Page 33 - Studio International - May 1973

(Top left)
On principles in environmental André Volten (with Karin Daan and Peter Struycken)
Environmental project A.B.P. Heerlen (model) 1971-73
design and public art Photo: Cor van Weele
(Right)
Karin Daan, André Volten and Peter Struycken
Environmental project A.B.P. Heerlen (first phase)
R. H. Fuchs 197o
Photo: Courtesy Kunst & Bedryf
(Bottom left)
André Volten (with Karin Daan and Peter Struycken)
Environmental project A.B.P. Heerlen (model) 1971-73
Photo: Cor van Weele

Essentially, environmental design, as it is
functioning now in close association with
architecture and urban planning, is trying to
develop open structures (or, since economic
and administrative barriers often prevent
realization, models of open structures) that
should be discrete and yet retain their identity.
Environmental structures should be open
not only out of aesthetic conviction but in order
to accommodate a great variety of social
functions without interfering with them — or
dominating them as traditional monumental
sculpture holds a space, organizing it by
focusing, so to speak, towards its own centre.
This type of environmental design grew out of
what used to be called 'monumental' art —
sculpture and painting functioning as self-
conscious adornment of open city spaces or
bare walls. However, some time around
World War One new artistic and social
concerns were formulated, which were at
variance with the tradition of fixed, isolated
monuments. Without going into the precise
wording and the complicated history of these
aesthetic and social ideologies it is enough to
point out that, whatever their motivation
(political with the Russian constructivists or
sentimental with the neo-plasticists of
De Stijl), they all wished for some vital and
above all functional integration of the so-called
fine arts with architecture and technology.
Here is, for instance, Piet Mondrian in a short
essay of 1942: 'Our actual environment
(architecture and utilities, etc.) which is more
easily liberated from tragic expression,
sometimes necessitates a more complex plastic
expression than the work of art. Although
qualified by aesthetic conceptions, our
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