Description

The Rijnbooggebied in Arnhem is a typical railway station district, dominated by streets with cheap shops and fast-food restaurants. The “De Rozet” cultural centre contributes to the upgrading of the area. With its sculptural beige façade elements, each with a small rosette relief in the middle, it is the most striking building far and wide – aside perhaps from the huge concrete sculpture of a pink aardvark lying on its back, which adorns the small square in front of the building.
The 32-million-euro cultural centre is the product, paradoxically, of an economy drive, as the new building was intended to house the municipal library, adult education centre, historical museum, an art rental shop and an art school together. The design by Neutelings Riedijk from Rotterdam was chosen from about forty entries to an international competition in 2009. The brief originally proposed arranging the various institutions in individually legible volumes clustered around an inner square. However, the chosen site between Oude and Nieuwe Oever-straat was not conducive to this, with a width of between 15 and 30 metres over a length of 90 metres long. In response to this wedge-shaped footprint, Willem-Jan Neutelings and Michiel Riedijk reformulated the requirement for an internal square into an internal ascending street that runs longitudinally through the building – an idea that won them the competition.
On entering the building, one arrives first in a small foyer. To the left, a staircase leads to the basement, where the Local History Museum is located. Far more spectacular, however, is the seemingly endless wooden staircase that ascends to the right. It leads along the north façade to the third floor where it opens onto a small internal foyer before changing direction by 180 degrees to continue along the south façade to the end of the roof terrace on the fifth floor. To allow it to double as an auditorium, some of the steps are partially double height to serve as seats. Large areas of glazing allow ample daylight to enter the space and create a visual connection to the surroundings. The opposite wall, by contrast, looks like an oversized typecase comprised of wooden frames of varying depth, some of which are picture frames or showcases, and some glazed, offering a glimpse into the rooms behind. Incorporated into this wall – which is effectively the backbone of the building – are also balconies with workstations.
Above a café on the ground floor is the library on the first and second floors. It is designed as an open spatial landscape, with bookshelves built into the outer walls, between the vertical strips of windows, and features a slide that connects the two levels of the children’s book section. The atmosphere is not that of a typical library with seating corners and the like, but the third floor is furnished with armchairs and a small coffee bar. Behind this is a magazine room and art lending department. The remained of the third and fourth floors are classrooms for the adult education centre and art school, and on the fifth floor is the auditorium, more classrooms and a panoramic roof terrace. The large, wooden staircase functions as an extension and continuation of the outdoor public space into the semi-public area of the cultural centre. The wedge-shaped ground plan of the building heightens this effect further as the tapering exterior walls serve to emphasise and exaggerate its length.
The façade of the cultural centre consists of tall, vertical, U-profile prefabricated concrete panels, some with decorative sawtooth-like notches, alternating with similarly vertical windows. In the centre of each panel is a relief of a rosette cast into the concrete in the style of a Penrose diagram, symbolising the bundling and dissemination of knowledge. Together, the sand-coloured concrete panels create a waffle-like structure of deep-set impressions, so that from the side the façade appears almost opaque, although it is actually half glass. The interior is also characterised by a sense of solidity, as the stairs, ceilings, window frames and showcase wall are all made of oak. On the narrow sides of the building, the concrete panels were also used in the interior. The building’s core structure is traditional in-situ concrete with formwork imprint left exposed.

Originally published in Bauwelt  41/42.2013, pp. 42-45, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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