Collective Identity and the Dutch Eye

The Netherlands is a country composed of a constantly changing collage landscape. It is a mixture of nature and artifice, urban and rural, water and land mediated by advanced technologies and grounded by the stability of a terrestrial horizon. Collective identity is not predicated on adhering to a unified approach, but by embracing the differences and attending to the core values of the Dutch eye. Rigorous experimentation and inquiry can be traced back to the seventeenth century with Leeuwenhoek and Huygens, and regained strength in architecture with Rem Koolhaas in the 1980s. Dutch architecture has evolved over time through this inherited empirical curiosity. The visual culture of this country is determined not by sight alone, but by a multi-sensory depth of vision. This depth includes the synesthetic values of layering, density, superimposition, thickening, revealing, scalar juxtapositions, texture, and tonal detail consumed and inspired by the enigmatic Dutch eye.