KAREL APPEL for ARCH MOSCOW
Channel: dusclub
Date: 2011-06-03

The Karel Appel House
House of Canvas

Short stay art residencies and mini museum commemorates the late artist Karel Appel in his hometown Amsterdam (NL)

This month of May, the Karel Appel House opened its doors in the east of Amsterdam. The Karel Appel House combines short stay apartment housing with a mini museum in collaboration with The CoBrA Museum and Royal Academy of Visual Arts. It's a tribute to the famous avant-garde CoBrA painter Karel Appel who was born in the Dapperbuurt and started his international painting career there.
Inspired by the instinctive work-methods of Appel, which can be characterized by his phrase: "I start from my matter- the paint and the canvas", DUS architects designed the interior. In a similar intuitive manner, they created an interior of paper-thin coloured steel panes, where living and exhibiting can coexist: a house of canvas.

Mini apartments, maximum space
By opening up the standard floor plans and placing additional steel walls, DUS architects transformed the former 2-room apartments into spacious 6-room studios. Each 'room' can be used in different ways: One can dine, sleep, store, cook, have guests sleep over etc. The rooms are shaped so that the given standard 'short stay furniture' fits exactly. The set furniture can deliberately be hidden in each specific room or not- the choice is up to the inhabitant. 

Color panes
Walls, floors, ceilings and steel walls have intense colours, inspired by the art works of Appel. In the main rooms the walls are white. Coloured walls, ceilings and floors emphasize the extra rooms. Specific openings in the steel walls enhance the coloured coulisse-effect between the different rooms and stimulate multiple use. E.g. a dressoir in one room can simultaneously be used as a bedside table for the adjacent room, making use of the window in the steel wall.

Wall becomes furniture
With help of industrial magnets virtually everything can be attached to the steel walls, and the entire 'canvas' becomes useful furniture. This tickles the inventiveness of the residents: With help of a simple robe one can build a bookshelve! Also clothes, curtains, plants or paintings are easily attached. The magnets suit the idea of short-stay housing as every inhabitant can easily transform the canvas to his / her own liking. Over the years, more and more magnets will stick to the canvas and thereby tell a subtle tale about the house and its inhabitants.

Room becomes lamp
Simple lighting brings the canvas more to life. One bulb in the middle of each room suffices. By switching rooms 'on' or 'off', one can create multiple light intensities. And transform a small room to bed- or reading lamp.

Art residency and yearly museum
The (inter)national artists who will reside in the Karel Appel House are second year students of the Dutch Royal Academy of Visual Arts, where Appel himself also studied. The artists will reside in the house for 11 months. The last month of each year the artists will make place for a temporary mini-museum in the four apartments of the Karel Appel House. Last week, the CoBrA Museum hosted its first exhibition featuring an overview of Appel's life and work.

The Karel Appel House is a project by DUS architects for client de Key / Principaal in collaboration with the CoBrA museum and the Royal Academy of Visual Arts.