Architects are rarely given the latitude to let their creativity run wild. But when architects are both designer and client, they have the opportunity to really push the envelope.
Amsterdam’s Zuidas financial district is distinguished by the work of an impressive roster of architects, such as Toyo Ito, Rafael Viñoly, and Pei Cobb Freed, all of whose designs fit into a traditionally corporate atmosphere.
In 2012, Dutch firm Oving Architekten won a competition to create a protective enclosure for this deteriorating monument to infamy, but wanted their contribution to dissolve into the background.
Modesty is rare amongst global architectural practices, yet Dutch firm Mecanoo is an exception. With major projects under way from New York to Taiwan, Mecanoo has recently completed a surprisingly understated railway station and municipal offices in its hometown of Delft that also helps repair a torn urban fabric.
A house by architect Ben van Berkel rarely could be described as a glass box. Instead the principal of the Amsterdam-based UNStudio avoids the rectilinear modernist approach for a more organic direction.
The Dutch firm Cepezed Architects, founded in 1973, is known for its quick-assembly, on-site construction with factory-made elements. From 1999 until just recently, it occupied a glass and steel building it had designed that demonstrated the firm's commitment to a modernist method of fabrication.
A design team digs down to artfully connect a historic museum to a building across the way. In the hands of Dutch architect Hans van Heeswijk, the Mauritshuis, a 17th-century mansion in The Hague that later became the Netherlands' first museum, has undergone an impressive expansion.