Effenaar MVRDV and a whole clutch of Dutch creatives - includin ...

The
Big Gig
MVRDV and a whole clutch
of Dutch creatives - includin
experts in graffiti and graphics
- get together for the design
equivalent of a compilation
album at De Effenaar.
Text by
Photogra
ph
e Bokern
v Rob't Hart
MVRDV Architects built the box
hat is De Effenaar: a venue for pop
music in the Dutch city of Eindhoven.
A cross section of the interior is
clearly visible on the facade, front
and back. The black section is made
from pigmented cement plaster.
MVRDV et al.
Pop Venue
Eindhoven
Bar Facts
Effenaar
Capacity: 13:00
(main hall)
400 (second
stage),
200 (café/
restaurant),
200 (foyer)
Frame *49
2006

There is something paradoxical about creating a new
building to house a rock venue. After all, how can pristine.
brand-new architecture generate the underground
atmosphere of rock that thrives on the shabby charm of
dilapidated, much-used buildings yellowed by nicotine and
infused with the smell of stale beer? Nowhere does this
ring more true than at De Effenaar in Eindhoven, whose
rather unassuming designation as a 'pop centre' belies its
long history as hotbed of subversiveness.
De Effenaar was founded as a youth centre in 1971 and
soon became the Dutch mecca of punk. In the 1980s the
listings were gradually adapted to appeal to a broader
audience and De Effenaar became an established, if idios y
ncratic, centre of the Dutch subculture. According to its
director, Marijke Appelboom, 'in the long run, the place
quite simply lacked a second auditorium and a professional
infrastructure. And then there's a stream called the
Dommel running under the building, so it eventually
started to subside. Repairing that would have cost more
than a newbuild.'
And so the municipal authorities earmarked a vacant
site near the railway station for the new pop centre and in
1997 the design contract was awarded to MVRDV – a firm
of architects that was a well-kept secret at the time.
MVRDV designed the building as a black-grey bunkerlike
box, the cross-section of its interior legible on the
front and back façades like a sushi roll. The main
auditorium, with a capacity of 1300, is like the centre of the
sushi, and the rest of the infrastructure is wrapped around
it: on the ground floor is a second auditorium for 400,
secretariat and café, with technical facilities and dressing
rooms at the sides; above that are the offices. Onl y the café
and the rooms on the upper floors have windows, and the
stairwells are set right up against the closed side walls of
the building.
Creating a brand-new building that is both abrasive and
aestheticall y sophisticated may sound a bit like trying to
make chichi bovver boots. But MVRDV have achieved the
seemingly impossible, thanks in no small degree to their
choice of materials. Inside and out, the design palette is
restricted to steel, glass and concrete. Each of the discrete
zones in the outer layer of the building has been given its
own colourway: bright yellow for the walls of the café,
aubergine for the dressing rooms and pigeon blue for the
offices. The end façades, by contrast, feature an industriallooking
patchwork of green-tinted glass, smooth and corrugated
sheet metal and a broad swathe of black shotcrete
that reiterates the contours of the main auditorium.
experimental
Dress code: Totally
informal
A v erage price of a
three-
wine: course € meal, 25 to incl. € 30
Most popular dish:
V egetarian
Tipping policy:
Whatever you
like
Eating with hands:
As long as it doesn
't , t disgust t
other people
Food left on plate:
No food is
left it' s too
delicious
Stairwells along both side walls of
De Effenaar connect all levels of the
complex.
1

Designers Bob Copray and Anthony
Kleinepier used neutral shades of
grey and black in the large hall,
reserving accents of colour for
counters, bars and furnishings.
Interior
If you
brinc them with
you
[loggy bag: If you
want
Busiest n ight: Saturday
Designers Bob Copray and Anthony Kleinepier coordinated
of all the non-architectural elements inside De Effenaar. '
One of the reasons we were brought in was because we're
from Eindhoven and had often been to the old Effenaar,
so we were meant to add a touch of local style to the pop
centre,' says Bob. Although they already knew each other,
they didn't usually work together. 'It was a complicated job,
which is why we pooled our resources. That has definitely
influenced the way the interior looks. This wasn't about
promoting our own image. We didn't have any need to put
our own stamp on the building, because we both wanted to
go on doing our own thing anyway once it was finished. So
instead, we designed quite a lot of it together and farmed
out other elements to artist and designer friends.' In
consultation with MVRDV, they brought five Dutch
designers on board, all of whom were either from
Eindhoven or associated in some way with the Design
Academy in the same city: Frank Havermans (Kapkar),
Boris Tellegen (Delta), Anthony van de Laar (Impulz
Decorum), 24h Living and Joep Verhoeven (Demakersvan).
Anthony and Bob lit up the stark grey concrete
interior of De Effenaar with eye-catching, strategically
placed bars, counters and furnishings. According to Marijke
Appelboom, `They brought a human touch to the industrial
architecture.' The angular bars, the coat-check counter, the
box office and the dressing rooms as well as the bar and
tables in the café are all designed by them. `Our interior
units are meant to be integrated into the architecture and
give the rooms an indentity while retaining an identity of
their own,' says Anthony Kleinepier. 'And of course they
have to be as beautiful as they are vandal-proof.' On the
way through the building, Bob stops here and there to
scrape the occasional sticker from one of his units. '
Eindhoven's the sticker capital,' he grumbles. Given the
astonishing number of stickers that have already found
their way onto the blue and red fronts of the bars, it looks
like he'd better started getting used to it.

Artist Frank Havermans fitted out
the secretariat with a tailor-made system
of new and recycled plywood.
Secretariat
The secretariat, with its beehive built-in furniture, feels like
the inside of one of those old bureaus full of drawers and
compartments. Artist Frank Havermans fitted out this small
room with a tailor-made system built of new and used
plywood panels. The result is cosy and at the same time
slightly claustrophobic. Wherever you look there are
polygons — with the sole exception of a desk that was added
later.
'The secretariat is like the cockpit of De Effenaar. The
secretary sits at the telephone system and runs the whole
operation,' is how Havermans explains the spaced-out
design. He describes his spatial sculptures as 'functional
installations', adding, 'They are not just interiors; the y are
works that define the entire room. The installation should
be strong enough to visually encapsulate all the stuff that
usually litters an office like this.' Not that he thinks much of
the desk that has been added. He's working on a better
solution.
day
Once
Condoms machines: Not
yet
Reservation number: No
reservations
unless you live in
a foreign country
`The performers are often
worse than the audience.
They really trash the place'
De Effenaar Director Marijke Appelboom
127

Graffiti artist Boris Tellegen, a.k.a.
Delta, transformed the coat-check
counter into a graffiti-like sculpture.
Counters
Almost all the counters and bars in De Effenaar were
designed by Anthony and Bob. Their simple beauty is one
of angled lines and deep colours. At a distance, the built-in
furnishings have something of the units designed by Atelier
van Lieshout. But as you come closer, you realise that their
coloured epoxy coating is slightly transparent, so that the
grain of the wood shines through. According to Anthony,
this was intended to create a sense of 'touch-ability'. And
indeed, the loopholes in the wood, visible through the
surface coating, do lend a certain warmth that contrasts
with the artificial smoothness of the furnishings. Above all,
they bear witness to the designers' quest to find a
compromise between cosiness and vandal-proofing.
To cut costs, the designers made almost all the furnishings
themselves. `The difference between the budget for the
actual building and the budget for the interior design was a
joke. We could never have afforded to have the units made
by somebody else. So we built them all in a workshop just
a few hundred yards from here,' says Bob. 'It may not be the
way to get rich, but at least it meant we could have
everything exactl y the way we awanted it.'
Only the coat-check counter for the main auditorium is
by another designer: Amsterdam graffiti artist Boris
Tellegen aka Delta. On the one hand, the black, white and
red sculpture is obviously a three-dimensional version of
graffiti. "I started looking at letters as objects and designing
them as seen from the side. In the end they became
more abstract forms," says Tellegen. The colours and the
abstract form of the counter is also reminiscent of the
Bauhaus or even of Russian Constructivism — an unexpected
synthesis of the most subcultural of subcultures and
established white-cube art.
Dressing rooms
Copray and Kleinepier's sketches for
bathrooms and toilets.
'The performers are often worse than the audience. They
really trash the place,' says Marijke Appelboom, somewhat
bemused, as we enter the backstage area with its resilient
yet stylish untreated pine furniture in rough-hewn,
archaic mode, from Designstudio 24h Living. Barely one
month in and the furniture is already covered in graffiti
— 'but that's all part of the whole idea,' shrugs Bob. Slick
design and ruggedness may be strange bedfellows, but
they're the order of the day at De Effenaar. It's certainly
the first time in my life that I've ever worried about getting
a splinter when I sat down on a chaise longue.
The same easy-care approach as the foyer has been applied
to the performers' dressing rooms, which are
among the few rooms in De Effenaar to boast large
windows with fabulous views over Eindhoven, though
they are admittedly
a little cell-like and ascetic. Bathrooms and toilets
are concealed in a built-in unit of dark brown formwork
panels. 'We deliberately designed them as cupboard-style
elements. Nothing we did in the building was meant to be
structural — that was the job of MVRDV,' says Bob.

Among the furnishings designed by
I Copray and Kleinepier is this brightly
oloured bar.
Signage
The new De Effenaar signage was created by the Delft
graphic designers Fabrique, who were also responsible for
the signage at the old venue. Accentuating the letter E,
they have come up with a graphic modular system of
hatching and tubular shapes that echo the spatial concept
of MVRDV. The black and white 'Effenaar' sign forms the
basis and is adapted using different colours to suit different
gigs, thus creating a distinctive and striking logo. 'Fabrique
reckoned I was the most courageous of all their clients so far,
' says Appelboom with evident satisfaction. 'Personally, I'm
more of a minimalist myself. But you have to be able to
take a step back.'