Our final year project is an unremitting quest for ways of interpreting silence; a quest, above all else, for the aspects of architecture that fascinate us. We set off in search of the non-reducible so as to arrive at a building whose visitors lose all sense of time and space and are drawn into an overwhelming 'total experience'. In our research, silence symbolizes the non-reducible. In the resulting design, silence combines with the programme of a pop music venue. Sited in the inner urban area of Groningen, the Cathedral manoeuvres between existing buildings from different ages, respecting them in varying degrees. As research proceeded, we familiarized ourselves with silence and discovered that the aspects that concern us most are absence and mystery. We gave manageable form to these notions by translating them into eight paradoxes that operate between interior and exterior, present and past, present and absent, recognition and disorientation. These paradoxes are rooted in eight narratives written by as many authors about events in a building that had yet to be built. We introduced the experiences of others and our own associations into the process by making intuitive spatial models on the strength of these narratives.

Meanings have been attributed to the models at various planning levels. We alternated between making rational choices and acting intuitively, thereby charging the Cathedral with a diversity of arguments and interpretations. The Cathedral has become saturated with meanings. At the same time it leaves room for visitors to make their own interpretations, generating infinitely many new narratives. This has been rendered in the plan as a syntax that eschews explicit architectural elements or unequivocal forms. This ambiguity raises questions without giving answers. It is a language in which by speaking we remain silent. This way of proceeding has given the Cathedral its personality. The exterior represents the character of the interior; inside, however, the building's essence remains hidden away. The Cathedral operates between urbanism and interior design, transforming the existing public space in Groningen into a space that is both public and specific. For us the design process is more important that the final form of its end-product. Our quest did not end with the completion of our studies but crystallized within that final year into the experience machine that is the 'Cathedral of Silence'.

Place of education: AvB Groningen
Specialization: architecture
Tutors: Maurice Nio, Rudolph Eilander, Peter de Kan