Archive for the 'rotterdam' Category

The Bouwkunde is Burning

Bouwkunde burn­ing today at (photo: Radio TV West)

This morn­ing the Fac­ulty of Archi­tec­ture of the Delft Uni­ver­sity of Tech­nol­ogy caught fire.
The build­ing was evac­u­ated imme­di­ately, there were no injured.

The prob­a­ble cause of the fire was a short-​circuiting in a coffee-​machine on the 6th floor of the north­ern wing of the build­ing, result­ing from water leak­age. The fire spread to the upper floors and later to the south­ern wing. Due to the height of the build­ing, the fierce­ness of the fire and pos­si­ble col­laps­ing of the build­ing fire­men had to retreat and con­tinue their work from the ground.

Accord­ing to the fire depart­ment the build­ing by Van den Broek and Bakema is to be con­sid­ered lost entirely and could even col­lapse due to severe damage done to it’s structure.

Images here (Nu.nl) and here (NOS.nl). Movies after the break.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘The Bouwkunde is Burning’

De Eenvoud – Simplicity

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This friday at 16:30 an inter­est­ing exhi­bi­tion opens @ the Casla in Almere. It will fea­ture the win­ning projects of the Een­voud Com­pe­ti­tion, the third edi­tion for an experimetal neigh­bour­hood in Almere. Its pre­de­ces­sors, “De Fantasie” and “De Realiteit”, ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Reality’ were held back in the eight­ies and their results are still worth an excur­sion. More infor­ma­tion on that below.

De Éénvoud” or ‘Simplicity ‘is the result of a com­pe­ti­tion held in 2006. The brief was to design a free­stand­ing and simple low-​cost house, express­ing their own wishes and ideas for dwelling. The win­ners got the pos­si­bil­ity to build their design on a beau­ti­ful open spot in the wood­land of Noorderplassen-​West.
Con­tinue read­ing ‘De Een­voud – Simplicity’

Get A Flag!

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June 11th the first Museum entirely ded­i­cated to Graphic Design will be opened by our Queen Beat­rix in Breda.
For the open­ing my friend Teun Castelein will make his graphic state­ment out of con­cieved con­tent from 250 par­tic­i­pants. Every­body is wel­come to design its own flag and mail it to flag@graphicdesignmuseum.com. All designs will be printed on unique flags and put against the build­ing. The result will be an explo­sion of infor­ma­tion. A colour­ful art piece at the old baroque build­ing of the super­mod­ern Graphic Design Museum.
Really a piece of art that makes people think about modern visual com­mu­ni­ca­tion, about the posi­tion of musea in the con­tem­po­rary image-​culture and the fact that every­body is a designer/ image-​maker nowa­days.
Con­tinue read­ing ‘Get A Flag!’

Berlage Institute: You Only Have Two More Weeks to Apply!

Berlage-0809

If you were think­ing of apply­ing to the Berlage Insti­tute for the 2008-2009 school year (PDF), well, hope­fully you’ve done it already. The dead­line is for appli­ca­tions is the 29th Feb­ru­ary, 2008. The prospec­tus is as good as usual, and if you’re new to Berlage-​Institute, it is the best place for post-​graduate study in the Netherlands.

Touw & Barayazarra Art Opening at the Duende

Duende Presents

Exhi­bi­tion Poster

Dutch artist Lies­beth Touw and Span­ish artist Zigor Barayazarra will exhibit their recent work at the Duende artist-​run stu­dios in Rot­ter­dam. Both artists have been work­ing at the studio in the artist’s res­i­dency pro­gram. The exhi­bi­tion open­ing runs between 19.00 and 22.00, Thurs­day the 20 Decem­ber at the Duende stu­dios (map).

King Rem Shovelling Sand

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SSE break­ing ground cer­e­mony ( © OMA)

That was quick: The Shen­zhen Stock Exchange has broken ground. OMA won the com­pe­ti­tion just a year ago, now has moved a team of archi­tects to Shen­zen and starts building.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘King Rem Shov­el­ling Sand’

Berlage Lecture Series

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The Cult of Celebrity: Super­star Archi­tects in the Acad­emy debate with George Baird, Thom Mayne and Mark Wigley, mod­er­ated by Vedran Mimica, 17 April 2007

I just got news about the Berlage Institute’s lec­ture series this term. It’s start­ing rather late, but as always impresses with a highly pro­filed list of speak­ers. It’s the pat­tern we all know and love: A few well known names mixed with a bunch of people maybe less known but def­i­nitely worth noticing.

Here’s the details:
Con­tinue read­ing ‘Berlage Lec­ture Series’

Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam

erection of the euromast tower

Erec­tion of the Euro­mast, designed by Huig Maaskant

Since the fog is hold­ing Rot­ter­dam hostage since a few days (my won­der­ful theory burst into pieces…) you’ll be happy to hear that next week­end (Oct. 11th to 14th) we’ll have the archi­tec­tur film fes­ti­val in town.

Reser­va­tions are pos­si­ble since a few days so get to the phone (010) 411 5300 and make sure you get to see a few delicacies.

Our pre­lim­i­nary tips would be:
Con­tinue read­ing ‘Architecture Film Fes­ti­val Rotterdam’

Rotterdam’s Skyscrapers

For those who’ve missed the recent day of open doors, here are views from some of the high­est of Rotterdam’s rooftops (all cour­tesy of dak​van​rot​ter​dam.nl, © 2006 – Roelof de Vries). Click on the images to get started (quick­time required, ctrl and shift to zoom). The overview map and more panoramic views can be found here.

Looking Back: Biennale Power Talk Lectures

For those who have missed the Power talk lec­tures held during the Rot­ter­dam Bien­nale of Archi­tec­ture, the TV chan­nel ‘Holland Doc’ has shot some of them and made them avail­able for watch­ing (Win­dows Media Player or Real Player required):

Power Vision

Winy Maas @ Power Lounge

Power Vision: Winy Maas en Indisem (Power Talk 31 may 2007)
Urban future and the power of the archi­tect. Watch

Power of Urban Design

Peter Bishop @ Power Lounge

The Power of Urban Design – from London to Almere (Power Talk 1 june 2007)
Pre­sen­ta­tions by Peter Bishop, Ken Liv­ing­stone and Adri Dui­jvesteijn. Fol­lowed by a dis­cus­sion with Ole Bouman (head of the Ned­er­lands Archi­tec­tuur Insti­tuut) Watch

Hype Power

Keller East­er­ling @ Power Lounge

Hyper Power: Keller East­er­ling about Dubai (Lec­ture)
Keller East­er­ling (Yale Uni­ver­sity School of Archi­tec­ture): Is Duba the pro­to­type of the city of the 21st cen­tury? Watch

Fear and the City

Arjun Appadu­rai @ Power Lounge

Fear in the City: Arjun Appadu­rai (Lec­ture 6 june 2007)
Arjun Appadu­rai (New School New York): What are the con­se­quences of global urban­i­sa­tion, migra­tion and fear and uncer­tainty of today’s city dwellers? Watch

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Looking Back: Bien­nale Power Talk Lectures’

Kees Christiaanse appointed Curator of next Biennale

Kees Christiaanse

Kees Chris­ti­aanse at my diploma pre­sen­ta­tion (photo: Robert Ost­mann, 2003)

The Inter­na­tional Archi­tec­ture Bien­nale Rot­ter­dam announced today that Kees Chris­ti­aanse (KCAP) has been appointed as the cura­tor of the next Rot­ter­dam Bien­nale of Archi­tec­ture in 2009. The early appoint­ment hope­fully avoids the organ­i­sa­tional prob­lems which accom­pa­nied this years’s bien­nale. In spite of these prob­lems and the smaller size of the bien­nale this year (due to fund­ing prob­lems), the press release men­tions a 30% increase of vis­i­tors from 2005′s bien­nale, paint­ing an opti­mistic pic­ture for acquir­ing funds for the 2009 bien­nale. The press release: Con­tinue read­ing ‘Kees Chris­ti­aanse appointed Cura­tor of next Biennale’

Competition: van Nelle & Spangen

Spangen Aerial

Span­gen Aerial

Sticht­ing Spang­maker announced a small open com­pe­ti­tion to link the Rot­ter­dam neigh­bour­hood of Span­gen better to the van Nelle ‘Design Factory’ (a gem of mod­ernism, worth a closer look anyhow!). 1st prize: 10.000€, dead­line 18th october.

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!

Dutch Design Port!

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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.

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’

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’