February 6, 2003
Press release
International Architecture Biennial Rotterdam presents the
theme: 'Mobility: a room with a view'
From May 7 - June 7, 2003 Rotterdam will host the first
International Architecture Biennial, a large-scale architectural conference
to be held every two years in Rotterdam. Kristin Feireiss, former director
of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, instigated (promosse) the
project in 1999. Feireiss' vision of the Architecture Biennial Rotterdam
was an ambitious one, foreseeing a unique platform in Europe where architects,
urban planners, landscape designers, students, filmmakers and photographers
from around the world would converge to present their plans and visions
regarding a specific theme to a broad (largo) public. Once the concept
of 'mobility' had been chosen as the central theme of the first Biennial,
the board of directors appointed Francine Houben curator of the event.
Houben (of the Mecanoo architecture firm and professor at the Delft
University of Technology) had previously, in the debate preceding the
fifth government white paper on environmental planning, taken a stand
against corridor forming, stressing the importance of the motorway as
a public space and the significant consequences of mobility for urban
as well as rural planning.
Architecture Biennial Rotterdam as a laboratory
In support of her stance against corridor forming, Houben instigated
a study of the status and condition of the Dutch motorway landscape
under the title 'Holland Avenue'. The Biennial offers an excellent chance
to expand this pioneering study, which has sparked interest worldwide,
to include an impressive array of metropolitan areas: Los Angeles, the
Pearl River Delta, Jakarta, Mexico City, Tokyo, Budapest, the Ruhr region,
Beijing and Beirut. The confrontation induced by the study's results,
gathered from differing situations within a variety of cultural settings
- each with its own point of view regarding the importance and effects
of mobility - makes this first Biennial in fact a large-scale laboratory.
Instead of the customary exposition of a collection of ready-made plans,
the curator has opted for an event with a radically different orientation.
The Architecture Biennial Rotterdam will resemble a journey of discovery,
a 'work in progress', a journey whose destination and results are not
determined beforehand, and one whose progress will be closely monitored
both during and after the event.
Mobility: a room with a view
Billions of people worldwide spend a good deal of their time in the
automobile, bus or train. In accordance with the universally valid principle
of the equivalence of travel time, a growing portion of the world's
population travels further every day, but in the same amount of time
as before. The effects of this vast expansion of the radius of activity
have caused road systems, freeways and rail networks throughout the
world to develop into a diversified 'mobility landscape' that not only
encroaches further and further on the available open space, but also
continually creates and re-creates both urban and rural landscapes.
Mobility has transformed the world and exerts significant influence
on our daily lives and on mankind's daily experience. The level of alienation
is, moreover, intensified by the fact that the world's largest public
space, where countless travellers can spend up to several hours every
day, appears to have been so sorely neglected. The network of roads
and motorways is largely an anonymous space, the domain of traffic experts
and politicians, where the input and expertise of designers is seldom
(raramente) utilized. The fact that mobility is not just about traffic
jams (blocchi) , asphalt and delays (ritardi), and that the traveller
sees the car and the train as more than simply a means of getting from
A to B, but also as 'a room with a view', seems to have escaped the
attention of governmental authorities. The central issue concerning
this first Architecture Biennial is to examine the development of the
'mobility landscape' that has emerged in the Netherlands and worldwide
in recent decades and to search for ways in which it can be influenced
and designed.
The Biennial offers a large number of exhibitions and programmes, each
of which will concentrate on one particular aspect of daily mobility.
For more information regarding the programme, please consult our web
site: www.biennalerotterdam.nl.
For more information and/or visual materials, please contact Tineke
van den Polder or Fraukje de Wreede: 010-4401331 or by e-mail: [email protected]
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Mobility:
a room with a view