+
From: "Architexturez." <interface.services@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
+
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:59:41 +0530
Pyramid scheme
Fancy living in a ziggurat? Or a pseudo-medieval castle? Then the
Netherlands' defiantly 'unmodern' architecture may fit the bill. By
Jonathan Glancey
Monday April 9, 2007
The Guardian
The Pyramid is undeniably eye-catching. A 55m-high nest of red-brick
flats, it is the most dominant - and provocative - new building on
Marcanti Island in Amsterdam's up-and-coming Westpark district. Its twin
ziggurats rise from a low tide of dull grey 20th-century apartment
housing in an area that was once industrial and productive, and is now
home to some of the Dutch city's hippest nightclubs, as well as choice
flats. Well off the tourist track, the building is, nevertheless, a very
good reason for a trip out to this distant neck of Amsterdam.
....
A bit of "unmodernism", though, may well be necessary as a corrective to
the march of bland global "nothingness". If the whole of Marcanti Island
was covered in ziggurats, it would look a little bonkers; but, rising
like the housing equivalent of a lighthouse, or silo, or church, or
civic monument, the Pyramid adds some real spirit to this grim-looking
waterside stretch of Amsterdam.
cont'd....
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/architecture/story/0,,2053059,00.html