Hollainhof: Neutelings Riedijk

Author(s): Maarten Delbeke

Source: AA Files, No. 37 (Autumn 1998), pp. 3-11
Published by: Architectural Association School of Architecture
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 Hollainhof

Neutelings Riedijk

n
If

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NeutelingsRiedijk

Hollainhof

The Hollainhof isa social housing

complex in the centre of Ghent. The aim
of the project was to create an attractive
habitatcombiningthequalities of urbanity
and density with those of seclusion and

tranquility. This has been achieved by

updating the time-honoured typology of
the hospitium. The result is an ensemble
which oscillates between public and
private, open and closed, and large
scale and small-scale.
The dwellingsare grouped intotwo
strips, one bordering the street, the other
the river.The two strips are composed of
fifteen blocks, each containing eight to ten

dwellings. The area inbetween has been

leftopen as a large green space. From
the city, a large underpass leads to the Site plan
courtyard, which in turn provides access
to the flats. Each flat has its own walled

gardenwitha door opening on to the

courtyard.
The flats on the lower level are of the
bei etage type, with bedrooms on the

ground floor and, on the floor above, a

living room overlooking the square. The

Courtyard elevation
flats on the upper level are reached via
outside stairs and have large roof
terraces. Numerous set-backs in the plan

generate a varietyof dwelling typeswithin

a series of sculptural blocks, each with its
own identity
The cedar-clad blocks are set on Riverside elevation
a plinth of dark-grey, fibre-reinforced
concrete. The garden walls are of
terracotta-coloured prefabricated
concrete. A pavilion in the open space
contains a creche.
Beneath the riverside block, there is
an underground car park with lockable

garages. Some of the street-side

Courtyard elevation
dwellings are entered through a first-floor
gallery; the resulting introverted street
elevation serves to emphasize the scale
and character of the complex.

Street elevation

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 Client: Gentse Maatschappij voor de
Huisvesting NV, Ghent
Architects: Neutelings Riedijk, Rotterdam
(Design team: Willem Jan Neutelings,
Michiel Riedijk, Hans Verstuyft,Klaus Schlosser,
Tadej Glazar, Jonathan Woodroffe,
Frank Heylen)
Site supervision: Bureau Bouwtechniek BVBA,
Antwerp
Design: 1993
Construction: 1996-8
Technical design & building consultants:
Bureau Bouwkunde Rotterdam
Structural design: SWK (Studiebureau voor
Wegen en Kunstwerken) NV, Ghent
Building services: Techno Consult BVBA, Ghent
Contractor: Strukton de Meyer NV, Ghent
Landscape architect: B?ro voor Vrije Ruimte, Ghent
Ground floor
Photographs: Sarah Blee

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NeutelingsRiedijk

SINGLE-BAY
SEI
tUCE QUAORUPIE-BAY
PANORAMIC
MAISONETTE *^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^>
H^^^^H^^^^^^^^^Hc^^*^*"^

^ ^^^^
DOUBLE-BAY
FLAT MAISONETTE INNER
COURT
ELEVATION

DOUBLE-BAY
FLAT WITHDOUBLE-BAY
FLAT
WITH
DOUBLE-BAY
TERRACE DOUBLE-BAY
TERRACE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^^^^
^^^^^^^U^^BP^^^

RIVERSIDE
ELEVATION
^^^^^^
DOUBLE-BAYWITH
FLAT TWO-STOREYED
DOUBLE-BAY
SINGLE-BAY
TERRACE FLAT WITH
SUNROOF

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NeutelingsRiedijk

Stylish pragmatism; or,A fragileexercise inhybridity

Maarten Delbeke evoking the image of a slightly overscaled day-care centre has been built to a
suburban dream house. The use of cedar design by Neutelingsand Riedijk.4A car
In1992 thecitycouncil of Ghent cladding, associated with southern beach park, accessible through an entrance
launched a competition for the houses, the many terraces and sun-roofs, behind the day-care centre, has been
reorganization of the former site of the and the large windows which appear to created underneath the strip of villas
Hollain barracks, a military complex be expecting abundant sunlight reinforce along the river
Scheldt, therebyelminating
dating fromtheeighteenthcentury.The this image of a dream house. Just as the cars from the courtyard. This strip has

competition, part of a plan to create housing are separated

blocks from the been moved inward, freeing a stretch of
urgently needed social housing, courtyard by the front gardens, a series of land on the riverbank and allowing the city

proposed the construction of a minimum patios at the back forms a buffer against toproceed with itsplan toprovidea
of a hundred housing units, a quarter of the river,while along the street a glass riverside walkway. The strip along
which would be private flats for sale, with fagade containing spaces to be let as Brusselsepoortstraat has been reduced
the remainder as social housing. Itwas shops and offices is planned.2 by one block because of a buildingwhich
one of the first such official commissions There are a number of differences had to be excluded from demolition. At
toacknowledge the rebirthinBelgium of between thecompetitiondesign and the thehead of thisrowand next to the
a diverse, high-quality architectural buildings as executed. In the former, all entrance to the complex, we now find a

culture, and an exemplary selection of the available outside space is compacted witha lift.
stairhall On thefirstfloorthe lift
practices were invited to submit designs: into a single courtyard.3 All communal opens on to a gallery and on the second
Stephane Beel; Luc Deleu and TOP circulation is confined to the courtyard or to an open-air corridor, both of which are
Office;Henk De Smet,Marleen Goethals the stairs to the flats on the upper level. situated on the street side. The shops
and Paul Vermeulen; Willem Jan All the flats are oriented towards the have been replaced by flatsfortheelderly
Neutelings; and Paul Robbrecht, Hilde courtyard, and at ground-floor level they which are entered from the street. The
Daem and Marie-Jose Van Hee. The are separated from their surroundings by layout of the housing units has also
projectbyNeutelingswas awarded first buffers. The courtyard and the continuous changed. Instead of see-through flats

prize.1 wall serve as the 'backbone' of the with bedrooms on the ground floor (at
The Hollain site is situated between ensemble. From the exterior, there is no leastin the ground-floor units) a more

Brusselsepoortstraat, a busy road leading visible distinction between blocks traditional type has been adopted in
to the city centre, and a tributary of the containing flats for sale and those which stairs, hallway and wet services
river Scheldt. Neutelings's design consists containing the rental units. By enclosing are grouped as a core.
of fifteen independent blocks, each the the various housing types within larger Clearly, the basic
assumptions of the
size of a large urban villa, facing a semi units which are uniformly clad and laid out original design were influenced by these

public courtyardwhich is linkedto the ina regular pattern, the design achieves a changes. The project as executed is less
street by a single entrance. The blocks visual coherence at the urban scale. At centred on the square, which, owing to
are clad incedar and the courtyard is the levelof theproject itself,
theblocks the introduction of corridors and a car

paved with gravel and dolomite and are differentiated by their varying profiles. park, no longer functions as the sole
planted with plane trees. A brightly For a variety of reasons, the nexus for circulation. Not all the housing
coloured wall penetrated by a series of competition design had to be altered. The units are oriented towards the square.
doors encloses the courtyard and complex now consists entirely of social Because of the curtailment of the row of

provides access to the front gardens of housing. To one side of the courtyard, a villas on thestreetside and thebuilding
the four ground-floor flats contained in
each block. The occupants of these flats
are able to park their cars in front of their
own doors. Stairwells between the blocks
lead to the flats on the upper level.
The internal organization of the villas
allows a variety of spatial configurations,
which take the formof a seemingly
random stacking of volumes on top of the
regular volumes of the ground floor,with
thecedar claddingwhich isused
throughout acting as a unifying element.
This playfulcompositionalapproach
enables each flat to have one or two
terraces or sun-roofs and creates a

pleasing variety of sculptural forms Drawing byWillem Jan Neutelings of the Hollainhof courtyard.

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of the day-care centre, the open space be added the distinction between front
itself is also less unified. As splendidly and back, derive, directly or indirectly,
delineated by Neutelings ina comic-strip from one which lies at the heart of the

style drawing, the square, surrounded by design: theattempttoprovidecity

a chain of stylish villas, appeared as a dwellers with suburban amenities. For the
void that was charged with the promise of residents courtyard are city
of the Hollain

vitality, of possibilities. In itsaltered form it dwellers willy-nilly. Precarious financial

gives the more miscellaneous impression circumstances may impose limits on their
of an inner courtyard equipped with mobility and spending power, but their
shared utilities. Instead of the housing aspirations are probably imbued

homogeneous hard surface of the earlier with the ideals of suburbia. The
scheme, we now have a green contemporary city dweller, we read in the
surrounded by a fire-break. A raised design description, is in need of a place

providingplay space forchildren

platform of repose and isolation from the hurly
has been added to the drive-in day-care burly of urban existence. Only a few
centre, whose entrance connects with hundred yards away in the
that of the car park. Brusselsepoortstraat, Neutelings
Much of the contemporary discourse discovered a typology
which mightoffer Onze Lieve Vrouw van Hoye beguinage, Ghent: View of the courtyard.
on urbanism encourages us to regard such a refuge: a beguinage, the Onze

public space as the ideal setting for Lieve Vrouw van Hoye beguinage, known

public life;conversely, a crisis in the locally as 'the Little Beguinage'.6 'Stripped

public realm is inferred from a crisis in of itsreligious ideology',thistype is
public space. Superficially tautological, eminently usable, writes Neutelings, who
such a claim is not in fact self-evident. believes that architects, in their relentless
When, ina project such as Hollain, the quest for novelty, neglect the immense
provision of a large semi-public space resource of historical concepts and
- a
constitutes one of the most important typologies neglect which is due to 'the

planning decisions, itwould appear that never expressed, yet always immanent
there are ambitions to shape the architectural taboo:
style'.7 He describes
community that is to be formed there; in the Hollain courtyard as an example of
the case of a social housing project, this 'laziness through the recycling of
seems even more was
obvious. After all, it typologies and concepts', arguing that
notso longago thattheambitionof this kind of laziness can be an important

building a community underlaid any and indeed beneficial ingredient of

housing project, whether social or not. architectural design. Remarkably, the term

Althoughthecourtyardof theHollain 'ideology' was used in the description

project and consequently other elements accompanying the competition design,

too were conceived on utterly different but, in the statement quoted above, itwas

premises, itseems worth investigating replaced by 'style'. After all, the

here which assumptions about the nature presentation by a Dutchman to a Flemish
of the community may have played a part, juryof a beguinage withoutthe ideology
even ifonly an unconscious one, in its cannot have taken place incomplete

genesis. The disparity between the comic innocence. Encounters between the
-
strip drawing and the realization Flemishand theDutch can stillbe
-
between pure void and hybrid park coloured to a surprising degree by
will serve as the starting-point for this unconscious memories of the Eighty

investigation. Years' War.8

Neutelings treats the beguinage as no

Hybridity more than a spatial device for resolving, in

In the textwhich accompanied his a single gesture, the polarities he

competition submission Neutelings perceives in the Hollain commission. The

some of theambiguitieswhich
identifies beguinage is also a unified ensemble
characterize the design: 'Seclusion and which can only be entered through a

openness, individuality and collectivity, single gate. The external fagade

small-scale and large-scale, encompasses the entire building and has

monumentality and the commonplace, an an urban character, while the inner fagade
urban way of lifeand that of the villager.'5 ismore intimate. The dwellings are
This series of oppositions, to which might connected by their front gardens to an Model of the competition scheme, and view of the courtyard during construction.

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NeutelingsRiedijk

inner square, which is dominated

by the The concentration of all circulation in the
church. The decision by the Beguines to courtyard allows a form of pervasive
withdraw into a courtyard was prompted social control, with all the positive and
-
by practical considerations, but also negative consequences this entails. The
more so - ones. car park, by contrast, offers
perhaps by religious The underground
latter are to a certain extent of an the residents a potential escape route
institutional nature, yet they also have an from the 'arena' of the housing units.

important devotional and contemplative The courtyard, both in the competition

component. In the beguinage a single, design and in its realization, offers plenty
homogeneous group of people inhabits of play space for the many children who
a single structure.9 live there.11 However, restricted access to
The 'eerie calm' of the Hollain the development will surely discourage

courtyard, as itappears in the non-residents from taking part in the lifeof

presentation drawing, almost seems to the courtyard. Nor is the extension of the
refer to the contemplative aspect of the towpathalong the river to
Scheldt likely
beguinage. But, even more significant alleviate this situation. The day-care
than this similarity, the decision to isolate centre, by contrast, does offer some
the courtyard from the street touches on possibility of diversity, at least during the
a hotlytopicaland ideologicallyloaded day, for it is open to children from the
debate. Owing partly to the alterations entire neighbourhood. Nevertheless, all
in the programme, Hollain creates an these factors together suggest that
enclave of socially disadvantaged Hollain exists ina sort of fragile limbo. It

persons whose only contact with the city is not entirely clear whether the square is
is through a single gate. From this capable of functioning as anything other

perspective the purity of the comic-strip than a theatrical stage for the Hollain

drawing raises some questions. Is the community. Nor does the danger of
Hollain courtyard destined to become a separating courtyard and street seem

breeding-ground for suburban sterility or fully of the

averted by the introduction
a ghetto veiled by trendy architecture? day-care centre, which, after all, involves
The changes to the original design only a daytime activity.
have diminished the programmatic purity
of the courtyard, but this is also viewed Technocracy
by Neutelingsas a benefit,forhe explicitly In fact, the above considerations had very

rejects the strict correspondence little to do with the design process.

between community and spatial unity that Neutelings sees himself as a technocrat
obtains in the beguinage. In the who combines a penchant for repetitive

competition design, all the programmed structures dating from the 1960s with the
activities were related to the residents of urban planning principles of Van Eesteren
the complex. Only these residents would and Gropius. For him a recycled type
be compelled to use the open space, thus merely serves to define the frame within
suggesting an identity between the which the designer works. The logic

community housed around the courtyard underpinning the design process is that
and the community using it.The coming of the estate agent: it is the housing
and going of cars and the parking of market rather than the exhausting public
residents' cars in front of their own doors enquiry which is taken to reveal people's
was seen as a means of activating the real needs and aspirations. Neutelings
courtyard. The car was therefore an shares this attitude with a number of his

important visual component of the original compatriots,12 who see the estate agent
design, and reflected the architects' as a repository of a kind of 'common

acceptance of the fact that mobility more sense'. Yet this strategy itself is hardly
or less depends on it.Moreover, giving value-free. Estate agents deal in
the courtyard a multiple use, including the properties inwhich the social status of
car park, was seen as a means of the inhabitant is as a matter of course

enhancing the density of the project.10 represented by the property. A large part
From this point of view the construction of of what is available in the residential
the car park might seem like a loss, but it property market represents the dominant
reveals yet another ideological residue ideal of the traditional family. The
which might be said to adhere to the type. application of the estate agent's logic to The competition scheme

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the design of a social-housing project, dream houses of a group of city dwellers

ninety-five per cent of which is inhabited overlap.Although this

ingeniously
by non-traditional families, immediately alternative reading should by no means
-
implies a serious disruption to this logic. ignore the real though perhaps
-
The subversive aspect of the Hollain temporary lack of a purpose in the

courtyard is its aim of providing a square, itnevertheless acknowledges

standard of dwelling which is usually thepossibility,ina buildingof thiskind,
associated with the middle class. By of a pragmatic solution divested of all

opting for a playful technocracy, complexes.

Neutelings refuses to interpret social This essay benefited greatly fromdiscussions
commitment as anything other than an withWillem Jan Neutelings and with first-and
almost scientific quest for an optimal ratio second-year students in theArchitecture and
Urban Planning Department of the University of
between price and quality. The aspirations
and ideals behind suburban Ghent, discussions which were part of a project
housing,
centred on the Hollain courtyard.
after all, appear much easier to detach
from their ideological substratum than Translation by Bart Eeckhout.

those which underlie the beguinage, for

instance; the former substratum adheres Notes
somewhat like a humus which is neither
1. For a full report on the competition, see
very cohesive nor very easy to identify in Patrick Goditiabois, 'Een wedstrijd voor
itsconstitutents. When completed, the sociale huisvesting: De Hollainkazerne in
Hollain courtyard elicited a response in Genf, A+ 127 (1994), pp. 26-43; Marcel
the popular press which was in Smets, 'Housing Project forHollain
revealing
Barracks inGhent', Archis 5 (1993),
its lack of an appropriate critical
pp. 4-8.
vocabulary InOctober 1997, ina local 2. The project is furtherdiscussed inAndre
commercial newspaper which includes a
Loeckx, Architecture and Urban Dwelling in
regular column dealing with the property Flanders', Yearbook Architecture Flanders
market, mention was made of 'a luxury (Brussels, 1994), pp. 194-8; De Architect 3
block of social housing', as if the (1994), p. 42; Quaderns d'Arquitectura i
Urbanisme2>\'\ (1996), pp. 117-9;
Arcadian promise of the comic-strip
Arquitectura de Flandes/Architectuur in 8. In retrospect, what reinforces the gesture
drawing had really come into being.
in
Vlaanderen', Facetten 2 (1997), p. 8; Kelly is the fact that the beguinage
For Neutelings, the drawing represents
Shannon, 'Redesigning the Belgian Dream: Brusselsepoortstraat, which dates from the
a cogent distillation of what can be done Social Housing inBelgium', Archis 8 end of the seventeenth century, isa former
and felt in response to the complex (1998), pp. 11-25. stronghold of the Counter-Reformation.
circumstances of the site and the 3. This arrangement ignores one of the Moreover, it isdedicated to the Seven
of the brief.13 requirements of the brief, that a fifteen Sorrows of the Virgin, and Mariolatry has
complex requirements
metre zone along the riverScheldt be kept always been condemned by Protestants.
Itneeds to be considered less as an
free. This requirement was dictated by the 9. For the relationship between contemplative
elementary version of the final design city council's plan to reopen the banks of practice and the beguinage, see, for
than as a promotional image that is the riverto pedestrians. example, Hooglied: De Beeldwereld van
available also to the estate agent. In the 4. Neutelings established a practice with Religieuze Vrouwen inde Zuidelijke
Michiel Riedijk in 1997. Nederlanden vanaf de dertiende eeuw,
execution project an
of the Hollain
5. Quoted by PatrickGoditiabois, op. cit., p. 38. edited by Paul Vandenbroeck (Brussels,
unusual degree of attention was given to
6. The beguinage is an enclosed space, 1994).
replicating this quality: itmanages to
sometimes walled or surrounded by water, 10.The positioning of the car park isoften
retain the engaging visual appeal of the which houses a religious community of used by Neutelings Riedijk as a means of
drawing.14 women. This type of community originated enhancing density and of creating a
Meanwhile, the buildings are being in the thirteenthcentury and almost every particular visual effect. See Arthur
embellished by the residents, who have major town inFlanders contains one or Wortmann, The Blessings of Housing
more. A beguinage normally consists of a Differentiation*,Archis 8 (1997), pp. 8-17.
added flower pots, parasols and multi?
row of houses lininga central square or 11. The Hollain courtyard ispopulated by a
coloured curtains. The Hollain courtyard
garden. Between each house and the high percentage of single-parent families,
is being inhabited with an unmistakable
square there isa walled frontgarden. The youths and elderly residents. At present
enthusiasm which suggests that social square isdominated by the church and the only fiveof the units are inhabited by
housing need not be evaluated strictly in green. Only one or two entrances connect couples with children.
terms of those elements of the design the beguinage to its itssurroundings. 12. See Irenee Scalbert, "Utopia Pic: A View
7. W. J. Neutelings, 'Over de Luiheid, fromLondon', Archis 9 (1998), pp. 10-18.
which were informed by a concern for 'the
Recyclage, Sculpturale Wiskunde en 13. Liesbeth Melis, Architectuur die voor zichzelf
social'. The merits of individual parts such
Vernuftigheid', Fascinaties 4, an issue spreekt', De Architect 3 (1991), pp. 100-3.
as thesquare mightperhaps be better devoted to the theme of 'Mutations', edited 14. Construction of the Hollain courtyard was
understood incompletely different terms, by Bernard Colenbrander (Rotterdam, supervised by Jan Moens of the Bureau
that is, as a square around which the 1997), pp. 12-23. Bouwtechniek.

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