ABSTRACT

How did you first encounter the exhibition trade?

When I was studying constructional engineering, there was this professor who was interested in showing the results of some study projects to other students.1 He knew that I was into graphic design so he asked me to produce the exhibition. That was very exciting. I had visited exhibitions before, of course, but they never stimulated me to take an interest in this line of work. It was pure chance, me ending up in this business after my studies. Together with my brother Pjotr I started a design company straight away and one of our first commissions was an integral design for the Union Museum: a house style, two catalogues, the overall interior design, the museum furniture and the wayfinding signs.2 And for the first time I thought: this is an interesting combination of things, the way it produces a whole new range of possibilities. In my final term at the University of Technology in Delft I lectured Constructional Engineering to some students of the interior design department of the Art College in The Hague. One major subject was draughtsmanship. So, how could I explain that floor plans, frontals and cross-sections were a two-dimensional language to grasp or represent a threedimensional reality? One assignment was to survey a number of small pavilions nearby and translate that into a blueprint or a model, including the assembly instructions. I was fascinated by the possibility of 2-D representations of 3-D objects that could in turn be transformed into 3-D models again. It was a big hit with the students. I then collected dozens of models and blueprints from all over Holland that together with the students’ projects made up a huge exhibition in the College building. A lecture gone out of control, actually.3 Through these minor initiatives I became involved in the Nederland Nu Als Ontwerp Foundation, where I became the project manager of ‘Nieuw Nederland 2050’, which was an exhibition about the future of landscape design in the Netherlands.4 That became my first experience with large-scale interdisciplinary projects in which sociologists, architects, urban developers, landscape architects, cinematographers,

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copywriters, sound artists and model designers collaborated. The exhibition was to be put up in the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam and the challenge was how to organise this huge space.5 Every Dutch architect and urban designer of some consequence was part of it. The project was an explosion of energy. Working at this level of professional commitment was a whole new experience for me. I entered a world that I hadn’t dreamed of before.