The Small Screen, Writ Large: Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
Firm:
Neutelings Riedijk Architects
Artist:
Jaap Drupsteen
Material:
Crea-Lite
Manufacturer:
Saint-Gobain
Project:
Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum
Standout:
The building is sheathed in a spectacular skin of individually designed glass panels impregnated with famous images from Dutch television.
One of Europe’s major
audiovisual archives, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision is responsible for keeping hundreds of thousands of hours of television, film, and radio in optimal condition for present and future use.
Neutelings Riedijk Architects’s
323,000-square-foot building—a perfect cube, sunk halfway into the ground—is furthermore a museum, a cultural focal point for the city at the center of the Dutch television industry. Those dual missions are broadcast loud and clear by a highly distinctive and innovative curtain wall, a collaboration with artist
Jaap Drupsteen
. Taking TV images, Drupsteen used software to blur them for greater visual continuity. Then, instead of printing them on a PVB plastic interlayer for laminated glass, he fused them into 2,100 high-relief cast-glass panels.
Text adapted from
Material Innovation: Product Design
by Andrew H. Dent & Leslie Sherr; printed by permission of
Thames & Hudson
, all rights reserved.
>> See more from the November 2014 issue of
Interior Design