BPN 1661: Hopes reconstruction Philips Pavilion Expo ’58 dashed

Every competition has its winners and losers. In the European competition Cultural Capitals 2018 the Maltese capital Valletta and the Dutch city of Leeuwarden were the winners. Of course the capital of the Frisian province was very happy. In The Netherlands it had left the cities of Maastricht, The Hague, Utrecht and Eindhoven behind. All those cities had like Leeuwarden put together a bidbook (see bidbook Leeuwarden). 

Reconstruction Philips Pavilion Expo ‘58

In all those bidbooks you will find fascinating plans. The Eindhoven bidbook contains a plan to reconstruct the Philips pavilion of the Expo ’58 in Brussels and rebuild. The Foundation Reconstruction Philips Pavilion wanted to let the building arise in the Eindhoven neighbourhood of Strijp-S for 8,5 million euro. The reconstructed pavilion should serve as a living lab, where artists and designers could make use of the most advanced technologies. As Eindhoven did not win the bid, the municipality will not put up any money for the reconstruction. So the Foundation will have to collect the money itself. It will take a year to get the sum together; otherwise it will abandon the plan for reconstruction.

 Why reconstructing the pavilion?
You can ask why a building of 1958 has to be reconstructed again. There are pro’s and con’s. One reason against it would be that the Expo ’58 has already a monument in Brussels, the construction of aluminium spheres, the Atomium. But of course the pavilion is a landmark of futuristic architecture. Having such a retro building in the neighbourhood would be a tourist attraction. The pavilion was built by the design bureau of the famous French architect Le Corbusier, but the design was executed by his assistant Iannis Xenakis. However after the Expo ’58 the building was demolished with the permission of Le Corbusier as it had not been designed for eternity. The argument that the reconstructed building would serve as a living lab and as an inspiration to artists and designers is interesting destination, but also an expensive one. The real reason for reconstructing the pavilion should be that the pavilion plus the performance called Poème Electronique marks the beginning of multimedia and the transition from analogue multiple media to digital multimedia. 

Starting point of multimedia

In this bold architectural pavilion Philips presented its first large multiple media performance. At the World Exposition of 1958 Philips wanted to symbolise progress and innovation: light, sound, electronics and computing. The idea was generated by Louis Kalff, the art director of Philips. He gave the assignment to the design bureau of Le Corbusier, who involved the Greek architect Iannis (Yean) Xenakis and the French-American composer Edgar Varèse. Iannis Xenakis would design the pavilion, Varèse would take care of the music and Le Corbusier was in charge of the images and the sound and vision.

The ground plan of the pavilion took the form of the human stomach with a surface of 1.000 m2 and a height of 22 meter. The construction technology used was innovative, as it existed of a geometric construction with pipers and blocks of concrete. The interior was empty with standing room for 500 people.

The visitors got to see a slide show with images projected all around 360 degrees, supported by electronic music coming from 400 speakers. The multiple media show named Poème Electronique, lasted 480 seconds and demonstrated the history of mankind in sound and vision with images from nature, masks and old cultures, armoury, children, matures seniors, cities, birth, life and death.

The object of the project was to produce and present a show, in which sound and vision will mix into one entity and offer a gross spacious experience (Gesamtkunst). The spectacle started with the announcement: ‘Philips has designed automatic devices which introduces a new art form with borderless opportunities, namely the electronic cooperation of light, colour, image, word and music in space. The electronic poem shows how our mechanised civilisation strives after a future new harmony.  

‘However the cooperation between the artists was less than expected. Besides, the 75 year old Varèse got into conflict with the sound experts of Philips. Yet the visitors left the pavilion flabbergasted, overwhelmed by the images, sounds and technological pinnacles.

The pavilion, which had costed Philips 6 million Dutch florins (less than 3 million euro), was demolished after the World exposition and the creative production sank into oblivion. Poème Electronique was revived in 2005 and could be experienced at a conference in The Hague. The slide projectors were replaced by a few PCs, while the 400 speakers were replaced by a few surround boxes. The 480 seconds long performance can now be seen (but not experienced) on YouTube with a Dutch language introduction and on an English language internet site.

(Fragment in italics comes from the Dutch language book on Pre-internet: Toen digitale media nog nieuw waren – Pre-internet in de polder (1967-1997)).

Never a dull moment at PCM

PCM is many illusions poorer as well as a lot money. Yet it improves its revenue flow due to a financial reconstruction and despite the hefty bonuses for the top management (of course the results could have been better if the bonuses had been added to the final results).

It is unbelievable that after so much mismanagement and turmoil there is still a reasonable financial result. The newspaper and book publishing company had a turn-over in 2006 of plus 3,4 percent from 653 to 675 million euro. The netto loss went down from 51 million euro in 2005 to 31 million euro in 2006.

The positive results were mainly made in the newspaper sector and the educational division. In the newspaper sector the job advertisements brought in more money as the Dutch economy is in full swing. And extra revenues at 50 million euro came from the sale of the book publisher Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum to Springer.

But what is the real status. The newspaper companies keep on working and still have to realise heavy cuts in their budgets. This while the managers of Apax leave with a fat profit and the top management cashes, while it is still possible. Two top managers have left in the meantime, each taking 2 million euro for less than two years of work. The CFO, who stays on, has returned his bonus of 1 million euro. Also two members of the shareholders’ board have left (of course without a bonus). So there is a CFO and a chairman of the shareholders’ board left.

In order to pimp up the picture of the company, PCM expects for the future:
• It has a fine starting position to profit from the economic upswing and new developments in newspaper and book publishing;
• The advertisement sector is picking up again, but the newspaper will have to look to get into the competitive game of television and internet (in The Netherlands newspaper publishers are not allowed yet to possess television stations);
• The company will invest in new products such as the free paper DAG; it aims to develop a cross-media news platform to reach younger target groups and invest in a multimedia strategy for the present quality titles (read established audience; mind you: cross-media for youngsters and multimedia for the elderly!)
• The newspaper and book divisions need to work on improving the results (of course after handing out bonuses so generously);
• The book publishing division will remain part of PCM and no longer be put up for sale.

So what is happening today?
- PCM is still negotiating in silence with the newspaper an book publishing company NDC/VBK. Mr Jan de Roos of NDC/VBK is rumoured to be the new CEO of the merger.
- Mr Marcel Boekhoorn, proprietor of the free paper De Pers has put a claim on the desk of PCM for 10 million euro. This claim represents the damage caused by PCM when the company was talking to Mr Boekhoorn about collaborating in De Pers project, but broke off talks and left promises unfulfilled..

Tomorrow there will be more on the 10 million euro claim and the project De Pers.

Blog Posting Number: 723

Tags: newspapers, cross-media, multimedia

The multimedia competition season has started

Presently I am working on the organisation of the Dutch language multimedia content competition Europrix.nl. I am not doing it all by myself, but I work with Wim, a multimedia veteran entrepreneur. We will have to get the site up again and have the entry form in shape. We had in fact already one candidate who wanted to enter an internet service. And I had the promise from a college that they would enter a 3D product.

That sounds already exciting. But as we had to call off the competition last years as due to a lack of entries, I am cautious about this year. Last year we thought that it was the aftermath of the economic crisis which led to a slow down. But as things are buoyant again in economic terms, we hope that we can get a fully fledged competition again this year.

The Europrix.nl exists since 2003, when it was set up as a national fledgling of the Europrix.org. The Europrix.nl would limit itself to the Dutch language products and services. Since 2003 we have held the competition every year, but had to call it off last year due to a lack of entries. And we had some fine award winners, which went on to international fame. Most noticeably is Fabchannel, the thematic music channel on internet, which won several awards after the Europrix.nl 2005.

This year will be interesting as Europrix.nl will be linked to two international competitions: the World Summit Awards 2007 and the Europrix Top Talent Awards 2007 for Young Professionals. The company nominations of the Europrix.nl will go on to the national pre-selection for entry into the global competition of the World Summit Award 2007. The nominations of the Young Professional category will be entered into the European competition of the Europrix Top Talent Awards 2007 for Young Professionals.

We will have two months for registering the entries. There is a discussion whether this period should be longer or shorter. Fact is that 60 percent of the entries arrive in the last two weeks. We have that experience and it was confirmed again this week when in The Netherlands the registering closed for the Spin Awards, a competition for interactive marketing products and services.

This year with the help of the HRO/RIVIO department there will be also a public judging day. This is held especially for students, so that they can hear the analysis of the nominated products and services. On the public jury day there will also be a kind of fair for the participants of the competition, where they can show their company products and tell more about their entry. So far we had the Award Ceremony following the public jury day. It looks like we will fit it into a big manifestation in Rotterdam. I am excited about this prospect.

Sometimes people ask why we spent all this effort on competitions. Wim and I are convinced that competitions have a function. Competitions recognise and honour outstanding products and services and their producers. But competitions also set a standard for the multimedia world. In fact in some cases they are even precursors of successful products and attract investors. And last but not least, they become part of a digital library, in which you can look back, but also research. Together with the European Academy of Digital Media we had entered a proposal in the EU e-content programme to set up such a digital library, called Channel Gold. The proposal was to record all nominated content products and services of European competitions, make them accessible with many metadata and fill an internet channel with themes and movies of the making of. It is a pity that the proposal has not been accepted.

Yet we look forward to a fine competition of the Europrix.nl for Dutch language products and services. In fact we hope to pick up entries from Flanders, South Africa, Indonesia, the Caribbean and Surinam; all areas where still Dutch is spoken.

Blog Posting Number 672

Tags: multimedia, competition, Europrix, WSA