Maurice Nio, The storyteller. Our Storyteller.
The meaning of create is to give life, to animate, infuse life or energy into something.
That was what Maurice did.
He would tell you a story and create something from it. The less obvious one.
Composing 2 complete unrelated things into one, and creating something extraordinary.
- The ICEcube Data Center! A melting IceCube that becomes a Data Center
- The touch of Evil! A tunnel that receives an inhuman form of life, for an alien, disoriented experience
- The Hulk. The Green beetle that becomes a waste incineration plant.
- The mask. Initially, it was one. The patient mask. The mask that reminded him during the radiation treatment “Keep your head still and cool, it will all work out. Be patient.”
Later, the mask would become 10.
10 Golden Masks with one thing in common:
All of them covers the eyes.
So, you need the other senses to experience the space around you.
Slowly, Truly, deeply.
Just like him.
An explosion of emotions, ambiguities, conflicts that, as an artist, he expressed in art, words, architecture.
From Spinoza’s book Ethics, he named each mask an emotion:
Humility
Cruelty
Pride
Hatred
Fearlessness
Compassion
Ambition
Indignation
Finally,
- The horse! In this case a dark one. The final bed before the grave, before the ultimate one. The bed where you dream of becoming something impossible, like a horse.
Maurice, the storyteller. A unique architect, artist, poet, mentor. Was a pioneer in architecture and a connector of disciplines.
Personally, speaking and on behalf of Nio architecten team, be inspired and mentored by Maurice transformed our way of thinking and the way we see architecture.
We learned with him to have a closer relationship with our designs, we learned that we must give them meaning, and create a story for them. A story in which each one of us is part, each one of us must put in our ambiguities, emotions, our madness.
It is intimate.
We will never thank you enough Maurice.
On 11.07.2023, in the book of NIO architecten, one story has come to an end, but as in a great book, the best chapter resonates through it, all way alone.
And it will always be alive. Because the story is Infinite. Exactly as he wanted to be.
“In a beat, time bends
The tiger brokes free”