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people have a job, the children must attend school and come
by at least two factors: the bombing during the war and the final
home at the end of the day - how is it there? Do they have a nice
decline of industry in the early seventies. It is the second largest
living room? Where can children play? She tries to imagine such a
city, in many ways a reminder of the days when England ruled the
life and to find an answer to the question of how life can be made
waves: All ethnicities of the Commonwealth are represented.
more pleasurable.
’The library should without doubt become the palace of the
She also analyses rationally, but loves to follow her intuition which
people’ says Whitby. Always with a loud, cheerful voice.
is an important part of her work. People often think that intui-
’The library must become a people’s palace’, agrees Francine
tion is something feminine. She thinks it’s nonsense. Intuition has
Houben.
nothing to do with the female. Intuition is based on experience.
Whitby is the client for the largest library in Europe, with nearly
景 觀 設
計 與 都 市 計
劃 工 作 室 。
The ‘landscape
and urban
planning studio’.
The major scientific breakthroughs began with intuition. Whoever
has lots of experience, has a well-developed intuition.
She designed a chapel in Rotterdam, in a cemetery. She calls
the chapel her most intuitive building. The Roman Catholic faith
pervaded her childhood. She does not need to read great volumes
about the Catholic faith. She needs only to bring to mind the smell
of incense. And the sight of light filtered through leaded glass.
It’s funny to think she was educated at the Technical University in
Delft - all science disciplines. She and her fellow students of architecture
were always seen as people who were just tinkering.
This belittling seems to have worked. Many architecture schools
are rationalising the profession. Attempting to make it more
academic.
She says: ‘So I never was. I used to say that a project should be a
pie or a palace. I always spoke about work in sensory terms. That is
not the tradition in my profession.
Not the brief, but beauty gives me something to hold on to. There
are buildings and cities that can handle unpredictable changes
over time. Why? Because they themselves are beautiful. Beauty
is my guide. I try to create memorable spaces in public buildings
with their own identity. I want to make sure that people are proud
of it, enjoy it, or better still, see it as a gift and keep it well.’
*
Projectvergadering
over de Library of
Birmingham
Project meeting
about the Library of
Birmingham.
伯 明 罕 圖 書
館 設 計 會 議 。
200 million pounds earmarked for the project. Mecanoo has designed
the building.
Francine Houben is at the top of her field. ‘Pretty cool,’ she says.
She had never won a competition in England. ‘You learn a lot.’ In
Birmingham, she won. ‘I think they sensed that I wanted to make
the Library for them.’
She left behind names like Foster and Koolhaas. On the fence
around the huge site in the centre of town she is depicted as a pop
star. ‘You have to be pretty special to be allowed to build this,’ she
says. ‘I do not care, but it is a prerequisite.’ It comes out without
fuss.
She did not know Birmingham. Whether it’s the theatre and
conference centre of Lleida or the huge library next to the famous
Repertory Theatre in Birmingham or the cultural landmark of
Kaohsiung in Taiwan, she always gets to know the area in the same
way: on foot. In Birmingham, she walked for three days through the
city. What she saw was the jumble of architectural styles, sandstone,
blue bricks, red bricks, the period of wealth and its decline.
A city built of incidents. ‘I want to create unity,’ she told Whitby,
‘among the ethnic diversity and
the relics of the industrial past.’
Whitby speaks in similar terms.
‘The power of the city is that we
understand the unpredictability
of people,’ he says. He sees
Birmingham as ‘a temple of
INTERVIEW ENGLISH JAN TROMP
De ‘landschap- en
stedenbouwkamer’.
Mike Whitby is for Birmingham what Thatcher was once for the UK:
a healthy politician with common sense with great attraction to
the ordinary man/woman. Whitby on Thatcher: ‘She turned against
the establishment, though everyone thinks exactly the opposite.’
He is the mayor, The Leader of Birmingham. Birmingham is marked
Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Muslims
and many other groups’. In the
centrally located library, the
feeling of community will find
its destination.