OSA interviews Henk Hartzema

What is your job?

My job is space maker.

 

What do you mean with this expression?

I think that if you are an architect or a urban planner, or a landscape architect, your job is to make environments that are effective, nice or comfortable. So I think that is very important for you to imagine spaces, spaces where people sit, or walk, or… So the main aim of my work is to create spaces for the people who want to work, or study, move or, in general, live, that are perfect or even more.

 

Where do you work? In the city or even outside the city?

For me it’s not important if spaces are very small or very big: for me all conditions, all situations are good to work. I could work on the landscape of a forest, or in a city, but even as an interior designer into an already existing building. My fantasy is warming up when somebody is asking me to create a space: for example I could enjoy very much making something in a tree, how to climb the tree, what you can hear or what you smell. So I would be very happy to make a space on a tree, but I would be also very happy if someone who has already an apartment is asking me to design a living room: I would appreciate very much also this. How do you dine, is it formal or informal, do you want to do it all the time the same way or do you want to transform the way you dine when you want. So for me it is totally irrelevant what kind of things I have to design and how big they are, as long as I can understand that the person wants something special and I can do something interesting for him. Most of the time we work in cities because most of the buildings are found in cities. Following that logic we work 90 percent in cities and 10 percent in the countryside.

 

What about the place where you work, as an office…

My office is in the heart of Rotterdam and my house is here 10 minutes by walking, shops where I go normally are here, all of my life is here! My world is very small, and it is more and more like that: I used to travel a lot, I had projects everywhere, but now that is less and less, my world is getting smaller and I really like that. I have the office in Rotterdam, and all my works are here or on the outskirts, one hour by car, so in this way I can easily control everything and I can be very focused on my work. When before I was traveling more in other cultures, it was interesting because easily you get fascinated by what you see. Now I am more fascinated in understanding what I see. So in my own city it is really already a challenge to understand the real culture: it is definitely a great job. So I am really more interested on going down, going deeper in the culture of the place where I am. Therefore I am really happy that my world is getting smaller and smaller, because I really want to focus on the culture of a place, on the dynamics and on the sentiments this place. For sure it is easier to start with the sentiment of your own people and of your own city than the ones that are in China, Taiwan or Australia. To get deeper in my work it is good to work in a small range around my office.

 

But what is the real culture of Rotterdam?

Yeah it is very difficult! We were just finished half a year ago with a strategy for the inner city of Rotterdam. To make that, I always said, I had to understand what the place is and then I could propose something new. Then I tried to understand what Rotterdam really is, and it was really difficult because it is a city which misses material, which misses a density, or a structure, and misses regularity, or a rule, and everything seems to be exception, and everything looks chaotic. And that is what the city is.  Then you have to understand if it is good to keep like it is, or if you want to change that: should we leave this freedom, this kind of loss of structure, because it is his character, or should we be more realistic and make it better, give it more structure. I don’t know if you know Amsterdam, but Amsterdam is a city with a lot of small streets, canals, where everything seems to be coherent, one continuous environment. That is Amsterdam, and this shape has influenced the way people live in Amsterdam: they go on bike, they have services near home, and the environment is protective for its inhabitants. But in Rotterdam happens the opposite. The city form is a little bit shaky, is rough, with huge empty spaces, so people are left alone: my analysis of Rotterdam inhabitants it is that they are left alone, because they don’t have the comfort of an environment that leaves them understand who they are and where they are. Every time you go out in the street you ask yourself, where should I start from? Everyone has to make his own decision. In Amsterdam the city is helping you to make your life, and here in Rotterdam you don’t seem to have that kind of help, the city throws you in the space and says good luck! And you have to make your life. This is sometimes very scary, sometimes you need other people, if nobody is there you don’t have the “reflection” of the city that can tell you who you are, where are your friends, where is the good restaurant, or the museum. That can be negative, but that also can have a positive effect because it can make you feel free, none looking at you! I feel free here! Well in Amsterdam where I also live I always feel part of the crowd, part of the group, so I have to do something because people expect me to do this and this. For me that is oppressive, and here in Rotterdam I feel free because no one cares about me. That is a certain kind of freedom that is motivating me to think, and as a result many good designers come from Rotterdam because as a good designer, if you are left alone and nobody give you so much importance, you are even more stimulated to be better, and you do more and more, to have a reflection on yourself. You continue to develop your own thinking and research until you reach an international level because there is not a local environment that appreciates you. You always feel that you have to do more. For me the city is not creative but it helps me to be creative.

 

You say that in Rotterdam there is no structure. If you are looking always for a structure, but at the same time you want to preserve this kind of duality, and in this sense you could intent Rotterdam as a reference for you, could you try to export this model?

Yes, I think that structure is very important for me, and Rotterdam helps really me to understand this. Recently I am writing a lot about cities and structures of cities. The more I try to make my thinking abstract, I come to the concept of freedom. I come to understand that  every individual wants to be free, or to be in a situation where he can do what he wants. Actually freedom is the pre-condition for our lives. But in order to be free, you need comforts, and structure and organization, even limits. If the space we are in now had no ceiling and the rain came down, we would feel less free than now, with the ceiling over our heads. So actually the structure, in this case the covering of the space, is creating the freedom to have a talk.

Opening the door of this room, and hearing all the people talking outside, theoretically would make us more free, because there would be less material between us. In reality we would be less free, because others would interfere our conversation with noise.

So the concept of freedom is always about organizing limits. We need limits to feel free. Designing those limits is our job as designers. So if I call myself space-maker, I always ask myself what are the conditions that could let us feel more comfortable and free. And therefore you need structures and material conditions. We decide the way spaces are limited or open. In this there is always a duality between structure and openness. Somewhere in the middle there is the excellent designer that makes the best choices in a given situation. Confirming the demand of comfort and quality or re-inventing this notion beyond expectations.

 

 

This is not only about function…

No, not at all! It is about perception… happiness, comfort, security, it all happens only in our minds! I always say, when you build small houses, give them very big toilets and a oversized hallway…hahaha…because you would appreciate much more this one extra square meter in the toilet, then that you miss it in the living room. This is what would consider that as real luxury!

Our physical environment is all about psychology. A mindplay built with stones.

 

So maybe let’s talk about the process of the project… How do you start a project and how do you consider a project finished? This question is more related in the interest of the process, the way we do things.

When I teach, I always ask students “where is this all about?” So if I have to design something, I ask myself the same question. Does it need to be light or heavy? Does it need to be comfortable or irritating? Should it look formal or informal, should it look traditional or innovative? So in a way always when I start a project for sure I ask myself where is this all about? What is going on here? What do I want to add or change in this situation?

Little by little I start to construct the answers to these questions. It helps to take a step back and look to what I am doing. To verify my conclusions with context and conditions… It is hard to explain how this exactly works. But I try to connect to as many elements as possible that are related to a specific design: the client, the place, the climate, the users, the expectations, the orientation, building technique, etc. Together, all these elements are the content of a design. More content make a design more rich.

Think of the opposite. Someone who wants to do something new! I believe that can never be a good starting point. Because than the only reason for your effort is to make something different from what there is, and this is not a good motivation. In the case that you say that you want create something new, you should always step back and ask yourself: what is it that is not good in the original solution and that should be done better? And This is the point from which we can start to invent something! So never do something because you want to be better or you want to be new, or you want to be the next generation! It is always about the content of your design.

So I always observe with my own eyes, my own ears, my own whatever, and asking myself… dear client, you ask me to do this, but what really is going on is something else, so I respond you this… This needs reflection, this needs training, to actually first widen the image and then come closer, to reach the essence of the question.

After a lot of training, You can start to answer quickly… this happens to me for example in urban planning: I have done so much training in stepping back and asking myself questions, that I can answer very quickly! But when I do architecture, which I have done much less, I always go slower… when I think I have already the answer in architecture, often this is not true, so I have to train myself still a lot. The first answer is often an answer only to content my desire to have an answer. But actually I should take more time to ask the right the question, which is the only good starting point. I should also be more patient and train more myself.

 

We want now to talk about references…How do you approach with references? What is your position about that?

Yes a lot! Everything we do in the office we treat as if it is we do it for the first time. This is very nice! For example, when we want to do a design with a certain material, we make a lot of research on this material, investigating all the ways it could be used, and how it could combined with others materials, and so on…

In the office we have a standard format for summarizing or research. All the time we start a new project we take a couple of weeks to understand and research on the new topic, with an extended research. For example here we have one about hospitals…how they are done in the past, what is the quality of interior and exterior spaces, what are the good examples and which they are… How an atrium should be done, what is the atmosphere, what are the relations that it creates, when is an atrium more an indoor space and with what elements it feels more outdoor… all the examples we find make us understand that an atrium is a complex thing. This complexity is first to be understood to be designed. This was another research for a chapel… requested for the same hospital… And since the theme of the chapel is something on which many worked before, we are able to make a very deep reference study: this is the result, that we have all the ingredients for the design. this chapel became very important, the center of our design.

These are all kind of elements that help you to understand that everything has a meaning, and that everything has an effect on your mind. That architecture by creating environments is manipulating people.

 

Reference study make you understand that there are 1001 way to treat spaces, just like music has is endless variations. That makes doing research so extremely fascination! Therefore all the people who work here in the office have to do this research. We always conclude with these little booklets on the research, which makes one of us the expert for life. We also give them to the clients and this help us a lot. In particular, this helps the client to understand that in each design there are an infinite number of possibilities, and that one has to decide what he wants. Not to lose ourselves in confusion, but to find ourselves by going deeper in the subject.

 

In a certain way this kind of approach is always the same only for buildings, or you do the same when you are commissioned also for something bigger?

Yeah also bigger! I have something which could be interesting to talk about: we just started a couple of weeks ago a design for the re-use of a psychiatric hospital. There is an existing structure from the beginning of the 20st century, which has a very classical structure: the hospital, the church in the middle, a water tower, and a kind of technical building, but they can’t pay it anymore. So they try to sell parts of the structure, they make houses in it and with the money they do they can afford a new structure. So this is an integration of let’s say normal houses and psychiatric houses. Actually reversed integration it is called according to official state policy. Psychiatric patients no longer move into the city as policy was until 15 years ago, but society come to them. We made a research on these structures, and they are basically all the same: all from twenties, monumental and all in the forest. Actually all facing the question of re-use.

 

But what is the step you do from this period of research, to arrive to a project?

From the research, we could see three different possible approaches in this project. You could build new houses around the old structure, which I personally don’t consider integration, or you make people live in between these things, and there is also a third approach, demolishing part of the old structure and integrating new housing complexes. All these three possibilities are wrong in my opinion, creating separations, isolations, or creating many conflicts between the two different populations that this complex should house.

With our client we decided that actually if we have two kind of users, they should not be divided or put together without choosing personally what they want… in a way the two qualities should bring the total design on an higher level. Creating an environment that can house new and old population without contrasts, and in a way that the patients and the new population can share spaces. What we propose is the way in which they have a visual and physical relations, living all around the same thing. The design start not by mixing buildings in the best way, but by making public space that can accommodate a mix of people. I think this relate to my basic ambition, making the world better by aiming on public spaces.

This is the first step, to define the ambition of the project, and from this step we move forward. We always research the possibilities, what kind of integration is possible. A reference can be also a bad reference that you criticize to understand what could have been done that it was not done.

We never designed before spaces for people with psychiatric problems, so we don’t know anything, and first you have to know what is bad to choose.

 

 

Do you feel to belong from a kind of tradition, or a movement? Do you think to be part of a current?

I always hope and I always tried to be independent. I don’t feel directly to be related to a group or to a movement, but on the other hands I really learned my lessons from certain people and certain movements. I met Peter Zumthor in Mendrisio and I really liked the way that he is calm, knowing what he wants. When I came to Mendrisio 10 years ago and I had my class next to him and then of course  I learned from his personality. “I do it my way”, that is what he says, “you don’t have to like it, I like it”. I don’t know if he really says this or he just expresses this. Anyway it helped me to understand that sometimes you don’t have to convince the whole world, you just have to convince yourself, that is enough.

I learned a lot also from Dominique Perrault in Paris: we did a project together and what I learned from him it is that he was extremely organized. He was able to have just one phone call at 9AM, and he was able to clarify everything, and no more phone calls were necessary in the day. In this way, with this organization, he was able to have more time for reflecting and thinking.

Like this there are more people. When I meet them, I try to learn something from them. In school I learned a lot from the landscape architects that were my teachers. Landscape architecture and landscape art is all about manipulation of your experiences. For example in an English garden, you never walk straight, you turn around a tree, and then you see a little canal, and then you turn… and at the end you arrive to this little castle. In France it would be like this (and he draws a straight line…). So it is all about manipulating your experience and playing with the minds of other, creating desire, or happiness, or any other feeling…

 

This same explanation you could do for architecture: architecture is all about manipulation. You organize spaces in a certain sequence, and this make people understand that the world is in a certain way. I came first to Italy when I was 22, and I came to Rome at a friend’s house. His apartment had this huge central corridor with many doors, I had never seen this before. This gave me the feeling of a huge freedom, in a way that I can separate a huge series of activities. While in Holland traditionally you have a free floor plan, hosting all the functions.. This classical apartment made me happy! The freedom of choosing seemed to be much larger with a plan like that, than in the way I was used to know the Dutch floor plans. Apparently with the same amount of kitchen, the same amount of dining and toilets, you can created different experiences!

From my landscape teachers I understood that in landscapes this manipulation is allowed, actually it is all about manipulation. To bring people to another state of mind. How nice would it be to see architecture the same way!

I give often this other example: In the Netherlands, the old town had the city halls with a staircase, a huge door and a clock. This told the citizens that the council and the civil servants where important, here houses the power. This all changed fifty years ago. Now we make our town halls flat, with sliding doors. The power is not the power, the what used to be power is now service of even our friend. So architecture always tells a story, that is my lesson.

So I don’t know if I am linked to any movement, I don’t think so. But if I would, it would be the tradition of landscape architects. As I admire them how the can change our reality.

 

If you look now your last work, and you step back to your first work, what does it represent for you? Do you think there is maybe a connection between all your works?

I think that the search is the same. If I should get back to ten years ago, I was already with my mind and my body in the design, verifying personally what each design means for the persons that use the space. So I am always imagining to walk in rooms and spaces, and verifying for example in this corridor is nicer to have a light at the end, or in the middle. I think I am now more able to push, that now I am stronger…I was softer ten years ago and less experienced. Now I am more convinced that sometimes you have to make things less subtle and making stronger statements.

 

We have this question if politic and architecture are the same thing… but I think that here in this discussion there is something more specific that is making more interesting… does this typological evolution you were explaining before come from architecture or from society / politics?

You know, politics is nothing! Politicians are followers of what is happening, so politicians are never the leaders, they are the result of the culture. And architects are making culture, as designers we are in the position to change things, and politicians are mainly in the position of following things. Because as a politician you can never be for something, or choose for something, when the society is not willing to do this. Politicians are always influenced by votes, and by what do people want. So if the people are ready to change the relationship to the state we can do this, but they will never force changes I think. In Italy you have politicians of a certain kind, and in France you have another kind, and in the Netherlands they are again different: politicians are the result of the local culture. French people want a powerful leader: already for five hundred years the French want to know who is the boss. In Paris all the streets ramp to the church, or to the stadium, or to the castle. The streets are making the power more powerful! This is the way how France is organized. In Holland we make cities like that.

If you go to Amsterdam everything is indirect, the opposite of Paris. There is never a church at the end of the street: for instance the main building is always in another position, like the main museums or the concert hall. If you reach Amsterdam from outside you can never go to the center of the city. The main square has a church, but this church is facing the square with its back. The town hall of Amsterdam is not on a street but in a little backyard. This is who we are: in Holland we hide the power because we want to be equal. Our cultural tendency is to say we are all the same that we are all sharing the same values. Our  prime minister is considered one of us, so he travels by bike!

 

It is nice that we can talk about politics showing the special structure of the city!

Yeah the politics are the result of the culture, and we also follow the culture as designers, but we have more power to change it, I think. At least to bring the culture a step forward. On the other hand, we cannot do too much, because the French are like that for five hundred years now, so they want “La Bibliothèque très grande” as the one designed by Perrault, which is the biggest in Europe. In Holland this monumentality would be impossible to make. People would say that this is a bad idea, that this costs money and at the same time is useless. These are cultural differences for hundreds years already, so we don’t have to think that we can change things so much. But for me culture is always dominant, and as I said before, it is nice for me to work in Holland because little by little I start to understand my own culture.

I spoke about Amsterdam, but The Hague is again different: straight streets, and many statues; in Rotterdam there are almost no statues, in Amsterdam there is one monument for the former queen, but all the important people of Amsterdam they didn’t have one (our a very small one). In fact the Hague is the city of the government and all the embassies it makes the city structure is very formal. Amsterdam on the contrary, is libertarian. The city is for everyone. It is something that Amsterdam shares with New York. The street grid here makes that everybody is equal; because there is never someone at the end of the street. Everyone is equal as his neighbor. In fact, this is the principle of American nation. The end of the line is open to the endlessness of the landscape. So America is not only the land of equal chances but also of infinite opportunities. The city structure is the reflection, and at the same time the basis, of the American culture.

This, for me, is all very interesting. Apparently you can tell by the streets what is happening in a country. They are the way the society is organized, the relation between people, the relation between rich and poor, between power and non-power. The cities are made by men, but at the space op the city will never stop to form us. The reciprocity of spaces and people is what fascinates me!