POPPENVILLA IN ARCHITECTUUR CENTRUM

Expositie van de villa op de tentoonstelling Playing Architecture - het spel om de stad in ARCAM, het Architectuur Centrum Amsterdam, van 10 december 2022 t/m 28 mei 2023.

Poppenhuizen behoren tot de bekendste en oudste architectuurspellen, maar de voorbeelden in deze tentoonstelling nemen afstand van oude concepten; ze illustreren aspecten die in klassieke poppenhuizen meestal onderbelicht blijven.

Curator Mélanie van der Hoorn, auteur van Serious Fun: Architecture & Games (2022). Vormgeving Dafne Wiegers, architect AHH.

Uitgever nai010 Nederlands Architectuur Museum Rotterdam

POPPENVILLA IN NAi PUBLICATIE

PoppenVilla by Liliane® in ‘Serious Fun: Architecture & Games’ door Mélanie van der Hoorn, 2022. Over architectuur- en stedenbouwkundige spellen die sinds het einde van de twintigste eeuw door architecten, stedenbouwkundigen, kunstenaars en spelontwikkelaars bedacht en gemaakt zijn.

"Liliane Limpens also recognized that you needed little to create a discernible, contemporary appearance. In 1999 she came up with the PoppenVilla, 'the Bentley among doll's houses'. What sets it apart, above all, are its dimensions: 130 cm tall, 120 cm wide and 62 cm deep. Several children can play with it at the same time, with 30-cm-tall dolls or soft toys. Limpens wanted to make a sustainable design house out of high-quality materials: clear-varnished birch wood and stainless steel. Her motto was: 'Papa and mama have a granite kitchen working top, stainless steel taps, double washbasins, a design bed... Thus so should the children and their dolls." 25

"Such details do of course come at a price that, despite the miniature size, is beyond the reach of many people: over 1700 euros without furniture. It also features a ramp, a recent feature to make the PoppenVilla supposedly 'gender neutral'."

"Limpens advises every new customer to immediately place a car on it, because: 'Then the little boys know: "It's also for us."' 26 Will this substantially help to solve gender problems? Whatever the case, the house is immensely popular: thousands of hospitals, creches and primary schools in various countries have ordered one over the past two decades. It looks modern, is a niche product with a good marketing concept and has scarcely any competitors. Yet the innovative aspects are not architectural: this is an upper-middle-class family home with a pitched roof, which suggests a classical family unit comprising two parents and two children." 27

"The success of the PoppenVilla has not been matched by all manufacturers: Sirch, Minimii and Mini Archi have reason to be satisfied if they sell fifty houses in a year. So what does the PoppenVilla have that they lack? It is certified for sale in the EU and US, because the toy market is strictly regulated and official testing agencies apply high standards. Smaller producers of doll's houses that cost 300-500 euros can scarcely afford the necessary quality, safety and environmental certificates. Moreover, the required sturdiness places demands on materials and construction, which in turn do not always chime with elegance."

Cited from:  https://poppenvilla.nl/LilianeLimpensVisieMissie.htm  (last consulted on 16 February 2022; see the heading 'Gelijkwaardigheid'.
[in English https://dollsvilla.com/LilianeLimpensVisionMission.htm -see the heading  addition by Liliane]

Interview with Liliane Limpens on 2 October 2019.

The washbasins, mirror, rails and worktop make the bathroom and kitchen instantly recognizable. The other rooms are almost automatically designated as living room, parents' room, children's room and study. Limpens calls the seventh room (on the ground floor) a 'recreation room': it could be a horse stable, bike shed, garage, sports or music room. In that respect, the slightly smaller PoppenVilla Light is more abstract, with three indoor spaces and one outdoor space that are not further defined.

Tentoonstelling Playing Architecture - het spel om de stad in ARCAM, het Architectuur Centrum Amsterdam, van 10 december 2022 t/m 28 mei 2023. De tentoonstelling onderzoekt de boodschappen en verhalen die in analoge en digitale spellen besloten liggen en laat zien wat deze voor de architectuur kunnen betekenen. 

Roden - Provincie Drenthe

POPPENVILLA IN NEDERLANDS MUSEUM