Martijn Koen

THE HERBERG: GUEST OF TIME

In September of last year, the fryshop beneath the student home I had lived in for over four years was the target of two bombings. The explosions unsettled more than walls; they fractured my sense of belonging. Leaving became inevitable, yet the place that had carried my memories, habits, and daily rhythms left a lasting imprint. In the aftermath, I felt alienated, stripped of more than trust. This rupture marked the beginning of a process of rebuilding. 

This project emerges from the need to re-establish a meaningful relationship with the things that surround us: objects, places, and the built environments we inhabit daily. Have we lost the ability to dwell? Do we still allow ourselves to encounter the world?

The project is set in the historic Sint-Gillis Hospital in Wyck, Maastricht, a place of centuries-long care and healing. From this history arises the proposal of a herberg, a harbor for shared life. More than a place to eat or sleep, it is a space to dwell: with each other, with ourselves, and with the world. The Dutch word herberg, unlike its English counterpart inn, carries in its roots the sense of safekeeping (bergen: to bring to safety, to store away). For this reason, I keep my mother tongue. 

The herberg invites guests into slowness, resonating with the call to truly belong. Community here emerges gently through shared meals, conversations, and silence. The walls, steeped in time, do not merely shelter; they gather.

This project resists reducing things to commodities, instead considering their presence and ability to reveal our world. It challenges the logic of consumerism that hollows meaning in favor of speed and novelty. The herberg becomes a temporal gathering, an act of radical dwelling.

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