Dutch Profiles: Rietveld Landscape

Landscape architect Ronald Rietveld, together with his brother, economist and philosopher Erik Rietveld, form the driving forces behind Rietveld Landscape.
One of their well-known projects is Vacant NL. It’s an appeal to the Dutch government to make the enormous potential of unused buildings owned by state-institutions available for the creative knowledge economy.

According to Rietveld Landscape, the contemporary complexity of cities, landscape and society, call for a multidisciplinary approach when working on urgent societal, ecological and economic tasks.

The brothers focus on, and use the forces of existing developments, to create what they call “strategic interventions”.

For their presentation of Vacant NL at the architecture biennale in Venice, Rietveld Landscape made a giant model where all the empty, state owned buildings were visible at a glance. By contrasting the model with the emptiness of the location, the Pavilion itself became part of the installation.