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HALSTEREN, THE NETHERLANDS BUILDING
PROJECTS POMPEJUS TOWER Keeping an eye on the past
Architect RO&AD’s timber watchtower project in the Netherlands engaged the community in innovative ways to generate a new enthusiasm for the area’s rich history. Sébastien Reed reports
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onstruction of the defensive West Brabant Water Line was started in 1627 by the Dutch states of Zeeland and South Holland as a series of forts, protecting the then main water navigation from Middelburg to Dordrecht against attack from the Spanish Armada. Over the centuries, the Line has repeatedly come under attack from foreign aggressors. Fort de Roovere north of Bergen op Zoom and originally located near the water before land reclamation, was largest of the forts. Over the decades, it fell into major disrepair, to the point that it was almost completely hidden, until 2010 when local authorities initiated a gradual project of regeneration. Starting by re-excavating canals and trenches to restore the fort’s frontiers, the programme has switched to developing playfully symbolic architecture across the site to celebrate its past. Pompejus Tower in Halsteren is the latest addition – a seemingly gravity-defying watchtower with extra functions built-in. RO&AD’s involvement in the project emerged from its local connections, as founder and architect Ad Kil recalls: “I’d just finished a small job on the then mayor’s house, and she asked me to make up some sketches for a watch tower and a bridge for the site. We then slowly got involved.” Since then, the practice has secured the role of resident architect on the fort, with enviable creative freedom over future additions.
Functional growth
Fort de Roovere was an important focal point in the landscape for the Dutch. Separating saltwater and freshwater, it was
ADF AUGUST 2018
at the middle of the dyke line, overseen by the fort towards Bergen op Zoom to the south and Steenbergen to the north. Pompejus Tower, taking its name from the first commander of the fort, rises 34 metres above the surrounding land, and 26 metres above its immediate foundations, the difference made up by the fort’s banks from which the tower protrudes. The steel-framed structure is enveloped in modified timber, and leans at a sharp 60 degree angle towards the outer edges of the fort, inverting the slopes and reflecting the angles of the banks beneath. Formally, the tower loosely resembles the shape of a triangular prism, wider at its base, tapering towards its upper extremity. The brief simply required “a watchtower that can see the waterline – that was the only condition,” Kil explains. Its generic nature gave the architects freedom to throw ideas around. “It had to be more than that,” says Kil. RO&AD devised a provision that weaves an open-air theatre and visitor centre into the scheme. “We saw the potential of Fort de Roovere being a base for local theatre groups and building connection with the cities nearby.” The two outward-facing facade elevations are clad in timber panels, plus a third inner side – host to a series of observation platforms at incremental heights – left open. A central doorway at ground-level provides access to a visitor centre nestled into the base of the tower, while another doorway one level up leads to storage facilities for theatre groups coming to perform at the fort. A square of concrete slabs at the foot of the tower’s open elevation functions as a
INSPIRED BY NATURE A Voronoi pattern emphasising radial growth from ‘seed points’ outwards was used on the exterior
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