Draft:Frans de Wit (sculptor)

Middle screen of the Caland Canal Windscreen

'The biggest windshield in the world exists as a piece of Land Art' (De Volkskrant, 5 August 2018)

‘The Caland Canal Windscreen’ is a 25 meter high rhythmic series of either semicircular or square concrete elements standing in regular intervals alongside 1.7 kilometers of the Caland Canal. It is divided in three parts: a South, a North and a Middle screen. The Windscreen was designed as a solution to break the wind gusts that affected container shipping vessels when there was a wind force higher than 5. The Windscreen protects the ships from colliding to the bank or the Caland Bridge or waiting for a lower wind force, and at the same time it ensures 24/7 passage to the Port of Rotterdam.

'‘Thanks to the contribution of Frans, the oblique placement [of the central screen] and the beam, the architectural ambition to solve it in series became possible. Here, landscape, architecture and visual art flow into each other in a beautiful way.' Maarten Struijs, architect^[1]

The north and south wind barriers had already been designed by the city architect Maarten Struijs. De Wit designed the central screen in collaboration with Struijs. Because of the diagonal placement of this ‘Middle screen’ in between the ‘North and South screen’ it stands out as an autonomous part of the entire screen, while also unifying the compositions individual parts.

De Wit conceived the horizontal beam at 5 meters height in the ‘Middle screen’ as a solution for the foundation and to accommodate traffic, but also to keep the rhythm of the semicircles intact. This was important to De Wit and Struijs both. The concrete beam enabled to make open spaces for traffic on the bottom side and to place a series of semicircular elements with regular intervals on the top. It also enriched the composition of the screen with the unification of regularity and irregularity in a series. To create a shimmer of light in the structure, De Wit attached stainless steel plates to the side of the beam.

In 2018, a fourth screen was installed due to the relocation of the train tracks. The structure of this is the same as the Middle Screen by Frans de Wit.

The Caland Canal Windscreen, 1983-1985, 1,7 km x 25 m, consists of:

• ‘South Screen’ by Maarten Struijs: 25 semicircular concrete elements with a diameter of 18 meters and a height of 25 meters with intervals of 12 meter.

• ‘Middle screen’, by Frans de Wit in collaboration with Maarten Struijs, 58 semicircular concrete elements with a diameter of 4 meter and a height of 25 meter, concrete beam with rvs sheet on 5 meters high, connecting the 58 elements.

• ‘North screen’ by Maarten Struijs: 49 concrete walls, 10x10 meter on a 15 meter high dike.

• A fourth screen was installed in 2018, due to the relocation of the train tracks. The composition reflects De Wit’s ‘Middle Screen’.

Climbing Wall and Double Disc with Stairs in Coarse Rubble Hill

‘I was concerned with the cooperation of opposites. For geometry and nature. The artwork is part of it.' Frans de Wit^[2]

Between 1986 and 1992, a climbing wall and Double disc with Stairs in Coarse Rubble Hill project was constructed in the Spaarnwoude recreation area, between Haarlemmerliede and Spaarnwoude in The Netherlands, based on a design by Frans de Wit. The project is situated in artificial hills and consists of two parts:

• The Climbing wall consists of 178 concrete blocks of 1,20 x 1,20 m;
• 2 enormous concrete discs alongside a concrete staircase standing in the middle of a rough pile of rubble.

'‘Rock wall making is a hell of a job’.

Even if it takes years of effort to create an impossible structure, Frans de Wit does not shun from inventing constructions to achieve his creation.

“I always create an endless number of models, because my constructions are as complicated as architecture. Visually, I capture it in its entirety and only then can I see what needs to be done constructively and technically.”

De Wit consulted with mountaineers to ensure that the construction of the Climbing Wall met various climbing requirements. In Belgium, Industrial designer Frans Schrofer assisted him on this major project. They selected rock formations with the right structure and made molds of the rock wall to be casted in concrete.

Art critic Wouter Welling is reminded of a temple complex from archaic cultures. ‘It resembles an Aztec temple, where the stairs lead to the alter where the high priest conducts a sacrifice to one of the gods of nature.’

In the popular weekly Dutch TV program ‘Krasse Knarren’ (spry guys) comedians Kees van Kooten and Wim de Bie used the ‘Double Disc with Stairs in Coarse Rubble Hill’ in Spaarnwoude as the title sequence for their program. In their final episode, aired on 17 April 1994, they wittily ‘almost’ unveal the meaning of the work, making the spectators even more intrigued by it.^[3]

Square Island in the Lake

“You must see everything in the material, everything that happened, everything that almost went wrong. I don’t allow masking the cracks, or brushing away the traces of sand, because they are the language of the concrete, of the image, you have to be able to see that it has been made.” Frans de Wit.^[4]

Pencil sketches indicate the position of the sun at twelve o’clock which determines the position of the bowl, which is positioned upwards, at a slant on the square island of 52x52 meters. Water and sunlight are unified in the most primary forms of human order: the circle and square. The square water hole on the bottom of the bowl depicts the lowest point of the Netherlands. The highest point of the bowl extends seven meters above the water level of the lake and is therefore equal to the NAP water level. In the final version this is modified to 7.15 meters. De Wit says to landscape architect Ad Koolen, “We can still stand here together with dry feet, if the dike breaks.”

Merciless scraper

A concrete bowl with a diameter of 28.5 meters, is first of its kind. De Wit wanted to apply ridges on the interior and exterior of the bowl to imply a rotating movement. To achieve this, he and his son Justus designed a ‘merciless, savage scraper machine’ consisting of an eight meter high steel column with an adjustable iron boom of 15 meters in length. When the scraper is attached, it can be dragged over the concrete in a circular motion. Six men were needed to push the boom to scrape the ridges in the surface of the concrete skin. “I don’t work with thin lines,’ says De Wit, ‘my work emerges from resistance.’

^[5]