Untitled (the blue bench - De blauwe bank)

About this artwork.

The redevelopment of this quay by Manuel de Solà-Morales was one of the pavilions from the city's A Star is Born exhibition (1996).

The Spanish architect Manuel de Solà-Morales turned the quay into a public seating area, a bench that extends southwards to a blue square. This blue square symbolises the window to the world. A steel-plate platform that protrudes like a balcony over the canal provides an eastern view of the water, in which steel dolphin structures also stand. During the A Star is Born exhibition, music was played and films were shown on these dolphins.

Manuel de Solà-Morales on his work: “What fascinates me in this project is not creating an object, but creating a place. In other words, giving meaning and clarity to an environment that was previously rather unassuming.” Through this small architectural intervention on the Winschoterkade, the architect wants to turn a “messy and forgotten corner” into a usable space again: a quiet place for contemplation, as he called it.  The bench, window and balcony, create “a kind of sitting room...where one can quietly enjoy the rich and varied panorama that city and water have to offer”, according to Solà-Morales.

A Star is Born was a collaboration between the municipal departments of Spatial Planning and Art and Culture. It brought urban planning, architecture, art and theatre together into a swirling synthesis on the overarching theme of water and contributed to the debate on the use and design of public space. Catalan architect Manuel de Solá-Morales and OMA architects/Rem Koolhaas, who worked with photographer Erwin Olaf, each realised a permanent work on the edges of the city centre.

Facts & Figures.

• Design
  Manuel de Solà-Morales

• District
  Centrum

• Year of creation
  1995

• Art type
  Design, Art and architecture

• Material
  Wood, Concrete, Steel

• Dimensions
  l 40 x b 25 meter