Because the distance from frontdoor to wall is disproportionate to the huge height of the hall and a lot of the materials used are hard and dark I opted for the image of a park landscape. Its width, depth and the green of the image are intended to look, as it were, right through the wall. The variety of sunny and shady parts, monumental representations (tree, figure, pond) and backdrops, dark parts and bright colours, make it possible for every onlooker to find a feel-good spot of attention. In the landscape I included the portrait of a young lady governor in order to form a historical link with the building (regentes = lady governor) and to give life to the picture. I had her pictured at age 18, just before marriage. She is just being herself without any royal finery. In this form the portrait can also be appreciated by anti-royalists.

After a photo session under my direction Gerard Boersma painted an exact small-scale rendering of the park and a detailed portrait. The sources for the latter were an engraved portrait of Queen Emma (colour photography hadn’t been invented at the time) and a photo of a model in contemporary dress from the Frisian Museum. These two were photographed, scanned, prepared and joined, and printed by the Nederlands Textielmuseum.

 

EMMA
a warm welcome and a royal reception

total design of apartment building De Regentes Groningen

public’s Award and special mention of Vredeman de Vries Award for Design

measurements
248 inch x 57.1 inch
height of ceiling 39.4 feet

materials
inkjet print on cotton
wooden / aluminium frame
fluorescent lighting armatures

desiderata
representative reception / public-proof / seats / additional light / divert from brick wall