New cinema Het Ketelhuis

Image courtesy of Studio Ramin Visch.

In Ramin Visch's work, the design approach he has taken to this ostensibly spatial problem exemplifies his ideas on how to deal with existing buildings. An extensive analysis of the programme motivates him to accommodate the required functions in identifiable volumes. He positions these in such a way that the spatial effect and the architectural quality of the existing space is still palpable. This approach also appears in his renovation of the former Post Office by Michel de Klerk in Amsterdam, in the interior he designed for the Ogilvy advertising agency in a former bicycle factory, converted by Neutelings & Van Riedijk, and now again in Het Ketelhuis II. His design outlook is simultaneously modest and audacious. On the one hand, the designer acts prudently so as to respect the building's original industrial origin and spatial individuality. The incorporation of spaces into a single volume allows daylight to enter from all sides; the steel lattice structure remains exposed and the age of the building is legible from its flaking walls. On the other hand, the inserted object reveals itself unabashedly as a modern intervention. The wooden cladding gives it a modest look, perhaps, but the overall shape is dominant. The cladding forms a continuous envelope and presents a large, soaring, unbroken surface at the point of entry to the building, producing an impressive monumentality. The sheer bulk of the object makes you all the more conscious of the space in which it bathes. The blue kitchen area behind the bar at the eastern end is similarly uncompromising. This contrast operates to the benefit of both old and new. The effect is maximal in such cases when the inserted element is kept as compact and as isolated as possible. For example, the components of the staircase - two flights of stairs, the landing, the handrails - are formed out of a single sheet of steel. For the film auditoria, the designer sought a strong contrast between inside and outside, achieving it by lining the walls, floors and ceilings with the same warm, red carpeting. This also generates a highly intimate atmosphere even when the audience is sparse.

Image courtesy of Studio Ramin Visch.

A cinema designer generally aims to give the entering visitor an illusion of entering another world as a prelude to the film itself. In Het Ketelhuis, however, the experience of the real world remains partly intact: the generously admitted daylight mutates along with the weather outside. Instead of illusion, we are regaled with a historical experience. This is evoked by the contrast between the venerable age and the unpolished industrial bluffness of the original interior and the permanent temporariness of the inserted auditorium cluster. It would be a pity if someone came along to take the thing away again.

Image courtesy of Studio Ramin Visch.

Image courtesy of Studio Ramin Visch.

Image courtesy of Studio Ramin Visch.

Image courtesy of Studio Ramin Visch.

Image courtesy of Studio Ramin Visch.

Image courtesy of Studio Ramin Visch.

Credits

• Text: Studio Ramin Visch
• Photographs: Jeroen Musch, www.jeroenmusch.nl; Rene Mesman

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