The Fortifications of Amsterdam
In 2016, the Fortifications of Amsterdam celebrate their 20-year anniversary as a UNESCO world heritage site. The Fortifications of Amsterdam were built in the late 19th century. Finally realized, the Fortifications proved outdated because of changes in warfare.
In the mid-1990s the Fortifications were rediscovered as a symbol of Dutch hydraulic ingenuity. For a hallway in one of the forts, LUST designed a small exhibition about the landscape of war. The hallway is a curious intervention that makes the intrinisic function of the Fort redundant: it opens up a passage way for ‘the enemy’. This, together with fortifications being an already outdated concept upon completion, were the starting points for the design.
LUST: “We installed 18 mirrors of 1 x 2,5 m that can turn on a central pivot. Each mirror is fully laser engraved with specially designed maps that tell a story about the landscape of war. The mirrors make up four ‘rooms’: a room about the fortifications, a room about war landscapes in the Netherlands and in Europe, a room about UNESCO monuments in Europe and the world, and finally a room about Fortress Europe.”
More LUST > 09.06.2016
Photos: Nadine Stijns