Practice

MVRDV

Founded 1993 · Dutch, based in Rotterdam · 9 buildings on the wall

MVRDV is an architecture and urban design practice in Rotterdam, founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries, whose surnames make up its name. It also has offices in Berlin, New York, Paris and Shanghai, and much of its research, in books such as FARMAX, is about density in cities.

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Its early built works include the WoZoCo housing in Amsterdam (1997) and the Netherlands Pavilion, Expo 2000 in Hanover. The Markthal in Rotterdam (2014) wraps 228 apartments in a horseshoe-shaped arch of grey stone over a large covered market; it won several awards but not universal praise. The Tianjin Binhai Library in China (2017), nicknamed "The Eye", lines its interior with floor-to-ceiling terraced bookshelves around a glowing sphere that holds a 110-seat auditorium. The Depot Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam (2021), the world's first art store open to the public, is a 39.5-metre bowl clad in 1,664 mirror panels that reflect the city around it, and shows more than 150,000 works the museum had no room to display before. MVRDV's projects are studied for density, stacking and bold public form.

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