Research CentreResearch Centre

As a visual artist, with a background in architectural history and theory, I create work at the intersection of these disciplines. I write texts, make videos, installations and do performances, always with a focus on architecture. Part of making these works involves extensive archival research, from which I draw the information and visual materials that lead to the final works.

Recently, I've been conducting research at Het Nieuwe Instituut (and also in the Rotterdam City Archives and the archive of the Johan Borgman Fund in Odijk), for a commission from Kunstinstituut Melly that involves research into the history of their building, a former girls' school from 1873, designed by C.B. van der Tak, the then Director of Public Works. The research was carried out as part of Melly's Anchored programme - a series of projects examining their immediate surroundings in Rotterdam, including their building, the street and the neighbours. Anchored is part of their ongoing initiative to change their name.

Through this assignment, I not only stumbled upon Van der Tak's construction drawings but also ended up on a quest for the late19th-century zeitgeist and the debate in that period about the development of a national style in architecture.

This debate was conducted largely in periodicals, including the architectural magazines Bouwkundig Bijdragen and Deisement and the literary magazine De Gids (which, incidentally, still exists). The reading I have done in the archives of Het Nieuwe Instituut has enabled me form a better picture of the position of the girls' school on Witte de Withstraat within this national debate.

A performance piece in two acts. Against the background of this late nineteenth-century debate about an 'official' national style, this work looks for traces of human decision-making, cutting through the different histories of the use of the school building and, more broadly, its urban environment. The First Act is based on the specific character of the building's exterior.

The story starts with 3D scans of ornamental sculptures of the institute's façade, then zooms out to the surrounding city through other examples of 19th-century architecture in Rotterdam.

These ornaments can be seen as characters, sculptures, or simply as extras in the debate about a national architectural style. A video of rehearsal of the performance can be seen in the space. The Second Act takes place around a speculative floor plan of the interior showing how the building was originally used. By means of archival photographs and reinterpretations of spatial plans and construction drawings, the story then examines the curriculum and the architectural properties of late-19th century school architecture. This performance takes the form of a lecture and will later also be seen in the exhibition as a video. Both acts will be performed several times in January and February 2021, live and online.

It was really great to have the portfolio 'The terminus of the Rhine Railway in Rotterdam' in my hands, and De Opmerker from 1893 containing Kromhout's article 'Tout à l'égout!'