Table Reveal
Table made out of prison bars and glass panel.
The demolished prison, colloquially called Bijlmer Bajes, was designed in the 1970s as a humanistic prison. The architecture of the building is representative of a different mentality towards penitentiary institutions: a more optimistic approach of re-education rather than just a punitive function. This resonates especially in the presence of the gym, and in the prison bars shaped as sun protection - which were added later when the windows without bars proved to be too susceptible to break-outs. The original modernist design by architects Pot-Keegstra did not include bars in front of the windows, emanating the idea to help people recover in a ‘hotel' rather than lock them up.
Table Reveal is a direct reference to the optimistic idea held in the absence of prison bars when the Bijlmer Bajes was first constructed. By removing the inner bars from the frame, and using a glass table surface, we capture the essence of this principle.
Dimensions
Width: 1445 mm
Length: 1330 mm
Height: 450 mm