This graduation project to redesign the former American Embassy in The Hague began with a cultural-philosophical and theoretical study. This was prompted by the changed climate in which the building has found itself since the events of September 11th, 2001. Proceeding from the building itself, the study goes on to look at how prevailing public issues find their way into creative circles. After the period of the early Moderns with their unfettered, ambitious future ideals it is time for the designer to adopt a more autonomous role. Influenced by Alan Weisman's book 'The World Without Us', the design brief is approached through a material, small-scale thinking.
This line of enquiry led to a design concept for Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer's former embassy building in The Hague. The threat of terrorist attacks means that the present premises will soon be abandoned for new ones. This project gives a new use to this building in the very heart of The Hague city centre. The public, kept out of it for so long, takes on a role analogous to that of the new intruder Weisman describes in his book. Combined with the images of silence, emptiness and space, the brief became that for a museum of modern art. This new duty transcends the embassy's current status, imbued as it is with associations with terrorism and international politics.
Out of the research by design came a concept that retains some frontage from the existing building and where the new form literally forces its way in. An interconnected ensemble of square exhibition spaces has been created 'under Breuer's skin'. The concept was worked up in an intensive dialogue with the structural and engineering issues raised by the design. Thanks to a pioneering use of EPS foam in a composite structure with glass-fibre reinforced polyester, the design can be realized in a pure form.
Under Breuer's Skin returns to The Hague a building with a mysterious heart. If Breuer's embassy seems uncompromised at first, an entirely new structure with its own ambience unfolds on entering the building. Emptiness, space and light occupy a place once awash with international tensions.
