And now for something…completely innovative
You’ve got to love a city which claims in its official guide book ‘We are the future’, and in defence of its aesthetic limitations reminds us that ‘interesting is the new pretty’. In fact, Eindhoven is being modest. Bombed twice in WWII, once by the invading Germans and again by the rescuing Allies, the city was rebuilt with a keener eye on aesthetics than mostly found elsewhere in war-ravaged Europe.
Italian architect Masimiliano Fuksas’ 25-metre high, organically shaped glass and steel structure The Blob (it stands for Binary Large OBject) is home to two shops, while smaller ‘blobs’ serve as entrances to nearby underground bike shelters.
A ‘15-minute city’ (anything you need is within walking or cycling distance or by one of dozens of bus connections), it is liveable, affordable and offers an appealing blend of buzzing city life and, being over 40 per cent green, the downright bucolic. You can cycle for 15 minutes from the city centre and find yourself on the very spot where Vincent van Gogh painted Water Mill at Kollen Near Nuenen in 1884 – seemingly as serene as the day he did so.
The site of Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Water Mill at Kollen Near Neunen’ is a short bike ride from Eindhoven city centre.
Some background. The people of Eindhoven may not have been surprised to wake up one morning in the 1950s to learn that their city had been renamed Philipstown, or some Dutch equivalent. For five decades, the technology and electronics giant Philips was Eindhoven. When the firm’s bosses wanted to see the mayor, he went to them. Come the 1990s, and Philips bent to the world economy. Production went elsewhere (eastern Europe, Asia) and management debunked to Amsterdam.
Philips co-founder Gerard Philips is memorialised in this walk-through sculpture with a tunnel shaped like a lightbulb, the company’s core product.
But talent stayed, and Eindhoven recovered sufficiently to being named by Forbes as one of the most innovative cities in the world. Over 50 per cent of patents registered in the Netherlands are from Eindhoven, where there has also been recorded a high level of autism. Said one local: “We have a lot of nerds in Eindhoven”.
But it is for design that Eindhoven is best known in the creative world. The self-described “Design Capital of the Netherlands”, the city is home to the prestigious Dutch Design Academy, which is turning out some of the best talent around.
What began as a one-day event in 1998 to introduce local designers to entrepreneurs has grown into the biggest design event in northern Europe. Every year, Dutch Design Week showcases 2,000 designers to businesses and the public. Looking at how designers are studying and shaping the future, there is an emphasis on experiment, innovation and cross-overs, with particular attention on developing young talent.
Studios open their doors to the public during Dutch Design Week.
One of Eindhoven’s best known design companies is known throughout the Netherlands for its pioneering use of recycled materials to make stylish furniture and interiors. Named for its owner, Piet Hein Eek operates from a former Philips factory, where it specialises in using materials such as ceramic, metal, upholstery, wood and glass. Everything is hand-made in-house from design (by Piet) to final product.
Jerry can lamp and modular sofa units made from recycled materials at Piet Hein Eek
The complex comprises workshops (visitors can observe the action from an overlooking window), storerooms piled high with materials waiting to be transformed into a beautiful home interior item (one impassioned employee called the timber stockroom a “church of wood”), a showroom, shop, restaurant and a hotel with a ‘vonderkamer’ showing changing exhibitions. Sign of the times: Piet Hein Eek has produced two collections for IKEA.
This is, literally, the original city of light. Eindhoven was one of the biggest producers of matches in the late 19th century, and in 1891 Gerard Philips began the production of light bulbs.
The city’s most famous landmark is the Philips Light Tower, where lightbulbs were tested. The owners liked to see it from their home.
Innovations in lighting continue today. One system changes colour if a street scene gets too boisterous, which subconsciously influences the mood of the crowd. Explains Ellen de Vries of its designer Lux Lab: ‘‘The calmer you feel in an outdoor space, the longer you want to stay there. As a result, there is more social control and, therefore, safety. Light has a great influence on that.’’ Another lighting system, this one solar-powered, has lamps which follow the sun like sunflowers during the day and store the energy for darkness.
Every November, Eindhoven is beautifully illuminated during Glow, a week-long light art festival when the streets are filled with installations by dozens of light artists from around the world.
Eindhoven lights up during Glow.
Eindhoven seems determined to expose locals and visitors to public art at every turn. Created by Studio Roosegaarde, which merges technology and art in urban environments, Space in the passenger tunnel at Eindhoven train station is a 90-metre long lightwork based on nocturnal maps of the Earth, showing where light sources make man’s presence visible.
Studio Roosegarde’s ‘Space’ at Eindhoven train station
A few kilometres east of the city centre, Studio Roosegaarde has also created the Van Gogh Path, a light-emitting bicycle path which charges during the day and glows at night. Made of thousands of twinkling stones, it was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Studio Roosegarde’s Van Gogh Path
Scattered around the Stadswandelpark are some two dozen sculptures first displayed in 1982 to mark the city’s 750th anniversary They amount to a great overview of Dutch contemporary sculpture. Also in the park is The Calling Lady. Erected in 1936 as a monument to radio, her open mouth symbolises the wireless radio link.
‘The Calling Lady’ in the Stadswandelpark
The sight of ‘Flying Pins’ by sculptors Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen has been, er, bowling over motorists for 20-plus years.
There is also no escaping the results of the spray can in Eindhoven, from simple graffiti to eye-popping murals. The network of bike tunnels and pedestrian passageways has provided artists with an ideal canvas. One of the densest concentrations is at De Berenkuil (The Bearpit), where several bike routes converge.
Members of a group called Tunnel Vision are responsible for individual tunnels, each one with a different theme. These include the Monty Python-inspired Silly Walks by Studio Poisonous (see main image), Carried on Hands by Niels Bakkerus, which appears to show hands holding up a motorway overpass, and Ornithological Symphony by Joram Roukes, dedicated to various bird species.
Julius Crevaels has transformed an underpass into the kind of landscape Van Gogh may have enjoyed on his painting trips while living in nearby Nuenen.
The most impressive example of the emergence of Eindhoven’s creative industries is at Strijp-S, where a complex of former Philips factory buildings has become a huge creative hub. Covering the equivalent of several football fields, it includes design studios, exhibition spaces, trendy shops and restaurants.
Named for one of the Philips brothers, the Gebouw Anton (Anton Building) in Strijp-S is part of a huge industrial park turned created hub
A “forbidden city” in Philips’ times due to its industrial secrets, the site was historically a village called Strijp, which has now been enveloped by Eindhoven. A series of industrial sectors were to be named after the village’s letters, with only Strijp-T and Strijp-R actually being added.
Strijp-S is home to the MU Hybrid Art House, which presents international artists who like to challenge the notion of art through various media – digital art, bio-art, etc. – and explore what art and design can be, not what it already is.
From the exhibition Hulda, Lilli & The Roach by Maija Tammi at MU
Dedicated to the first internationally famous Dutch cartoonist and the first foreign cartoonist to be published in the USA, the Ton Smits Huis south of the city centre is a charming private museum in the home the artist built for himself in the School of Den Bosch architectural style, named after the city elsewhere in the Brabant region. A registered municipal monument, it stands opposite the park named after him.
When already popular in the Netherlands, Smits (1921-1981) was determined to also be a success in the USA, sending hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cartoons by ship to publishers there. It was a year before the first one was accepted, by The New Yorker, where it was published in 1954. Smits continued to be a contributor until 1980. His work also appeared in Playboy and The Saturday Evening Post. His numerous prizes include the Palma d’Oro at the Salon of Humour in the Italian Bordighera, which at the time was the world’s highest award for artistic expression of humour.
The Ton Smits Huis is a registered municipal monument.
In the upstairs studio where Smits worked, visitors can view some of his 20,000 cartoons. During WWII, he drew portraits lampooning Nazis. One showing Hitler under a rain of bombs is entitled Sein Kampf (His Struggle). These cartoons were hidden for fear of reprisals, but after the war they were sold as postcards and became popular throughout Europe.
Visitors can view some of the 20,000 Ton Smits cartoons in his studio.
But it is perhaps as a painter, which he became in his later years, that Smits should be better known. While a private sitting room holds many of the works, there are sufficient paintings lining the walls of the public areas to show an accomplished painter with a strong Chagall influence. There are some 450 paintings in all, many in storage and all for sale. Visits are by appointment.
Known mainly as a cartoonist, Ton Smits was also an accomplished painter.
Entered through the ‘Roze Huisje’ (Little Pink House), which the designer called the shortest covered bridge in the world, the Van Abbe Museum was founded by the cigar manufacturer and contemporary art-lover H. J. van Abbe (1880-1940), who financed the original building and made funds available for acquisitions and operational costs for the first few years.
The Van Abbe Museum is entered through the ‘Roze Huisje’ (Little Pink House)
In the early 2000s, the original listed building was integrated into a striking, angular redesign. On the site of an old watermill with the River Dommel drifting by, the building itself is part of the collection. Taking an experimental approach to the role of art in society, an introductory film explains: “We no longer want to prioritise western art (but to) break down boundaries.”
One of the first public museums for contemporary art in Europe, its collection of over 3,400 artworks includes Joseph Beuys, Marc Chagall, Oskar Kokoschka, Paul McCarthy, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Fernand Leger, Yves Klein, Mondriaan (credited with the double ‘aa’ before he dropped one because ‘Mondrian’ was more French) and many more.
‘Tandak Samira’ by the Indonesian artist Moelyano is inspired by the story of a peasant revolt against the Dutch colonists.
You can not only see the artworks at the Van Abbe Museum, but also hear, touch and even smell them. Next to some works are little information cards you can scratch and sniff to get a whiff to match a work. The fragrance for Marc Chagall’s Hommage a Apollinaire, for example, is said to correspond to the contrasts in the painting, being ‘firm and subtle, tough and modest, warm and cold’. Elsewhere, the visually impaired can ‘see’ the face on Picasso’s Buste de femme by running their fingers over a 3D model of the painting.
FURTHER INFO thisiseindhoven.com