Earthy mix

摘要

Anne Holtrop does not think the coronavirus vaccination programme will be the world's saviour. The Dutch architect lives in the Persian Gulf island of Bahrain, where around 700,000 of its 1.6 million inhabitants have already been vaccinated; Holtrop has had his second dose. Yet despite this, cases are higher than ever. Towards the middle of April, Worldometer was showing new infections as 'at peak and rising' with a three-day moving average of 1,038 new cases per day, outstripping the previous peak of around 800. Holtrop has fully spent the past year here because of this, which is unusual as the solid heat of summer means those than can tend to adjourn elsewhere for the season. Following 18 years in Amsterdam, Holtrop moved to Bahrain in 2014 after winning the competition to design the country's pavilion for the Milan Expo. During that project he met his now wife Noura Al Sayeh Holtrop, a Palestinian who was involved in commissioning the pavilion on behalf of Bahrain's Ministry of Culture. 'Bahrain draws people longer than they think they will stay here,' he explains. He is still happy living there; the island's material context is a source of inspiration for him. It is earthy: mud, clay and heat. Every job he gets in the region is an experiment with those things, each developing on the last. It all takes place in his open-air courtyard studio protected by huge awnings.