Grotius / La Fenêtre, The Hague
The location for this residential building in The Hague is dominated by large-scale infrastructure from the second half of the 20th century: the railway yard with the Prince Bernhard viaduct above it, two viaducts for buses and trams at the side, and finally the Utrechtsebaan road. Two large government buildings, the National Library of the Netherlands and the National Archive, stand with their backs to this area. The municipality of The Hague wanted to reconcile this infrastructure with the city once more by creating an integrated whole of mixed urban spaces and functions. In this context, and also with a view to functionality, making the area more lively outside of office hours, a prestigious residential building was required.
‘Long Legs’
Anyone seeing the site before construction began would hardly believe there could be a place here for 115 homes, creating a more varied use of the space. In the new situation, the viaduct is transformed into an elegant ‘Prince Bernhard Boulevard’, creating the effect that the railway lines appear to run underground below the new ground level. The residential building La Fenêtre, on the corner with the station complex, therefore stands on a wedge-shaped raised pedestal, which contains parking garages and storage areas, on a level with the ‘boulevard’. Above it runs a new footpath, with its entrance and lift halls between the long ‘legs’ of the building. The tight location for the construction, the requirement for a substructure which is as open as possible, and the creation of flexible internal divisions for the apartments were the inspiration for designing a unique steel construction for the whole building. Nine sets of columns, made up of steel tubes fanning out from a foot, form a slender pillared nave, supporting the volume of the homes – 17 storeys – at a height of 20 metres, rising to 69 metres high. The apartments are grouped around two lift halls, with seven apartments of around 120m2 on each storey. The shape of the volume, slim to the east and at the Utrechtsebaan, and broadly hinged out to the west and the city centre, makes optimum use of the location, and gives the building its dynamism and character as a result. The outer walls are made entirely of glass. In addition, the south and east gables have a striking texture: by repeatedly jumping 10cm outwards at every second storey, they add a subtle extra layer to the dynamic of the building. In this way, the outward-leaning silhouette of the outer walls, with their rich relief playing with the light, acquires a distinct crystalline effect. With a green roof rising to 10 metres, which joins on to a walkway and masks the blank wall of the National Archive, the stately building, with its footprint of a stiletto heel, stands precisely in its place.
* Although the municipal council also wanted to create housing on the Grotiusplaats itself, for reasons of mixed of functionality and increased evening-time usage, the Noise Abatement Act only allowed residential buildings along the Prince Bernhard Viaduct just in front of the Central Station. By demolishing the bus viaduct and placing the parking spaces in a garage under the new footpath which was to be laid, it was possible to gain a small amount of ground area at the furthest point between the National Archive and the Prince Bernhard Viaduct. In this way a new ground level was created in the vicinity of the Prince Bernhard Viaduct, with the parking garages and storage areas beneath it. In time, the Willem Alexanderstraat below will be raised, so that the entrance halls come to be situated on the Prins Bernhard Boulevard. The concept for the residential building itself is an almost 70m high volume of apartments, which stands on eight long ‘legs’ above the current ground level.
