Have you ever heard of Piet Blom’s cubic houses? This is a unique architectural project carried out in the second half of the 20th century in two different Dutch cities, still considered today as a fascinating example of structuralism. The architect, who worked on the construction of these original buildings, highlighted a residential complex without comparison in the rest of the world – and which continues to arouse the interest of the curious and experts. Let’s discover the cubic houses and the genius of Piet Blom.
Who was the architect Piet Blom?
Let’s start with the creator of this very original project, theDutch architect Piet Blom: born in Amsterdam in 1934 (real name Pieter Blom), he studied at the Academie voor Bouwkunst where he had the opportunity to deepen his artistic knowledge thanks to the valuable contribution of professors such as Aldo van Eyck. Blom was one of the main representatives of structuralismarchitectural movement that spread especially in the 1960s and aimed to consider each building as the set of relationships between all the elements that compose it.
Many projects made him famous, sometimes even leading him to obtain significant recognition. One of them is the Pestalozzi Children’s Villagefor which he received the Grand Prix de Rome in 1963. Among his most important works, we must also mention the housing complex “De Kasbah”, built in the city of Hengelo. It was here that in 2013, a museum dedicated to the architect was inaugurated. Piet Blom Museum. In his most mature phase, Piet designed and built the famous cube houses, still considered today as his greatest success. The architect died in Denmark in 1999, leaving behind his most evocative works.
The Cube House Project
But now let’s get to the heart of the architectural project that made Piet Blom famous throughout the world: What are cube houses? The idea was born in the middle of the current of structuralism, as a set of residential buildings in which each detail clearly contributes to delimiting the whole work. This project is also known by different names, such as paalwagens (houses/stilts) o booming (tree houses). The latter term comes from the fact that the cubic houses constitute a unique complex that looks like a group of trees inside a forest.
The main characteristic of cube houses is their bizarre shape and location. As the name suggests, each house is composed of a oblique angle cubeso as to rest on one of its peaks. The fulcrum of each house is a large pole that supports the entire building, through which one can access the interior. It is therefore not surprising that the residential complex resembles a old village on stiltswhere the huts were supported by posts often positioned above a body of water.
What makes the whole thing even more harmonious and “unique” is the fact that each house is externally connected to othersthus forming a configuration in which the houses touch each other with their lateral peaks. The project therefore involved the construction of huge piles aligned and located a short distance from each other, on which the cubes tilted on their top lower. In turn, each cube bordered two others (except the first and the last) always by its vertices, this time the lateral ones.
Other details about these houses? Entrance is via an external staircase that reaches the upper half of each post, or directly from the ground. Each building is divided into three habitable floorsthe second being generally used as a sleeping area (there is a bathroom and a bedroom). This is certainly a rather narrow solution, also considering the fact that, in some points, each floor It barely reaches a meter and a half in height. Between the poles of the different houses, buildings such as shops, bars, public spaces – and in one case even a school – were built.
The cubic houses of Helmond
Piet Blom’s first works involving cubic houses took place in Dutch city of Helmondin the 70s. The architect, after receiving the mission to build a housing complex around a famous cultural center, developed his project that would soon go down in history. The first three “test” houses were built in the district of European Wayin 1975. Over the next two years, Blom completed the construction of 18 more cubic buildings, this time in the district of Playhouse Square.
The Cube Houses of Rotterdam
Given the success of the cube houses in Helmond, Piet Blom decided to to propose its architectural project also in the city of Rotterdam. Between 1982 and 1984, a new housing complex was built in the pedestrian zone of the Blaak district, which connects the old port of Oude Haven to the city centre. Although the initial project envisaged the construction of 74 buildings, Piet only made 39The special feature of this work is the bright yellow color of the facades of the cubic houses, which stand out against the blue of the sky.
THE White Forest (i.e. Blaak Forest, as the housing complex is called) is today one of Rotterdam’s most famous attractions. Here is the Kijk-Kubusa museum dedicated to the work of Piet Blom that welcomes visitors and allows them to immerse themselves in the daily life of those who live inside a cubic house. It is no less fascinating The Cube of Artsmeeting place for artists and architects, installed in the grounds of one of these bizarre buildings whose living layout has remained intact. Finally, for the more curious, it is possible to sleep in a cubic house: in 2009, in fact, some of them served as hostels.
The cubic house in Canada
Finally, the project that led to the creation of a set of cubic-shaped housing units also deserves mention. Canadaand more precisely in the city of Toronto. This time, the work does not belong to Piet Blom: the architectural firm owned by Ben Kunter, from Ottawa, bought the rights to the Dutch project in order to reproduce it in his country as well. The construction, which took place in the 1990s, involved a single house characterized by three green cubes tilted at 45° and glued together, positioned on a huge pillar firmly planted in the ground.