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Rotterdam unveils architecture programme

Rotterdam will be celebrating its architectural culture in a grand way in 2007 under the title Rotterdam 2007 City of Architecture.

This comprehensive festival will turn the spotlight onto the city´s splendid architecture. Throughout the year of 2007, Rotterdam will be a platform of architectural interest in the form of exhibitions, events, excursions and an audio tour of 40 architectural high-points.

In the Sites & Stories programme, 40 buildings play star roles in a story of over one hundred years of modern architecture. Sites & Stories consists of an audio tour with original sounds and stories from architects and users. The tour around the 40 locations offers a new, surprising perspective on the city. Events ranging from excursions to theatre productions will be organized in and around the individual buildings (starting in April 2007).

The project Fire Limits commemorates the 1940 bombardment of Rotterdam. The entire city centre was consumed in the bombing and the firestorm that followed. The limits reached by the conflagration correspond to the boundary between old and new which is evident at many places in the inner city. Hundreds of intense beams of light will form a spectacular, dramatic visualization of one of the most significant moments in the city's history (14 May).

POWER: Producing the Contemporary City is the theme of the third International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam. Curatorship of the Biennale is provided by the Berlage Institute. For more than three months, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam will host exhibitions, lectures, debates and conferences organized around this central question: how and by whom is the contemporary city produced? (24 May to 2 September)

The Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) will be organizing several exhibitions during Rotterdam 2007. In Luminous Buildings: Architecture of the Night celebrates the architecture of light (27 January to 6 May). Another production on the NAI calendar is a major review exhibition of Le Corbusier, which, besides his architectural projects, will present furniture, paintings and drawings by this influential architect (26 May to 2 September).

AIR Foundation is organizing Keurmeester Revisited, a debate among guest specialists about the state of play of architecture in Rotterdam. In this updated version of the 1979 Keurmeester project, three international architecture critics will express their opinions on over twenty buildings and locations, which represent the last thirty years of architecture and urban planning in Rotterdam (1 April to 31 October)

WiMBY! is a large-scale event dedicated to a better, prettier and livelier future for the district of Hoogvliet. The opening of Heerlijkheid Hoogvliet, a new leisure and recreational park, will be a prominent feature of the festival (25 May to 1 June).

Follydock Expo, an exhibition of architectural follies, will take place in the dockland district of Heijplaat. The selected fantastic structures will appear between the harbour sheds, basins and shipping containers, at locations scattered around this urban peninsula (25 May to 30 August).

Annually recurring events such as Architecture Day, Open Monuments Day, the Building Site Festival, Rotterdam Builds and the new event Skyscraper Week will take place within the context of the Year of Architecture in 2007.

A summary of the Rotterdam 2007 City of Architecture programme can be found via the website link below. The website also provides practical information, image material and a link to the Rotterdam 2007 newsletter.

Published on Sapling: November 2006

Rotterdam 2007 City of Architecture [external link in new window]
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