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Herman Hertzberger, Architect

You have to go to school. That means it's not fun. People who think back to their days at school, usually have memories of something that wasn't fun. That's insane.

Caroline Geerke, principal

This building is very pleasant. It's like putting on an old jacket that you never want to take off again.

Herman Hertzberger, Architect

In 'de Eilanden' school we have cubicles. So, we have... We... We only separated the classrooms of the hall with huge sliding doors which can be opened and closed. And they allow the classrooms to be expanded beyond the classroom itself. The classrooms in the corners just take up a part of the hall. If they open the doors of their classrooms, they're in one single space, without even being aware of it.

Caroline Geerke, principal

When I get up, and everybody will recognize this, and I think: I wish I could stay in bed, I don't want to go to work today, and I walk to school, see the building, open the door and come in, then I feel at home. And I think we give that homely feeling to all our children and their parents. That's the old jacket I referred to and we can't live without it anymore.

Herman Hertzberger, Architect

If you build corridors, then you're separated from the whole. So, you have to be able to build a school in such a way that it's an open system. And in that open system you have to create areas where everybody can focus.

(DRAWS) In stead of a floor plan that looks like this, so that you have corridors where things happen... In stead of something like this, I'd rather create something that rather looks like this, just to give you an example. Here you have some kind of vision lines which create a feeling of... I don't even like what I've drawn here either. It has to be more like this, so that it can form one shared space. That way everybody has their own room, but you still have the feeling that you're all together in one place. That's something which really works in 'De Eilanden' school. When you come in, it feels like one space where everything is linked, and still it consists of numerous places where children are able to focus on their schoolwork.

The Montessori College in Amsterdam is a school where I really wanted to accentuate the movement, the dynamics, the mobility in the building. Of course the fire brigade asked for staircases, so I just constructed those in the corners to satisfy them. The great mobility of the building is created in that space with stairs which are designed in such a way that you can always see each other. So, the stairs are not all on top of each other, but they're spread everywhere.

Nico Moen, head of Facilitative service Montessoricollege

One of the special aspects of this building and its spaces is the fact that the corridors, halls and stair cases are educational spaces. In every school or other building you have a gross-net relationship. We use the gross space efficiently and give it another destination. It's more than a traffic corridor that brings you from one place to another. This corridor is wider than it has to be for the fire brigade or traffic flow. That was intentional. I'll show you. This corridor contains workstations. These are workstations for students. They take a little stool out of a room or corridor and they can work here independently.

Herman Hertzberger, Architect

To me, the central idea is that an architect has to try to create rooms in such a way that it makes people cross each other's path, that it makes them get in touch with one another and it could also... It shouldn't be positive all the time. So that people can negotiate, and they can try to understand each other, they can see how others react to their opinions.

What I actually really want, is for the school to be a city in itself. And I also want to see the city continue within its walls. My biggest dream is of course to see the entire city as a school. And to see the entire school as a city.

Nico Moen, head of Facilitative service Montessoricollege

This is our sixth year in this school and it's been six years of renovating. We're reorganizing, we're relocating rooms. Not because of building errors, but because education changes. Our target group, our students, changes and always demands a new approach. The building is a means, a condition, a facility to be able to offer education. So, you literally shouldn't be stuck between walls.

This is a lecture balcony. You see a student working there. And this is how it's used. It's used by individual students, but teachers can give presentations here, too. The facilities are present to connect lighting or sound installations. It allows you to stage a play, it allows you to work in groups. It's got the facilities to connect computers and data processors.

Herman Hertzberger, Architect

A school should actually be an epicentre of... of learning resources, of possibilities to learn. And it's not only about education, education and tuition, it's about learning. And learning is more than education. Learning is everything concerning the stimuli and associations... you absorb. The teacher can help you with that, and the building should help, too.

Nico Moen, head of Facilitative service Montessoricollege

The spaces are used for learning, and learning can be done in many ways. When the school opened, it was called a loitering paradise for teenagers. But we have a positive approach, as teenagers like loitering. Loitering can be a positive thing, as even at that moment students learn. It's not textbook learning, but still learning: Dealing with other people, making appointments, being on time, behaving in spaces with other people and taking others into consideration. Here, we try to stimulate those learning processes.

Herman Hertzberger, Architect
 
Architects often have a tendency of designing things specifically. They design each space with a certain destination. If you make everything specific, there are no choices left. So, you have to remove the specificity of what you make. In my opinion a building should be an instrument and not an apparatus. In an apparatus you determine in advance what's possible or what is impossible. And in an instrument you'll find a much higher degree of potentiality.
 
My argument is that you can't make classrooms with doors anymore. So, you have to create an environment which has to be rich. Rich in stimuli, rich in... in possibilities. Rich in things that make us inquisitive. And it has to fight against the Internet.
 
That's why you have to get the entire school involved. Things have to be interesting outside of the classrooms as well.

That's what education is about: Making people inquisitive, opening up the world, and not squeezing it into one little room.

I'm not a representative of a political party that's claiming that a larger part of the GNP should be invested in schools and education, but it remains... a real disgrace how little money we get to build schools with.