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.