What will the ArtEZ art academy in Zwolle look like in the future? That question is difficult to answer, not only because the future itself is uncertain, but also because how the academy will be used is unpredictable. What I do know, however, is what it will not look like.
It will not be a ‘standard’ university of applied sciences tucked beneath a suspended system ceiling, despite what many consultancies would have us believe. Nor will we disappear into ‘the cloud’. We are too much physical makers for that. I also do not think we will sail the world on colourful aircraft carriers, as the Belgian avant-garde architect Luc Deleu (1944) proposed for the University of Antwerp. But that being so, what will it look like?
In his book ‘Invisible Cities’, the Italian writer Italo Calvino (1923–1985) talks about how Marco Polo reported his travels to Kublai Khan. Marco Polo speaks of more than fifty cities he visited. Stories about, as it turns out later, invisible dream cities.
During the two-day ArtEZ conference Future Art School in December 2023, I dreamed of how such an invisible city could become a model for the new academy. I thought of the old city of Fas, not far from Ur, in the southern part of Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Perhaps Marco Polo came here too, but forgot to tell us. I do not know.
Fas is inhabited only by young people. Most residents are between seventeen and thirty years old. You will not encounter anyone older. Well, almost no one. A few are older, but then much older. They have grey hair and still wish to participate alongside the young. They remained in the city and never moved away. It simply never came to that. The old city burst with energy and optimism.
Fas resembles one of those ancient Italian cities, with narrow alleys that connect small squares in a complex network of homes of young people. At the heart of the city lies a large square, sometimes filled with café terraces, sometimes hosting the travelling fair that arrives once a year. Here, young people meet to debate the future. In the south of the city, about a ten-minute walk from the square, is a park with beautifully fragrant trees and colourful meadows of flowers. On warm days, young residents gather there to picnic on freshly mown grass, discuss, and listen to music.
What does it mean when the Conservatory, the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Art & Design, and the Master programmes of ArtEZ Zwolle will (re)locate into a single building? We can assume there will be many different wishes from students and programmes. How do we bring these diverse wishes together without compromise?
In thinking about this, and the future of ArtEZ academies, we first looked to the past. Broadly speaking, there are three archetypal academy categories. The first is an inward-looking academy. Students are given time to develop in peace, without external distractions, to finally present their work to society after four years. The second is an academy embedded in society, outward-looking, where students engage with societal issues throughout their studies in constant interaction. Lastly, there is the roaming academy, where connection is more important than location. Do we have to choose?
And the students? What do they need to develop artists? In our relationship with the world around us, we typically recognise three types of spaces. The architect Dom Hans van der Laan (1904–1991) called these Cell, Courtyard, and Domain: an enclosed space; a semi-enclosed space; and a vast open space. What does this mean for students? First, they need a good home base, from which they can meet one another and ultimately connect individually or as a group with the outside world. The amount and intensity of use of these three spatial types will vary per programme.
Years ago, I visited Le Fresnoy Art Center in Tourcoing, designed by the French architect Bernard Tschumi (1944). It is a centre for crossover artists. Artists who are musicians and painters, or video artists and sculptors. To reduce construction costs, Tschumi did not demolish the existing (1920) buildings but designed a vast new roof, like an umbrella, over them. The most inspiring and intensively used spaces are those between the old rooftops and the new roof: a juxtaposition of two entirely different worlds, old and new, for meetings, reflection, and, above all, use.
All these considerations have led to a preliminary concept for the Uni-location, in which we have named the three archetypal academies (1) village-scape, (2) urban-scape, and (3) garden-scape.
As architects at TAB, we do not choose just one of these archetypes, but rather all three simultaneously. Each offers advantages and addresses the diverse wishes of the different academies. A juxtaposition of three spatial concepts that encourage making, meeting, and showing or sharing what has been made.
The final concept is summarised in the diagram shown alongside.
In summary, what will the ArtEZ art academy in Zwolle look like in the future?
Strangely enough, the academy of the future resembles the old city of FAS. The academy is in constant motion, with studios continually reconfigured to meet students’ needs. The programme studios are connected by a network, a labyrinth of alleys and squares. Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer (1968) writes in ‘The uphill-downhill philosophy to Rome on a bike’ that a labyrinth is not built to lose each other, but to ensure continual encounter. In a linear city of boulevards and avenues, one can avoid the other. In a labyrinth, one inevitably meets.
The boundaries of the market on the ground floor are guarded as vigilantly as those of Central Park in New York. A young poet, L. from Fas, wrote in his ode to this marketplace The Very Old Sing: ‘All that is of value is defenceless.’ It is the most important element of this layer.
And the roof garden is used intensively by students to reflect and muse.
Yet it is not the buildings, the square, or the park that make this city so special, but the small alleys, the emptiness of the squares, and the emptiness of the park. In short, the unprogrammed spaces. Only in emptiness resides the essential; emptiness can contain everything. It is emptiness that makes possible the organisation of lectures, workshops, debates, performances, presentations, and exhibitions. To be outward focused on various activities shaped by students, staff or guests. An art academy thrives on unprogrammed space. After all, the future cannot be predicted.
This ‘between’, this emptiness, is the new academy when together we succeed in giving meaning to this emptiness.
The fair moves on to the next city.
‘There is nothing old under the sun.
Everything happens for the first time, but in an eternal way.
Whoever reads these words is inventing them.’
(from ‘Happiness’ (1981), J.L. Borges (1899–1986))