@ Utrecht University

As one enters the university campus De Uithof the Minnaert Building is one of the first building you see.



The Campus is full of ‘Highly-Celebrated Buildings’ designed by ‘Highly-Celebrated Architects’.
Here’s two of them-

1. The Educatorium by Rem Koolhaas/OMA (1997) - A great building which we unfortunately couldn't enter. With trademark - continuous floor plain.
2. The Basketbar by NL Partners (2003) - This innovative Bar won the Rietveld Prize and is a great success with the student (but sadly only in Summer because of the stupid dutch weather).
   

The University Library by Wiel Arets has to be the highlight of this Campus. An amazing building with some very interesting spaces. It took over 7 years of designing and building to put this Master piece together, and I should say it shows.
With a simple repetition of a bamboo pattern on its concrete and glass surfaces this building achieves a great complexity its it's surface textures and lighting quality.
The visual flow of the floor plains in this building is amazing given the fact that it use only conventional stairs and voids to do this (unlike in the OMA building across the street where these plains physically flow into each other)

The interior of the whole building uses only three colours - Black, White and Red - but still manages to give a feeling of a very colourful space.

This one is the NMR building - by Ben van Berkel's UN Studio (2001).

With what I like to call the 'typical AA section', where all the corners are rounded.

Blogging - The Hague

A few snaps from The Hague or should I say 'Den Haag' as they call it here.

All of these are just ten minutes walking from Den Haag Centraal Station.

My First Eid in Europe.

Eid Mubarak !!

Finally after a month of Fasting celebration time is here. This morning I went for my Eid Prayers to the Mubarak Mosque in The Hague (it's some 40 minutes from Rotterdam by Train to The Hague).
Being my first Eid in Europe I was a bit sceptical about what do expect from this experience - also given the coldness of the Eid Prayers of my past few years in Mumbai - but I should say I was pleasantly surprised to be enjoy an interesting prayer sermon which kept jumping languages from Urdu to Dutch - One which I could mostly understand and one that I was trying really hard to understand (but with almost no luck).

As I tried to figure out things amongst the mostly Pakistani gathering who spoke Dutch somebody announced for everyone to go down to the basement for some sweets and here waited for me my best moment of this year's Eid - a bowl of warm Sevia Payasam (Vermicelli Pudding). This Pudding coupled with the warmth of the people surely makes me want the next Eid to be here soon.

Zuidas - Amsterdam

This is the Master Plan I mean Master Model of Amsterdam's new Business District - called "Zuidas" (which means South Axis).

I am quiet disappointed with the master plan of this district since it's completely Market-driven (sort of like all the stuff we see back in Bombay or in most of the world), now I know I shouldn't expect anything more from these guys.

The only difference I would say is the Aesthetics of the buildings but nothing new or good with the overall planning strategies.
Check these websites for more -
http://www.mahler4.nl/
http://www.zuidas.nl/smartsite.dws?id=3

This building is designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects.

But sadly the most interesting element of the design the external fire escape staircase has not been recognized by the fire-fighting department as a valid escape route and is now only an ornament.

Happy Diwali !!!!

Today is Diwali - the Indian festival of light. Sadly just another day here in the Netherlands. Except for eating a few Indian Sweets from Chintan's big Diwali Box there was nothing Diwali about today.

However the star light from IKEA did add a bit of festivity in to an otherwise ordinary day.