44 _
PRESENT
‘MY MOTHER, WHO NEVER HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO TRAVEL
MUCH, THREW US OUT INTO THE WORLD. WHEN I WAS NINETEEN
I TRAVELED THROUGH THE US ON GREYHOUND BUSES’My oldest daughter, now 27,
recently moved in with us again
for a while. I call this generation
‘boomerang children’: children who
travel all around the world, but also
come back home now and then.
My daughter lived in Chicago, in
the US, for a while and worked at
an architectural firm. Gradually, she
became more and more interested
in yoga, meditation and healthy
eating. She did yoga training and
while she was still working in an
office in the US, she started giving
yoga classes. We’re now also trying
to set that up in our studio. Her
house is almost finished now,
she’ll be living in Rotterdam, the
Netherlands, too. I really enjoyed
having her around for a while again.
I learn from her. She has
many more tools than I ever
had to deal with stress, for
example. ‘Mom, you have to
meditate,’ she tells me. But I think
I’ve already developed my own way
of dealing with stressful situations.
I’m very good at turning myself and
my senses off. When I go to sleep, I
do that consciously. And if I don’t
sleep well for a while, I know it’s
because of the creative process.
But the yoga exercises she has
sketched out for me and that she
says I should do during and after
a long flight are high on my list.
My greatest source of peace is
nature, the outdoors. I only really
got to know the great outdoorswhen I traveled through the
US. The first time was when I
was nineteen. My mother, who
never had the opportunity to travel
much, threw us out into the world.
My brothers and sisters all went
to uncle Jo, a missionary in
Malaysia. When it was my turn,
my mother called on friends who
had just moved to Buffalo, New
York, and that’s where I went. On
the plane, I met some guys and I
stayed with them in New York for a
few nights. They had a Greyhound
bus pass, and that seemed like a
good idea to me. In the end, I was
in Buffalo for a week or two and
spent the remaining six weeks
traveling through the US on
Greyhound buses.
It was 1976, the year of the
US Bicentennial and the Summer
Olympics in Montreal, Canada. I
went to see them, too. There were
people selling tickets outside, but I
didn’t have any money. If I used
my charm, I could get in
anywhere. You could already
see the flair, entrepreneurship
and naivety that are so much
a part of me then. When I tell my
children this story, they immediately
say, ‘You can’t just ask to get in for
free!’ But I did. That entire journey
was like an oil spill: I’d make a
friend here, they’d know someone
I could stay with there, and I kept
getting to know more people. I got
very far on US$10 dollars a day.I went back to the US often over
the following years. I immersed
myself in the nature there; the
National Parks are exceptional. Not
only how they conserve nature, but
also the junior park ranger system
and the visitor education programs.
My boyfriend at the time and I
would buy a car for each trip. We
always went camping and it’s
really great, sleeping in a tiny
tent. Cooking on a campfire
and listening to the crickets at
night. You very quickly become
part of—there you have it again—an
extended family. Nature and how
we deal with it has always been
very important in my work. To me
it is a logical, integral part of a
building or built environment.
I’ve always traveled a lot, but two
years ago I decided I’d like to work
more in the Netherlands. It’s a very
interesting country. It has nothing
to do with my age; I am 64, but you
can grow old in architecture, so it’s
not like I’m going to retire soon. >