Former Technology Base transformer building becomes art gallery

24 maart 2022

Technology Base

Jeroen Diepemaat, chairman of the Technology Base board and alderman for culture, handed over the key to the former Trafo building on Bergweg to the Foundation from Urinal to Gallery. The building was owned by the Technology Base Joint Arrangement, the organisation that in 2010 bought the airbase and surrounding army camps from the state to transform. The small building on Bergweg had been functionless for some time. The little transformer house was built in the winter of 1940/1941 in the same architectural style as the original buildings at Prince Bernhard Park. Although it has no listed or protected status, Technology Base feels it is important to preserve the building from the perspective of sustainability, reuse and cultural history.

Jeroen Diepemaat is impressed by the authenticity and beautiful location of the building and the Foundation's plans: ‘Although it was a purely functional building, as part of camouflage it was built in the same farmhouse style as the other historical buildings on the former German Fliegerhorst. I am delighted that the building will be preserved and given such a beautiful, appropriate use by the Foundation.’

Joep van Aaken, development manager Technology Base is also very happy that a new owner has been found with the Foundation van Urinoir tot Galerie from Lonneker: ‘On the grounds of the former airbase there are more cultural-historical objects of this kind to be found and this transformer building is therefore one of the many objects we have saved from demolition in recent years by finding a new steward for it. For example, another former transformer building - now set up as a bat habitat - on Lonnekerberg has been transferred to Landschap Overijssel. In the EHS nature reserve, several objects have been given a new function, such as the two former fuel storage tanks that have been cut open and now serve as bird viewing points.’

Art and culture route ‘Landscape as memory’

Peter van Roosmalen on behalf of the Van Urinoir Tot Galerie Foundation and chairman of the Art Committee of the KunstenLandschap Lonneker Foundation, explained the plans in more detail:
‘The intention is to transform the Trafo building into a diorama exhibition space, where changing exhibitions will take place.’

Management and operation of the little building will be in the hands of the From Urinal To Gallery Foundation. It is planned to create three exhibition spaces in the Trafo building where various artists can exhibit for a certain period of time. For the renovation, the foundation contacted architect Hein Jan Geerdink of Bauing. He made a design that will create more views and light in the exhibition space. The Van Urinoir Tot Galerie foundation is currently in the process of raising funds for the renovation.

It is the Gallery's intention to include the Trafo building in the permanent art and culture route put together by the KunstenLandschap Foundation. The art and culture route ‘Landscape as Memory’ runs from the village square in Lonneker through the beautiful coulisse landscape around Lonneker.

The route is about 10 kilometres and can be visited either by bicycle or on foot. Included along the art route are other remnants of the former Twenthe Air Base, so the transformer building as an art gallery and viewing box is a special and very fitting addition to this route.