Dwelling as an urban roof
- Dense mix of street life -All under one roof; such was architect Piet Blom’s ideal. He criticised the rigid division of traffic, living space, work and recreation that split many cities into clearly separate sections. Instead, he propagated the melting pot. Blom’s project, ‘Dwelling as an urban roof’, was an attempt to bring all the different parts of urban life together. As an alternative to the orderly, quiet, spacious and green post-war estates, Blom envisaged residential areas that would accommodate a blend of intimate urban life under a single roof.
Blom created ‘Dwelling as an urban roof’ as part of a travel report in 1965. At the top of the panel, an uninterrupted row of roofs and living quarters rests on a supporting structure with pillars. The lower part is a collage of different kinds of urban life pasted in among the pillars. Lanes, stairs and landings were to become meeting places. It was his intention that city dwellers using this kind of public space would be compelled to make contact with one another.
In reality, however, the scenario of the dense mix of street life Blom had envisaged turned out to be wishful thinking. People living in housing projects Blom carried out as part of the ‘Dwelling as an urban roof’ project interacted in much the same way as those on the estates he opposed so vehemently. He did, however, achieve a high habitation density on the Groot Driene estate in Hengelo in 1969-1974. He named this estate, which still exists today, the Kasbah. Thirty years on, the meeting places underneath the houses present a social safety hazard as well as an invitation to socialise.
Request number BLOM p8
Literature
-W.J. van Heuvel, Structuralisme in Nederlandse architectuur, Rotterdam 1992 / English edition: W.J. van Heuvel, Structuralism in Dutch architecture, Rotterdam 1992
-J.P. Baeten, 'Suburbane stedelijkheid. De Kasbah in Hengelo van Piet Blom' / 'Suburban urbanity. Piet Blom's Kasbah housing in Hengelo', in: Archis. Architectuur Stad Beeldcultuur, 2000, no. 3, pp. 58-73