De Hulk
My studio is located in Almere Haven on the roof of residential complex De Hulk – by Almere standards, an almost historic building in this still relatively young city.
How I found my place in De Hulk
When the construction of Almere Haven began in the early 1970s, De Hulk was one of the first large office buildings. By the time I moved from Amsterdam to Almere in 2005, it was already one of the older buildings in the city and in 2008, it was converted into a studio building with workspace for professional artists. Alongside with several other artists, I was given the opportunity to set up my first independent studio in De Hulk.
Five years later, however, housing association De Alliantie decided to renovate the building and use it for social rental flats.
As the boiler room at the top of the roof no longer needed as much space as before, De Alliantie used half of the previous boiler room to turn it into a rentable studio. I was very interested in this, and as I had had a chimney for my gas oven installed in my studio the previous year at great expense in consultation with the housing association, De Alliantie offered to store the gas oven and reconnect it in the newly created studio for me as compensation, in case I decided to rent the studio.
The agreement was made and while the renovation work was taking place, I temporarily moved my studio with electric kiln and rented a room in what was then the Spiritual Centre Aravinda.
When the building De Hulk was renovated in 2013, the project manager for the renovation contacted me regarding a new, exciting commission.
A new reception area was to be created in the renovated building De Hulk and he asked me if I wanted to design a suitable artwork for it. As the reception room wasn’t very large, I opted for a design with a tiled wall.
This resulted in the artwork De Hulk with a length of 10 metres and a height of 3.5 metres, followed by the artwork Princess Tree on the outside of the spiral staircase, which in turn became the source of inspiration for the artwork Tree of Life, for which I was commissioned by another party in 2023.
De Hulk
written by Yvette van Ree is as a caption on site
The Hulk – mysterious merchant ship
The Hulk was a cargo ship widely used for sea transport in the Middle Ages. It owes its name to its unusual shape. A stemless hull with a longitudinally strongly curved shape made of heavy beams. At least that is what is assumed. The remarkable thing is that no wreck of this type of ship has ever been found. All the information that could be gathered about its shape, size, use and origin comes from stories, paintings, artworks, coins and seals, such as the town seal of New Shoreham (formerly Hulkesmouth) in England. This indicates how important the ship was to merchant shipping at the time. In the 15th century, the Hulk was the main cargo ship of the Western European seas. Stories show that it sailed mainly in the North Sea.
De Hulk – the building
The building De Hulk owes its name to its first architect, Pieter van der Post. It is named after a painting by William Turner ‘The Fighting Téméraire’. The ship depicted in the painting was also named a Hulk.
In 1977, when the architect drove to Almere for a meeting during the construction phase of the building, the building structure was shrouded in fog. In a flash, the architect saw Turner’s painting in front of him and when they were looking for a name for the building later in the meeting, he suggested calling it De Hulk.
De Hulk – inspiration for the artist
In 2013, the building De Hulk was renovated. As one of Almere’s oldest buildings, De Hulk enjoys prestige; it is a robust building that stands for Almere’s history. Housing association De Alliantie therefore chose to renovate this historic building rather than demolish it. For ANNUSCH, the rich history surrounding the origin of the building’s name was the inspiration for her artwork. ‘Many people think of the comics and cartoons of the big green monster when they hear the name De Hulk. I wanted to make people realise that this is not about this green monster, but to remind them of the rich history of the sturdy ship De Hulk, so that they will think of this in the future when they see the building.’