Research CentreResearch Centre

Who are you and what do you do?

I'm an architect. Since 2010, I've been building with words rather than with bricks, concrete and wood. My expertise lies at the intersection of architecture, history and social developments. I am the author of a book on Onno Greiner, architect of theatres and psychiatric care institutions, and co-author of a monograph on the Structuralist architect Jan Verhoeven, both of whose archives are part of the collection of Het Nieuwe Instituut. In addition to books, I regularly write essays, reviews and reflections aimed at both colleagues and the general public. From time to time, I work as a freelance architecture historian or archive assistant for Het Nieuwe Instituut's collections department.

Can you tell us about your research that has recently been published as a book?

My research is about housing and living. Not about the facade or the entire building, but about what remains hidden: the inside. Using the homes I have lived in myself as a starting point, I have investigated the ideas behind our homes and looked at how architecture can contribute to positive changes in our society. If you look at the history of housing design, you will see that social changes often went hand in hand with the ideas of socially committed architects. Consider, for example, the emancipation of the German bourgeoisie from about 1850 and the development of the bourgeois home with its various, highly specialised rooms such as the wife's boudoir, the husband's study, and the nursery.

From the beginning of the twentieth century, you see that architects in partnership with enlightened city administrators and industrialists made a difference by creating decent housing for workers. The 1929 conference of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) focused on the Wohnung für das Existenzminimum or the 'minimum dwelling'. The new workers' housing represented an immense improvement in living conditions, but we must not forget that many of the residents were subjected to a strict 'education' in cleanliness and morals. You couldn't just do as you pleased in your own home. And that is still the case. Most new-build homes follow an outdated housing idea: living together as a nuclear family. Such homes have a large living room, a spacious master bedroom and one or two smaller bedrooms. If you don't live as a nuclear family, you have a problem: the rooms can only be used as planned because of their size and position in the house. Such houses are awkward, to say the least, if you are a single-parent family or sharing with friends. The home dictates how it is lived in. Or as Winston Churchill once put it: 'We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.' I use that quote as a motto in my book.

On the basis of my own minimum dwelling (a studio flat in a Berlin housing block: a single room, kitchen, toilet outside the door, no bathroom), in the book I ponder the question: what does 'small' actually mean. My home was very small, but I discovered the charms of the bakery-café around the corner and Berlin's beautiful bathhouses. It didn't really matter that the apartment was small. Living extended beyond my front door.

Today, small apartments of around 35 m2 have made a comeback, partly because they are financially interesting for investors. Just how small micro-homes could be is a valid question, but I am more interested in researching compact, affordable homes with a smaller carbon footprint that can be used in many ways simultaneously. In my book, I look at examples in the Netherlands, Germany and South Korea. One solution: houses with equal-sized rooms are compact and allow flexible use of the space (see video). You can live in them in different ways, not just as a nuclear family.

One of the nice things about the book is that it charts the history of where you have lived.

In Germany, where I grew up, I lived in a family apartment, my grandparents' villa in northern Germany, that minimal studio, a commune and an apartment built around 1920 to create affordable housing for workers and the middle classes. After I moved to Rotterdam, I lived in a _voor-tussen-achterwoning, - _a modest three-room apartment, with two rooms front and back and a central 'alcove' room - and then in a maisonette, before we bought a nice apartment. In the book, I link each of these homes to a bigger story: prefab housing, minimal workers' housing, collective housing forms such as communes, and current commercial housing constructions. What were the ideas behind these forms of housing? Which types of rooms were considered necessary? And why?

The book is like a walk through the history of housing and cohabitation, and it provides a different perspective on Berlin and Rotterdam. We think that living is an intimate, private affair. But that is only partly the case. Homes serve purposes that extend beyond housing. Ideology, economics and social conventions also come into play. You can see that in the current debate. It's about numbers but rarely about what we as a society want from housing. The housing issue transcends the individual and is a question that concerns society as a whole.

What's the most remarkable thing you found in the collection?

It was nice to find my own apartment in Delfshaven built in 1992-93 by architect Theo Bosch in his own archive. The project description explains that Bosch was struggling with a limited budget that offered little room for special treatment in the floor plans or in the facades. Nevertheless, he designed a sophisticated home with a small gallery where you could meet your neighbours. The attention to casual encounters is something that is missing in many current designs.

The Research Centre's library is excellent. It has almost all the professional literature I wanted to consult, such as architecture historians Jonas Geist's and Klaus Kürvers' reconstructions of studios with kitchens in Berlin's Wedding neighbourhood (Geist, Kürvers, Das Berliner Mietshaus, Band 2). They interviewed former residents, viewed family albums and then drew the floor plans with the interior, enabling you to imagine what it was like to live as a family in one room with a kitchen. And perhaps the most surprising find: the Research Centre's staff put me in touch with an artist and an architecture historian who, like me, are fascinated by the question of what 'living' means. Our initial contact led to inspiring conversations and partnerships. The library is therefore more than a place for books.

What are you researching now?

Together with the architect and researcher Harmen van de Wal, I'm exploring what is needed for 'elastic', usable living space. How can homes and living environments become more flexible, 'richer' and more accessible, and thus more future proof? And together with researcher Ania Molenda, I'm conducting research into writing itself, into new forms of interactive publishing that stimulate critical reflection and the reader's involvement.

Andrea Prins, Wonen. De fascinerende gelaagdheid van een alledaagse bezigheid (Living: The Fascinating Stratification of an Everyday Activity) , Walburg Pers, 2021.

The research and the publication were made possible by financial contributions from the Mondriaan Fund, the Municipality of Rotterdam, the J.E. Jurriaanse Foundation, and the Gijselaar-Hintzen Fund.

The book is available from NAi Booksellers

More about the Minimum Dwelling in the exhibition Designing the Social