In 2007, the architectural collage called Rotterdam symbolically became the host city of the Architecture Biennale. In addition to the main exhibitions at NAi, Kunsthalle, and Boijmans Van Beuningen, the biennale was accompanied by a series of events.
One of the largest was the commemoration of the anniversary of the bombing of Rotterdam by the Nazi air force on May 14, 1940. As a result of the 15-minute bombing and the subsequent fire that completed the devastation, the center of Rotterdam was completely leveled. This event is commemorated annually. For the biennale, the organizers conceived it grandly.
The epicenter of the bombing was Schouwburgplein, which was reconstructed in the 1990s according to a design by Adriaan Geuze from West8. On the 57th anniversary, flames engulfed Schouwburgplein once again. Adriaan Geuze designed a grand floral sculpture for "his" square, burning with thousands of flames of red flowers. The sculpture symbolized fire and devastation, while the flowers represented post-war recovery and the rebirth of Rotterdam.
From a technical standpoint, the basic framework was a simple structure made of scaffold pipes, to which a net with large mesh was attached, into which 64,000 potted flowers were placed with plastic hooks. Although it practically rains every day in the Netherlands, each pot was automatically watered. Even so, in "dry periods," ordinary manual work by a gardener was necessary.
The sculpture, made up of tens of thousands of flowers, was removed in the summer of 2007.
Fire Limits
The anniversary was accompanied by another exceptional event.
The group Mothership (a so-called mediator of art works) lit up a twelve-kilometer boundary over Rotterdam in the night of May 14 at 22:45 using a hundred spotlights, representing the area that was completely devastated by bombing and fire. The analogy with searchlights of anti-aircraft defense was entirely intentional but highly controversial. The same concept was actually used in 1934 by Albert Speer when he created the "Cathedral of Light" using 130 searchlights to celebrate the fascist rally of the NSDAP.
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