Medusa
Posted
in All Projects, Infrastructure
In Eastern cultures, the serpent is the appearance of a supernatural being that is able to appear in various shapes. Sometimes it emerges as a dragon but usually as a snake. These monsters protect the waters of the earth and guard the gates to sacred places. This snake, that lies determined and motionless in the Haarlemmermeer, guards a dried, reclaimed dike between and among asphalt roads, resulting in a many-headed piece of concrete technology. Not exactly a holy place, at first sight.
Civil work kw137, the intersection between the Zuidtangent and the new road N201 is the result of the compact combination of roads due to the development of the adjacent office and industrial area Beukenhorst Oost-oost. The image that arises in this piece of infrastructure is that of a snake skin, a scissor pattern that, where it crosses the concrete beams, the grid smoothly folds open and closed, and finally becomes a two-dimensional drawing on a huge retaining wall. This pattern is created with colored ceramic tiles with exceptional features; they rid themselves of any dirt - even graffiti - and are able to decompose exhaust fumes produced by cars and industry, year after year. This snake doesn’t moult. This one cherishes her skin, in an almost as natural as wonderful way.
The serpent in this infrastructural work is in our eyes what could result from all what has become soulless, that has become to the core technical and functional, both body and space. There it is possible, by precise architectural interventions, to add again a spiritual dimension in the relation between people and objects. It is like creating spaces in other spaces, spaces not only for humans but also and especially for spirits, for the traffic of virtual bodies. Kw137 is a Snake Space in heart and soul. A temple for the technical area.
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