authorized web site since 1997 of composer, author, poet and visual artist Joop Visser
holding older and newer pages
Joseph J. Visser: architecture
late 1960ies - early 1970ies:
Architecture, seems little more than
"the organization of
horizontal and vertical transport"
and playful ideas on the divisions between man and trafic
For some time Joop has worked on 'highway service buildings' that he saw a need for in immediate proximity of complex highway-crossings.
Foreseeing the need for clear divisions between 'where man can live' and 'where man must travel' - a division necessary for reasons of mental and physical health - Joop has made designs for multiples to be used 'between traffic and stay'; as well as studies on 'open and closed' structures.
Between 1968 and 1975 Joop studied the way men behave in the environment.
Whilst working on the (long lost) paper on aspects of well being in an architecturally planned residential suburb he made a series of photographs from a rooftop on how people make crossings over fields, roads and squares.
The conclusion was that mankind, just as all animalkind do not walk drawingboard-practical straight lines, and their ways are decided by minor - sometimes even minute - distractions. Such distractions can be influenced.
These were the main grounds to ponder on in sketches and maquettes.
UTILITY STRUCTURES
drawingboard and maquette
Though never really believing in the concept of a free artist working together with an architect on one project on an even basis, Joseph has made designs for use in buildings; never to actually use them.
There have been a few glass applique windows in private houses
Much later in life the windows for the HOLTENA STATE have been realized
UTILITY STRUCTURES
a DIVISION in a double CORRIDOR
