HERMAN HERTZBERGER - Delft Montessori School

Delft Montessori School, 1960 was designed originally as four classroom small school which differed from the standard of the time which was usually six classrooms in primary schools in the Netherlands. A plan for phased expansion, which was underestimated in the original design, anticipated the construction of additional classrooms as the need arose. Phased planning was considered sympathetic to the idea that the building is in a perpetual state of incompleteness, as a stimulus to participation and user interaction.

The meandering form of the hall follows of a series of L-shaped classrooms, each of which is expressed as an independent unit like a house along a street. The stagger also sets up an articulated zone at the entrance to each classroom, which mediates between the public zone of the hall, and the private zone of the classroom, much the way a front porch mediates between the public zone of the street and the private zone of the house.

Daniel Mc Fadden