This work is part of the solo exhibition ‘The sound of night falling in the other room’ by Bart Lunenburg. The project weaves together diverse European timber traditions and hidden wooden constructions in contemporary cityscapes.
One of the series on view is Oever (2025-26) in which Lunenburg examines the accumulation of building layers underneath the houses in Amsterdam's oldest streets. These originally medieval wooden houses had to be demolished and rebuilt over time, because they sank into the marshy peat. The foundations of one house remained to serve as a support for the next and - together with millions of wooden stilts - they are still forming the foundations for daily life in the city. The intertwined structures of oakwood in this series form a sculptural interpretation of the first medieval wooden houses on the banks of the Amstel River, and are a testimony to these many ‘houses in houses’ that Amsterdam buildings carry within themselves.
In his recent research project Lunenburg followed the waters of the Amstel river all the way upstream. Through the historical phenomenon of the ‘Rheinflößerei’ or ‘Holländerfloße’ (the timber trade network dating from the late Middle Ages, in which hundreds of meters of long wooden rafts supplied various Dutch cities with wood via the rivers) he draws connections between the construction of Amsterdam's historic city centre to his recent artist-in-residency at Weilermattes in the German countryside. In the photoseries Nocturnes (2026), created during his residency, models and sculptures built by the artist merge into the theatrical darkness of the vernacular architecture in the rural Rhineland-Pfaltz. A vanished staircase, a burnt roof, a deep blue hue hidden under a thick layer of lime, the shadow of one ladder over another. The series artistically explores local carpentry traditions, the changing uses of the rural landscape, and rituals surrounding German timber architecture.
By weaving together building traditions, symbols, and ecological elements from both rural and urban history, in the city of Amsterdam and in forested areas of Europe, Lunenburg aims to demonstrate the diversity of origins among its inhabitants and the materials used in the city's construction.
On the occasion of his solo exhibition, the new research publication Drijfwoud (Driftwoods) (published by Soft concern hard concern, 2026) is launched, featuring an essay by Lunenburg, reference materials, and new works.