Opening Structuralism Opening Structuralism

Your hosts are Guus Beumer, director of Het Nieuwe Instituut, Herman Hertzberger, curator and architect, and Dirk van den Heuvel, curator and Head of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre.

Kenneth Frampton
Before the opening, the English architectural historian Kenneth Frampton will deliver a lecture at 3 pm entitled Casbah Organisée as City-in-Miniature: Open Work vs. Space of Public Appearance. Unfortunately, all tickets for this lecture are sold out.

Children's Workshops 6+
During the opening event children are welcome to participate in workshops on themes linked with the work of Herman Hertzberger

Structuralism is a double exhibition. The first part, Making space, leaving space, presents the work and ideas of Herman Hertzberger through his design sketches, notebooks, drawings and photographs. Visitors, young and old, undertake a journey of discovery through the architect's designs and way of thinking. In the second part, An installation in four acts, the Jaap Bakema Study Centre explores the development and current importance of Dutch Structuralism by means of four consecutive presentations centred on the themes of education, ideals, construction, and the city. The installation was designed by Bureau LADA. Both exhibitions bring together a wealth of unique archival material never previously presented to the public.

Structuralism constitutes the most important contribution from the Netherlands to modern architecture during the second half of the twentieth century. In the late 1950s it presented a poetic alternative to the technocratic architecture of the post-war reconstruction period, before flourishing in the 1970s. The ideal was to create a new social space where people could realise their full potential and that facilitated interaction, imagination and experimentation.