'Scratched Conception.' Original copyright www.herbestemmingsoestdijk.nl
The Past and Now and all its regulations are the opposite of an evolving future. Skip the System.
Soestdijk Palace is empty.
Abandoned by its owners. (1)
After the death of Prince Bernhard in 2005, monarchy has left the building. Vacancy took its place. Since then the Dutch State had its turn. A long period of no development followed as a direct or indirect consequence of the state’s actions. Is this government whilst spending millions a competent heir? Probably not. Several debates and different researches have shown that to repurpose Soestdijk by ‘desk-research’ is definitely not the right way. Two million euros a year! An idiotic large amount of money, for which Christo would wrap the entire palace, Anish Kapoor would shoot huge blocks of clay around the hallways and Olufar Eliasson would let the sun rise in every room and is even willing to mown the lawn. Therefore we dismiss the government of its function and we take over to reign Soestdijk. State to Re-public.
'Olufar Eliason, Riverbed, 2014.' Danish Louisiana's Modern Art museum.
Copyright Olufar Eliason. When a building or garden is nothing more or less then the structure that captures the intervention, the intervention shall cause – indifferent as it is towards its context – the desired tabula rasa of the current state of mind.
“Redeveloping Soestdijk! The Future of an estate!” opens the website www.herbestemmingsoestdijk.nl. But how can you redevelop if you only fight with the weapons of the past? Those who pick this project, choose poetic indifference, autonomy, negation of historical context and will approach this project through the soul of their imagination. But when you choose, you loose, you will let go off all ballast that would lead you to traditional paths while redeveloping Soestdijk.
“Re-public Soestdijk” describes architecture as art again. Art doesn’t deal with redevelopment. Not as a topic, nor as a question. Change is arts necessity, incubated in its genes. It is a natural quality of pioneership that breaks with any regulation or preformulated goal. Art, and so should architecture, sets the goal by indifference. “Re-public Soestdijk” does not care about analyzing the past but cares about the excesses that will come. Hereby the Palace serves as a framework and the gardens as the grounds on which we will build and plow.
However, no wall will fall, no tree will be cut, everything remains. The walls, doorways, staircases and corridors, windows and doors that lead to paths crossing the gardens and its trees form the blank canvas from which Re-Public Soestdijk will rise. Adding is your tool, and the experiment is the language to reshape soestdijk. Fountains in all rooms (2), gardens crashing through the windows, corridors and rooms filled with scenery from outside (3), a bread pavilion for all the animals in the gardens (4), moving Meeting Rooms (5), a park sown with dozens of bridges (6) or a build replica of the palace, but keep in mind that everything is temporary and use this as a strength. Use “Soestdijk Palace ‘ as your drawing paper for spatial interventions fueled by your imagination and visualize where this imagination can lead to.
“Re-Public Soestdijk” requires indifferent characters.
Only by indifference (7) one can look far into the future.
Bruno Vermeersch (8)
