Studio Rotor: Deconstruction
8 December 2016
In the Spring semester the Jaap Bakema Study Centre will welcome the TU Delft Visiting Professors Lionel Devlieger and Maarten Gielen of the Brussels based office Rotor. At the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft Devlieger and Gielen will supervise a special design studio working on the intersections of research, analysis, archival explorations, design, material re-use, and exhibition making. The Jaap Bakema Study Centre will support the studio by organizing research seminars based on the archival collections of Het Nieuwe Instituut.
Focus of Studio Rotor: Deconstruction is the potential for re-use of the legacy of post-war modernist buildings as well as some iconic and didactic contemporary projects. The question is can these examples be deconstructed in such a way that their elements become available for new configurations and future uses? This question of re-using history and the archive has a literal dimension: how can the historical buildings be taken apart into elements (construction, materials) and re-assembled in new ways. At the same time, the studio does not consider the archive as an 'art historical' reservoir that houses the canon of Dutch architecture, but as a resource providing basic building material for design projects, as well as an active element in the redefinition of the architectural discipline.
The question is therefore intended as a provocation to trigger a debate on the value and role of history and the archive in contemporary architectural design. Not only does this approach entail the urgent questions of sustainability and re-use, but it also implies a need for a different view on history and the historical production as a resource for innovation.
Visit the TU Delft page for more information about the programme.