Dutch Profiles: Francine Houben, Mecanoo

Francine Houben leads one of The Netherlands most famous architect offices, Mecanoo. Her designs are both playfull, technically provocative, humane and firmly rooted in their context.
Currently Francine is working on several complex multi functional buildings, including the Wei-wu-ying center for the arts in Taiwan and the library of Birmingham.
Central to whatever building of whatever size is her firm commitment to beauty and the human scale. This can be seen here, in this little chapel in a Rotterdam cemetery.
Houben's work is defined by what she calls her growth rings. She started out studying social housing, moved on to aesthetics of mobility and now she occupied herself with the library, which she considers one of the most important social hubs of modern life. Currently she's working on the library of Birmingham.
The library of Birmingham wasn't Mecanoo's first library. In the nineties they designed the library for the Delft University of Technology. At a time when building new libraries wasn't so evident.
www.mecanoo.nl
CREDITS
Commissioning editor Submarine: Geert van de Wetering
Producer: Olivia Sophie van Leeuwen
Research: Liselot Francken
Director: Victor Vroegindeweij
Camera: Aage Hollander
Sound: Steven van Dijk
Editor/Colour Correction: Maurik de Ridder
Music/Sound Design: Pastelle Music
Produced by Submarine, Femke Wolting & Bruno Felix
www.submarine.nl
Commissioned by DutchDFA
www.dutchdfa.com
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for those who want to quote the architect:
“To me, a building is not like a piece of clothing. You don’t just buy a new one next year. It’s not a disposable product. It’s expensive. I like it when a building keeps looking good or even improves with the years”
“Birth, marriage and death are the major ceremonies in life. To be allowed to design for them makes me very proud and I feel we’ve done so very successfully.”
Rotterdam cemetery: “I think that when you’re inside, also because of the light, you het this earthly feeling, while it’s also a very heavenly light, not only because of the gold ceiling but also because of the openings in the sky so that you’re literally between heaven and earth.”
“What is most important as I always tell students, but also my assistants: get away from your computer. Walk around and see what’s going on in society, what’s going on in the street. It’s also what we do when we work abroad. Whether I work in China, Taiwan, England or Korea, I’m always very busy trying to observe people you ultimately design for, to look at the climate, the landscape, the kind of light. I’m always aware that what I make will be used by other people. I always want to give them a present in return. It’s for them. That’s fundamental to me. There are many architects who have developed a certain style and then go on to exploit that and build like that in different countries. I don’t have such a formal language but more an attitude in my approach. A building of ours in Taiwan looks different from one in Birmingham, or the chapel in Rotterdam or the Montevideo in Rotterdam. This team works on Moscow while this teams works on Shenzhen and he works on Georgia. What’s nice about our firm is that we’ve grown very gradually. We don’t have those fits of up and downscaling. We’ve had a very stable growth, and our organization reflects that. We don’t have a policy for firing and hiring people according to our needs. No, we keep a stable hold on the knowledge we have”
“What’s special about the library of Birmingham: people always think all libraries are the same, but the library of Birmingham has a huge archive, it houses the complete city archives and it also has a very large theatre complex. It’s also a traditional library but contains other services as well, like the Business and Learning Centre. It’s an enormous social hub that serves to stimulate people’s self-development. It’s in construction, and we’ve tried to make it a really good public building that’s also very inviting, with a very low threshold so people feel welcome, making it the big living room of the city. The outside may look great, but the real secret is inside. It’s a sequence of rotundas connected by escalators from which you can see all the different functions. At the same time, they’re very pleasant spaces where you can sit. It’s funny that when we made the library in Deft, many people said: Libraries aren’t necessary anymore. Books are finished. Internet, etcetera. It became a place that was more successful that I’d ever dreamed. Interesting about the modern library … I call it ‘the new cathedral of society’. I think everybody is very aware of the knowledge economy which will involve worldwide competition for the best people that involves investing in your own population, stimulating people to develop themselves and acquire knowledge. And those libraries play a major role in that regard. Certain values remain the same. People still enjoy sitting in comfortable spaces with pleasant daylight, nice furniture and other people around them. All those people could have stayed home, but they come here. And I think that’s so (pauses) People don’t change."

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Slechtste bekende architect die Nederland ooit voortgebracht heeft.