A City of Comings and Goings - Crimson Historians & Urbanists

The exhibition “A City of Comings and Goings”, originally part of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018, has returned to Rotterdam and was on show at the Independent School for the City. The exhibition focuses on how the dynamics of migration affect European cities. The confrontation with the recent surge of asylum seekers (but also expats, EU-workers etc.) shows the basic lack of spatial flexibility in European cities to absorb new groups. From the spaces and buildings that have been designed or appropriated for migration, Crimson has distilled a panoramic view of The City Of Comings and Goings. The City of Comings and Goings is not a Utopia, nor is it a Masterplan. It is all of our Western European cities at once, together adapting to migration. (on show from July - October 2019)

One Year, 365 Cities - An anthology of ten minute towns by Peter Barber

One year 365 cities is Peter's attempt to design a city a day for a year. The idea arose from Lewis Mumford’s assertion (which 80 years on, pretty much still holds true) that modernism has “failed to produce even a rough draft for a decent neighbourhood.” And from a pub remark made by Ben Stringer, who said that you ought to be able to design a city in ten minutes. The cities, towns and villages that are on show, are mud, wood, paper, bungaroosh, brick, cardboard and unspecified. They are farming collective, courtyard mini city, city of walls, estuary fishing villages. On hills, along cliffs, hunkered down in valleys, perched on plains, stretched or centralised. 

Some subterranean, others balanced on spindly stilts. Arranged as grids – stretched square and triangular, as flows or labyrinths; on snickets, mews and twittens. Some are seen through half closed eyes, others more like cut crystal, a simple biro line or floating in a charcoal mist. There are cities  which are quite distinct and separate. Others merge and morph – revealing patterns, sets, repeated themes and progressions. Some were sketched in a moment, others took a bit of a hold – Peter wanted to know more about them and ten minutes ran to ten days and herein lies his problem and an admission. A handful of the projects (more perhaps) were done outside the allotted year. In a way they all were since they are the product of 30 years of visiting, reading about, thinking about and imagining cities so half a lifetime, 365 cities - not quite the same ring? (on show from May 2019 - July 2019)

Dog Poo Bags
by Peter Veenstra (Lola Landscape Architecture)

A collection of Dog Poo Bags collected from cities all over Europe, by landscape architect Peter Veenstra (Lola Landscape, Rotterdam). They are distributed free of charge in parks and on streets for citizens to use to keep the streets and parks clean. This relatively recent addition to the accessories of modern urban living evoke many associations. For example, the loneliness of urban denizens taking solace in their pets. Or the delegation of keeping the city clean to the citizens themselves. The way they are imprinted with graphics and the way the modern citizen is spoken to in a bureaucratic or a playfully humorous manner. There are also examples in which a manual format is used. Interestingly, the Dog Poo Bag is distributed in a limited number of countries, and then mainly in the densely inhabited, touristic inner cities. In some countries, like The Netherlands, dog owners are obligated to carry their own poo bags while outside and can be asked by law enforcement officers to present them. Something in the Dutch mentality is not conducive to the voluntary cleaning up of one’s shit. The Dog Poo Bag in other words is a Rorschach test for a culture’s attitude to civic responsibilities in public space. (On show from October 2018 - February 2019)

Foto exhibition 'North Korea' by Oliver Wainwright

A selection of pictures of interiors in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, “probably the only city in the world where the political ideology that produced the original urban plan is still intact”, according to the photographer and architectural critic for The Guardian, Oliver Wainwright. They were taken during an architectural field trip to North Korea in 2015 in which Wainwright set out to document the result of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s obsession with architecture as a means to create the image of a perfect society. The combination of massive monumental ornamentation and pastel colours, creates an urban decor that is both childlike and terrifying, equally saccharine and macabre. North Korea’s founder and his son are said to have found their inspiration in the colour schemes of Saint Petersburg and Copenhagen. (On show from October 2018 - February 2019)