area 102 | leisure

architect: Kazuyo Sejima+Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA

location: Almere, The Netherlands

Almere, a new town west of Amsterdam, is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Within the master plan by OMA, SANAA was selected to design the city’s theater and cultural community center on the lake that faces the new center. We sought an interaction between professional artists and practicing amateurs so we packaged the two programs into one building volume.

photo by Christian Richters

Meanwhile, we wanted this programmatic duality to manifest itself in the shape of the building, referencing both the horizontal surface of the artificial lake on which it will be built, and the building mass of the new waterfront development. We sought a plan without hierarchy, a very public building where everything from circulation to classrooms are given the same spatial treatment.

photo by Christian Richters

Circulating through the building is like passing through a series of rooms, and despite an apparent uniformity in plan, the sprawling main floor renders specific characteristics in different areas depending on their relationship with the water at the perimeter. In this plan there is no difference between structure and partition. The main structural system is made up of steel flat bars, acting as columns inside of what appear to be normal partition walls.

project name: ”De Kunstlinie” theatre and cultural centre
location: Almere, The Netherlands
architect: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA, Yoshitaka Tanase, (ex-staff) Go Kuwata, Jonas Elding, Yoritaka Hayashi
client: City of Almere, Dienst Stadscentrum
design period: February 1998 - August 2004
construction: September 2004 - October 2006
completion: June 2007
program: theatre, cultural centre
project director: Interact-advice bv
structural engineers: Sasaki Structural Consultants, ABT Consulting Engineers v.o.f
mechanical engineering: Technical management BV
environmental and acoustic consultant: DHV Consultant
theater consultant: Jansen and Motosugi Theatre Consultants v.o.f
construction: Ballast Nedam bv, speciale projecten
structure: steel frame, reinforced concrete
site area: 15.354 sqm
building area: 9.261 sqm
total floor area: 19.085 sqm
cost: 40.000.000 euro
photo: Christian Richters

Kazuyo Sejima was born in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1956.
1981 graduated from Japan Women‘s University with Masters Degree in Architecture, joined Toyo Ito & Associates.
1987 established Kazuyo Sejima & Associates.
1995 established SANAA with Ryue Nishizawa.
2001 professor at Keio University, Tokyo.
2006 visiting Professor at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.
2006 visiting Professor at Princeton University, USA.
Ryue Nishizawa was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1966.
1990 graduated from Yokohama National University with Masters Degree in Architecture.  Joined Kazuyo Sejima & Associates.
1995 established SANAA with Kazuyo Sejima.
1997 established Office of Ryue Nishizawa.
2001 associate Professor at Yokohama National University.
2006 visiting Professor at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.
2006 visiting Professor at Princeton University.
2007 visiting Professor at GSD