A series of three evening lectures, taking place on Tuesday 04 April, 16 May and June 2023. Tickets for the separate events are available for 17,50 euro and include a simple dinner.  Get your tickets here

Back to School with… Rick ten Doeschate is a series around the topic of representation and formal expression of public buildings. During this series we deal with the fact that architecture debate has for the past thirty years revolved around ‘extra-architectural’ issues such as economy, program, health and sustainability, while subjects such as ‘Aesthetics’, ‘Design’, ‘Style’, ‘Representation’ have scarcely been discussed. In this series we want to broaden the view on the formal dimension of architecture. On three evenings we will illuminate the subject from different perspectives.

In this third event on the 20th of June, we will focus on the political perspective of representation and the formal expression of public buildings. In a public conversation with Rick ten Doeschate, Ninke Happel, Job Floris, Jaakko van t Spijker and others, we address the question: Should architecture represent the diversity in society, or rather strive for an ‘architecture parlante’ that binds us? Is a ‘universal’ architecture possible? What kind of ‘style’ is appropriate? Is the European tradition inclusive enough or should architecture renew itself, and in what way?

A series of three evening lectures that explore the architecture of care, taking place on Tuesday 10 October, 31 October and 21 November 2023. Tickets for the separate events are 17,50 euro and include a simple dinner. An entrance package for all three evenings is available for 45 euro. More info soon. Get your tickets here

For the 3rd edition of Back to School with…  we’ve invited architect Arna Mačkić to curate a series around the topic of the architecture of care. Arna Mačkić is an architect and co-founder of Studio L A and the former head of Architectural Design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. Mačkić’s projects often relate to inclusion and exclusion mechanisms, refugees, collective identity and public domain. She aims to use architecture as a connecting voice, healing the wounds of the past without brushing away its scars which is the subject of her book, Mortal Cities & Forgotten Monument (Park Books, 2016). Mačkić is also part of Bosnian Girl, a collective which campaigns for an inclusive historiography and commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide in the Netherlands. Since 2019, she has been in the Editorial board member of Architectuur Jaarboek and Supervisory Board Member of Jan Van Eyck Academie. She was one of the candidates of Prix de Rome 2022 Architecture.

For the first edition of Back to School with…  we’ve invited architect and researcher Marina Otero Verzier to curate a series around the topic of architecture for data storage and digital infrastructures following the title “Future Storage: Architectures to host the Metaverse”

In this series at the Independent School for the City we will explore architecture paradigms for storing data attuned to socio-ecological challenges and the growing price of energy. We will analyze current trends and innovations in data storing architectures and behaviors that could reduce dependence on data center growth: From macro data centers ceding terrain to decentralized egde computing and micro centers,  to data centres operating as a thermal urban infrastructures, and gardens being models for more-than-human data storing architectures.