At the 'gate' of the Noordoostpolderder, on the A6 near the Ketelbrug bridge, the 'Ketelhuisje', as it is popularly known, stands to remind visitors that they are entering the bottom of the sea. The little house depicts the special fact that the Noordoostpolder lies below sea level. The slants were deliberately made by the artists to make the house appear wafer-thin as you drive past it, as flat as a house in a child's drawing.
This cottage is not just any cottage, it was designed as a monumen...
At the 'gate' of the Noordoostpolderder, on the A6 near the Ketelbrug bridge, the 'Ketelhuisje', as it is popularly known, stands to remind visitors that they are entering the bottom of the sea. The little house depicts the special fact that the Noordoostpolder lies below sea level. The slants were deliberately made by the artists to make the house appear wafer-thin as you drive past it, as flat as a house in a child's drawing.
This cottage is not just any cottage, it was designed as a monument to the Noordoostpolder. It commemorates the struggle to turn the sea into land. The 12-metre-high cottage is made of about 30,000 red bricks that continue up to the pointed roof and chimney. Some of the bricks have been sawn for the sharp and obtuse corners. The brickwork is grouted in the same colour as the bricks.
From the chimney comes a plume of aluminium smoke, also brick-coloured, which imperceptibly turns into waves on which a ship is sailing. Smoke plume and waves together form a weather vane that turns on its axis with the wind. The artists, Frank Bolink and Gerard Koopman from Enschede, have the ship sail into the former sea level, against the current and the wind. This is in line with the view that making land from the sea actually goes against the laws of nature.
Source and more information: Flevoland Heritage
