the staff. They were all very friendly and I believe they were all happy to work there, some having been there for nearly twenty years, since the begging. I was keen to know how the building behaved, how the exhibitions related to the building. One of the exhibition staff who I talked to was almost defensive about the Hal and I am sure she felt attached to it, she was keen to assert just how flexible it is, that every show is entirely different and every time she is surprised by the atmosphere that is created.
I quizzed another member of staff, the man in charge of maintenance, about his experience. He agreed there was a lot of unusual detailing and that the building needs a fair bit of patching up and even some retrofitting but if anything I think that helps to keep the building alive. He certainly seemed to enjoy the challenge. Just as we were returning down the stairs from the roof and facing a giant portrait of Koolhaas – that hangs between the auditorium and the pear garden – he told me that the architect himself had been in recently and brought Brad Pitt with him who was looking for someone to design a new villa for him. He did not think it came of anything, which is a shame really; I think there should be a lot more Koolhaas in Hollywood.
It had been a great tour, I felt I had started to understand some of the buildings tricks and the staff had been so helpful and a great deal of fun. As I was packing my bags and making ready to leave, one of the exhibition staff came and said a parting word, full of concern, “If you’ve got any crazy ideas about going and working for Koolhaas then think again. You work night and day and for what? Sure it’s good on your CV but not your health; In just five months I have seen friends go downhill. And for what?”
In someways there is an interesting debate in there, and not to be confined to just the office of OMA, but I am inclined to believe such a discussion would be rather futile. Too many of us are just glutens for punishment and we put work first. For most of us that is the way it is likely to stay. If I got the choice between the honest labour of setting up the exhibitions, with these kind and fun loving people, and the anxiety and strain of the office, I know which I would choose.
