[想想建築] Open City: Designing Coexistence

4th International
Architecture Biennale
Rotterdam

Open City: Designing Coexistence
24 September 2009 - 10 January 2010
http://www.iabr.nl

淡江建築最近很猛，前幾天在阿基菲爾德上有淡江與中原的討論，最後淡江勝出。
而今年鹿特丹建築雙年展，淡江建築也有兩組入選，聽起來好像真的很不賴。

這是昨天的新消息，但說不定已經是舊聞。據說今年的鹿特丹建築雙年展，淡江建築有兩組入選，一是康旻杰，以他帶的碩士班研究生論文送件，另一則是曹羅羿，以大四設計課的北投社區改建案送件，但我其實兩者都沒看過，只是被老闆告知，還蠻想去找來看看的。但現在最想看的是陳組的大四設計課，做衣服耶，設計要求聽起來超有趣，很期待看到期末評圖。

4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) –
Open City : Designing Coexistence

The 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam will take place
from 24 September 2009 through 10 January 2010. The theme ‘Open City:
Designing Coexistence’ is being developed by curator Kees
Christiaanse and his team at the ETH Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology Zurich.

Open City: Designing Coexistence
How can architects and urbanists stimulate social, cultural, and
economic coexistence? Open City: Designing Coexistence, the 4th
International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, is exploring,
documenting, and designing strategies for coexistence in today’s
cities.

The Open City is an urban condition that enables diverse groups to
interact peacefully, creatively, and productively. But the Open City
is not a ’soup’; it is a finely tuned integration machine that
encourages distinct communities and groups to settle and establish
the dynamic relationships that we call urbanity.

Today, the very diversity that once activated our cities threatens to
dissolve them: cities are turning into archipelagos; public
infrastructures are splintering; and public spaces are being left to
wither. Differences between rich and poor, conflicts among ethnic
groups, and the proliferation of gated communities and security zones
are some of the symptoms that point to the urgent need to re-address
the idea of Open City and translate it into concrete intervention
strategies.

In order to be sustained in the face of today’s urban challenges, the
Open City must be researched and (re)designed. This is the task of the
4th IABR.

Six themes
The curators have selected six international teams of experts to work
on six situations in which geographical, spatial, typological and
socio-cultural conditions reveal the most pertinent qualities and
potentials of Open City. The results of their work will be exhibited
and discussed extensively during the 4th IABR in the NAI.

The six themes and sub-curators are:
1. Community (USA): Interboro, New York.
2. Collective (Russia): Bart Goldhoorn, Alexander Sverdlov with Anna
Bronovitskaya / Project Russia.
3. Refuge (Istanbul, Beirut, Amman, Cairo, Dubai): Philipp Misselwitz
and Can Altay, Istanbul.
4. Squat (Addis Ababa, Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro): Jörg Stollmann
and Rainer Hehl Berlin/Zurich
5. Reciprocity (Jakarta): Stephen Cairns and Daliana Suryawinata,
Edinburg/Rotterdam
6.The Maakbare Samenleving/The Make-able Society (Rotterdam): Crimson
Architectural Historians, Rotterdam.

Other events
Besides the main exhibition, hosted by the Netherlands Architecture
Institute, programmes are being developed in other venues in
Rotterdam and in Amsterdam, and with VPRO, the Dutch national
broadcaster. Parallel Cases // IABR@RDM is a collaboration with the
Academy for Architecture and Urban Design Rotterdam and the
IHS/Erasmus University, and will show designs and research projects
related to the themes Squat, Community, Refuge, Collective and
Reciprocity, from international schools and universities.

Kees Christiaanse, curator
Kees Christiaanse (1953) is known as one of today’s most significant
practicing architects and urban designers. He was a partner at OMA
Rotterdam and founded KCAP Architects & Planners in 1989, with
offices in Rotterdam and Zurich. Since 2003 he has been head of the
Institute for Urban Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology in Zurich and a visiting professor at the London School of
Economics. He is actively involved in concrete urban projects, such as
the development of docklands in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Hamburg, and
is designing an “urban breeding ground” in London for the Olympic
Legacy Masterplan. He is conceiving the program of this biennale with
co-curator Tim Rieniets and his team in Zurich, the sub-curators
mentioned above, and the IABR staff in Rotterdam directed by George
Brugmans.

The IABR brochure Exploring Urban Futures provides extensive
background information on the 4th IABR. To order a copy, please send
an e-mail to info@iabr.nl stating your name, organization and full
address, and mentioning brochure as subject.

For more information, please contact Xandra Nibbeling at the IABR
press office: +31 10 206 00 33, xnibbeling@iabr.nl, or visit website.