Ira Koers
Up-stairs, (2000 - 2006)
Ira Koers, 1970, Delft
The Spanish Steps in Rome: sultry summer evenings, furtive looks and flirting boys and girls. The world over, public steps are not just access roads, but also meeting places, ‘purgatories’, or places where people take a rest and simply enjoy the sun or the view.
In the new city centre of Almere, designed on the basis of a master plan by Rem Koolhaas, steps have been built in different places. These steps connect the ‘upper city’ with the curved ‘lower city’ at ground level. In three of these places around the so-called ‘Citadel’, Ira Koers designed three very different steps, under the title of Up-Stairs (2000 – 2006). By selecting these three designs, the City Centre Department of the Municipality of Almere chose to create situations that determine the image of the public space in these locations.
Ira Koers’s design of Up-Stairs (2000 – 2006) clearly expresses the social function of steps. All three, each in their own singular way, invite passers-by to pause a while and to meet other people. Picture postcards of the three designs, available from Museum De Paviljoens, prompt viewers to go and experience the steps for themselves.
Ira Koers studied architecture at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1990 until 1995. Since 2003, she has been working as a free-lancer under the name of Bureau Ira Koers.
Martine Spanjers
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