Dutch Design in new Madrid
Dutch Design in new Madrid
by Renate Schepen
As with so many things you take for granted, Dutch Design is more famous abroad than in The Netherlands. Being a Communication Manager for the Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy, I am not surprised anymore by the attention from Tokyo to Bogotá, for our Dutch Designers. However, Madrid seems to be a different story.
Dutch Design is a complete novelty for the architecture and interior design students we are giving a workshop here. Whereas Dutch architecture clearly functions as a reference, design has not obtained the same position yet. People here are quite unaware of it, but pleasantly surprised to make the discovery. They are given this opportunity during the Month of Dutch Design, which actually lasts three months (March to May 2008). The Month is an initiative of the Dutch Embassy in Madrid and organised by Premsela, the Dutch platform for Design and Fashion in cooperation with the Universidad Europea de Madrid. It consists of an exhibition and six workshops in El Matadero, which is the new design centre in an old abattoir (like the Spanish name reveals).
It is expected that after these three months things will not be like they were before. Looking at the banners, which cover the city, and the articles in the major newspapers, it is quite hard to overlook the event.
El Matadero, a vast complex, which has been standing empty for over thirty years, but is well preserved, can be best compared to the Amsterdam Westergasfabriek. Not surprisingly the Dutch architectural office West8, which has been responsible for the development of the Westerpark, has been commissioned to work on the new park next to the Matadero on the shore of the always dry river Manzanares.
www.mataderomadrid.com
Keeping Amsterdam as a reference, the whole project could be compared to the shifting of the cultural city centre, which is now gravitating towards the Eastern Docklands. The current major of Madrid has a controversial plan to shut off the central axis Castellaña, street for cars. It is the street where the Prado, Reina Sofia and Thyssen-Bornemisza museums are located. The new axis will be shifted towards El Matdero and is meant to become one of the hottest cultural spots of southern Europe.
The plan is to guide the traffic via the M30 which consists of a gigantic network of tunnels under the city.
This movement is giving space to new and interesting architectural developments and the success of Caixa Forum by Swiss architects Herzog de Meuron, seems to have created demand for more innovative projects.
The Spanish architects Alberto Marcos and Ariadna Cantis are giving the workshop together with us. ‘Us’ being the initiators of the Lloyd Hotel, Suzanne Oxenaar and Otto Nan, and myself. Ariadna is curator modern architecture and has worked extensively on mapping the architectural field in Madrid. www.freshforward.net
The workshop itself is about the creation of a Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy for Madrid, a research of the elements that represent Spanish culture and about feeling home. We do not want to create a copy of the Amsterdam Lloyd Hotel in Madrid. It has to be about Spain, Spanish culture, tradition and customs. Therefore we decide it is wise to start the workshop in El Rastro, the Sunday flea market which covers a whole neighbourhood and which is a gathering place on Sunday afternoon. We discover the first element of the culture: cerveza and tapas! When the workshop proceeds we discover more elements of Spanish culture, from key holders with Real Madrid to pictures of San Pancrazio, Santa Gemma and the everlasting plastic covers on the sofas. Also, the botija, the typical Spanish water bottle, is mentioned as example of the Spanish culture.
We started the workshop with a tour through the exhibition, which is indeed an extensive collection of Dutch Design. It clearly shows the mentality of Dutch design: functional, simple, but also teasing. From the Dutch milk bottle lamp by Tejo Remy to the Tripod Slide by Richard Hutten. There is always an ironic twist.
The Spanish students like it. It’s fresh and playful, but at the same time not something Spanish people would understand according to them. We’re trying to find out if that’s true and if so, why that would be. The main question is if there is a cultural or an economic reason. We come to the conclusion that it’s just about customs and that people need to be educated, but in a way that it’s referring to their own tradition. Instead of a milk bottle lamp we get a design botijo by Hector Serrano (see picture).
The economic aspect they can also solve by educating. Instead of ten cups, people could have two design cups and really establish a relationship with them.
After confusing the participants first with ironic designs, we now confuse them even more by wanting to talk about ‘home’ and not about a hotel.
We ask them after their personal experiences of feeling at home, in order to establish a general definition. Not surprisingly for a group of architecture students, the examples prove to be very spatial, but the 14 students manage to agree that home is about being able to create your own environment by choosing which objects surround you and where they are, by being able to play with them. It’s about the materials, sound, silence, smell, temperature and light. ‘Cosas vividas’, objects that have ‘lived’ and that invite you to use them or to participate in the space and to take care of them make a place feel like home.
This seems to be a good starting point and now we finally let them work on what they actually came for: the creation of a hotel. As soon as they are able to work on this, the energy starts flowing and when we look at the results at the end of the day, it’s rather like there were 30 students working. We get ideas for a hotel that is equipped for siestas in unexpected spaces, with day rhythms based on our heart beat and a plastic library to read in bath. Now, the only thing that’s left is to find a good location.
Month of Dutch Design: www.holamad.com
www.lloydhotel.com
