Liesbeth Van Der Pol

Liesbeth van der Pol designs buildings with strong characters, buildings that are not ashamed of themselves, buildings intended to add something of themselves, something unique even, to the human environment in which they stand. This structural stance is perhaps most clearly borne out by Red Rascals, he striking storage building for the Netherlands Maritime Museum, and Aquartis, which stands at Entrepotdok in Amsterdam. In this monograph, twelve of Van der Pol's most noteworthy projects are singled out and illustrated with photographs, plans and drawings. Also featured are a watercolors by the architect. Two essayists describe and analyze Van der Pol's work: cultural historian Eelco Beukers plumbs the deeper layers of her architecture, while architectural critic Geert Bekaert places her buildings in an architectural-historical context. Although Van der Pol's buildings are extremely varied, with few evident similarities between them, the two authors discover surprising constants in her oeuvre, ones that are less related to the buildings' outward appearance than to the architect's manner of seeing, her design approach, and her deep-rooted ideals regarding the relationship between people and the built environment.