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EXTENSIONS TO ESTEC COMPLEX
A.E. & H. VAN EYCK, 1985-1989, Keplerlaan 1, Noordwijk
Uitbreiding Estec-complex / Extensions to Estec Complex ( A.E. & H. van Eyck )
© 2006 Jan Derwig
The European Space Agency for Estec has been extended by the Van Eycks with an office building and a communal facilities block comprising a restaurant, a library and conference halls. The office building consists of a series of interlinked towers of ascending height with distinctive wood claddings. Concealed below the grey tones of the undulating roofscape of the facilities block is a colourful world of interlocking spaces. The basis of the design is a family (an ‘endecagonic order’) of many-sided columns and arcuated trusses built up of steel tubes that accommodate the multiplicity of directions, curves and slopes of roof. Almost no aspect of this constructional system has been left unexploited, generating an organic complexity of spaces and sight lines. It goes to show that mathematical configurations need not necessarily produce the graph-paper look of structuralism, a style partly inspired by Aldo van Eyck’s own earlier work.