A Tower of Babel
To stay viable after the opening of the tunnel between England and the
continent, the ferry companies operating across the channel propose to
make the crossing more exciting. Not only would the boats turn into
floating entertainment worlds, but their destinations—the terminals—
would shed their utilitarian character and become attractions. The orig-
inal Babel was a symbol of ambition, chaos, and ultimately failure; this
machine proclaims a working Babel that effortlessly swallows, enter-
tains, and processes the travelling masses. The theme reflects Europe’s
new ambition; the different tribes—the users of the terminal—embark-
ing on a unified future.^117This passage in Rem Koolhaas’s book S M L XL, which introduces the OMA project
for a Sea Terminal in Zeebrugge (figure 95), already shows the diversity of elements
that are mimetically assimilated in this design: the sea and the land, the poetry of ar-
rivals and departures, an age-old icon of human hubris and divine wrath, a fascination
with technology, and an investment in the future (figure 96). The plan was developed
in response to a multiple commission for the new outport of Zeebrugge in Belgium.
As an opening move in the fierce competition for hegemony in cross-channel links,
a consortium of firms and contractors in the port devised the plan of enriching Zee-
brugge with a new, striking building that would give weight to its role as a Euro-
pean bridgehead. The multipurpose building was intended to combine facilities
for the transport of vehicles and passengers with office accommodation and a con-
ference center. The idea never got beyond the stage of being a successful publicity
stunt, but it did produce a number of remarkable plans, among them that
of OMA.
4
Architecture as Critique of Modernity95
Office for Metropolitan
Architecture, project for a Sea
Terminal in Zeebrugge, 1989.
(Photo: Hans Werlemann.)