Jaschke K (2009) City is house and house is city: Aldo van Eyck, Piet Blom and the architecture of homecoming. In: V Di Palma, D Periton & M Lathouri (Eds) Intimate Metropolis. London and New York: Routledge.
In this chapter Jaschke presents the first substantial examination in English of the work of the important Dutch architect Piet Blom, discussing his early design work in relation to the architectural theory of his mentor, the influential architect and founding member of Team10, Aldo van Eyck.
The research for the chapter sits within a broader scholarly debate, which for the past decade and a half has examined post-World War II architectural debates and seen the revision of modernist tenets by a younger generation of architects (for example, the major project and exhibition on Team 10 by TU Delft). Jaschke's research also presages the recent renewed interest in notions of structure and 'structuralism' in architecture, both in historical context and as part of a contemporary debate on digital architecture, systems and cybernetics.
Jaschke examines Blom's best-known project 'Noah's Ark' but expands her investigation to other early designs of the same period, working with and presenting the original drawings as published in Forum magazine. Through a close analysis of the spatial logic and formal qualities evidenced in the project plans and models, and by setting the design against the theoretical writings of van Eyck and Blom's own pronunciations on the projects, the chapter challenges the characterisation commonly presented in surveys of post-war architecture of Blom's work as 'structuralist'.