Auke de Vries Untitled (1994)

This sculpture, which Auke de Vries designed especially for the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) and which was placed a year after its opening (in 1994), has an impressive size. The length is 35 meters, the height is 12 meters and the weight is 30.000 kg. The fact that the statue was not already visible at the opening has to do with De Vries' method. He believes that his images should become one with the building for which he is designing them and therefore only starts when the building is largely completed. In this case, he stipulated a year to make his statue. In his own words: “The image and a building together make one total. I am concerned with that total. A building is something we know, it's beautiful or crazy, but it's a building. An image is a greater improbability, will have to stand in the field like a playwright. And the actor cannot do without that field“. The sculpture is placed in the pond of Het Nieuwe Instituut (formerly the NAi) and reflects the building designed by architect Jo Coenen. It is tailored to the scale and size of the environment as a whole. Like the building itself, the sculpture has an open structure at the top. Auke de Vries opted for expressive shapes and colors.