Pestalozzi Village, 1962. From configurative discipline to dutch structuralism

Abstract

Wim J. van Heuvel distinguishes two different architectural approaches in the proposals made by Piet Blom and Joop van Stigt for the competition ‘Pestalozzi Village’ (1962). Heuvel describes as Blom shaped the configurative idea of the ‘Forum Group’ while Van Stigt defined the characteristics of a movement later known as Dutch Structuralism. In an interview on July 24, 2014, the PhD candidate presents the Heuvel´s hypothesis to the expert Francis Strauven. Unlike critics who understand these movements as one, Strauven also distinguishes the configurative discipline of the structuralist movement and dissociates the term structuralism in architecture from its equivalent in philosophy. This article aims, through the comparative analysis of Van Stigt and Blom´s proposals, define both movements, their similarities and differences, in order to consider ‘Pestalozzi Village’ as a turning point in Van Eyck´s configurative discipline which became in the subsequent Dutch Structuralism, a movement with greater impact on the history of architecture.