Joram Raaijmakers is one of the students who are presenting their final graduation project on Tuesday 17 December.
If they graduate, you can be the first to see their work on the Open Day on 18 December.
Get acquainted with Joram Raaijmakers!
Joram Raaijmakers
30 years old
Lived in Boxtel before coming to Eindhoven
Department: Man and Public Space
Project: Architecture of control
Why Design Academy Eindhoven?
I always knew I wanted to be a designer, but I was looking for the right place, where I could really challenge myself and get the most out of my talents. Design Academy turned out to be a really confronting and self-evaluating school, which was not easy but in the end very good for me.
What inspired you to make 'Architecture of Control'?
A lot of things inspired me actually. First of all I think control is an intriguing topic. Nowadays we are surrounded by surveillance cameras, and online we are constantly monitored. Control is everywhere, but we don't have icons or symbols for it because we have nothing tangible. The military watchtower is a very strong symbol of control, but if you compare it to the form control has taken today, it is very clear and explicit. Besides this I have always been interested in the military systems, not only because my father was a military but also because a lot of technology and architecture that we use now has its origing in the army.
What do you want to show people?
My goal is to take the watchtower completely out of its context. I want to take it away from conflicts, wars, penital colonies etcetera. What I discovered along the way is that towers, whether they are on the beach, in border zones or on playgrounds, have the same structure. A tower is an interesting and beautiful piece of architecture. By finally adding historical military watchtowers to silver spoons, I have put them in a different paradigm. Do they lose their negative connotations, or not? What I like is dismantling watchtowers, to make them innocent.
How do you present your project?
I have done profound research on watchtowers all over the world. I intend to make a very complete archive of watchtowers with history, scale models, drawings, coordinates and descriptions etc. I have actually reconstructed a lot of towers that are still existing or have existed. There is so much material I can build a whole exhibition around it. A lot of this I will show during the final exams. The end results are silver tablespoons, which is just one form the towers can have. For me, there is a whole world behind them.