Atelier Van Lieshout

In 1997 Atelier Van Lieshout – a Dutch interdisciplinary artists’ collective – sited four remodelled mobile homes on a low-lying grass meadow beside Promenade, the green belt surrounding the inner city. Against the backdrop of traditional Münster clinker-brick architecture, the mobile units addressed the subject of living in the city. The Modular House Mobile combined a kitchen, sleeping areas and a convertible storage space, as well as a shower and toilet, within a confined space. As in the Atelier’s earlier caravan project, La Bais-o-Drôme, design in CAST Mobiel also went hand in hand with functionality: a sunbathing area, furnished with a minibar and loudspeaker system, dominated the interior with its curved and rounded forms. In Mobile Home for Kröller-Müller, the interior design could be tailored to the personal taste of its inhabitants. The spartan Autocrat, lastly, was intended to allow its occupants to live in remote isolation and from what nature alone provides.¹ The colourful units made reference to modernist architectural fantasies. But they also exhibited strange, prosthetic appendages, whose shapes evolved out of the functions of those spaces, which did not just fulfil basic needs but also provided music and amenities for relaxation and serving drinks.

Stefanie Raupach

¹ Camiel van Winkel, “Joep van Lieshout – Not Depressed”. In: Klaus Bußmann, Kasper König and Florian Matzner (eds.), Sculpture. Projects in Münster 1997, exhib. cat. Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, Ostfildern-Ruit, 1997, p. 273.