#parkrand

[inspirationstoshare-blog1]

Lights on. The evening starts. Still waiting for spring 2016 in Vroonermeer.

[damninsolent]

Parkrand, Amsterdam by MVRDV

[damninsolent]

LEVS and MVRDV

[damninsolent]

Parkrand, Amsterdam by MVRDV

[damninsolent]

Parkrand, Amsterdam by MVRDV

[ombuarchitecture]

PARKRAND

 Geuzenveld • Amsterdam • The Netherlands

The Parkrand building condenses small housing units into an impressive volume preserving and even enlarging, the park.  The program is split into five towers connected with a patio which forms a lifted semi-public area that overlooks and enlarges the surrounding park.  The park building is seen to continue the optimistic tradition that characterizes the history of these post war modernist neighbourhoods.

by MVRDV

Photos by jose carlos melodias, Rory Hyde & Matthijs Borghgraef

[talesofthenine-blog]

ParkRand & Rhododendrons: historical New West

Now: who would have thought that something so colourful, pretty and simple could have so much luggage behind it?  How many times have you thought that in your life?

             I have the same feeling when I look at these magic flowers, just outside of ParkRand, Stadgenoot monumental piece of architecture, in New West Amsterdam.

As the TALE GOES:

oh, they ate and drank & bragged no end

about what they were gonna do.

while they scarfed up Rhododendron Honey

and Amanita Stew.

Leslie Fish, 1989

          Now & then one encounters the folklorishly exaggerated “warning” that rhododendron flowers are so poisonous that bees manufacture toxic honey from them. This honey when ingested allegedily will induce illness & hallucinations.  These warnings are invariably punctuated with the stories of Xenophon’s army sickened near the Black Sea region for having eaten the madness honey.

The locals along the Black Sea (UKRAINE) repeated the stunt against General Pompey a few centuries later. And the tactic purportedly worked again when the much-legended amazonian Queen Olga of medieval Kiev gave tribute of Black Sea honey to invading Russians, then killed the lot of them while they were in hallucinatory stupors. 

         The homeland of rhododendrons is South-East Asia.  It is the national flower of Nepal.