‘Superdutch’ architecture has always been more of anexport brand than an architectural categorisationthat makes sense. There is no architect who likes to beassociated with the term. It is probably one of thosewords that is best explained by what it is not:Superdutch is not a style, and certainly not a conven-tional style, it is not ordinary or common, it is –despite the name – not locally grounded or regional-ist and it is most definitely not in favour of tradition.Yet Superdutch is a word that sticks.

Now that the revival of Dutch experimentalism isitself passing into history, one can again reflect onother sources as an architect in the Netherlands. Theforerunner of Dutch modernism, HP Berlage, surelylooked eastwards and not westwards for his refer-ences. It is possible to think that an important part ofhis rationalism is continued by continental architectsand theorists of the city like Aldo Rossi and LuigiSnozzi. Berlage’s experiments were engaged with thedurable city that was conceived in brick and stone.

Not all Dutch architecture is about wildeclecticism and compulsive innovationsays Hans van der Heijden, and recentyears have seen a resurgence of interest inconstruction that is ‘real, solid and urban’.

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PROFILEo This article presents the work of three practices,Wingender Hovenier, Kühne & Co and biq stadson-twerp, the office I am a director of, that share an inter-est in volume housebuilding, in the design of citiesand in the solidity of built form. These practices arepart of a friendly network of architects, following eachother’s work and keen to discuss architecture with oneanother, but not desperate to form a group or writemanifestos. We share a fascination with the tradition ofthe Dutch city and a willingness to conform to therules of local urban architecture, but are interested indifferent contemporary architectures – although it issafe to say that their origins are likely to be centralEuropean: Swiss, Austrian and German rather thanAnglo-Saxon. Rather than erecting steel frames withplasterboard and lightweight cladding, these practicesprefer to pour concrete and stack bricks.

This is obvious in the medium-rise projects of eachpractice. The facades of Wingender Hovenier’sLoodsen towers are made up of brick piers and

concrete rails, reflecting the loadbearing walls andfloor slabs behind. The articulation of this tectonicidea is much stronger than the manifestation of func-tion or form. Their appearance is rooted in Dutchconstruction practice, but it also connects to ware-houses in exotic places overseas. These blocks sit in aharbour district of Amsterdam. The anxiety of sailingthe seas is implicit. This is Dutch social housing thatdoes not say much more than: this is how we builddown here, but this is also what we remember of ourdreams and desires for foreign adventure. A similarsimultaneity of ideas is present in Joost Kühne’s DeSchans project in the centre of Rotterdam. The outerbrickwork leaf is treated as a shell. Window propor-tions refer to those of the adjoining houses in whichthe size of a window followed structural conditions.Some of the windows, however, are put at a slightangle. One might think that this expresses the non-structural quality of the brickwork shell, or be remind-ed of the traditional bay window in such areas, or one

PPoorrttrraaiittss Hans van derHeijden and RickWessels of biq (top);Joost Kühne of Kühne & Co (centre); JoostHovenier and Jan PeterWingender ofWingender Hovenier(bottom).AAbboovvee Loodsen towerin Amsterdam’s harbourdistrict, by WingenderHovenier. Six towers inan ensemble are differ-entiated by position, vol-ume and the rhythm ofwindows but are relatedin their use of a hori-zontal concrete railingand eloquent brickwork.Photos: Stefan Müller.AAbboovvee rriigghhtt Housingestate in Langerak,Utrecht, designed by biq(ph: David Grandorge).RRiigghhtt De Schans carefacility and apartmentsin the centre ofRotterdam, designed by Kühne & Co.

that feels familiar. A variant of the ‘Noddy House’ asBritish architects might call them; the desire of yourown home come true. Good or bad.

So, is this all there is for architects – merely torepeat established design concepts, adding small idiosyncratic twists? Do architects merely light thecandles on the cake? Yes and no. Yes, because of theawareness that dwelling is deeply rooted in our cul-ture. One can’t change dwelling that easily. You can’tchange the notion of a house simply. The typologicalrepertoire is not big. Neither are the options for ahouse facade; it is unlikely to vary much from a door,a window next to it and a window over it. But no, weare not the prisoners of established models, in thesense that European cities are more than a collectionof icons. Cities are not only formed by objects, butalso by the spaces in between. Crucial to our urbanculture is that the private world is separated, but still

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The smaller scale work of these practices is in thatsense slightly different. Joost Kühne likes to say hemakes iconic buildings. The homepage of his officeproudly shows a matrix of facade diagrams.Something similar can be said of a design byWingender Hovenier for a low-rise estate in the vil-lage of Nieuwkoop in the western Netherlands. Thevillage house may be articulated in a rural way, asreplicas of cattle sheds or improvised farm houses, buthere we find simple pitched roofs and neutralfacades. An urban architecture of symmetry andgeometry enters the village. Biq’s starter homes inHoofddorp, cheap row houses for first-time buyers,follow a similar approach. No money or energy iswasted on form, detail or innovative use of materials.All these designs are very, very house-like and this ishow Kühne likes the iconography of his work to beunderstood: dwellings that fit into an urban culture

can take it for what it is and simply enjoy the architec-tural trompe l’oeil.

Biq’s low-cost housing estate in Langerak nearUtrecht makes an urban gesture in a city extensionarea that is still lacking vitality and architectural firm-ness. It is a large prismatic form, with rectangularshapes seemingly carved out. This is about composi-tion and proportion and little else. The shape rests ona dark plinth that forms the entrance porticos, thusdistancing itself from the surrounding public space,while simultaneously sitting directly on those streets.

These three projects have no issue with their stark,perhaps even monumental appearance. It is not theshape that lends these buildings their monumentality.Rather, the clear volumetric allows the substance ofthe construction to speak for itself, emphasising themateriality of the bricks and how these are stackedand arranged in the overall composition.

associated, with public space. People represent them-selves to public space by painting their doors, puttingflowers on their window sills, embellishing their frontgardens. The home is a private affair but privacy has apublic face. This is precisely where working with icon-ic houses becomes intriguing as a design task.

Biq’s project for eight upmarket townhouses and aworkspace at Vaartweg near Hilversum’s town centreshows at a very small scale how the dwellings and theshared yard in front of them become an ensemble.The yard is in the centre of a large block of housesand is accessed from Vaartweg. The houses have analmost square plan with entrances on the side. Aseries of semi-detached houses with an asymmetricpitched roof repeat themselves along the site. Thereis an obvious analogy with the stately domestic archi-tecture surrounding the estate. The house-like articu-lation of the dwellings is downplayed by a continuous

projecting gutter that runs around the yard, connect-ing all volumes on the site and framing the car park-ing that is provided between the houses. Both thefront and back facades have double doors, the frontdoors a fraction smaller than the back doors. Thisarrangement makes it possible to think of the frontyard and the back garden as outdoor living spaceswithout dismissing the status of the garden as a privatespace for withdrawal and the yard as a shared spacefor meeting.

Wingender Hovenier’s scheme for a small neigh-bourhood in Vijfhuizen plays at the scale of an entireblock with 98 houses. Vijfhuizen is a village on one ofthe youngest pieces of reclaimed land in the westernNetherlands. The physical context of the estate is lit-erally minimal and has yet to fully develop. Since littlein the way of useful architectural precedent was pres-ent, Wingender Hovenier had to work with general

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AAbboovvee Development of 144 starter homes at Hoofddorp by biq.The prefabricated roofs are finished with concrete tiles while the external wallsuse two types of facing brick. Photos: Stefan Müller.BBeellooww Eight dwellings by biq at Vaartweg, Hilversum combine the typologyof the semi-detached house with a court-like layout inside the perimeterblock. Photo: Rob ’t Hart.FFaarr rriigghhtt Scheme by Wingender Hovenier for 40 houses at Nieuwkoop.

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integral design that plays at a the urban scale. Therefractory and conventional requirements posed byour domestic culture on the one hand and by thebuilding industry on the other are not denied. It isunderstood that any architectural representation isunfinished business in housing. Residents take posses-sion and express themselves, either via their doubledoors at Vaartweg, their gardens in Vijfhuizen or theiraluminium window frames in Bospolder. Such realismin architecture might be likened to performance in

Hans van der Heijden is a director of biq stadsontwerp, based inRotterdam. The practice’s extension to the Bluecoat in Liverpoolrecently won Building of the Year at the Brick Awards 2008.

the double meaning of the word. Performance relatesto the improvised theatrical act which is based on a given script, but also relates to delivery and result-orientation. Ambitions are clear. The work ofWingender Hovenier, Kühne & Co and biq is real,solid and urban. There are Dutch architects who havenot given up on durable volume housebuilding.

architectural notions. Its proposal can be taken as anattempt for an architecture of the village. A variety ofdifferent houses types have been spread loosely overthe block. The Dutch custom is to make blocks withstrict differences between front and back. InVijfhuizen private gardens sit between stretched hous-es. These are cubic pieces of architecture with yellowwire-cut brickwork, steel lintels and timber windowsframes in between. An explicit tectonic diagramallows a range of manipulations of typological and

AAbboovvee Housing estate at Vijfhuizen in the western Netherlands, designedby Wingender Hovenier.The houses are positioned ‘widthwise’ along thestreets.Turning the plan of a ‘standard’ modern house through 90 degreesgives a wide house without much depth, but with maximum orientationtowards the garden. All the houses are between10 and 17 metres wideand 5.4 metres from front to back. Because the upstairs space is high-ceilinged, the houses are extremely light inside.The plan for 98 housesbrings together many types of dwelling: detached and linked owner-occupied houses as well as but also apartments and communal housing.The position of the houses, the limited numbers in each streetand the house-garden relationship produces a relaxed atmosphere in this new development that still manages to relate to the existing village.Photos:Theo Baart.OOppppoossiittee Housing scheme in the nineteenth century Bospolder district of Rotterdam, designed by Kühne & Co.

facade composition. One might think that the layoutof the block responds to the small grain inherent tothe notion of the village. The resulting visibility of thegardens from the street and the apparent typologicalvariation contributes to the village idea. Yet the archi-tectural object is clearly urban in nature. Its structur-al robustness adds to a more urban reading of theestate. With great precision this ambiguity is playedout in a scheme where buildings, gardens and streetsare approached as one integrated design problem.

In Joost Kühne’s scheme for the renewal of thenineteenth century Bospolder district of Rotterdam,the architectural context is heavily present. Kühnedesigned an ensemble consisting of a long row ofthree storey townhouses and larger apartment build-ings at the street corners of two different perimeterblocks. The facades are brickwork, and windowframes come in three different sorts. Most dominantis the vertical window, obviously derived from the his-toric sash windows found all around, and formingdense graphic patterns in the facade. In a slightly sub-verted move, recent and ‘incorrect’ local precedents,such as the folding garage door at street level andlarge gold anodized aluminium frames, contaminatethe rigidity of the facades. The golden window frameshave cast iron railings with a deliberately decorativeappearance. The representation of the town houses isstrongly iconic. They look familiar, but are actuallyunorthodox. Is this ironic? Is this nostalgic? Is it con-temporary? Is it good or bad or indifferent? Kühne’sBospolder architecture is probably all at once. Theproject has not been widely published, but is appreci-ated locally. It is again conceived as an ensemble and

not so much as a collection of pure architecturalobjects. It works in spatial, typological and aestheticterms. It helps to define the urban grid and the defi-nition of public street spaces and private gardens.

The iconic house-like form (or Noddy House, ifone prefers to call it that) is present to some degreein the work of the three designers discussed here. Butthe icon serves as a starting point, it is not an aim initself. That is where the ways part with so much recentarchitecture. The icon is the point of departure for an