Urban Villa

Today I went with my father to the new film museum EYE in Amsterdam Noord at the bank of the IJ river. He recently moved back to Amsterdam. He was an independent architect and wanted to see this new modern museum.
We were lucky. A huge cruise ship just left Amsterdam and was passing by. I took a picture and thought: There's my blip for today!

But no! My father was really excited to be in Amsterdam Noord, because we were so close to IJplein, a famous project he co-worked on as a architect. It was a big urban development project, led by the international famous architect Rem Koolhaas, founder of OMA, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. He wanted to see it from close, so we got in the car and drove there.

My father, Hein van Meer, designed the Urban Villa's in this project. It is considered as the re-introduction of the Urban Villa in the Netherlands. It is the prelude to the current modern urban areas, called the VINEX areas.
The project consists of two parts, separated by a grassy plain. The western part is a variation on the "Stadt ohne Hofe", a combination of long blocks and urban villas. This model was developed by the brothers Luckhart and Anker for Berlin in 1927.

When taking pictures, a man walked by and asked me why I was taking the pictures. I explained him and then he told me that he was the first inhabitant. 30 years ago he moved there and he was still so very content living there. He told me that he never wants to move again. One of the best compliments an architect can get!

So this trip was very special and had to be my Blip of the day!