The moment has arrived, SYMPOIESIS is getting its shape on the 40-meter-high façade of Flores. A year ago we announced the start of the construction of our collaboration with MVRDV and Alex Verhaest. We have designed an enormous artwork together for Floriade Expo 2022. The builders have been busy bees and slowly but steadily the tower is becoming the beautiful art piece we envisioned.
Flores will be the central tower overlooking the Floriade festival. On top of that, it turns the tower into an icon for Hortus, the new urban district of Almere. The tangible artwork is made of glass panels to be fixed on the façade, bringing to life a gigantic flowery landscape. The tower itself, Flores, was designed by Klunder Architecten. The tower will be housing staff and visitors of the festival. When the festival has finished it will become a residential building in the brand-new Almere city district called Hortus.
The construction workers are taking every glass panel by crane, one by one, up, to instal them on the tower. Every panel consists of two glass plates with the print in between. These men and women have steady hands and nerves of steel! The panels were produced with the help of our partners Sorba, Michiel van Iperen and Studio Online.
Would you like to learn more about artist Alex Verhaest? For our Dutch fans, we made a special Koe Vangt Haas podcast with this fascinating Flemish artist. Find it on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts or the KoeVangtHaas-website.
The Floriade contains an alphabetically planted arboretum showing the fast diversity of Dutch plants and flowers: the Floriade masterplan designed by MVRDV. This arboretum was translated onto the façade in an artistic and original way. Is your curiosity sparked? The municipality of Almere commissioned an interactive website as a storytelling tool that revolves around SYMPOIESIS, in both English and Dutch.
Dive into this magical world of vegetation and floral sublimity on the interactive website: www.sympoiesis.nl.