Post Box for the Open Society
Online platform for the exchange of ideas and designs on the subject of the open society
Open: A Bakema Celebration
The Dutch entry to La Biennale di Venezia’s 14th International Architectural Exhibition
Posts
Entry: Monday, August 18, 2014
Title: [ jogos de rua ]
Submitted by:
Luísa Alpalhão
Country:
Portugal / UK
Category:
Public space
[ jogos de rua ] was one of the winning projects of the programme BIP/ZIP 2012 launched by Lisbon’s City Hall (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa). It consisted of a collective design and making of 8 themed mobile playground units that would appropriate the empty or run-down spaces of PRODAC, a social housing neighbourhood at the east edge of Lisbon.
Comments: [0]
Entry: Monday, August 18, 2014
Title: [ a linha ]
Submitted by:
atelier urban nomads | Luísa Alpalhão
Country:
Portugal / UK
Category:
Public space
[a linha] was one of the winning projects of the programme BIP/ZIP 2012 launched by Lisbon’s City Hall (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa). It consisted of 4 routes through Alfama, one of the historical neighbourhoods in Lisbon with an aging population and a run-down building stock. The routes marked 25 neglected spaces in the neighbourhood which then adopted the colours of the 4 lines - green, red , blue & yellow - depending on the programme that would inhabit them (green spaces, cultural events, business related spaces and play and sports). Those should allow local residents and visitors to navigate through Alfama in a more pro-active way engaging with those (formerly) run-down spaces.
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Entry: Thursday, May 28, 1964
Submitted by:
Jaap Bakema Study Centre
Country:
The Netherlands
Category:
Critique
Bakema's famous TV lecture series 'Van Stoel tot Stad' [from the chair to the city] of 1961-1962 was published as a book in 1964. It was illustrated with many sketches in Bakema's hand to explain his ideas about man and his existence in what he calls 'Total Space'. The sketches explain the principles behind the numerous projects by Bakema, especially housing projects, the way scale, space and interrelations should be considered by architects and what sort of society architects could help to create. It is also a story about a new modern identity for the Netherlands, in terms of its own identity in relation to the landscape and its polders and in relation to the larger context of post-war Europe.
One of the key statements reads: ‘What could be the architecure of an open society? Surely, at the very least the forms we build, should make clear that everybody has a right to a conception of life that is his own.’
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Entry: Sunday, January 14, 1962
Title: Van Stoel tot Stad (video)
Submitted by:
Jaap Bakema Study Centre
Country:
The Netherlands
Category:
Inspiration
'Van Stoel tot Stad' [from the chair to the city] was a lectures series by Jaap Bakema broadcast on Dutch national television in 1961-1962. Standing in front of a blackboard Bakema explains his ideas about man and his existence in what he calls 'Total Space'. He speaks about his ideas for housing every citizen, building the new cities and creating a modern society. The lectures series was directed and recorded by Leen Timp for the AVRO public broadcast company.
Comments: [0]
Entry: Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Title: There is the sun
Submitted by:
Ief Spincemaille
Country:
Belgium
Category:
Housing
Comments: [0]
Entry: Monday, June 9, 2014
Title: The Transparency Grenade
Submitted by:
Julian Oliver
Country:
Germany
Category:
Critique
The lack of Corporate and Governmental transparency has been a topic of much controversy in recent years, yet our only tool for encouraging greater openness is the slow, tedious process of policy reform.
Presented in the form of a Soviet F1 Hand Grenade, the Transparency Grenade is an iconic cure for these frustrations, making the process of leaking information from closed meetings as easy as pulling a pin.
Comments: [78]
Entry: Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Title: The Swings
Submitted by:
Daily Tous Les Jours
Country:
Canada
Category:
Inspiration
Inspired by the popular 21 Balançoires (21 Swings) installation, The Swings: An Exercise in Musical Cooperation is a standalone musical installation available for international touring.
Comments: [0]
Entry: Friday, June 27, 2014
Title: The Other Market
Submitted by:
Pablo Calderón Salazar
Country:
Belgium
Category:
Public space
The Other Market is a platform, materialized in a series of carts and stalls, to trade products and services without money, using dialogue as a currency.
Comments: [5]
Entry: Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Submitted by:
Michelle Provoost / ArchiNed
Country:
Netherlands
Category:
Critique
The urban design principles that shaped Western Europe's open society had a huge impact on the twentieth century. In a variety of constellations they can be found in each country, under every political system, and in every urban design that was fashionable in its day. But there is no other country where these principles have been adopted and perversely transformed as in South Africa.
Comments: [0]
Entry: Thursday, July 17, 2014
Submitted by:
Oskar Hansen
Country:
Poland
Category:
Critique
In 1960 Oskar Hansen sent this piece of writing to Jaap Bakema and the Post Box for the Development of the Habitat, which today is held in the collection of Het Nieuwe Instituut. It includes his criticism of and wishes for the right kind of exchange of ideas for a new architecture, that would engage with 'concrete people' allowing them to develop their living environment according to their own needs, to organically arrive at a new balance between the individual and the collective, despite industrialisation, and despite the post-war society dominated by issues of quantity rather than quality. Open Form was his key concept for the new architecture, a processual understanding of design and construction. Because he was never a party member Hansen would be marginalised in Communist Poland, and he would develop his ideas into a practice of radical pedagogy at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. The MACBA in Barcelona has devoted a retrospective to Hansen's work, see for more information here: http://www.macba.cat/en/exhibition-oskar-hansen
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