OverHolland

Three modern campuses, three revolutions, three experiments

Ayşen Savaş — 2023-11-22

Thirty years after the Second World War, architecture culture was dominated by a discourse critical of the once cherished modernism and marked by scepticism towards its canonical narrative. However, other modernisms still emerging outside Europe and America, especially in geographies that had not been battlefields of war, faced their own socio-political struggles and formed strong ties with that earlier modern movement. The legacy of modernism lived on in the so-called developing countries located in a geopolitical sphere identified with the ‘third world’. In Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Turkey, India, Iraq, Nigeria and Singapore there was a continuing interest in the pragmatic and experimental aspects of modern architecture. Economic realities justified this persistence, as did the engineering discipline’s familiar slogan of ‘maximum efficiency for minimum effort and investment’.
Unlike in Europe and North America, and contrary to expectations, the industrial revolution did not materialize as expected in these countries and in some cases it can even be said that it did not occur at all.3 ‘Revolution’, on the other hand, became a popular slogan and was readily adopted by the masses. In countries like Mexico, Turkey or Cuba, the term revolution had little to do with industry. Rather, it was associated with ideology, abrupt social changes, fundamental transformations in political power, and public revolts against undemocratic governments.
How successful these social revolutions were and how much the architecture they produced reflected their ideologies is debatable. Influenced by the worldview of positivism and the idea of instrumentality in applied sciences, universities established in these countries did indeed embrace revolutions, in some cases becoming the breeding ground for reformist ideologies or symbolizing their ideals in others. They were the visible symbols of newly established nation states and reflected revolutionary values.

Campus Utopias I

Ayşen Savaş — 2023-11-22

In collaboration with TU Delft’s Department of Architecture, the ‘Campus Utopias’ graduate research course was conducted with students from the Architecture Department of the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, in 2021. The focus of the research was the METU campus, an iconic example of modern architecture in Turkey, and the goal was to discover the intentions of its designers. As well as the architects of the campus, the term ‘designer’ was used to refer to the institutions and individuals who had been involved in the establishment of the university.
The original campus, built between 1962 and 1970, was a masterpiece of urban design and architecture. Merging the urbanistic ideals developed at the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM 1928-1959) and the formal codes of the International Style with common elements of regional architecture, the campus created a unique environment. The overall design, reflected in plan schemes, infrastructural systems and construction techniques, was the outcome of post-war experimental research in architectural engineering. Another reason for its prominence, besides its material qualities and stylistic maturity as a genuine interpretation of modern architecture, were the social values crafted and disseminated by this modernist institution. Providing a sense of identity and belonging, the campus served to foster a spirit of community. Traces of desired modernity can still be found in the institutional presence of the campus, partly in its architectural image and partly in the association between this image and the democratic, liberal social life it provides.

Campus-atlas Twente

Otto Diesfeldt — 2023-11-22

Like the campus-atlases for Delft and Eindhoven in OverHolland 18/19, this contribution documents the spatial design and transformation of the University of Twente (UT) campus in a series of maps and analytical drawings. The starting point for this is a comparison between the master plan of the campus from 1962, the actual situation in 1975 and the situation in 2015. These three reference dates provide a good overview of the developments that have taken place on the campus over the past few decades. The atlas therefore provides background information for the following reflections in this issue.
The master plan from 1962, drawn up by Willem van Tijen and Samuel van Embden formed the framework for the first construction activities on the campus. In 1975, eleven years after the first buildings were completed, the original design ideas have crystallised and the campus has taken shape more or less as envisaged by the founders and designers from the start. Forty years later, in 2015, the campus is in the middle of a major transformation process. A general reorientation of the original design of the university and the influx of students have left their mark on the spatial form. What stands out is not just the densification of the campus but also the hybridisation; the abandonment of original functional zoning and the introduction of new design principles. In addition, various first-generation university buildings which had since seen better days have been replaced or redeveloped.

Timeline Delft, Eindhoven, Twente

Yvonne van Mil — 2023-11-22

Using a timeline and a network map, the development of the Twente campus and the architects involved are compared with those of the other two technical universities in the Netherlands. The Twente campus was the third in line, after Delft and Eindhoven. How do the three campuses compare in terms of urban embedding, spatial layout and building design? What are the similarities and differences, and which architectural concepts migrate between the campuses? For this comparison, we use the Delft and Eindhoven campus-atlases published in OverHolland 18/19. To understand and compare the three campuses over time, we have distinguished two periods of spatial development: 1950 – 1975: Conception and Consolidation, and 1975 – 2015: Transformation and Hybridisation.
In the conception phase, we see marked differences in the spatial layout. In Delft, the campus took shape as a monofunctional ‘sector’, a separate urban district, which could be extended in two directions. Student life, i.e. student dorms and societies, remained in the existing city. The technical universities in Eindhoven and Twente were completely new. In Eindhoven, the first compact high-rise campus emerged in a park-like setting. In Twente, the first and only residential university was established, which was an educational experiment unique to the Netherlands and more in line with North American/UK examples.
The spatial developments begin to converge during the second period of transformation and hybridisation. Due to stagnation in student numbers in the 1970s and 1980s, there was initially little development on the three campuses during this period. Things only started moving again after the introduction of the bachelor/master struc ture in 2002. This made it easier for international students to study in the Netherlands, leading to a significant increase in student numbers and a greater need for student accommodation and other facilities.

Visual quality campus UTwente reconsidered

Joost Emmerik — 2023-11-22

There is probably no university campus in the Netherlands about which more has been drawn and written than that of the University of Twente (UT). The establishment of the first and only true campus university in the Netherlands, located on a 150-hectare wooded site between Hengelo and Enschede, resulted in a rapid succession of master plans and visual quality plans. In addition, numerous articles, books and a dissertation have been published. This interest is not without reason.
First of all, the history of the origins of what would become the third technical college in the Netherlands is of particular interest for the development of higher education due to its experimental nature. Secondly, hidden amongst the greenery are some of the most evocative architectural structures from the 1960s and 1970s, such as De Boerderij (The Farm) by Piet Blom, the Chemical Engineering building by Samuel van Embden and Jacques Choisy and a small canteen building by Joop van Stigt. Then there are the special student housing projects, including the mastabas, pyramids and patio complex designed by Herman Haan.
Thirdly, since the construction of the campus in the 1960s, the immediate surroundings have changed to such an extent that the campus can no longer be regarded as an independent entity. Since the rapprochement between the university and the adja cent business park at the end of the last century, the municipality of Enschede and the university have developed a coherent spatial development concept.

Campus Utopias II

Esther Gramsbergen — 2023-11-22

Drienerlo, the campus of the University of Twente (UT), represents one of the most interesting episodes in Dutch modern architecture and town planning. Moreover, its importance is not limited to that alone: the realisation of the campus in Twente was an integral part of a socio-pedagogical experiment. Perhaps for this very reason, the campus grew into a contact zone for different generations of Dutch modernists from Willem van Tijen (1894- 1974) and Samuel van Embden (1904-2000) to the Forum group.
Forum is a Dutch architectural review that in the period 1959-1963, with Jaap Bakema, Aldo van Eyck, Herman Hertzberger and others on its editorial board, was the birthplace of so-called ‘structuralism’, for which non-Western building forms served as models, such as North African casbahs, Indian pueblos and Egyptian mastabas and pyramids. ‘The Story of Another Idea’ with which the first issue of the then-new Forum editorial office opened, nr. 7 1959, turned against the ‘functionalism’ of the older generation of modernists and elicited a wave of reactions, including a harsh critique by Van Tijen.
All the same, it is precisely the open master plan for de TH Twente of Van Tijen and Van Embden (1962) that ultimately provided a veritable testing ground for a range of architectural ideals and approaches. Not only do the leading examples of modern architecture on campus bear witness to this but also a host of unrealised plans, such as Oswald Mathias Ungers’ entry to the competition for student housing (1963) and the only partially implemented structuralist plans for the centre of the campus by Piet Blom and Bert Smulders (1966), the building for Applied Mathematics, Computing Centre, Social Sciences and Electrical Engineering by Leo Heijdenrijk and Jos Mol (1969) and the pyramids and mastabas for student housing by Herman Haan (1970).

“Classroom without walls”

Georg Vrachliotis — 2023-11-22

The intersection of learning, space, and technology has become a significant focus in recent years. The design of educational environments for the future has emerged as a critical concern within campus architecture. These new university buildings often bear concise brand names that are abbreviated keywords, such as ‘collaboration’, ‘creativity’, or ‘flexibility’. Notable examples include UN Studio’s ‘Echo’ and ‘Pulse’ by ector hoogstad architecten, designed as new and innovative learning centres for the TU Delft campus. Despite their different architectural qualities, these projects share a common conceptual thread—integrating space and technology to create immersive learning experiences. In light of the rise of artificial intelligence, it is essential to consider how learning spaces can be adapted to this new era. Moreover, in a data-driven society, it becomes critical to question the nature of learning itself. The origins of these inquiries can be traced back to the mid-20th century’s experimental era of cybernetics, where the convergence of human and machine learning left an unforgettable mark on architectural history.

Book review

Cor Wagenaar — 2023-11-22

Book review of

Arne Schirrmacher / Maren Wienigk (eds.)
Architectures of Science
The Berlin Universities and Their Development in Urban Space
Berlin (JOVIS Verlag), 2019, 304 pp.

Paoli Fusi
Multiple Campus
Szenarien für die Universität der Zukunft
Berlin (JOVIS Verlag), 2019, 450 pp.

Book introduction

Henk Engel — 2023-11-22

Henk Engel introduces

Autonome architectuur en de stad
Ontwerp en onderzoek in het onderwijs van La Tendenza
Delft (KNOB and OverHolland), 2023, 341 pp.