Archive for August, 2007

The Future of European Urbanism?

ISUU Poster

The TU Delft Faculty of Architecture will soon host the 4th International Seminar on Urbanism and Urbanization, with professors from around the the world discussing the theme of: The European Tradition in Urbanism -and its Future. From the 24th to 26th September, many participants will be at the school addressing issues of permanence and change, and conformitites and differences within urban practices within both a European and non-European context.

The main speakers will be: Bernardo Secchi, Joaquim Sabate, Marcel Smets, Zdenek Zavrel, Heng Chye Kiang, Jurgen Rosemann, Christine Boyer and Han Meyer. This is mainly a conference for PhD students, other scientists, and professionals in the field of urbanism; and is jointly organized with KU Leuven, UPC Barcelona and IUAV Venice.

One of the main events will be a round table discussion concerning Urbanism after the Welfare State, and is probably quite important for contexts such as the Netherlands, which has over the past 10 years totally shifted public policy concerning the housing corporations. I know, it sounds quite dry, but this is urban planning-speak. I can imagine that the heart of the matter can be good content. As for the future of (European) Urbanism, the task of urbanists in general is to make the profession much more user-friendly, ugh.

Upcoming Events

abstract water photoworks 2007

abstract water (Philipp Geist, photoworks 2007)

The august break is over, and we’re back at drinking beers in galleries and openings instead of plain bars. We’ll rewire our cultural neurons starting tomorrow at the lecture at the NAI of José Oubrerie about his work with le Corbusier:

The architect José Oubrerie (72) worked for Le Corbusier from 1957 to 1965. In this lecture he will talk about his cooperation with Le Corbusier and in particular about one of his last works, the building of the church of ‘Saint Pierre’ in Firminy, France. This was a long-term project that was only brought to a final conclusion, under Oubrerie’s supervision, last year. “We never stopped fighting for the project,” José Oubrerie comments. “We came back to the work again and again, like an actor who must bring the same freshness to a play even at the 200th performance.”

This Saturday (1st Sep.) you’ll find us at the opening of Riverine, a media installation of my friend Philipp (aka Videogeist - check his website and beautiful work on flickr) from Berlin. The event is hosted by club 11 in Amsterdam, DJ Schege from Tied&Tickled Trio takes care of the music.

In his video-room installation ‘RIVERINE ZONES CONNECTED’, multimedia artist Philipp Geist displays video recordings and video stills from national and international rivers. Using underwater video cameras Geist has filmed the world beneath the surface. It is an attempt to get in touch with our immediate reality; an artistic examination about the ubiquitous element of water. Geist manages to show a part of our reality that is usually hidden from us.

The weekend after the Wereld van Witte de With festival starts featuring heroes as a theme.

Festival De Wereld van Witte de With is traditionally set in the second weekend of September: from Friday the 7th till Sunday the 9th of September 2007. For three days this arts-festival will show you the present art along the Witte de Withstraat and the Museumpark quarter during the opening of the cultural season.
Again you can watch and enjoy fine arts, theatre, photography, film, music, literature, dance, fashion, debate and performances. The festival offers a platform to art-institutions, city-dressers, art-galleries, artists and fashion initiatives to show their work in a different way to their new and existing audience.
In short, the festival is an unique interdisciplinary mixture of art forms, lifestyles and subcultures. Be surprised on the boundaries or similarities of the different disciplines.

And we’re already looking forward to the skyscraper weekend on the 20th to 22nd of September. Learn more about it and the upcoming artpark and the last days of Follydock in our Dysturb Calendar Section!

Al Manakh - A First Look

Al Manakh 01

Cover, photo: Darrel Ronald

Since first seeing the AMO Gulf Cities study presented at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale, most of us have been anxious to hear more about the region, and get an in-depth look at the economic processes at work. And so the wait is over with the release of Al Manakh, released throughout the Netherlands this past week, and is widely available, including at the NAi.

While the book was first released for the attendants at the May 2007 International Design Forum (IDF) conference in Dubai, it has been notoriously hard to get ahold of until now. The 495 page book was largely organised by Moutamarat, a recently-established private body that aims to “create business knowledge for the Arab world.”

Al Manakh serves as a barometer for the changes taking place in the region, and translated, the title means “the climate”. As Koolhaas writes in the opening, the book is a form of “critical participation”. But when he writes that “The Gulf is not just reconfiguring itself; it’s reconfiguring the world”, I find it hard to believe this is entirely special. Can we not say this about China? How about New York and London?

If you have already heard, both Koolhaas and Bouman will present the book at the NAi on September 10th at 20.00. If you haven’t reserved tickets yet, you are probably out-of-luck, since it has been sold out for some time. I don’t usually see scalpers at the doors either.

Continue reading ‘Al Manakh - A First Look’

Dutch Design Port!

AtelierVanLieshout-Workskull2005

Atelier van Lieshout - AVL - Workskull, 2oo5 (photo+copyright Atelier Van Lieshout commissioned for Lensvelt)

The Tent gallery has another promising exhibition opening next week, Dutch Design Port, that showcases Rotterdam design talent -we are such navel-gazers here. The exhibition was originally curated for the Milk Gallery in New York, including 10 Dutch Designers, and has now come back home from over the ocean.

Dutch Design Port will display the work of Jurgen Bey, Demakersvan, Simon Heijdens, Richard Hutten, Hella Jongerius, Chris Kabel, Joris Laarman, Atelier van Lieshout, Bertjan Pot and Wieki Somers. The Show runs from 7th September until the 28th October, 2007, and the opening night is also the 7th, at 18.00.

Photos from the Milk Gallery show, after party, and more can be found here.

UPDATE: We’ve added pictures from the event to our Photo Page!

Margreeth Olsthoorn’s New Men’s Shop

Margreeth Olsthoorn

Given that my favourite place to shop for Men’s clothes in Rotterdam is at Margreeth Olshoorn on Witte de Withstraat, it was great news to hear that they will launch a new men’s store down the street. It is to be much more than clothes, leaning towards lifestyle, and the launch party for all us Fantastic Men will be from 18.00 to 20.00 on September 6th, 2007, at #39 Witte de Withstraat. Please dress appropriately.

Random internet clippings

MVRDV Boijmans Extension

Boijmans van Beuningen Archive Extension (MVRDV)

Rotterdam’s top museum Boijmans van Beuningen gets a archive extension by MVRDV. I especially like the cross-section.

MVRDV Boijmans Extension

Boijmans van Beuningen Archive - Section (MVRDV)

Last week we pointed you to emerging architects and cities to go to, this week archinect interviewed offices about what they value in job applications. Useful. The shift to digital applications is remarkable, but it was about time.

Worth a visit is the recently launched site of REX, with a nice virtual tour through the Museum Plaza Project.

The former employer/partner of Prince-Ramus, Rem Koolhaas, will present the “Al Manakh” publication together with Ole Bouman at Rotterdam’s Nai on 10th of september at 8pm. Details in our calendar. If you can’t attend, you can as well watch your idol doing acrobatic stunts.

The Holcim Foundation started accepting entries for their sustainable construction awards. From their site:

The Holcim Awards competition is now open for entries and will close on February 29, 2008. The competition celebrates innovative, future-oriented and tangible sustainable construction projects from around the globe and provides prize money of USD 2 million per three-year competition cycle.

The Holcim Awards (main category) competition is open to projects at an advanced stage of design with a high probability of execution. To be eligible for entry, the project must not have commenced execution prior to June 1, 2007.

In addition, a “Next Generation” category is open for project visions at a conceptual level, early stage of design or with a low probability of execution. To be eligible for entry, the project author(s) must be less than 35 years of age at February 29, 2008. Please note there is no global phase of the competition for entrants in the “Next Generation” category.

Dank je wel

dot the world

Freckled Globe: recent dysturb visitors

Four months after launch, we welcome our visitors from all around the world. Thanks! And keep on spreading the word.
By the way, the big ball in South-East Europe is Bucharest. Why Bucharest? Only google analytics knows. Not long ago we knew each visitor by his name.

Marcel Kronenburg, Tongue-in-Cheek Artist

Inflatable Tongue

Inflatable Tongue (Marcel Kronenburg, 2004)

Be it a children’s playground, a flaming roundabout or the scaled up, upside-down toy-train tunnel in a park and former tip-site in Rotterdam: Kronenburg’s ironic public art hits our nerve.

Continue reading ‘Marcel Kronenburg, Tongue-in-Cheek Artist’

We ♥ Rankings

The German architecture portal baunetz.de has published their quarterly ranking of offices.

Their rankings are based on the number of publications in the past 24 months from a selection of architectural magazines (Bauwelt, Detail, Architectural Review, a+u, architektur.aktuell, L’architecture d’aujourd’hui, Werk Bauen und Wohnen, domus - a little bit germany-heavy, but that’s where baunetz comes from). The traditional top 3 order is H&M, OMA, Zaha. But this has been mixed up, OMA comes out on top, Zaha scores second and Herzog & DeMeuron come out third. Is this good - I doubt it. But does it matter? Not really.

London comes out on top as a city, with 14 practices among the top 100. Rotterdam features OMA, MVRDV and, interestingly Kempe Thill. See the list after the break.

Continue reading ‘We ♥ Rankings’

AIR Foundation Conference

On Thursday, 11 Oct 2007, the AIR (Architecture Institute Rotterdam) hosts a conference about the state of Rotterdam’s architecture in an international context. Three young panelists have been invited to review 25 buildings of the city.

Jaime Salazar :

Why can’t Rotterdam return to the forefront in applying imagination to design and production, and lay the ground work for a truly sustainable architecture?

Angelika Schnell:

No doubt Rotterdam’s wish is to be shameless, modern, radical and metropolitan – the ‘city of architecture’. But the reality is more modest, yet more complex.”

Michael Speaks :

Lloyd Quarter is the result of an approach to city development that treats architecture and the city more like products than producers.”

The Dutch Flyer after the break. Admission for the conference (13:00-18:00, De Doelen, Jurriaanse Zaal, Kruisplein 30, 3012 CC Rotterdam) is 175€, and a more friendly 20€ for students. Continue reading ‘AIR Foundation Conference’

Claudia Strahl at the TU Munich

I recently held a lecture at the TU MUNICH, Department for Landscape Architecture and Public Space, on the topic of public space in London, presenting some of the work at maxwan architects in Rotterdam. Here’s is an excerpt of it:

Cross River Park, UK

Cross River Park in its final stage

“Cross River Park in its final stage”

Continue reading ‘Claudia Strahl at the TU Munich’

Data Mines

Worldwide Prison Population Rate

Worldwide Prison Population Rate (manyeyes)

I am a sucker for data. I have collected some useful, some beautiful sources for demographic and political data I’d like to share. Let the statistics surprise you.
Continue reading ‘Data Mines’

documenta interview marathon

mini-marathon.jpg

german architecture & theory magazine arch+ put the first three videos or their interview marathon at the documenta online.

yes, its the same format as the serpentine gallery event and yes, its also Koolhaas and Obrist who are interviewing.
The first online videos are with Marie-Luise Scherer, former ‘der spiegel’ reporter (on journalism and writing), Karl Schloegel, historian (on bottom-up europe) and Thomas Schütte, sculptor (on his archi-scultures, life as an artist and many things more).

Unfortunately the interviews are almost completely in german. I didn’t know RK speaks such good german…

Looking forward for many more to come. The complete list should include:

Thomas Bayrle (*1937, Künstler, Frankfurt/Main)
Gottfried Böhm (*1920, Architekt, Köln)
Hannes Böhringer (*1948, Philosoph, Berlin/Braunschweig) Continue reading ‘documenta interview marathon’

A Home in the Sky

Red & Blue

home in the sky (photo: toms)

We’ve finally visited MVRDV’s Didden Village, a roof conversion project in the North of Rotterdam (see also our previous post “MVRDV’s first Rotterdammer“).

Continue reading ‘A Home in the Sky’

Dysturb de Cologne, Tag a Building

approved for destruction

“approved for destruction” dysturb sticker

Dysturb core member Claudia recently moved from Rotterdam to Cologne, to join ASTOC, KCAP’s partner office in Germany. We’ll miss you, CS!

The picture above is a sample of a couple of stickers we’ve commissioned. You’ll find them soon all over Rotterdam, tagging buildings: a city wide Gault Millau of Architecture.