Luke Heezen: Pier+Horizon is perhaps the least striking of the nine landscape artworks. In 2016, artist Paul de Kort reconstructed part of the six-kilometre-long wooden pier that used to connect the lighthouse keeper's house [Oud-Kraggenburg] with the mainland near Genemuiden. As soon as you take the road to the artwork, you see the pier in front of you in one straight line. Paul de Kort based the work on the drawings of Mondrian, Pier and Ocean. That is a collection of long vertical lines with horizontal breaks on it. And that is exactly what awaits you at the Korts’ Pier+Horizon. From the grass bank behind the dike you enter the narrow pier that runs all the way into the black lake. To the left and right of that pier float reed mats, popularly called “kraggen”, with plants on them. They are attached to a pole on one side, so that their light is controlled by the current and the wind. They are unmistakable references to Mondrian's straight and crosswise stripes, but they are so well embedded in the landscape that they may not even be noticeable here.

Across from me sits Eva Vriend, historian and writer, who grew up in Luttelgeest, also on the edge of the polder. She wrote the beautiful book Het Nieuwe Land about the origin of Flevoland, the sea that once raged here, and more personal stories about what that did to four families around the Forming of Zuidenzee. Welcome Eva. Nice that you are here. You grew up here yourself?

Eva Vriend: Yes, I actually grew up on the edge of the polder, so we lived on a long, straight road. And we looked out on an unconventional meadow that meets the water in the time of the Zuiderzee. But because we live on the edge of the polder, we actually lived on what used to be the shore of the old Zuiderzee.

Luke: Oh, that sounds lovely when you say it now.

Eva: My grandfather thought differently when he settled in 1952, because first of all it is very difficult to grow on sand, a farmer’s attitude towards sand and how it dusted a lot. So my grandmother had to wash the windows very often. So it sounds very nice, but in reality it was quite different.

Luke: And it's quite windy, I think.

Eva: Yes, exactly, so it blows up, so that was against those windows and people came to look on the polder and then they thought, wow, why do people live here on a blowing sand plain? Yes. So in the experience, yes.

Luke: But was it a happy childhood?

Eva: I had a nice childhood in the polder, I always have to justify myself about that, but it was true. Fortunately, I grew up in the polder.

Luke: You wrote a beautiful book about the dramatic turn that life took here, when the Zuiderzee disappeared and the IJsselmeer and Flevoland came. What place does the location of that artwork Pier+Horizon take in that history?

Eva: Well, when you're at that artwork, you're actually looking at the old country, but when you walk towards it, you're of course walking over... Yes, I actually think that artwork already starts when you walk up that concrete path, which goes to Pier+Horizon, because that… When you go for a walk in the Netherlands, you often think of a kind of shady, unpaved path, some drifting. But this is just a really tight concrete path, which I find really typical for the modern polder landscape. Very efficient, rational, businesslike, so you start on that concrete path and then... But then you walk on and then you see Hervormde Kerk, the church tower of Genemuiden. And that is the old country, which then went straight to where you just talked about. So yes, I find it very interesting that you are there on the border of that strict polder country... and that somewhat less strict old country. And in my last book once they went wild here, I of course investigated that. A new country was created, the largest polder in the world was built there. But what did that mean for all those ordinary people who lived there and who lived off the Zuiderzee... and who had to reinvent themselves there? That's exactly where you're standing there, that's exactly the tension that fascinates me and that's what got me going.

Luke: And then you have that old country, which has formed over time. And then you have that new country, which was designed and laid out.

Eva: Yes, that is of course what happens with the artwork there and what I think you start thinking about when you are standing there. What the difference is, so really very tightly made land and then also really tight and straight, and perhaps even rectilinear. And while the old country, yes, that came into being, that was formed, that is a reaction to. And this is not the reaction to, this had to fit into the vision of feasibility, that polder landscape. So that was very efficient and rational.

Luke: Do you notice that with the people who live on both sides? Is there a difference?

Eva: Yes, that is a very legitimate question. I also find it very difficult because you then very quickly start talking about people in stereotypes. I always find that a bit difficult. But I do think that you can say that there are entrepreneurs in the Noord-Oospolder who are rational and business-minded. Those who like to work efficiently. That's a detail, but I was at Pier+Horizon yesterday because I thought I need to get that feeling again when I'm going to talk to you about this. And then you have that concrete path and then you have that verge there, that's just made straight. And of course there are discussions about the roadside management. And in the polder they like to mow that roadside neatly. While you would also think maybe you should let it grow a bit for the foreigners. So that's a kind of rational business dealing with your environment. And people who live off the Zuiderzee and who live on the water, they have a much more emotional bond with their environment. Who lived off the water. The sea gives, the sea takes, they fished and they built their existing. But that was always very fickle. So that is a much less tight relationship with their environment, much less efficient I think. So that's kind of the first distinction I dare to make, carefully.

Luke: Yes, fascinating indeed, that it attracts other people and perhaps also requires other qualities from you as a person to discover yourself.

Eva: And the people who settled in the Noordoostpolder and the rest of the new land were pioneers were of course people who settled in a country where there was nothing yet. They had to build everything up, they were very hard workers, so maybe it is logical that you are more efficient and rational than people whose profession of father to son is passed down, that is what happened in those fishing families, that was that much more driven from a tradition. While the people who came to the polder had broken a tradition because they moved and that was in the 1950s, when the people there moved to Noordoostpolder. It was like an emigration, so then you really broke with tradition. So there really is a difference and we are not talking about the artwork at all, but the artwork evokes all that. But what do I want to say? I don't know what I want to say anymore, because I feel so stupid that it is not about the artwork. 

Luke: Come on, come on, it doesn't matter. 

Eva: So I grew up in Noordoostpolder, in the new land, but we didn't associate with people from the old country, while that was 5-10 kilometers away as the crow flies. So that beautiful
Genemuiden that you see there when you are at Pierenhorizon, you did not associate with that. Those were people from the old country. My father would talk about them as people from behind the dike.

Luke: [laughs].

Eva: Yes, that's how I say it, and a little bit, yes, that sounds, because of course I don't want to discredit my father. But it is true that in the polder live the people who, yes, they were selected, they had to go through a very strict selection before you got a place in the polder. So, yes, they were proud of that and they also thought, yes, they were there. They were, a certain arrogance is the right word now, but they were proud of that. So yes, status is the right word. And yes, the people on the old land didn't have that status, who, yes, so that is something of… I think it's a bit better put together, yes.

Luke: And what were they selecting for, roughly speaking?

Eva: That you can build, have an entrepreneurial spirit, you have it all together, you dare to take that step, you dare to look ahead. So yes, you had to be a brave, self-willed doer.

Luke: Funny though, because the inaccessibility of that other side is also part of the work, I think. Those long pies are actually quite scary to walk on if you're a little, let's say.

Eva: Yes, I also think of that black water and that it is called black lake. I always find it a bit scary, but indeed, I also don't dare to look ahead to that old country when I walk there. But indeed, that inaccessibility is a bit part of it, indeed.

Luke: That is so clever actually, that the artist is able to convey that feeling. And what do you think of the subtlety that I mentioned earlier? Because it does not disappear into the landscape, but it is very well embedded in the landscape.

Eva: Yeah, you pointed it out to me and then I thought that's true. Of course I'm involved and I come here more often. So I never saw it as something that was inconsequential or something. But it is, embedded is I think, a good word. Yes, I think it fits the environment. That if something really big had happened there, that would have felt a bit out of place. So I think it's good that it's a work like it is. I think that pier, that idea that you walk on it and then the connection with that concrete path that I described, that works very well, I think.

Luke: And what do you think about the link with Mondrian, because that's where it's based of course, what do you think about that?

Eva: Well, I know it has a link with Mondrian, but of course I come from Noordoostpolder. And I used to cycle, when I was in Luttelgeest, over such a polder road to Emmeloord where I was at the middle school. And Noordoostpolder is of course Emmeloord with those 10 villages around it. And that is the system where the Christaller’s theory of central places, that is where the layout of the polder is derived from. So that is why I always have to think about it when I am there, that you have that strategic lifting of those villages, and so it is of course a reference to Mondrian, but I also always see the map of Noordoostpolder in it.

Luke: What kind of shape is it that you just mentioned?

Eva: Yes, Christaller’s model has Emmeloord in the middle and then a ring of villages around it. So those villages all had to be within cycling distance of each other, because in the 1950s it was still assumed that we would not all get a car. So that's why there are so many villages in the North-East Frisian Islands compared to the eastern and southern Frisian Islands, where there are far fewer villages, because there was still the idea that we would cycle all of them. So I also see that the map is a bit there. More so to be honest than that work of Mondrian, although I understand that those references are in there.

Luke: And that is of course also the Dutch DNA, you could the combination of planning and art? 

Eva: Yes, certainly, yes, of course. 

Luke: Very important. But you actually say that it is also in the landscape and that it is also in the way you have arranged it.

Eva: Yes, and there are, yes, the Noordoostpolder is trying to recover last year, because before that it had a kind of Mondrian year, because all those tulip fields are always in bloom, so all those colored areas, that would also be a reference to Mondrian's work. So I'm always a bit wary of that, because I don't always find it very tasteful. But I think that in Paul de Kort's work it is of course done in a very clever way.

Luke: What does the work mean to you personally? You are a multiplicity like net.

Eva: Well, it's very quiet. I don't know if that's an advertisement for the work. But on Sundays there are people there regularly. But I think those walks there are really cool. You park your car there on the main road and then you walk there. I think it's great that you see the old country in the distance. And I have two children who always think those piers are fantastic. And those sheep and the sheep droppings that are always there. And the birds that are there, so there's always something going on. So of course it's that artwork. But it's also just a nice place to visit and take that walk on the dike. And I like walking on the edge of the polder. More fun than in the polder itself somehow. I don't really like to walk through that wideness called. But on the edges I do like it somehow.

Luke: Yeah, funny. How do you expect, you've written a book or two books actually about that history, how do you expect that location to develop in the coming years, maybe even decades?

Eva: The artwork as it is. What would be really cool of course, is if those forces that you just described, they are now a bit bare, that the reed does not grow completely on it. So there are now also some birds brooding on it and such. It doesn't look like Paul de Kort had in mind because the reed doesn't grow on it. So something will have to be done about that. I'm afraid that an intervention would have to take place there. But what would be great of course, is that the Noordoostpolder is a product of the designed society and that this artwork is of course also. So I think that the Noordoostpolder has not remained as it was conceived then. Even if it's just as a human resident. And that's going to happen with that artwork of course. So it's fine the way it is, but those birds that poop on it and stuff, those on that pier, I think that's really cool. Because that was of course not the idea where it does happen. So I hope it will continue to live a little bit in this way.

Luke: That's a little bit maybe the influence of the old country, right? At least the same effects that are also at play there of course... 

Eva: Yes, that's exactly why, so it's never like that, it's… You can think of such a beautiful plan, of course it always goes differently. That is also the case with spatial arrangements in cities but also with skilled developments. And also with landscape art.

Luke: And of course Mondrian also made his abstractions, striving from reality to a pure abstraction.

Eva: Yes, exactly, yes. I don't know if everyone who goes there will feel that way right away, but that something happens there, I think that's really nice.

Luke: In any case, it gives a new perspective on Pier+Horizon.

Eva: Of course.

Luke: Thank you for your explanation.