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Architect Tony Fretton’s new riverside restaurant, nestled between Tower Bridge and a Unesco World Heritage Site, offers a dining experience to whet the appetite. Read more here
Tony Fretton architects shortlisted for Amsterdams Nieuwbouwprijs.
The monograph, Tony Fretton. Buildings and their Territories, will be published by Birkhäuser in December 2012.
The book, containing a major essay written by Tony Fretton, is a comprehensive overview of his architectural practice from 1982.
Amsterdam is famous for its 17thand 18thcentury canal houses. The urban plan of a web–like structure of canals lined with houses was designed in 1613, four hundred years ago, when the commercial success of Amsterdam attracted more and more wealthy merchants. According to their wealth merchants bought one or two building plots of fixed proportions. Rows of identical ribbon-like building plots along the canal were planned to arrange as many individual houses as possible along the canals. The introduction of proportion systems from humanist architecture in the northern European merchant house brought about a unique pattern of facades and a characteristic streetscape of differently sculptured facades of more or less equal width. Celebrated as one of the first examples of urban planning in the West the canal district is now a listed UNESCO world heritage-monument .
The fame of the Amsterdam canal house has always been linked to its exterior, its outer appearance, while the secret of its survival through the ages has probably more to do with what is behind the façade, and more in particular with the characteristics of its interior layout. For instance, the length of the building plot allowed for a generous garden or even an extra house, a so-called back house, which was separated by a small inner court yard from the main canal house. Also the depth of the canal house with its blind side walls warranted large windows in the front and back façade.
Hidden from the public eye most canal houses changed function over the past century. A change of function, however, which mainly affected the interior and left the façade untouched. Initially the original residential function of the canal house was changed into offices, galleries and museums. Since the 1970s, however, offices have been turned into luxurious apartments, while a number of individual canal houses were connected to create luxurious hotels. Creative workers and artists formed the vanguard of loft living in the canal house and were followed by successful businessmen and celebrities. Today it is as prestigious to live in a canal house as it was centuries ago.
It may seem counter intuitive, but as a consequence of its newly appointed status as UNESCO world heritage-monument and more strict regulations on conservation the future survival of the canal district as a lively urban neighbourhood is jeopardized. Dutch architects are torn between conservation and regeneration, and tend to classify the canal district as a theme park for tourists only, and as such as a lost cause. Therefore we welcome new and challenging perspectives of especially foreign students on the future of the canal district in general and the future of the canal house in particular.
To get to know Amsterdam and the canal district participants are strongly recommended to book accommodation in a hotel within the district. The Amsterdam academy of architecture located in the city centre will be the group’s day-time home base and the canal house museum Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis (named after its original owners) will offer a characteristic and prestigious location for evening lectures. Of course, there will also be a day trip to Delft University where you will be shown around in one of the world’s leading schools of Architecture. The building of the faculty of Architecture is a fine example of reuse of a former chemistry lab.
To challenge your ideas on the future of the canal house we will invite experts to lecture on topics as diverse as the urban plan of the canal district, the historic interiors, and the phenomenon of the large Dutch windows. Designers will talk about their projects in the canal district and you will visit numerous canal houses to discover their many interior disguises. We hope that this input of information will stimulate your creativity. You are free to present your ideas in models, artist impressions, drawings or photo collage. The best plans will become part of an exhibition on the interior transformations of the canal house in the Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis.
The Department of Architecture of Delft University of Technology invites you to join the workshop. As your host the Department will cover the costs of tutors, speakers, guides, facilities and materials. You have to cover your travel expenses and the costs of your hotel accommodation in Amsterdam, which will involve about 400 Euros for a stay of 10 nights in a budget hotel or hostel. However, keep in mind that meals and drinks are not (!) included and that there will be additional costs during your stay. All students who have fulfilled the requirements of the workshop are entitled to a certificate of 3 ECTs.
As a team together with the German office Hildundk we won the invited competition for an elderly home for 105 inhabitants in Machelen/ Brussels. Our competition entry is documented under 'projects' . The scheme will developed quickly as the client, OCMW Machelen, plans to hand in the building application in the summer of 2012. The projects consists of 105 residential units, a daycare centre, several public facilities and a large enclosed garden. It will be built in two fases to replace an existing elderly home from the early seventies. Our scheme allows the adjacent building, an outdated elderly home from the nineties to be kept and reused.
Four of the projects Tony Fretton Architects of have completed on site this year, three in the Netherlands - Solid 11, Andreas Ensemble, De Prinsendam – and Tietgens Ærgelse in Denmark. Phase 2 of Andreas Ensemble, a new residential project of 166 apartments in Amsterdam West, has been completed and is shortlisted for a Brick Award 2011.
“Solid 11” in Constantijn Huygensstraat, Amsterdam, has received an NAi award in recognition of being listed in the official architecture archive of the Dutch Architecture Institute. The building was reviewed by Ellis Woodman in Building Design magazine (29th September).
Mark Pimlott and Tony Fretton were invited by the curator of this year’s exhibition, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kazuyo Sejima to collaborate and create their installation Piazzasalone for the 12. Biennale internazionale di architettura di Venezia. The Biennale is open from 29 August through 21 November 2010.
Mark Pimlott gave a lecture 'Places for art; real places; better than real places' and took part in a round table discussion with sociologist Dr Paul Jones (University of Liverpool), architect Hans van der Heijden (biq stadontwerper, Rotterdam), Bryan Biggs (director, Bluecoat Liverpool), moderated by Ellis Woodman (editor, Building Design), at the Bluecoat, Liverpool, as part of the symposium 'Habitat' on 2 May, 2013. Download PDF
23 May 2013, 9:30-19:00
Delft University of Technology
Faculty of Architecture
Since 1999, the focus of the Chair of Architectural Design / Interiors has been the architecture of the public interior: the critical arena for the setting out of possibilities or values for the city itself. The Chair has seen the city, in all its programmes and initiatives, as a place of values, expressed in the way the city is made and built, and in the relations between people that it implies or defines in its spaces and interiors. It is concerned with those interior spaces in the city that people share, and where they are conscious of each other as individuals in public and as a public. It has seen it as necessary to understand such places and the people who will use them so that better architecture can be made, an architecture that offers people a kind of freedom. With informed and generous viewpoints, proposals for this public interior can be made that are powerful, realisable vehicles for responsible, critical and artistic thought.
The conference Architecture and the Interior serves as a mark of the work and discourse of the Chair’s programme Interiors, Buildings and Cities for the past fourteen years as directed by Prof Tony Fretton and an introduction to the work within the Chair in the future, in its new course The Architecture of the Interior, whose object is to address, directly, the interior as an object of cultural and specifically architectural attention.
The morning session concerns the themes of the course during Tony Fretton’s tenure, and will include talks from Tony Fretton, Prof Christoph Grafe, Peter St John and Prof Tom Avermaete. A round table discussion, moderated by Tom Avermaete, will follow.
The afternoon session considers the subject and themes of The Architecture of the Interior and the very large, complex interior. This session will consist of talks by Mark Pimlott, Gennaro Postiglione, Jan Benthem and Kersten Geers. A round-table discussion between individuals drawn from practice and society, moderated by Saskia van Stein, creative director of NAiM / Bureau Europa, Maastricht, will follow.
The day concludes with a reception, and presentation of Amsterdam Studies, (Architectura & Natura: Amsterdam, 2013) — a document of the Chair’s work since 1999 — by its editor, Jurjen Zeinstra to Karin Laglas, the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences, Delft University of Technology.
An interview of Mark Pimlott by Robert Preece was published 26 December 2012 on the International Sculpture Centre Blog. "It's not about 'art' or 'design'. It's about space and a place."
Mark Pimlott gave a lecture celebrating the launch of the book Orban Space: Luc Deleu–T.O.P. Office, eds. Wouter Davids, Guy Châtel, Stefaan Vervoort (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2012) at Stroom Den Haag on 30 November 2012. Download PDF
Mark Pimlott was guest critic of Peter St John’s studio London Outer City/ Figure at London Metropolitan University on 29 November 2012
Mark Pimlott gave a short lecture regarding the work of Sergison Bates architects to celebrate the launch of their new book Buildings, ed. Heinz Wirz (Lucerne: Quart Verlag, 2012), at Central House Gallery at London Metropolitan University, Whitechapel, on 22 November 2012. Download PDF
Mark Pimlott gave a lecture, ‘The interior and the clearing’ as part of the symposium Urban Encounters: the image of public space, at Tate Britain, London, on 6 October 2012. Download PDF
An interview with Mark Pimlott by Arjen Oosterman and Brendan Cormier, Interiority Complex, was published in October 2012 in Volume 33: Interiors, (Stichting Archis, Rotterdam). Download PDF
Mark Pimlott introduced a series of talks by artists, graphic artists, and a fashion designer, entitled Others about us, organised by students of the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft, the Netherlands, on 19 November (Jan Rothuizen); 21 November (Bas Princen); 22 November (Karel Martens) and 23 November (Marga Weimans). Download PDF
Mark Pimlott gave a lecture, ‘Authenticity and artifice’ as part of the series Facade 2012, at the Zeeuwse Bibliotheek, Middelburg, on 6 November 2012. Download PDF
Alvar Aalto, Villa Mairea Noormarkku, Finland (1939)
Mark Pimlott gave a lecture, ‘The interior and the clearing’ as part of the symposium Urban Encounters: the image of public space, at Tate Britain, London, on 6 October 2012. Download PDF
Leontine de Wit and Susanne Pietsch from Interiors, Buildings and Cities will run interiors workshops at the Buda Factory, Kortrijk, 22-26 October 2012, as part of INTERIORcity, a collaboration of Interiors Biennale Kortrijk with the Flemish Architecture Institute VAi, and emerging designers.
The workshop INTERIORcity examines the relationship between the inner life of buildings and the city, between the fair and the city and between people; those living in Kortrijk and visitors to the Interiors Biennale. For 5 days students from five schools of architecture and interior architecture will collaborate in a practical examinations of what interiors mean today and what they may mean tomorrow.
Follow Tony Fretton on Twitter for thoughts and ideas on architecture.
Dear all
This friday there will be a collective Msc 1 and 3 lecture about Facades given by the profressor of our chair, Tony Fretton. It will be located at lecture room F from 13:00 till 13:45.
We hope to see you there!
Within a few months two buildings designed by Zeinstra van Gelderen architecten will be completed. Both are part of the IJdock-block, situated at the Westerdoksdijk in Amsterdam, just a few minutes from the Central Station.
The office tower, situated on the north side, will house the Water Police in the lower floors. The apartment building has 56 spacious dwellings and retail spaces on the ground floor.
We kindly invite you to have a preview of these buildings together with us on Saturday June 2 from 13.30 till 16.00. The IJdock-block is opened from 10.00 till 16.00 as part of the national Day of the Building Industry.
Tony Fretton is giving a number of international lectures. In October he will lecture at the Gallery of Architecture in Katowice, Poland and at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA. In November and December he lectures at the Technische Universitat Munchen, and in Austria at the House of Architecture in Graz and the Architktur Forum Ostschweiz in St Gallen.
A book of the complete works of Tony Fretton Architects, provisionally entitled “Buildings and their Territories”will be published by Birkhauser in 2012.
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