Nolet Distillery

Nolet Distillery is the only distillery still surviving and still producing, close to the centre of Schiedam, on the Buitenhaven. Due to the great American success of the Vodka produced by the company, it became essential to extend and modernise the factory. The traditional production process in the original distillery has great publicity value, it was therefore decided to rebuild, renovate and extend the multiform factory complex, comprising buildings dating from the 17th century through to the 1990s at the existing location, to now include a bottling and shipping hall, a traditional mill with visitor facilities, a cocktail bar and a logistics centre on the other side of the harbour, connected by a tunnel. The mill is a replica of a Schiedam tower mill; its modern wind turbine generates electricity for the modernised factory.
The assignment comprised the inclusion of the factory complex within the small-scale, historic context with strict demands with regard to functionality, safety and the environment. The museum aspect is interwoven here, in which the propagation of authenticity by the company extends further than the historical aspect alone.
A collage has been formed as a response, with various buildings and building sections which react to the inner city scale and which are forged to form a whole with a jetty along the harbour front and an internal visitor route with glass staircases and walkways. The route begins at the reception desk in the middle of the shipping hall and runs through the bottling unit, the penthouse with cocktail bar, the cooperage and the herb attic, to the visitor centre in the mill.
The architectonic measures keep an exciting balance between diversity and unity, old and new, horizontal and vertical, large and small, open and closed. And so the complex lends content to its paradoxical role with regard to the scale and history in the context of old Schiedam.