NIO architecten, Profile of the Dutch architecture firm NIO architecten
NIO architecten, Profile of the Dutch architecture firm NIO architecten
When human intervention takes on the proportion of a natural phenomenon, the question arises whether the nature gods should not be conciliated in advance. What in oriental cultures is not even considered as a form of religion anymore, but as part of everyday life, seems to have disappeared completely from the Dutch culture. In the past sailors and fishermen were capable of attributing special forces to storms, waters and sea creatures. Nowadays every kind of involvement in nature is merely seen as a political act while it could just as well be that we have to beware of upsetting the nature gods, especially when we do so much harm to our environment.
In order to curb the daily traffic disaster between Leiden and Burgerveen, the A4 highway will be widened with one lane in both directions over a distance of 14 kilometres. This means that all the civil works on this route will have to widen. In Leiden was decided to take advantage of this project by placing the broadened highway immediately in a deepened vessel in order to reduce the noise pollution a much as possible. The lowest point of this civil work is the crossing with the Oude Rijn river, where the cars will pass underneath from now on. The second striking point on this route is an aqueduct as well, on the crossing with the Ringvaart, the border of the Haarlemmermeer, right next to the existing aqueduct – the one with the chessboard.
The ploughing and the drilling of the earth, which is aimed at directing a stinking stream of cars through it every day, requires at least something respectful in return, a place where the Monkfish and the Waterwolf, the Kami (nature deity) of the Oude Rijn and of the Ringvaart, are respected. The Monkfish lies motionless in the sand and feeds itself with whatever he sucks in when he opens his enormous mouth. The Waterwolf, on his turn, used to swallow up entire villages before the Haarlemmermeer was drained in 1852 and now lies as in a century-long hibernation curled up in the Ringdijk. Both aqueducts are the shrines of these two greedy types, a tribute to both monsters. But of course it does not guarantee a traffic safe passageway.
Share this:
architecten © 2011