Visting the Rietveld Schröder House

Rietveld Schröder House

I visited Utrecht this NZ Winter for three days. I haven’t been to the Netherlands for years so it was a pleasure to go back there and also explore a town I hadn’t visited before. Utrecht is really lovely and positively ancient in comparison to Christchurch. After five years in NZ I was fully appreciating the old world Dutch-ness of it all with the narrow cobbled streets, canals and gorgeously wonky buildings. I was especially excited to find out that Utrecht is home of the Rietveld Schröder House. Even though I studied De Stijl in university and selected the movement as a topic for an essay, I hadn’t made the connection that Urecht was the home of the Rietveld Schröder House. I was stoked – nice one Tripadvisor.

You have to book a specific slot to visit the Schröder House so allowing plenty of time to reach my destination I set off, in proper Dutch fashion, on my one speed bike… and proceeded to get hopelessly lost. I had to stop a passing biker for directions who first gestured me the right way but then took pity on me and said he’d take me there himself as I’d “never find it otherwise”. How right he was.

As I’d missed the start of the tour I was hurried through the downstairs section in literally 30 seconds and told I could look through windows afterwards by the rather dour museum person.  It didn’t matter though, the upstairs was by far the coolest part with its sliding panels and multi-functional living spaces and I got to see the famous red and blue chair with my own eyes too. Although you’re not allowed to sit in it. 

It just goes to show how timeless good design is, the red and blue chair is nearly 100 years old but it’s still got a decidedly contemporary vibe about it. And the house itself is 90 years old and yet has a more radical approach to use of space than many contemporary homes to do. Access to nature was also an important part of the design. Every room, or area, in the house has outdoor access be it through a door or a balcony; although the house now faces a motorway that was built in the 1960s, which impacts on the nature side of things somewhat.

I was so glad I had the opportunity to visit the Rietveld Schröder House, it was brilliant. After taking a little time to peer through the windows of the downstairs, I set off again on my bike and managed to get straight back home without getting lost.

Delftware meets De Stijl

Front entrance with reading room on the left and kitchen window on the right

Volunteering at FESTA 2014 part 2

CityUps was the main event of the FESTA programme for this year. Architecture students took over two blocks of the city centre and to build massive installations which represented their vision of a future Christchurch. CityUps was a big night for Christchurch, there were pop up cafes, a night market, a dance hall, street games, live music and loads of other things happening underneath the installations, it looked amazing!

Quintessentially Christchurch: a City Up featuring a whole lotta traffic cones

Cakes by Anna at the City Ups market

Sculpture I Like Your Form by artist Lonnie Hutchinson was specially lit during FESTA

Volunteering at FESTA 2014

 Cinema screening with Treehouses for Swamp Dwellers Sculpture on the left

Over Labour Weekend this year I volunteered at FESTA 2014 (Festival of Transitional Architecture). FESTA is the only festival of it's kind in the world and it aims to bring people back into Christchurch city centre "with a diverse, engaging programme of creative urban renewal and a major large-scale ‘live architecture’ event."

I helped out at three events over the weekend, Picture Palace Parade, CityUps and Dematerialization. Picture Palace Parade was a tour of historic cinema sites around Cathedral Square. The tour finished with an outdoor cinema screening of Heavenly Creatures, which was filmed in Christchurch. The movie was projected onto a wall at an empty building lot in the city centre. I enjoyed the venue, particularly as most outdoor cinema in other cities takes place in parkland. To enjoy some outdoor cinema in a
gravel-ly lot felt very Christchurch, it was a cool setting.

CityUps was the main event of the FESTA programme for this year. Architecture students took over two blocks of the city centre and to build massive installations which represented their vision of a future Christchurch. I had a lot of fun volunteering with a Wellington-based street games crew.

The final event I volunteered at was Dematerialisation. Created by three Melbourne-based architects, from the outside it looked like a big wooden box, stood in one of the many vacant lots in the city centre. Inside a film was projected onto a wall that had been shot in an identical wooden box in Australia, the idea being that the box was almost a portal between the physical world and a virtual one. You watched the film with special glasses with one eye covered, which intensified the effect as it made depth harder to perceive. An interesting project.

Watching Heavenly Creatures

Dematerialisation from the outside 

Inside Dematerialisation

Considering Collaboration

Hoppy NZ beer and hot sauce is a match made in heaven as far as I’m concerned. I love the packaging on this collaboration between Epic and Culley’s as it’s bold and simple and glows in the dark, which is a nice touch for zombie related produce. This beer and hot sauce didn’t pique my interest just because I like craft beer and love hot sauce; it got me considering how effective a good collaboration can be.

Throughout university and work I’ve been lucky enough to work with/flat with some really accomplished people from friends who are writers, designers and photographers through to editors, journalists and producers. We all carry on with our respective day jobs but it’s fun to think of the things we could do if we collaborated a bit more. It’s cool to think of the potential results but more than anything it would loads of fun. I think this is definitely something that I want to do more of over the next year; I’ve been inspired by beer and hot sauce.