ifnot or thtr own as, then ‘Aldo van Bycle | leter works oidonty lack. And sinc Aldo van Eyck tooppose equallyabeoluteideas | TAD AYCK | those later works cannot reproduce y onpome eauliyascltewas | Wn wae how later works ean reprod of others jmilar shock of the new, they HANS IBELINGS Van Byckbuitiitdema wrote | going against | often fall toattract th same Duteh architect AMlovan Eyck | mach, Anwith many architects that | the grain, tention from elleagoes and would probably have disagreed with | write, his work is very much judged a i architectural crities, who are always: {hischamolariation bathe wus | byteeriternandstandardshe | OPPOSIE the | onthe ook out for novelty. Moreover in many ways a contrarian (in that formulated himself (even in a mainstream, in architectural criticism and fence he wasn goodompany with | supposedly Mitertscatareesch | whatever historiography ther sot that was’ - : tly the most accommodating | have power). It would be unfair to say rwallirms the importance of what lites either). hho was a better writer than architect. is already considered important A big part of his life was going ever, the richness of his ideas, and hence leads to an overvaluation inst the grain, being in opposition | his erudition and even his artistic of early works, because they will be tothe mainstream, whatever that | worldview are more easily conveyed mentioned over and over again (just was: mainstream Modernism, and appreciated through his written 1a is happening hore, by the way). mainstream CLAM, mainstream work than in his architecture But it conld be contended that ‘Team X or mainstream His designs seem somehow the early works of Van Byck are Postmodernism (the latter most ‘underwhelming compared with his by far the most interesting. Next famously in his Rats, Posts and vivid, luctd and poetic writing, which to the Orphanage stands one of his Other Pests rant at the RIBA in even 80 to 00 years later is still later projects, a speculative offic 1981). The last time Tspoke with strikingly rolovant, While some of building from the 1900s, whieh is him on the phone, about a year the early toxts have a preachy sid the outeome of complex negotiation before he died, typifies his contrarian | with all the desperation and hope In the mid*80s the Orphanage character. He complained about an | for salvation connocted to sermons, was threatened with demolition article on one of is latest works, | many of his Iter lectures and articles Dat eventually preserved thanks the Court of Audit in'The Hague, | are more polemical, sharp and witty to.a success International protest written by a then-colleague of mine Tis not accidental that there is initiated by Herman Hertzberg Van Byck contended that ifevery an impressive biography of Van As a result, the building was saved, single sentence ofthis article was | yok, written by Francis Strauven, and to compensate the developer, rwversed, it would have been closer | who pays more attention to his lif he got permission to build on the to reality, adding that he very well | and his ideas than to his designs adjacent plot, The Van Eyeks ~ in ‘understood that someone could and buildings, and that thore is later years Aldo's wife Hannie was laim that Copenhagen was the an equally impressive tome of credited as designer as well ~ got the seks written work, Writings: ‘commission for both the renovation capital of Germany but that did not V mean it was true. He reiterated his | Collected Articles and Other of the Orphanage, and for the nev opinion in a lengthy letter to the Writings edited by Strauven and Tripolis office building (which lias magazine that had published it, Vincent Ligtelijn. What's missing, recently undergono an elegant Arobts, which was fun to read though, is a comprehensive interior renovation by Moriko Kira) if not for my colleague. monograph of his architecture ‘Phe constraints of commercial real Van Byck’s oppositional nature | and one could wonder, bearing the estate make it dilicult for any can be seen inthe light of his lifelong | proeminenco of his writing in mind, architect to excol in this fel, architectural interest in relativity, | if it is likely to appear soon, but even if that i taken into reciprocity and what he called dual | Like many well-known 1Ideration, Tripolis obviously phenomena, which conld only exist | architeets, Van Eyck's reputation ‘doesn't give the same thrill asthe with their opposite ‘without, us a designer is mainly based on ‘Orphanage, The eolourful facades resorting to the arbitrary an early masterpieoe, the Municipal accentuation of either one at the Orphanage in Amsterdam (1959-60), expense of the other’ While in his | built near the 1928 Olympic architecture he carefully avoided the | Stadium. Completed during his ‘one-direetional, the centralised, and | ‘Team X years, the building is the definite ~ he had a deep aversion | a programmatic complex of to monumentality-— his rhetorical | interrelated structures: an ideal power was such that he tended to | city in microcosm. Barly works of ‘make rather absolute statements, | architocts often have a novelty that of Tvipolis ~ which follow Van Eyek’s ‘adage that the rainbow is his favourite colour ~ eannot hide thatit is less rch than the brownish greyish Orphanage that reveals the power ‘of place and oocasion Van Byek's ‘early work had to offer. Bven the any playgrounds he designed while working for the Amsterdam