Meltdown ModelsMeltdown Models

Visual artist Jeroen Kramer's recent project Meltdown Models explores possible scenarios for post-apocalyptic landscapes, urban planning and architecture. The work consists of several sculptures that reference architectural models.

Assembled from building materials such as PUR foam, PVC tubing, steel wire and building plastics, the objects look like playful 'thinking models' and reveal a fascination for the work of Lebbeus Woods and Constant Nieuwenhuys. The objects are spray-painted white in 'modernist' style, which makes it possible to observe, analyse and interpret volumes in an almost anatomical way. But unlike the ideal models of the modernists, the fused Meltdown Models illustrate the imperfect reality of architecture and urbanisation.

Jeroen Kramer graduated cum laude in 1998 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague with his Patchwork Architecture project. He was granted various scholarships for research into the overlaps and the differences between visual arts, design and architecture. The autonomous work he creates as an artist is included in several (private) collections and has been displayed in international exhibitions. In 2008, his work City Dust was exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. He has also worked as a spatial designer, and since 2013 has been a senior lecturer at the design lab of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.

Weekly changing presentations in the Het Nieuwe Instituut's foyer. A controversial new design, sensational research, work by an emerging talent or a new acquisition for the State Archive for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning are given a place in the spotlight.