Interview: MVRDV’s Jacob Van Rijs on Designing Eindhoven’s Effenaar

To a music fan in Eindhoven, Effenaar is an institution. Starting its life as a gritty rock venue in 1971, in the early ‘00s a new space was built literally on top of the old venue, coinciding with a broadening of Effenaar’s programming remit. Our guest curator, Martyn, has a personal connection to the venue: He played some of his early DJ gigs there in the late ’90s, straight through to the new venue. Martyn also has a strong interest in architecture, so we thought it appropriate to call up Jacob Van Rijs of the architecture firm MVRDV to find out about the building’s construction – and what it means to design a new version of a venue that’s already considered iconic.

You were in charge of building the “new” Effenaar. Can you describe what the older venue was like?

Effenaar is one of the oldest rock venues in the country, and it started – like most of these places – as a kind of informal place where concerts were organized. It was right around the time when punk started, more or less, and quite a few of the early well-known punk bands all played in Eindhoven, like the Sex Pistols. So it had quite a reputation as an alternative venue. A lot of tours that came to Holland would play a show in Amsterdam and at Effenaar in Eindhoven.

It was a former textile factory, and that’s also where the name comes from. And at the end of the ‘90s there were some discussions about improving the building. There were new regulations around that time on sound insulation. That had a huge impact, actually, on a lot of places where live music was happening. They had to improve the insulation towards the street and towards the neighboring buildings. This was such a hassle that it was somehow less complicated to build a new building than to renovate an older building.

This not only happened in Eindhoven, but there were a whole range of new buildings for rock music built because of this shift in regulations. I think there were about ten. There was a whole book about it. But it gave us a push to build these places for rock music. Not only in the cities, but in the smaller towns. They all wanted a new take.

Effenaar had a big reputation, and they wanted to make a step. It was not really a huge place. The reputation was bigger than the building, let’s say. So with the new building, it increased in capacity and the subculture label was less clear, so there were old guys that started to complain a bit, like, “Yeah, Effenaar was better back in the old building.” But that happens all the time when there’s some sort of change or progress made.

With the design of something like this, where you’re taking an existing building and name and reputation... How did you approach that?

There were a couple of aspects. One was the fact that the club had to continue running while the new one was being made. There were some examples with another building in the Hague, where they would close down, and there were some delays with the new one. And because there were no concerts, they lost their public. They were really afraid of that, so they said, “No, we want to continue.” That meant we had to construct a new building on a small piece of land because they didn’t want to demolish the old one.

Another thing was that, for the interior of the hall, they wanted the floor covering exactly the same as in the old building. There was a sort of conservatism that you would not expect when you design a new building for rock music. You would expect people to be free-thinking, in a way. On the other hand, there were certain things that they didn’t want to give up. That was fine. It’s a mix of how to happily keep the old vibe and – at the same time – improve it and make something new. There was a balancing act, and I think it worked okay.

What are the parallels in your mind between music and architecture? Are there any?

Yeah, I think people have done studies about it. In general, of course, it’s composing something. I think that may be the obvious similarity in what you do with architectural designs and making a composition. You have to concentrate and to try to create something out of nothing. You have it in your head, you maybe write it down. Or you can also improvise. But there’s always a kind of step to be taken in thinking about it and then making it and experiencing it. Of course, it is longer for a building than a piece of music, but there is a kind of step between the idea and the enjoyment of it.

Was there anything that surprised you about building this venue?

When I visited Effenaar for the first time when there was a show, I was looking for details. In the end, I realized it was simple: Can you see the band? Not too hot? How space is there to dance. It was all the things that would deal with me being in that space and me listening to music. So, in this case the architecture is really secondary. The certain details that I was really worried about were not an issue at all.

But then other details become really important.

Yes. How do people behave in the space? Where are they standing? How does the building flow? In terms of the Effenaar, there’s a lot of logistics, like the flow of the equipment of the bands to the stage.

In the write-up on the website, it mentions, “In order to achieve optimal truck access...” That’s something so important, but you don’t think about it at all.

Yes. It’s just a lot of logistics, a lot of parking spaces and movement of cars. Only at night does the building come alive. During the day, it’s sort of a totally different world.

Are the lightning bolt-type figures on the outside of the building staircases?

Staircases, yeah. There’s never a huge amount of money for these kind of buildings, so that’s why we had to make an efficient design. By putting all the staircases on the outside, then the building itself became really straightforward. Every space is what it is. You step out of the wall, and then you walk down, and you don’t interfere with the floor plan of the inside.

Also, when you have 1,300 people that have to go out, you need a huge staircase. If you had it inside, it would be a big, big block of stairs. By putting it on the outside, you see them as kind of pieces that are quite significant, but when you’re on the inside, you don’t notice them at all. It gave some sort of recognizable feature to the building, but on the other hand, it was totally practical at the same time.

This feature is part of a week of articles guest curated by 3024 label boss Martyn.

“After a couple years of throwing nights at smaller venues, I started at Effenaar in 1998 doing a bi-monthly drum & bass night that quickly became a monthly. I also played one-off events sometimes like People, which was a Sunday afternoon party hosted by Aardvarck where he played house, techno, and broken beat stuff. The nights lasted until 2007/2008 when they had already moved to a different building. The new building was quite controversial, not in the least because there was a new more ‘professional’ purpose for the building. A lot of old school Effenaar employees and visitors were not into it. The new building was a ‘cultural center’ relying partly on money they made with concerts, but mostly with cultural subsidies from the city, hence the professionalization.”

To check out more of the features that Martyn picked out, check out his guest curator hub page.

Images: Header, Window view, Wooden tables - Boudewijn Bollman; Staircase - Bart van Overbeeke