On May 30, 2011 we launched a Blog post about Kleiburg. It had just been announced that four teams were selected to further develop their plans to rescue the building. Our pamphlet supported the idea of preserving the mega-structure with the slogan: if you’re short-sighted what use is a vista? And to articulate the latent potential of the building we published a Mash-up of a proud photograph of Kleiburg on the cover of Wallpaper magazine:
“Many attempts to renovate the slabs in the Bijlmer, Kleiburg in particular, have focused on differentiation, in an attempt to get rid of the uniformity, the repetition, to ‘humanize’ the architecture. BAD idea. Time for a new approach: emphasize the intrinsic beauty. Sublimize. Kleiburg will soon make it into Wallpaper”.
A year later we were invited to become part of the winning team Consortium DeFlat. The result of the collective effort was stunning and in 2017 the building was awarded with the EUMiesaward. What a blast! And the prediction came through: this autumn Ellen Himelfarb of Wallpaper visited the Bijlmer. Kleiburg did not actually land on the cover but never the less made it into the magazine : )
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