Architecture Chair Winka Dubbledam Profiled in 'de Volkskrant'

Excerpted from the Dutch daily de Volkskrant and translated from the Dutch:

With her office Archi-Tectonics, she has built in Paris, London, Liberia and China, ranging from residential renovations and exclusive fashion boutiques to office towers and an orphanage. Currently she is working on an urban building plan for the Colombian capital Bogotá. Yet she only has fifteen employees. “I want to be involved in each project.”

She is also Professor & Chair of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. In the recent book Conversations with Architects in the Age of Celebrity (DOM Publishers) by architectural critic Vladimir Belogolovsky, she is the only Dutch architect among famous colleagues such as Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster and Daniel Libeskind. That is in somewhat sharp contrast to her main Dutch feat – the renovation of the NAI in 2011. Yet she is still seen in New York as a Dutch architect, she says. The style of her office, which she set up in 1994, is simply quirky and non-conformist. Her buildings look sleek but often have a twist in the form of an irregular window pattern or an oblique, protruding, folded glass façade.

[Dubbeldam's Short List]

1. Architecture: The High Line
2. Travel: Africa
3. Car: AMC Pacer
4. Film: Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders (1984)
5. Landscape: Fimiston Open Pit, Kalgoorlie, Australia
6. Design: Moroso
7. Architect: Jean Nouvel
8. Photography: Marble Quarry by Bas Princen (1998)
9. Restaurant: Blue Hill (57 Washington Place, Manhattan, NY)
10. New York Borough: Brooklyn
11. City: Rotterdam