The New Academy
Piet Blom. Living as an Urban Roof, 1965. Collection Nieuwe Instituut, archive BLOM p8
What would a (cognitive) city look like if it were designed by all its citizens? The New Academy, an initiative of the Nieuwe Instituut in collaboration with philosopher Rosi Braidotti, reimagines Rotterdam as a knowledge city. Rotterdam can be regarded as a rich archive of living knowledge, only a fraction of which is visible and utilised.
Knowledge is produced everywhere: in our bodies, between the tips of our fingers and chipboards, in dance halls, below the ground, in tea houses and call shops, in the streets, gardens and rivers, and beyond. Currently, only a fraction of it plays a role in developing how big challenges, such as climate change, are addressed in the city. The New Academy develops collective ways of learning how a just and sustainable city can be defined and built if more of its diverse human and more-than-human knowledge producers are recognised, valued, and included in city development.
The New Academy works with the concept of the ‘distributed university’. If knowledge is produced everywhere, it must include a large variety of places and people. In this academy learning does not take place in traditional classrooms, but across the entire city. To introduce a more just, multi-layered, distributed, and collaborative approach to recognising and sharing knowledge this variety needs to be visible, embodied, and actively embraced. The New Academy aims to create a local platform for new ways of learning to address complex challenges together. It realises it by bringing together various knowledges present in the city, design, research, archives, community-building, public activities, and a training programme.
Rotterdam as knowledge city
Rotterdam is a city in perpetual transition from a global industrial port city, often serviced by a migrant labour force, to a worldwide linked, highly automated, knowledge-driven, and hopefully socially and ecologically just city.
➝ Read moreRosi Braidotti and Posthuman Philosophy
The New Academy applies posthuman methodology as its guiding framework. Posthuman methodology brings attention to the coming together of advanced technological development, ecological depletion, and their combined social and economic consequences.
➝ Read moreTesting ground as method
As a city facing major societal challenges and while also being a hub of activities, including architecture, digital culture, music and design, Rotterdam makes a perfect testing ground for developing new approaches to designing social and spatial transitions at a time of high climate emergency.
➝ Read more