4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam

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IABR and NAI on the Future of the City
The main exhibition at the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, Open City: Designing Coexistence, is the product of an intense collaboration between the IABR and the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI), and represents the heart of the 4th IABR. Both organizations are working together on the scheduling and organization of the Open City Event Program, a continuous program featuring lectures, film screenings, debates, presentations, workshops, conferences, and tours, which will be held at the NAI throughout the duration of the Biennale.

George Brugmans, Director of the IABR: “Architecture is about more than just architecture alone, and the IABR and the NAI see eye to eye when it comes to this important observation." The IABR and the NAI both emphasize the need for renewed political and social engagement with the future of our cities. Both parties aim to make a contribution to achieving this goal by bringing architecture and urban development to the attention of the largest possible audience in ways that continue to vary. For Ole Bouman, Director of the NAI, this is why this partnership is “a prelude to a sustainable relationship in which the NAI can also serve as the main location for future biennales.”

The Main Exhibition: Open City: Designing Coexistence
Construction of a new bridge between the street and the main exhibition gallery started this week. When visitors arrive, they enter a dynamic public forum. A large-scale walk-through model of the Open City is being built in this area, where introductory exhibitions and public activities will be held. This Forum, with its multiplicity of events and programs, is how the curator Kees Christiaanse seeks to express the themes of Open City for visitors. The Forum also houses the bookstore, the café, a VPRO multi-media archive, and The Hood—a flexible cinema and workshop space. It links to the six sub-exhibitions that infiltrate the NAI: a series of studies and proposals for six contemporary urban situations, each of which sheds light on the Open City: Designing Coexistence theme, from a different perspective.

Open City Event Program
For 12 consecutive weeks, the Forum will be the arena for the Open City Event Program. The program is organized as 12 thematic “clusters” of activities featuring lectures, documentary films, workshops, conferences, book launches, guided tours and excursions, and an “Open Podium”—a platform for interdisciplinary performances, presentations, and debates hosted each week by a different local “ambassador.” The cluster-topics include both Open City sub-themes—Maakbaarheid (“Makeability”) Refuge, Reciprocity, Community, Squat, and Collective—and other subjects related to the Open City such as Connectivity, Fear, Migration, Access, and Source, about Jane Jacobs and the origins of the Open City concept.The NAI’s regular lecture schedule is integrated with the Event Program. The list of speakers includes Kees Christiaanse, Lars Lerup, Eyal Weizman, Abdou Maliq Simone, Robert Neuwirth, Saskia Sassen, and others.

In addition to the main exhibition in the NAI, two other exhibitions will be part of the 4th IABR: the school exhibition Parallel Cases//IABR@RDM at the RDM campus in Heijplaat, in the Rotterdam harbor area, in cooperation with the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Design and the IHS/Erasmus University; and the Free State of Amsterdam in the former Shell cafeteria at the Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam, where the City of Amsterdam, Physical Planning Department will present nine urban development firms’ visions of the future of Amsterdam.
Starting on 13 September, together with the IABR, the Dutch broadcaster VPRO will present an extensive program on the city across television, radio, the Internet and in the guide entitled Urban Century. Running parallel to the 4th IABR, from the end of September to the end of December, a comprehensive Partner Program will be held in Rotterdam as well as Amsterdam.


The International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) is an international urban research biennale founded in 2001 on the conviction that architecture is a public concern. It is an international event of exhibitions, conferences, lectures and other activities devoted to themes in the field of architecture and urban development. The 4th IABR will be held from September 24, 2009 to January 10, 2010 in Rotterdam, and this year’s edition will also include activities in Amsterdam. The 4th IABR’s central location is the NAI. The theme this year is Open City: Designing Coexistence and the curator is the Dutch architect and urbanist Kees Christiaanse, a professor affiliated with the ETH Zürich, and founding partner of KCAP Rotterdam. During the 4th IABR, a comprehensive program will be held at the NAI, which will include debates, lectures, theatre performances and film screenings. The director of the IABR is George Brugmans.

The Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) is an architectural museum/institute in Rotterdam and fulfills the functions of Archive, Museum, Library and Cultural podium, all in one location. The NAI stores important architectural archives and collections from Dutch architects dating from 1800 to the present, and makes them accessible to the public. The institute offers facilities for research and a platform for discussion. Through exhibitions and publications, the NAI aims to inform, inspire and stimulate professionals and the general public. Since 1993, the museum has been located in a building designed by the architect Jo Coenen. Ole Bouman is the director of the NAI.

Event location:

NAI Netherlands Architecture Institute
Museumpark 25
- NL-3015 CB Rotterdam

→ Show address in Google Maps

Opening times:

Tuesday - Saturday / 10a.m. - 5p.m.

Phone:

0031 10/ 4401200

Fax:

0031 10/ 4366975

Contact e-mail:

press@iabr.nl

More information:

http://www.iabr.nl/EN/

Categories:

Exhibition | Reading / Lecture | Presentation | Broadcasting