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SERIEN LEHRJAHRE BEI ... • WORKING AT ...

N umerous interesting architectural offices exist in the Netherlands. What
prompted you to remain faithful to Neutelings Riedijk Architects (NRA)?
What I particularly like is the size of our office with 20 to 40 employees at most. Due to
this, everyone knows everyone else and every one of us always knows exactly what all
the others are currently working on. This makes the office pleasantly family-like. I also
like the diversity of origin among the employees – and the variety of our projects. Our of-
fice is small if one considers the size of the projects. This is because – in the two meanings
of the word – we are realizing great architecture with international recognition, such as
for instance the Antwerp museum of city history (MAS), the Deventer town hall, the Na-
turalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, the Herman Teirlinck Building in Brussels – the lar-
gest passive office building in Belgium – or Gare Maritime in Brussels, the largest timber
construction in Europe. To this day, I find it very exciting that no project resembles the
other: Even after more than 18 years, each commission comes with new challenges.

r How has the office and its tasks changed in almost two decades?
NRA is today headed by Michiel Riedijk, our Creative Director, and by Carl Meeusen, our
Managing Director. Willem Jan Neutelings retired in 2019. During the period when I
started working there, I experienced how the office grew to over 40 employees. The eco-
nomic crisis then hit us as well. What motivated us to survive the credit crisis was the
good atmosphere. Meanwhile, the staff has increased again, to approximately 30 inter-
national employees from all over Europe, Asia and the USA. The way of working, howe-
ver, has definitely changed. There used to be more time for research and more intensive
investigations conducted in larger teams for preparing a project. Nowadays, everything
has become more target-oriented and faster but we still do research, currently for ex-
ample on 3D concrete printing. We largely work on museums, libraries, city halls and
cultural institutions. We get these contracts through international competitions. Today,
we also get projects via direct commissions.

r Which have been the personal highlights of your professional life so far?
One of my first projects where I worked on the design- and permission planning and
which has impressed me very much was the Museum Aan de Stroom (MAS), the new
museum of city history in Antwerp. It was designed as a 60-metres high spiralling tower
Tanz- und Musikzentrum Spuiforum in Den Haag, ... • Spuiform dance- and music forum in The Hague … in the heart of the old docks. Escalator take the visitors to the top of the tower with con-
stantly new city panoramas unfolding in the process. During this project completed in
... aus wirtschaftlichen Gründen leider nicht realisiert • … unfortunately not built for economic reasons 2006, I learned how important the interaction is – from sketches to models all the way
to 3D computer drawings – in order to create outstanding architecture. And I discovered
my passion and my talent for model making. The project originated in a competition
won in 1996. The city-hall project in Deventer in the Netherlands likewise extended of
ten years, from the competition won in 2006 to the completion of the building in 2016).
The building harmoniously fits into the medieval town centre and produces a passage.
The building has been designed as a state-of the-art project and meets the highest re-
quirements of sustainable building.

r Which projects are you currently working on?
I am currently working on the Amsterdam Museum, a project which requires an in-
stinctive feeling for the history of the Amsterdam city centre. Building in such a historic
environment comes with its very own challenges. With the design, a former monastery
and orphanage in the heart of the old city is turned into a pioneering museum. The hi-
storic building complex has grown and has changed in the course of the centuries. To-
gether with a multidisciplinary design team and by extending, refurbishing and renova-
ting, NRA is turning the building stock into a sustainable, relevant city museum. The
building permit has been submitted this year.

r And, in your opinion, when is a project a success?
For me, a project is a success whenever everything has been realized in the way we
have originally planned it. For us, the integration of art is very important. During the
earlier design process, we often already work together with artists, for instance to de-
sign extraordinary façades. This is shown in the concrete slabs by the fashion designer
Iris van Herpen for the Naturalis project in Leiden or by the metallic fingerprints by
Loes ten Anscher in the Deventer city hall. And this is also what makes NRA so diffe-
Modellfotos: NRA rent. Good architecture means going the extra mile. And once the building is finally fi-
nished, when it exceeds the expectations and the demands by the client, it makes me
proud that we have done it again.

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