Oct '13 - Mar '14
Just one mile outside of Utrecht, NL's historic (and highly adorable) city center, housing Utrecht University's science and medical campu, de Uithof contains maybe the highest density of contemporary (st)architecture that I have ever observed. OMA, Weil Arets, and Mecanoo, just to name a few. And while I expected to be blown away by the campus when I biked there from my sublet in Utrecht city center, my feelings were more ambivalent upon my arrival. Yes, the area was chock-ful lof architectural gems, but they just sat there, oversized and lifeless, on more or less the flat grassy sheep fields that had been there for centuries. So while I was thrilled to experience the Educatorium and the Minneart building first hand, my overall experience in de Uithof was a sense of scalar isolation and removal from a sense of time (in spite of being the site of a historic fortification). This feeling was amplified by the sharp contrast provided by Utrecht's medieval city center, all cobbled roads, brick row houses, and vibrant street life....
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in other words, you intended to visit a real world of architecture and instead stumbled upon a virtual one.
By that I mean, its not so much their importance on site and as an urban collection that is of essence...and so, you never needed to visit them in person. I understand that. you were ready to be there but they were nonchalant about their own being there. the siren call does not emanate from them, it emanates from their virtuality. Perhaps you needed to bring the monographs laying out the project as conceived and play follow the leader.
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