Dutch Design Fashion Architecture
april 10, 2009
This monday the miniature themepark Madurodam got a new model: the Dutch pavilion for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The pavilion Happy Street is made by architect/artist John Körmeling.
Road and houses
Happy Street is shaped in the form of the number eight, a lucky number in China. Körmeling buikt his ideal city: a village along a trading route. Visitors of the pavilion walk along houses in different architecture styles like De Stijl or the Rietveld House by Gerrit Rietveld.
Happy Street offers visitors the chance to
explore the Expo theme more deeply in any number of ways. It is the
artist’s intention that the seventeen or so houses – each one a tiny
pavilion in itself – will demonstrate how innovative the Netherlands is
in its approaches to space, energy and water. The houses are suited to
varying types of decoration, in order to attract a specially defined
and interested audience. For example, the designer would like to have a water treatment
facility on site to filter river water into drinking water. Special guests will be welcomed in the giant crown housing
the VIP lounge.
Not the classic pavilion
The Dutch submission to the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai is an exceptional one. This time around, it will not be the classic pavilion with long lines of visitors waiting outside and a presentation inside. The Netherlands is making its appearance at China’s world exposition along an entire street. The submission, entitled “Happy Street”, is the response by designer John Körmeling to the Chinese Expo theme “Better City, Better Life".
The Chinese organization has challenged the nearly two hundred Expo participants to come up with solutions and suggestions for liveable cities for the 21st century. Forecasters predict that in 2010, around 55 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. Urbanization brings with it entirely new and unique problems requiring new, sustainable solutions.
Besides being the land of tulips, wooden shoes and windmills, Happy Street and the houses on it will demonstrate that the Netherlands is also a country developing modern technology in harmony with people and the environment.
John Körmeling
Cars, roads and parking have always been the prime subject of Körmeling’s work. His fantasticly logic ideas are taken from his everyday surroundings. As if meeting the world for the first time, he asks himself questions like ‘why can’t I ride the ferris wheel in my car?’ So in the year 2000 car-owners in Utrecht and Antwerp could ride his 30 meters high Drive-in ferris wheel. And if there’s no parking spot to be found, why don’t you bring your own by means of a P-covered carpet that you take out of your trunk? In 2010 he’ll finish a house with a room that you can drive away in.
His clear thinking hands him solutions for traffic troubles that are almost too simple, überlogic and technically provoking.
Trained at the technical university in his hometown Eindhoven, he builds everything with his own hands. Daily dressed in worker pants and woodchucker’s vest (“ Why do you need all different types of clothing?”), he welded together a Square car; “As much room as is possible, open, cheap and simple”. It comes with a Daf 55 variomatic, the first automatic transmission. Tour of fame was a 80 km/h ride in the funeral of the inventor of the variomatic. He requested his last ride to be in this car in which the technique he spent his lifetime working on, can be clearly seen.
JK’s second car is the Flat car. “It’s even 10 cm lower than a Lotus Europa, known to be the nearest thing to a Formula car for the road.” Like in a Formula car the driver of the Flat car sits in the middle, with space for a passenger flanking him on either side. Engine is a 1400 cc Rover CVT. JK’s newest car will be the New car. It will feature a noiseless V4 Stirling engine that runs on hydrogen, helium or air. It’s the next urban planning tool. “If we all ride a New car, we can stop making this boring mess of sound barriers and hidden highways and start building logic plans.”
Text on Happy Street via: Holland Expo 2010
Text on JK via: TheGreenLightDistrict
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