Carsten Höller, Kompaktes Kommunehaus (2001)
Carsten Höller’s Kompaktes Kommunehaus fits seamlessly into the new main reception room of the town hall of Almere. It is both transparent and monumental, just like the architectural design of this new wing by the architect Cees Dam.
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Carsten Höller, Kompaktes Kommunehaus -
Photo Marco Sweering
Identifiable elements of this ‘compact communal house’, like the staircase and the balcony, would lead one to suspect that the construction is a derivation from an ordinary single-family dwelling. However, the whole has an elusive quality and a futuristic look: instead of a door, it has big round holes; the staircase is difficult to reach; and the model is built from a transparent material that reveals the whole interior, contrary to what one would expect from a building. If you climb the installation, the transparency of this material will give you shaky legs and perhaps even a sense of disorientation. It is precisely this experience that Höller aims to cause. The restriction of movement raises the visitor above everyday reality for a moment – in this case, both literally and metaphorically.
Flying city
With this particular design, Höller refers to the utopian project of the Russian constructivist architect G.T. Krutikov. In 1928, Krutikov designed the Compact Communal house of the Flying City; an ideal city that could not yet be realised at the time. The open construction of Krutikov’s house made its interior and exterior blend into each other. Just like the entire city that Krutikov imagined, this house too was meant to be able to fly.1 His aim: to meet the wishes and need of the individual.
Both the utopian idea and the formal characteristics of openness and monumentality also play a role in the Kompaktes Kommunehaus by Carsten Höller. Höller took up the utopian inspiration, but bends it to a playful utopia of his own. Whereas the work of Krutikov refers to an ideal form of urban planning that was technically unfeasible at the time, Carsten Höller expresses the utopian by way of a question.
Stirring up senses
Here in the town hall of Almere, an eminently pioneering city, the reference is highly topical. Not only is the city a kind of utopia-turned-reality because it is built on land reclaimed from the sea, but precisely here, a bridge can be built to the future, and the visionary can be realised. What other city could offer more opportunities for experiment that the fastest growing city of the Netherlands? Carsten Höller often hints at experimental and futurist architecture in his work. In 1996, he showed a prototype of the Futuro (1965-1968) by Matti Suuronen in the exhibition Skop at the Wiener Secession. He used the Futuro as a readymade, in combination with inventive and remarkable vehicles of his own design. These and other interventions in the architecture often set the public a physical challenge. At the biennale Berlin/Berlin in 1998, he installed a slide that spanned two floors of a building. In Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the spectacular installation Light Corner (2002), consisting of two walls of light with thousands of lamps that flashed at a speed faster than light, caused visual hallucinations.
Höller manages to stimulate the senses of the public in such a way that the public starts to join in. Thus, Höller challenges people to undergo a variety of sensations. It may lead to disorientation, but it also throws us back upon our own resources. Höller’s investigative method stems from his background as a biologist. In contrast to the scientific method, however, his art is playful. He is not out to get objective results. Rather, he invites spectators to reflect on their wishes and desires. In 1999, Carsten Höller won the competition Eingeladen / Uitgenodigd organised by Museum De Paviljoens, in which artists were asked to design an art pavilion for the Lumièrepark in Almere. Eventually, Höller’s winning design – Psychotank – was never realised.2 Instead, his work Kompaktes Kommunehaus was purchased for The Almere Collection. The manifestation Eingeladen / Uitgenodigd was a joint project by Stichting Kunst NRW / NL and Museum De Paviljoens.
Text: Nicoline Wijnja
1. Socialism and communism condemned the capitalist city, but did not offer an alternative ideal model. Consequently, Russian architects and town planners had a free hand, in a sense. Andrés Duran, ‘La ville volante de Georgii Krutikov’, 1998
2. The other artists who took part in the competition were Olafur Eliasson, Isa Genzken, Thomas Klegin and Andreas Siekmann.
Read the personal story of art ambassador Nico van Dam about Kompaktes Kommunehaus by Carsten Höller.
Carsten Höller, Kompaktes Kommunehaus
Carsten Höller, b. 1961, Brussels, Belgium
Kompaktes Kommunehaus, 2001
transparent Perspex
300 cm x 262 cm x 265 cm
purchased in 2004, Municipality of Almere / Museum De Paviljoens
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