needs trees

My first thought was, "Oh, God. That's f'ugly." But upon forther consideration, I must agree, "It's f'awesome."

I love it. It's nice to see someone adding color to what is normaly a sea of gray (or other equally dismal shades).

It looks like a bunch of stacked up cargo containers to me. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I think stacked up cargo containers look cool.

What Catalina has said about the "stacked up cargo containers" is significant. For what I saw in the picture was not just a building, a tenement perhaps, but a massive ark.

I like it. It reminds me of the jumbled semi-slummy buildings of flats over retails space and bazarres in late colonial lower Kowloon, Hong Kong, when I stayed there in the early 80s. One man's utilitarian jumble is another man's million dollar artsy-fartsy architectural commission!

It's like those artworks where an artist epoxies a bunch of phones together with some dabs of paint and a curator puts it in the corner of a museum on a pedastal, except with a water feature. Or is it a water feature with a building?

that's rad. i would totally live in one of those. and i hate most condo type places.

wow. a multicolored shoebox. the great big minimalist housing tenement of many colors and textures. impressive? more than a box of one color and one texture i suppose...

"....157 apartments, each different in size..."

Everyone is different in size? What an odd and it seems to me needlessly expensive way to build. I can see a range of sizes -- from some very small studios to even 3-4 bedrooms, in response to market demand -- but sure 157 different sizes seems a bit excessive? Just a typo?

Amsterdam greatness.

A largely unsubsidized market in the States makes this housing typology impossible locally. Mass production a la Henry Ford and standardized parts is our way... Social benefit or social cost?

For Sucher: http://www.arcspace.com/architects/mvrdv/silodam_article.html

Thank you, Charles.
As I suspected, there are only 15 different apartment types. That makes a whole more sense, though it is still quite a few.

Hey Nigga Schola,

Ik vind Nederlands gebow heel meer schoon dan onze....

Ooops I don't know if you speak Dutch so I'll write in English just in case. While the Dutch structure itself may be interesting, it's important to look at the underlying social forms that make it possible.

My Dutch roomate in Madison was here studying Urban planning, comparing Milwaukee with Dutch cities like Rotterdam. When I asked him the main difference here's what he said.

Sixty percent of the housing in major Nederland's cities is government owned. It began in Rotterdam after WWII in order to speed the reconstruction efforts.

This public vs. private ownership makes has a profoud impact on urban texture and the psychological environment of the city. In American individuals receive enormous financial gain from speculating on real estate. Our condo towers are not homes as much as investment vehicles. I was in a lovely four bedroom Spanish style home on the East side of capital Hill that had no furniture in many of the rooms. It was owned by a wealthy couple both investment bankers who saw the place as a moneymaker. The souless interior had the atmosphere of a safety deposit box room in a bank.

Imagine how different Capitol Hill would look if individuals stood to gain nothing from the rise in real estate prices? Can imagine how different our culture would be if none of us was making a killing from gentrifying a neighborhood? Most Americans can't imagine making money off real estate and see individual ownership of property as an sacred right.

You have a home on Mercer Island selling for $53 million dollars. That kind of property does not exist in Holland. What if instead of ten $53 million dollar homes you had a thousand cool apartments. That's what you're looking at in the photo.

Before we could have anything similar to the apartment building you posted, and there are thousands of similar ones in The Netherlands, America would have to be willing to part with $53 million dollar homes. That will never happen. American's would have to give up the idea that they can make tons of money when their neighboorhood becomes fashionable. Not likely. So America will simply copy the surface, the look of modern Dutch design without ever understanding how the form came about.

Ik moot en lekker booterham met kass eten, een mischeen pilsje...

I disagree. There's no need to become socialists like the Dutch to have nice condos.

I was really skeptical of your architectural critiques when you panned a building for having rounded edges and otherwise guilty of being interesting to look at. However, I have to agree with you that this structure rocks. I would live there in a heartbeat.

Like Ryan, your fondness for the worst in hideous modern architecture really turns me off, but I just don't have enough nice things to say about this effin' rad building. Thanks!

Thought it is pretty ugly and adds very little to enviroment.looks like an old 70s hospital or as another post put it stacked cargo containers.

but , after closer examination i think its ok i like the dock below and some do have patios(something you cant tell from thos first photos.

unfortunately it still a box couldn't they come up with something more imaginative?

Like, a sphere?

what draws me to this building is very close to what draws to the architecture of density: http://www.photomichaelwolf.com/hongkongarchitecture/

Chetbob is spot on when saying, "It reminds (him) of the jumbled semi-slummy buildings of flats over retails space and bazarres in late colonial lower Kowloon, Hong Kong." That was my exact thought - well, okay, I wasn't thinking particularly Kowloon, and they're still pretty common. But the observation is 100% spot-on. This is the European version of American architects building houses with later additions built-on from the start; those south Chinese buildings are the result of more monolithic buildings being remodelled one section at a time by different sublessors and/or owners over a period of many years, and this is an architect grabbing the resulting look and trying to manufacture it straight out of the gate. It does kind of work, but, since they went with an essentially flat face, it lacks the textural depth of the more interesting of the buildings the architect is emulating. So for me, it feels a little shallow. I would love to have seen it have some floors extending a bit out from the whole, and insets, and window boxes, and perhaps occasional balconies, to give it more of the dimensionality of the originals.

Charles,
I've left a comment/question on your 'philosophical puzzle' at my blog.

incest father and daughter with mother and son!