OLFACTORY

A scent can be unexpected, momentary, and fleeting, yet conjure up a strong and clear memory of summer on a campsite in a pine forest, or evoke stimulation of brain activity to an unclear but emotional memory. Scents might evoke a remembrance of home, a voluptuous desire for your partner, or a yearning for your grandmother’s sweet vanilla cake. Science approves: nothing is more memorable than scents. Scents detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines, hidden under the weedy mass of many years and experiences.  Hit a tripwire of smell, and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth. Scents come and go. They flow into your olfactory. Intangibly, there is no clearly defined beginning or end to smelling something. It is rather a gradient or a smooth transition.

Olfactory is an embodiment of the intangible, smooth nature of scents. Spaces come and go, almost unnotably. Walls and floors guide you flowingly. Transitioning from indoor to outdoor gradually and without a clear notion. Spiraling seemingly infinite through slight disorientation in a kaleidoscope of space. Guided unforcefully, you’ll explore what smell looks like.

From the city centre or the Phoenixstraat, Olfactory gradually appears through trees, buildings and other obstacles, but will form a clear iconic landmark for the city of Delft from every corner. While the entrance is not visible from the outside, the way in is a clear mark folding open to its visitors. Walking into the monumentally towering walls, the outer world, and all its buzz fade away. Entering the world of scents, a strong dynamic composition of reflective planes, diverging daylight through space, will leave you bewondered. Gradually entering the warm ambiance of wood, to destimulate your other senses, focussing on scents. The Agneta and Jacques van Marken exposition critically elaborates on the valoring, socialist past of the couple, and sets the foundation of the scent and perfume exhibitions and experience. Hereafter you’ll enter the heart of Olfactory, a in mist hidden patio garden, keeping its greatest gem, the shimmering oval-shaped boll, keeping the auditorium and scent experience.

As sprouting mushrooms or frozen flames, the facade balances between solidly landing and swiftly floating on the soil. The timber construction and aluminium cladding is not only inspired by the pre-modernistic aviation techniques of airplanes such as the Uiver or the Mustang, but the cladding actually consists of recycled raw oxidised airplane panels, adding another story to an otherwise left-unused material.

The contemporary prefabricated construction meets the traditional delicacy of carpenters’ work, embodying a symbiosis between state of art technology and craftsmanship. Olfactory sincerely flaunts its true tectonics, making you peek inside the often hidden construction.