New cinema Het Ketelhuis

Image courtesy of Studio Ramin Visch.

Words from the architect

Het Ketelhuis: An Abandoned Movie Prop

As you pass the windows on the western side of the Ketelhuis, a converted boiler house on the site of the former Westergasfabriek gas works in Amsterdam, you may catch a glimpse of thing made of wooden strips. It gives the impression of some object casually left behind. Inside the building, it turns out to be bulky structure which rises through the interior space and stands free from the surrounding walls. The inner volume contains two 50-seat film auditoriums at ground-floor level with a larger, 143-seat auditorium above them. The connection between these two levels is provided by a freestanding steel staircase that climbs outside of the volume. It is secured by only mountings at top and bottom, apart from the first landing which receives additional support from a tension rod. The strips of wood visible from outside are of larch, and form a cladding that smoothly envelopes the bulging form of this huge piece of furniture. Wrapping the three film auditoriums into a compact volume, widening upwards, left ample space all around and the whole western end of the Ketelhuis building empty. Bearing this in mind, Ramin Visch's remark that "Our biggest problem was that we had no room for the scheduled functions" sounds rather ironic, although he meant it seriously.

Image courtesy of Studio Ramin Visch.

The earlier interior, finished in 1999 and intended as a temporary solution, was actually no more than a box clad in perforated panels. It was ripe for replacement by something more permanent considering the popular success of the Het Ketelhuis cinema. This meant incorporating not only two additional auditoria and hence two additional projection rooms, but also extra toilets and more room for the bar - all in the same space. The quantity of plumbing for the heating, fresh air supply and air extraction also tripled. Above the film theatres, hidden from the view of visitors, the roof supports an 8-ton heating and ventilation apparatus. It draws in fresh air through three large grilles in the east wall and delivers it through openings under the cinema seats. The grilles also serve for the expulsion of stale air. The success of a cinema auditorium depends heavily on an absence of extraneous noise, so every effort had to be taken to avoid ventilation hiss. To reduce the air delivery velocity to a minimum, extra-width channels were needed, consuming yet more space. The auditoriums are completely acoustically decoupled from the outer shell and from the other spaces. In the former design, Het Ketelhuis I, Ramin Visch endeavoured to leave the original boiler house interior exposed, including the roof structure of steel lattice trusses with tension rods and hangers which dates from 1903. He achieved this by tilting the 6-metre high film auditorium and positioning it in the middle of the space. In this sequel, Het Ketelhuis II, the trick could not be repeated because of the additional auditoria. Instead, the volume was shifted further to one side making it necessary to sever two tension rods of the original roof structure; one tension rod remains, hidden in the void under the floor of the upper auditorium. The upper auditorium is narrower than its predecessor and just fits between the roof trusses. Something that has survived from the previous design is the effort to keep the spatial character of the original Ketelhuis as intact and as visible as possible.

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