PIER+HORIZON - Paul de Kort

PIER+HORIZON by Paul de Kort lies in the Zwarte Meer lake in the Noordoostpolder. This landscape artwork follows the line to Oud Kraggenburg, along what used to be a breakwater.

Even before the draining of the Noordoostpolder in Flevoland, there was a 6km-long breakwater here extending into the water of the Zuiderzee (now the Zwarte Meer). It linked the lighthouse keeper’s house Oud Kraggenburg to the mainland at Genemuiden. The line is still clearly visible from the air in the polder’s parcellation pattern. A small part of this dam was restored by Paul de Kort and used as the central axis of his artwork. The concrete cycle path lies exactly in the extension of the pier, which strengthens the line of the artwork towards Oud Kraggenburg.

Around the axis of PIER+HORIZON float 20m-long reed mats that are fixed on one side to a pole. The mats function as a kind of weathervane: if the wind and current are strong, they all point in the same direction. The poles are arranged in a rigid hexagonal grid. This symbol refers to the Centrale Plaatsen Model on which architect and urban designer Cornelis van Eesteren based his design for the spatial distribution of the Noordoostpolder. The title of the artwork is an ode to Piet Mondriaan and his series of paintings Pier and Ocean (1915).