JACOB VAN RIJS PREFERS PRACTICE TO PREACHING / WDCD2011

With Nathalie de Vries and Winy Maas, architect Jacob van Rijs founded the celebrated MVRDV office almost two decades ago. MVRDV is globally renowned for its original solutions for intensifying the use of space. In concept projects like Pig City and the more recent Food City the office has sought to tackle structural challenges in our consumer-based society.
 
Projects by MVRDV include: the Netherlands Pavilion for the Hannover World Expo 2000, the innovative business park Flight Forum in Eindhoven, the Matsudai cultural centre and the Gyre shopping centre in Japan, the Mirador building in Madrid, and the Silodam building and Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam-born Jacob van Rijs graduated with honours from Delft University of Technology and currently lectures there and at several international institutes. Van Rijs remains critical of the fashionable character that sustainability has acquired, stating: ‘I don’t like sustainable architecture, I think it’s boring. My aim is to create projects that are so interesting they will inevitably become sustainable.’ (Portrait of Jacob van Rijs by Rob 't Hart)