Page 36 - Studio International - May 1973

Peter Stuycken's paintings (like Structure IV-A) provides just enough stimulus to our senses to elements (22 horizontal, 22 vertical), the amount
and no fixed itinerary is suggested with force. keep on living.' And in another text: 'If we want of possible choices between elements would
From one point one may go to any other point. to strive after a liveable environment, and not come to the total of 16484. Of course an artist
An open structure is only fixed where it stops. wait for another hundred years or so, we will could choose 484 elements, each time out of the
Since the middle sixties Peter Struycken has have to find the means to organize complexity sixteen available, but then subconscious
been working on a coherent theory for and variation with contemporary, normalized aesthetic preferences, and in the long run the
environmental design, and his paintings are an techniques. This means we will have to look same preferences, would limit the openness of
aspect of this central ambition. In an early for those elements and relation-types which each choice. Intuition would cut out the possible
text about what would make a liveable could be manipulated over a wide area and in emergence of totally unexpected varieties and
environment he argued: 'A liveable very large quantities, and which have the power complexities; and though the writing of a
environment is an environment in which the to create, in our urban environment, the computer programme will also be influenced by
individual personality can reach maximum complexity and variation that earlier came personal aesthetics, it would clearly have less
development. Environment is the totality of all into existence in an organic way.' influence on the final result. Once the computer
sensory impressions; of all that can be seen, In this theoretical context Struycken's is running, within the rules set in the programme
heard, felt, scented and tasted. The quality of an paintings might be seen as manifestations or it cannot be influenced. Only the final result,
environment is transmitted through the senses. demonstrations of a programme to organize judged solely by its complexity and structural
In a liveable environment the senses will be complex, varied structures — in the case of clarity, can be rejected.
able to function in a way leading to experiences Structure IV-A out of only sixteen, normalized Structures in environmental design have to be
which contribute to the development of elements : the sixteen black and white open, to accommodate a variety of functions or,
individual behaviour and identity. Whenever distributions in a square divided into four more precisely, to permit a variety of functions
one of the senses fall out, or is not being smaller ones. (The expression of complexity and even stimulate them. For an area around a
stimulated, this will hinder the development of does not come from qualities of singular school in Emmen a young designer, Eugene
the individual person. An environment would be elements but from the type of relation between Terwindt, developed a structure which is of
highly liveable when it provided a maximum elements.) To realize complexity as a structural particular interest when compared with a ground
amount of sensory experiences, in a highly expression, however, he felt the need for a sculpture by Ad Dekkers in the courtyard of a
varied way, in surroundings which differentiated computer, for one important reason. For a school in Gouda. Made of heavy tiles of the
as much as possible. Our present environment painting like Structure IV-A, containing 484 same light-grey colour as the courtyard's floor,

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