Dutch Modern 20Th-Century and Contemporary Architecture
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MARTIN RANDALL TRAVEL ART • ARCHITECTURE • GASTRONOMY • ARCHAEOLOGY • HISTORY • MUSIC • LITERATURE Dutch Modern 20th-century and contemporary architecture 2–6 September 2021 (mh 877) 5 days • £2,240 Lecturer: Professor Harry Charrington An immersion in the last one hundred years of Dutch urban design. Highlights of early modernism include the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht, Hilversum Town Hall and the Van Nelle Tobacco Factory in Rotterdam. City centres are balanced by the Hoge Veluwe National Park, the Voorlinden estate and the docklands of Amsterdam. Stay throughout in beautiful Utrecht. Why do the Dutch excel at architecture and urban design? It is hard to resist the temptation to make connections between the hard-won, man-made origin of much of the country’s surface area and the scrupulous consideration of the uses to which it is put, and between the high density of population and the highly developed sense of social responsibility which Hilversum’s Town Hall, Dudok 1930. prevails in the Netherlands. Another ingredient may be the Itinerary architecture (1931); built by Brinkman and independence of spirit and love of liberty van der Vlugt with input by Mart Stam, it which characterises much of Dutch life and Day 1: Wassenaar, Utrecht. Travel in the combines glass-walled functionalism with society, born perhaps of the seafaring and morning by Eurostar from London St humanising asymmetry. The afternoon is spent trading history of the nation – in turn impelled Pancras to Rotterdam. In a beautiful estate of in the Museumspark, home to the Netherlands by a poorly endowed and vulnerable habitat woodland, meadows and dunes, Voorlinden Architectural Institute (Jo Coenen 1993), adjacent to the sea. is an excellent private collection of modern Kunsthal (Koolhas 1992), Museum Boijmans Good neighbourliness and fierce and contemporary art in a new light and lofty van Beuningen – whose 1930s core was individualism do not normally make good building by Kraaijvanger Architects, with augmented in the ‘70s, ‘90s, ‘00s with further bedfellows, but in dynamic tension may gardens by Piet Oudolf. Continue to Utrecht expansion underway – and the Sonneveld be the perfect recipe for an excellent built where all four nights are spent. House, a family dwelling, built by Brinkman environment. Some of the most exciting and van der Vlugt in 1933. architectural developments of the last hundred Day 2: Utrecht, Hilversum. Begin at Gerrit years have been sited in the Netherlands. Rietveld’s Schröder House. Built in 1924, it is Day 4: Hoge Veluwe National Park. The day Dutch architecture is not just a matter of one of the icons of 20th-century architecture, is dedicated to the wild expanse of the Hoge major showpiece buildings, though there are a revolutionary and beguiling deconstruction Veluwe National Park. Visits include the plenty of those. They arise in the context of an of an urban house. The campus of Utrecht Hubertus Hunting Lodge by Berlage (1919), outstandingly high level of planning, building University is a clump of exciting buildings porters’ lodges (MVRDV 1995), and the and urban design at every level. including a sleek library by Weil Arets and Kröller-Müller Museum, a superb art collection This trip includes tours of a clutch of icons Koolhaas’ Educatorium. Outside Hilversum especially notable for Van Gogh, in buildings of modern architecture – the Rietveld Schröder in sandy pine forest, the restored Zonnestraal by Van der Velde (1919–38), Rietveld and Wim House in Utrecht, the Van Nelle factory in Sanatorium (Duiker 1931) is a wonderful glass Quist. building with complex massing. Hilversum’s Rotterdam, Dudok’s Town hall in Hilversum. Day 5: Residential Amsterdam. Never in Town Hall (Dudok 1930), ‘the brick building of And alongside these cutting edge developments history has social housing been so well crafted the century’, masterfully balances vertical and are being completed all the time. and whimsically alluring as de Klerk’s ‘Eigen horizontal, functionalism and fantasy. There is, however, one compelling reason Haard’ (1913–20). Continue to the Eastern not to join this tour. Whatever part of the Day 3: Rotterdam. The Markthal is a colourful Docklands, a redevelopment of the ‘90s and world you come from, return is likely to splash by up-to-the-minute architects ‘00s with unflagging variety of design. The lead to melancholy. By comparison with the MVRDV. Continue to the Van Nelle Tobacco newest expansion is on Ijburg, more removed, brilliance of the Dutch scene, your home town Factory, one of the monuments of modern more peaceful, more watery. Stop en route is guaranteed to seem drab and depressing. book online at www.martinrandall.com Telephone 020 8742 3355 MARTIN RANDALL TRAVEL Dutch Modern continued to Schiphol at the Open Air School (Duiker and Bijvoet 1930), one of the first in an urban setting and a model example of modernism. The Eurostar from Amsterdam arrives into London St Pancras in the evening. Eurostar timetables for 2021 are not available at the time of going to print. The itinerary on the first and last of days of the tour is predicated on convenient train times and the availability of a direct service from Amsterdam to London. Should this not be the case, we may need to consider flights as an alternative. Lecturer Professor Harry Charrington. Architect and Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster. He read Architecture at Cambridge, where he was the founding editor of Scroope: Cambridge Architectural Journal, and subsequently combined academia and practice in both England and Finland. He has a particular interest in the history of modernism and obtained his PhD from the LSE on Alvar Aalto. His books include the award-winning Alvar Aalto: the Mark of the Hand and contributions to Artek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern World (Yale University Press). Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £2,240 or £2,030 without Eurostar. Single occupancy: £2,520 or £2,310 without Eurostar. Included: Train travel by Eurostar (Standard Premier); hotel accommodation; travel by private coach; breakfasts, 1 sandwich lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Accommodation. The Grand Hotel Karel V, Utrecht (karelv.nl): converted from a 19th- century hospital in a quiet location within the city walls. Rated locally as 5-star. All single rooms are doubles for single occupancy. How strenuous? This is a short but busy tour with a lot of walking and standing around. Average distance by coach per day: 64 miles. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. book online at www.martinrandall.com [email protected].