DEJA VU

Reconstruction of Huize Moerenburg, Tilburg. In collaboration with MTD Landschapsarchitecten, Ed Kooiman and Joost van Hezewijk.

Giving history a small push, the image of Huize Moerenburg (based on a single painting from 1700) coincides almost perfectly with the helophyte filter in today’s landscaping plan by MTD. By projecting the monumental axis of the area, the functional layout of the helophyte filter grows into a visual echo of the monumental baroque garden in the painting. I am of the opinion that this is why this painting of Huize Moerenburg is the legitimacy for MTD’s design. If we don’t keep the painting in mind, park Moerenburg loses its ‘pointe’. The painting is a part of it, literally! Not the reconstruction of Huize Moerenburg, but the painting itself, with its wooden and distorted perspective, should be decisive for the design. The house and garden come from a Renaissance and Baroque era. These cultural movements ran from around 1600 until 1750 in Northern Europe, the era of the Enlightenment in Europe. Many discoveries and inventions are done in both the sciences and arts, like for instance the central perspective. Distorted avenues are constructed in the parks, which makes them look longer or shorter, and makes buildings look more imposing.
With my contribution from the visual arts, I’d like to incorporate this distorted perspective in the CorTen steel construction of the reconstruction of Huize Moerenburg, like ‘trompe-l’oeil’, a ‘deceiving eye’.
If you stand on the raised surface, looking out over the helophyte filter with the distorted perspective, it is almost like experiencing déjà vu, like looking at the painting from 1700. It is not just the space that is distorted, but time gets a little push as well. The sun dial is not pointed perpendicular towards the south, but it still gives the right sun time.

Plan period 2010
Click HERE for more background information. (Dutch)