Het Nieuwe Instituut

From September to March 2019, the blue upholstered strap chair designed by Marcel Breuer in 1924 will be on show at Sonneveld House, Het Nieuwe Instituut’s museum house. For Het Nieuwe Instituut this forms the prelude to the institute’s own programme of Bauhaus-related activities beginning in the spring of 2019. 

A finished design doesn’t appear by magic. It’s the result of exploration, play, and trying out different ideas. You could call it messing about. You’ll find lots of examples of this in all designers’ archives. 

Habitat: Expanding Architecture is a research installation which captures a key moment in the history of architecture and urban planning: the tenth CIAM conference at Dubrovnik in 1956. Here the concept 'habitat' was a central theme: a broader understanding of architecture through a new ecological approach viewing architecture less as an autonomous discipline than as part of larger, dynamic whole.

Everything around us has been conceived and designed. The grey streetlight on the corner, the bends in the road, the slots of the mailbox, and the drain of the urinal. In the VPRO podcast Ongesigneerd you can hear the stories behind these inconspicuous objects, not only from designers and users, but also from historians and philosophers. What do these everyday designs say about us and our society?

The Experimental Publishing (XPUB) program of the Piet Zwart Institute invites you to the third event of the Life Hacks series. Following the launch of Ten Theses on Life Hacks, XPUB's 7th Special Issue is a further step of an inquiry into the meaning of Life Hacks. XPUB welcomes you to experience a personal session with Iris, and discover your limitless potential to succeed.

During this Speculative Design Archive debate the emergence of new modes of authorship and authority with their own independent narratives will be explored. 

With Bethany Nowviskie, Dragan Espenschied, Klaus Rechert, Michael Murtaugh, Nicolas Maleve, Renee Turner and Cristina Cochior. Moderation by Annet Dekker.

What if losing is a game? Game designer Karel Millenaar believes that every complex idea can be simplified while you play. Taking losing as his point of departure, he involves the players in a speeded up process of thinking and making from which different roles emerge. Since you learn the most by doing, these games are played and evaluated together. Not dwelling too long on an idea and simply starting to mess around is precisely what makes problems easier to grasp.

Hadas Steiner (University at Buffalo, NY) will give a lecture about the history of ecological thinking in architecture and urban planning. She will talk about how this concept entered the architectural discourse through the biological sciences, and how the understanding of these terms changed throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s as they were variously reinterpreted and employed by architects like Peter and Alison Smithson or John McHale. Among other topics, she will discuss the ornithological architecture of Cedric Price, who designed the aviary for the London Zoo. 

Burn-Out Blow-Out marks the end of the working year, and with that we invite you to a performance based night, exploring the theme of BURN-OUT, in collaboration with Cen Giz (MONO), Schueller de Waal and Het Nieuwe Instituut fellows. The night will end with a burn-out blowout party in Het Nieuwe Café. 

BNO IMG LAB offers a warm and colourful theme on the last Thursday Night Live! of the year. Designers, illustrators and artists present work and share sources of inspiration. From the psychedelic sixties to the far East.

Reality club is a series about visual media and the experience of reality. The first episode focuses on experiencing nature in gaming. Are there relationships between algorithmic processed nature and processes in organic ecology? And what can we learn from virtual nature in relation to organic nature?

To celebrate the centenary of the opening of the Bauhaus in 1919, Hetty Berens, curator of Sonneveld House, will give a lecture about the relationship between the Bauhaus and Sonneveld House during the 2019 Art Rotterdam Week.

To celebrate the centenary of the opening of the Bauhaus in 1919, Hetty Berens, curator of Sonneveld House, will give a lecture about the relationship between the Bauhaus and Sonneveld House during the 2019 Art Rotterdam Week.

As part of the Speculative Design Archive, the Dead Darlings collective organises an anonymous auction of a number of objects that have been put forward by archive creators themselves. Instead of money, stories - and the reasons why potential buyers would like to have the pieces - are traded. Each blow of the auctioneer's gavel confirms the variation in interpretations of the 'value' of archival pieces.

The Jaap Bakema Study Centre organizes an International PhD Workshop together with the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of the Delft University of Technology. The subject of the workshop will be 'Architecture and Democracy', which is also the focus of the newly launched PhD-programme of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre.