Dutch Architecture’s 5 Euro Coin
Check out the winner of a competition to design a new 5 Euro commemorative coin, meant to celebrate the theme ‘Netherlands and Architecture’.
The winning coin, designed by Stani Michiels [using entirely open-source software], depicts an image of the Queen on the front [as is standard in the Netherlands], but her face i made up of the names of famous Dutch architects.
There are obviously just so many influential Dutch designers – how did he choose who fit on the coin? Check it out:
The tension between what is readable and what not, is also a metaphor how time shapes history. Some big names of the past, might be smaller names in the future and vice versa. To reflect this idea, I chose to order the architects not alphabetically or chronologically but in a new way: I used the internet as a seismograph and ordered the architects by the number of hits on the internet.
Of course this order changes over time and as such this is another time stamp on the coin besides the number ‘2008’. Only the first 109 architects fitted on the coin, so that was immediately the selection.
The back side of the coin depicts a collection of influential architecture books by Dutch architects / about Dutch architecture – all pointing inward on the coin to create a central void. This is both meant as an absraction of the a city skyline, and also to form a rough profile of the Netherlands. Pretty ill.
On the back side of the coin I treated the edge of the coin as a book shelve. The books rise as buildings towards the center. Through their careful placement they combine to outline the Netherlands, while birds’ silhouettes suggest the capitals of all the provinces.
From what I understand, 350,000 coins will be produced an entered into circulation – and there will be addition coins minted for collectors [larger silver and gold editions, I believe], and available at higher [than 5 Euros] prices.
Check out more info on the design process – from concept to the software used – over at the designer’s blog.
.: via SPE IDE – Stani’s Python Editor ->
Posted: November 7th, 2008
at 1:30am by orangemenace
Categories: architecture,my ninja, please,tech,featured ninjas,competitions,news
Comments: 1 comment
One Response to 'Dutch Architecture’s 5 Euro Coin'
Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to 'Dutch Architecture’s 5 Euro Coin'.
That is pretty ill. Is this the first 5 euro coin? are they actually going to circulate it or is it just one of those commemorative coins?
Scott
7 Nov 08 at 2:11 am