Qualla: Mecanoo

Mecanoo: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Christian Riemann, CC BY-SA 4.0. Three students at Delft University of Technology entered a competition to design youth housing at Kruisplein in Rotterdam. They won. Francine Houben, Henk Doll and Roelf Steenhuis had not yet graduated, but their proposal marked a turning point in Dutch social housing, which had until then mostly accommodated families. By 1984, with Erick van Egeraat and Chris de Weijer joining them, they had founded a firm and given it a name that combined three obsessions: Meccano, the British metal construction kit; Mecano, the neoplasticist magazine drawn up by Theo van Doesburg in the 1920s; and Ozoo, the playful motto the founders had used for the Kruisplein entry, located near the site of Rotterdam's former zoo. Mecanoo, the portmanteau, has since designed libraries on four continents.

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Image: Peter Christian Riemann | CC BY-SA 4.0

Mecanoo: The House on Oude Delft

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Niels Elgaard Larsen - User: (WT-shared) Elgaard at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Walk along Oude Delft, the canal that may be the oldest in the Netherlands, and you pass number 203: a stately townhouse with a copper-trimmed facade that looks much as it did when an Italian architect named Bollina designed it in 1750. Inside, a 40-meter corridor runs the length...

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Image: Niels Elgaard Larsen - User: (WT-shared) Elgaard at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Mecanoo: Libraries as Public Palaces

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sander van der Wel from Netherlands, CC BY-SA 2.0. Francine Houben, who remains creative director after the four other founders departed between 1988 and 2003, talks about People, Place, Purpose as the firm's working philosophy. The libraries make the case better than any manifesto. The TU Delft Library opened in 1997, integrated...

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Image: Sander van der Wel from Netherlands | CC BY-SA 2.0

Mecanoo: Four Walked Out

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mlefter, CC BY-SA 3.0. Of the five founders, only Houben remains. Henk Doll, Roelf Steenhuis, Erick van Egeraat and Chris de Weijer all departed between 1988 and 2003, scattering in different directions and in some cases starting rival firms. Van Egeraat in particular went on to make his own name as a ...

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Image: Mlefter | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mecanoo: From Delft Outward

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ferditje, CC BY-SA 3.0. The firm now operates from offices in Delft, London, New York and Kaohsiung. The Kaohsiung outpost matters more than its size suggests: Mecanoo designed the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, which opened in 2018. Other recent and current work spans the New York Public Libra...

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Image: Ferditje | CC BY-SA 3.0