By early Friday morning the Dutch fans were gathering at the entrance to OUR PAVILION for the festive opening of the Dutch entry.

Under the motto Private City / Public Home, an interdisciplinary team headed by NAI director KRISTIN FEIREISS and including NL-Architects, One Architecture, rongWrong, NAI, Dumoffice and many others, have transformed Gerrit Rietveld's late modernist gem into an INTIMATE LOUNGE. Here visitors are tempted to plunge into a soothing, protected world, and are then confronted by questions about the relationship between the private and public domains.

The Italian climate mellows the soul - or perhaps it was just this year's theme. Not a harsh word was uttered and everybody was pleasant and friendly to one another. The ever-relaxed KRISTIN FEIREISS embraced the inspired MASSIMILANO FUKSAS. The Italian had a busy programme that afternoon, hurrying from one national pavilion to the next, but he still found time for an extended visit to OUR pavilion.

After the customary introductions and a tableau de la troupe of all who worked on the pavilion, KRISTIN waved the visitors into the NL-LOUNGE, but not before she had taken time to recommend to everyone the beautiful VASE - designed and presented to her by NL-ARCHITECTS. (The VASE is on sale in the shop at the MOMA in New York.)

In the meantime the grounds were getting pretty crowded and the copious supplies of Prosecco were soon gone. But that didnÕt deter the two architects representing the Netherlands in the main pavilion, their high-spirits remaining intact: on the left a roguish-looking KAS OOSTERHUIS and his charming wife and design partner ILONA LENARD; on the right a good-humoured LARS SPUIBROEK and wife JOKE BROUWER, always on for a laugh.

In the lounge itself, the beds, sponsored by Dutch company AUPING, were never empty for a moment. On the left the pregnant SOFIA, ArchiNed's latest society diva; on the right brother and sister MARIO and MARIA, two Italian NL admirers who weren't to be shifted from the beds. They confided that they'd never stretched out on such comfy beds before. AUPING would seem to have discovered a new marketing opportunity here.

For four months the lounge will be tended by a number of LOUNGE KEEPERS (hosts, hostesses and bouncers). A tired-looking Forum editor HERMAN VERKERK - together with RIANNE MAKKINK and JOP VAN BENNEKOM responsible for the NL Lounge Manual De-Fence - clearly has to make the role his own, but then again it was an exhausting week.

Party animals ASHOK BHALOTRA and CEES DAM enjoy a beer on the PARDISO terrace (recommended) before heading off to the festive NL reception at a secret Palazzo on the Canal Grande (more about this soon).

Quote of the day, passed on by a journalist who shall remain anonymous: visitors were requested to remove their shoes on entering the lounge, but CEES DAM refused with the apparently immortal words "I'd rather take off my trousers than my Gucci loafers".