Laurens Kolks > spatial design

de Terp van Leidschenveen

The new district De Dijken (near The Hague) is enclosed by two major infrastructural elements: a railway and a highway. These roads enclose the district but also open it up: it makes no difference if the district's inhabitants work in The Hague's city centre or in Utrecht, Rotterdam or Amsterdam. Cut off from its direct surroundings but connected to Holland's urban tissue called de Randstad: De Dijken has no context.

The site for the art commission is a polluted strip of land on the edge of the district that has been transformed into a grass covered hill: a green 'pyramid,' with its top at a height of 11 meters. The whole area, including the green pyramid, is cut off from the rest of the district by a ditch.

Throughout the centuries, the Dutch have raised land as a safe haven to seek protection against floods. Examples can be found throughout the country: the most famous being the terp, mostly found in the Northern parts of the Netherlands. All these synthetic 'hills and mountains' have in common that they were made to build upon. In this project, the green pyramid created in The Hague's newest district, is placed in this Dutch landscaping tradition.

The green pyramid is considered to be a terp. Onto this haven an object is placed that since ancient times has been a pioneer building in Holland, around which grew a settlement: the church. The connotations connected to the terp add layers of meaning to the district, and play around with the question why settlements develop at particular sites. The church is a scaled-down and abstracted version of a regular church. The small building is nonaccessible, its total length only 6m with its roof starting at a height of 3m. The building contains a working, gold plated, clock and a brass D2 bell.

The height, distance and perspectives created by the terp make it difficult for the beholder to get a grip of the church's scale. There are no objects of reference placed on the terp, and the building is materialized in such a way that it's hard to make out its dimensions. The church's abstraction level goes its dimensions: the small building is stripped of all specific religious signs.