Alexandra Sonnemans 
Founder / Architect
MSc TU Delft

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Time Tower

A combined ‘sculpture, viewing tower and exhibition space’ in the garden of Sonneveld House, in the Museumpark, for the Rotterdam Architecture Month. This site-specific work brings together and overlays the layers of past, present and future and makes them spatially and sensorially experienceable, offering new perspectives, possibilities and value.

Modular structure, scaffolding material and two layers of printed mesh textiles, and reclaimed wood for flooring.

June 2024
For: AIR, OMI, Nieuwe Instituut
Concept, Design and Execution: Alexandra Sonnemans
With: OMI (exhibition), Team Thursday (graphic design) , Paul Groenendijk (exhibition texts), Titus Verheijen (translations), Dutch Steigers (construction), LENN (prints)
Thank you: Hetty Berens, Tijn van de Wijdeven, Alfred Marks, Joost de Munk, Stichting Volkskracht, Nada Kojadinovic, Catja Edens, Suze van der Markt, Jolanda van Dinteren, Quintus Belichting

On the occasion of 100 years Museumpark and Rotterdam Architecture Month 2024




Photo by Ossip van Duivenbode
The Time Tower is a project that I could do as a result of winning a tender by AIR and OMI Rotterdam, where I presented the concept and design, along with a budget, plan of action and team for implementation. I was then in charge of the entire process, from idea to realisation. 
Photo by Frank Hanswijk
Colour research with archival experts and curators of the Nieuwe Insituut
The principles of the villa's design, including its layering, colors and patterns, were a major inspiration for my Time Tower design. The facades therefore consist of a double layer of printed mesh fabric. 
The inner layer of printed mesh textiles carries the exhibition “From Land of Hoboken to Museumpark,” created with curators from OMI, which consists of archival materials with drawings, photographs and texts from 1924 to 2024, summarized by theme in rectangular frames, and an immersive “Overlap Map." Photo by Frank Hanswijk
In the Time Tower, I centered the stairwell, and enclosed it in red colored fabric, all the way to the top, to give the color, chosen at the time for the service spaces, and the concept of the “double staircase” the most visibility and new value in the present.
You look through the layers of time, at archival images with a glimpse of the present behind them – lightly abstracted and layered, like a scenography. 
The pattern on the curtains in Sonneveld House was designed by Elise Djo Bourgeois and reprinted by Marina van Tuikwerd. The “contemporary echo,” printed on the outer layer of the Time Tower mesh fabric, was created in collaboration with graphic design firm Team Thursday.
Photo by Frank Hanswijk
Photo by Aad Hoogendoorn
I mostly design modular, elementary building systems, making pavilions and other objects easy to build and dismantle. For this month-long event I decided to work with rentable scaffolding material. 
In combination with the printed textiles it becomes a subtle reference to the city in transformation – a recurring theme in my projects – and it was possible to make a large gesture in a 'light' way.
Photo by Frank Hanswijk