Luck Is Blind

is an architectural intervention occupying a building in flux.

In order to renovate the building, the floorboards of the first floor must be restored. In their various past lives they have suffered from moisture, leaks, haphazard cuts and hatches made for hoisting. With the floorboards gone the entire height of the warehouse is revealed, from the concrete floor to the timber roof trusses. An open space within which to reminisce of its past and speculate about its future.

The location of the project is named “DE HOOP”, a former genever distillery built around 1874. One of a series of buildings made around the last great heyday (1850-1880) of the (small-scale) Schiedam distillery industry. De Hoop has also been home to the Fortuna asbestos factory which likely moved to this location in 1933 (formerly in Korte Haven 7), after it purchased noisy production equipment inadequate for the residential city center. At that time, this row of distillery buildings along the Noordvestsingel represented the city limits, beyond which was mostly agricultural land. Later De Hoop was home to a construction company’s (Dijk-Brusse B.V.) wood workshop.

         The project is being presented during the celebrations (and with the support) of Schiedam's 750th anniversary & Open Monument Day. We believe it is a unique opportunity to be open for public access to the neighbourhood and to see inside this special building for maybe the first time in decades.

     During this precarious condition of the building, Ben Weir in collaboration with Ramón Jiménez Cárdenas, have designed an accessible bridge to temporarily welcome visitors. In addition to providing the audience with a new gaze, the bridge is engineered to hold the building together –preventing shifts and providing structural stability to the joists while the floorboards are absent. A tool that allows the floorboards to be inspected and assessed. Those beyond repair will be replaced, but the majority will be refurbished and reinstalled.

         The project is happening after a concept application has been submitted to the municipality of Schiedam, requesting to permanently transform the use of this building into a hybrid of living, art making, curating and exhibiting… and before the renovation of this monument starts.

       The title for this first exhibition, Luck is Blind, takes inspiration from the former asbestos factory named Fortuna. The goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in ancient Rome, Fortuna was often portrayed as blindfolded, as luck is not affected by justice. She does not judge. Under this premise we are ruminating on the series of serendipities that have allowed us to make this first public activation at De Hoop possible.

In simple terms it is a bridge, built within a former distillery building from the 19thC. It cuts diagonally across the space on the first floor, resting upon and pinning together the exposed floor joists of the historic building.