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6 Years Ago, I Designed A Huge Digital Mural For Rotterdam’s Markthal And It’s Still The Craziest Project In My Career
6 years ago, I got involved in the craziest roller coaster ride of my career so far. I was invited to a pitch for what was supposed to be the largest “mural” in the Netherlands. More specifically, the real estate developer Provast was looking for a design on the round ceiling, like the Sistene Chapel in Rome, in the market hall they were already building. The 40-meter-high Markthal Rotterdam was an uber-ambitious design by Winny Maas from MVRDV, the world-famous architectural bureau in Rotterdam.
9 artists were selected. I was kind of a wild card, but after 2 rounds of competition, I got the phone call of my life—they’d chosen my design! Then, the ride had begun: I signed a contract and had 3 months to complete the job, delivering a 2-soccer-fields-wide 150 dpi digital image. So I gathered a team of 3D experts and friends to help me out.
Everything was crazy and unknown: how do I render such a big image? Such a large image cannot even exist on its own. In the end, the team came up with a plan to render the image in 5 layers from 100 tiles, like a chessboard, on a render farm in New Zealand. I think it was built there for Lord of The Rings.
Anyway, we succeeded and the material was printed on 4,000 aluminum sheets that were mounted on the ceiling. After nearly a year, we could finally see the full result.Our team consisted of Iris Roskam, Michiel van Ieperen, Frank aan de Stegge, and Dustin Kershaw. Mothership Art produced it.
More info: arnocoenen.eu | Instagram
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With a total surface area of 11,000 square meters, “Horn of Plenty” is one of the largest works of art in the world
Image credits: Ossip van Duivenbode
The composition is dubbed “Sistine Chapel of Rotterdam”
Digital image depicts vegetables, fruits, animals, and architectural details, enhanced with special effects
Image credits: Ossip van Duivenbode
Image credits: Ossip van Duivenbode
Image credits: Ossip van Duivenbode
Image credits: Ossip van Duivenbode
Image credits: Ossip van Duivenbode
Image credits: Ossip van Duivenbode
Initial visualization
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What do you think ?
Piet Zwanenburg 5 years ago
I life in Rotterdam, and me and my wife visit the markthal pretty often for the great stores inside. We always enjoy your artwork a lot when having a coffee on one of the terraces inside.
Monika Soffronow 5 years ago
First, I need to find out what a "render farm" in New Zeland may be? To 'render' can mean "cover (stone or brick) with a coat of plaster" but a 'render farm' is a "group of networked computers devoted to rendering images, used typically in the production of computer-animated films". (As in "power costs for a render farm can run to millions of dollars a year"). And "Rendering or image synthesis is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as the render." I am a Dinosaur!
Monika Soffronow 5 years ago
By the way, stunning! What was the CO2 footprint of it, given the apparent power cost?
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Ron Stehouwer 5 years ago
When I lived in Rotterdam, I always liked the visuals of this building so much. Really great work, sometimes I was staring up more than looking at the people and traffic ahead of me
Sophie Greeff 5 years ago
We are travelling from UK to Netherlands next week and going to Rotterdam and can't wait to see you art work again, saw it 2 years ago and was one of the best things I have seen
Heike 5 years ago
Not my kind of style but I kudo the effort and the big scale. I am always feeling sorry for the people back at the printshops and the researchers which make such art possible. They hardly get any credit in person. Printing on dynamic alloy surfaces for example wasn't possible 10 years ago. Not to mention the developers of the software which allows for vector generated images and so on.
Oskar vanZandt 5 years ago (edited)
I have never been to Rotterdam, but now I have a landmark to go and have a look at along with the rest of the city. This is the kind of technology-enhanced art I can appreciate: both the concept and execution are fabulous.
Dorothy Parker 5 years ago
Dazzling. With so much beauty unavailable right now, and for who knows how long, this joyous visual cacophony fed my soul.
ZenitaBonita 5 years ago
Amazing work! The Markthallen are absolutely worth a visit, not just for the visuals, but also for the food :)
Gary Sansom 3 years ago
It's very beautiful yes! But, could it not have been done with digital projectors?
Daisy Ramaekers 5 years ago
Ik ben er geweest en boh wat mooi. Een cultuur genot. Leuk om je kinderen wat bij te leren en je zelf ook.
Oskar vanZandt 5 years ago
Not on, Colin Bayler. No need to insult Arno... sometimes the best thing to do is to keep your toxic opinions to yourself.
Load More Replies... Piet Zwanenburg 5 years ago
I life in Rotterdam, and me and my wife visit the markthal pretty often for the great stores inside. We always enjoy your artwork a lot when having a coffee on one of the terraces inside.
Monika Soffronow 5 years ago
First, I need to find out what a "render farm" in New Zeland may be? To 'render' can mean "cover (stone or brick) with a coat of plaster" but a 'render farm' is a "group of networked computers devoted to rendering images, used typically in the production of computer-animated films". (As in "power costs for a render farm can run to millions of dollars a year"). And "Rendering or image synthesis is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as the render." I am a Dinosaur!
Monika Soffronow 5 years ago
By the way, stunning! What was the CO2 footprint of it, given the apparent power cost?
Load More Replies... Ron Stehouwer 5 years ago
When I lived in Rotterdam, I always liked the visuals of this building so much. Really great work, sometimes I was staring up more than looking at the people and traffic ahead of me
Sophie Greeff 5 years ago
We are travelling from UK to Netherlands next week and going to Rotterdam and can't wait to see you art work again, saw it 2 years ago and was one of the best things I have seen
Heike 5 years ago
Not my kind of style but I kudo the effort and the big scale. I am always feeling sorry for the people back at the printshops and the researchers which make such art possible. They hardly get any credit in person. Printing on dynamic alloy surfaces for example wasn't possible 10 years ago. Not to mention the developers of the software which allows for vector generated images and so on.
Oskar vanZandt 5 years ago (edited)
I have never been to Rotterdam, but now I have a landmark to go and have a look at along with the rest of the city. This is the kind of technology-enhanced art I can appreciate: both the concept and execution are fabulous.
Dorothy Parker 5 years ago
Dazzling. With so much beauty unavailable right now, and for who knows how long, this joyous visual cacophony fed my soul.
ZenitaBonita 5 years ago
Amazing work! The Markthallen are absolutely worth a visit, not just for the visuals, but also for the food :)
Gary Sansom 3 years ago
It's very beautiful yes! But, could it not have been done with digital projectors?
Daisy Ramaekers 5 years ago
Ik ben er geweest en boh wat mooi. Een cultuur genot. Leuk om je kinderen wat bij te leren en je zelf ook.
Oskar vanZandt 5 years ago
Not on, Colin Bayler. No need to insult Arno... sometimes the best thing to do is to keep your toxic opinions to yourself.
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