Opening Letters to the Mayor: RotterdamOpening Letters to the Mayor: Rotterdam

An initiative started in 2014 by Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, _Letters to the Mayor: Rotterdam _invites a select group of local and international architects to write a letter to Mayor Aboutaleb of Rotterdam, articulating some of the pressing questions and desires that, as architects, they believe play an important role in the political dimensions and decisions that drive the making of cities and territories.

Letters to the Mayor: Rotterdam questions the current dynamic, and invites local and global architects to deliver their thoughts directly to the desks of elected officials, and simultaneously into the public consciousness. The project has been presented in Athens, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, Madrid, Mariupol, Mexico, New York, Panama City, Sao Paulo, Taipei and Taichung. Each edition of Letters to the Mayor invites one hundred local and global architects to deliver their thoughts directly to the desks of elected officials, and simultaneously into the public consciousness. Taking the form of an exhibition and a public debate between architects, the mayor, and citizens at large, Letters to the Mayor is a forum for the discussion of the future of cities and the built environment. The project provides a platform for relevant issues within local contexts, and shared concerns throughout cities around the world.

During the opening we will discuss the letters with mayor Aboutaleb of Rotterdam, Eva Franch from Storefront for Art and Architecture and Marina Otero Verzier and Marten Kuijpers, curators at Het Nieuwe Instituut.