De Europese voorman Jacques Delors betitelde het
Europese project ooit als een ‘Unidentified Political
Object’. En inderdaad, deze UPO is geen imperium,
het is geen federatie, het is iets totaal eigenzinnigs,
net zo nieuw en ongekend als de Republiek der
Verenigde Nederlanden in de zeventiende eeuw.
Het zal nog veel tijd nodig hebben: bij dit soort
integratieprocessen moet men niet denken in jaren
maar in generaties. Maar hopeloos hoeft het, ondanks
alle problemen, niet te zijn. Alleen moeten wij
Europeanen dat wel beseffen.
Geert Mak
In Europa. Reizen door de twintigste eeuw
183
EUROPA
7
WORK IN PROGRESS
This book is published whist the Europa construction site is in full swing: an op-
portunity to pay attention to the dramatic intensity of the architectural construc-
tion. Whilst the work was carried out in the agency, after thousands of production
hours (to date, more than 9,000 sketches or CDs “conceptual designs”, and more
than 10,000 blueprints of which 1,500 constitute the adjudication file) and com-
munication (to date more than 12,000 e-mails exchanged with all the project’s
partners), it is both the location for a stage set up in the middle of the city, barely
separated from the street by fences, and still linked to it by the fleet of lorries that
came to deliver miles of framework, tons of concrete, hundreds of sections of
posts and beams, steel, glass, wood and thousands of units of its colossal ma-
chinery. The management of such a theatre implies great technicity as well as
constant concern for security, complying with the schedule and budget, perma-
nent negotiation with all the parties to the construction contract. The action will
only be complete once the building will open to its occupants and users: the end
will not be and end but the raising of the curtain.
If the construction closes with the delivery of the building, which preserves in its
architecture the great lines of the history of its construction, nonetheless action
will cease and no other traces will remain after any live performance, dance or
opera. For Europa there will have been four major project phases and some of
the most critical moments of construction have already almost been forgotten.
The European leader, Jacques Delors, once called the Euro-
pean project an “Unidentified Political Object”. And, in fact this
UPO is no empire, no federation, it is something completely
wayward, just as new and unknown as the Republic of the
United Netherlands. It will need a lot more time, i.e., in these
kinds of integration processes, you do not think in years but in
generations. But it does not have to be hopeless despite all the
issues. The only thing is that we, as Europeans must realise it.
Geert Mak,
In Europa. Travelling through the Twentieth Century
WORK IN PROGRESS
