The Independent School for the City organizes various public events, addressing topics that responds to current relevant issues in urbanisation, and offers a platform to other organisation dealing with the city. The events are accessible to all 'urban' professionals in Rotterdam and beyond.
We are very happy that Zvi Efrat will be our guest for School’s Out! #17 on the last Friday of April! We will talk with him about his latest book, The Object of Zionism - The Architecture of Israel, which is a critical study of Zionist spatial planning and the architectural fabrication of the State of Israel from the early 20th century to the 1960s and '70s. Zvi Efrat scrutinizes Israel as a singular modernist project, unprecedented in its political and ethical circumstances and its hyper-production of spatial and structural experiments.
During School’s Out! #17 Zvi Efrat, will present and discuss early 20th century Zionist experiments with the fabrication of model rural communes. These communes required the invention of new spatial paradigms and accelerated the production of idiosyncratic structures. Professional theorists, at times anarchist, and space-engineers such as urban planners, architects, gardeners and agronomists, were recruited to articulate new forms of habitation, perplexingly defined as “neither urban, nor rural”. The routine of the commune entailed a constant micro-management and negotiation of common space, and developed an intricate apparatus to facilitate incessant interpretation, adaptation and reform. All stakeholders - professionals, amateurs, mediators, builders and dwellers – acted out and habitually changed roles in playing architecture between its totaling and improvised ends. Tune on the 30th of April at 19.00 CET to learn more.
About ZVI EFRAT
Zvi Efrat is an architect and an architectural historian. He is partner at Efrat-Kowalsky Architects (EKA) and was Head of the Department of Architecture at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (2002-2010). He has taught and lectured worldwide, published extensively and curated numerous exhibitions, among them: Borderline Disorder (The Israeli Pavilion at the 8th Architectural Biennale, Venice, 2002); The Object of Zionism, Swiss Architecture Museum, Basel, 2011); and Communal by Commune (HKW, Berlin, 2015). His book, The Israeli Project: Building and Architecture 1948-1973, was published in Hebrew in 2004 by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. His book The Object of Zionism, The Architecture of Israel was published by Spector Books, Leipzig, in 2018. His film The Most Beautiful Campus in Africa was shown at the Bauhaus Imaginista exhibition at HKW Berlin, 2019.
On Friday 26 March 2021, our own Michelle Provoost was awarded the prestigious biannual Rotterdam Maaskant Award by Ahmed Aboutaleb, chairman of the board of the Rotterdam Maaskant Foundation and mayor of Rotterdam. Michelle’s speech, the award ceremony, and the documentary about Michelle by Gabriëlle Provaas and Rob Schröder can be watched here
Previous School's Out!
Other previous events
26 March 2021
School's Out! #16 - Maaskant Award Ceremony for Michelle Provoost
26 February 2021
School's Out! #15 with Pascale Sablan
29 January 2021
School's Out! #14 with Kilian Kleinschmidt
27 November 2020
School's Out! #13 with Carlijn Kingma
30 Oktober 2020
School's Out! #12 with Jord den Hollander
25 September 2020
School's Out! #11 with Reinier de Graaf
June 2020
School's Out! ON AIR - Corona Perspectives
29 February 2020
School's Out! #10 with Momoyo Kaijima
24 January 2020
School Party + talk by Sam Jacob
29 November 2019
School's Out! #9 with Petra Blaisse
25 October 2019
School's Out! #8 with Alfredo Brillembourg and WLDRF
27 September 2019
School's Out! #7 with Liza Fior
28 June 2019
School's Out! #6 with Georgeen Theodore
31 May 2019
School's Out! #5 with Peter Barber
26 April 2019
School's Out! #4 with Dore van Duivenbode
29 March 2019
School's Out! #3 with Lesley Lokko
22 February 2019
School's Out! #2 with Dirk Sijmons
25 January 2019
School's Out! #1 with Maria Lisogorskaya
16 October 2020
Taking Back Housing! - Online international symposium with International New Town Institute
05 March 2020
Worldmaking - Cities and Architecture on the Cold War Frontier
Tuesday 21 January 2020
Public Lecture Central District by Platform Wederopbouw Rotterdam
22 November 2019
American planning association Benelux Meetup
3 October 2019
New Territorial Narratives - Symposium on photography as a research tool. With Urban Reports, Theo Baart and the Nederlands Fotomuseum.
26 September 2019
Post 65: Verkenning naar erfgoed uit 1965–1990
11 July 2019
Book presentation: City of Comings and Goings by Crimson
6 June 2019
Expert Meeting 'Wie betaald de stad' with Vers Beton
31 May 2019
Workshop Rotterdamse Dakendagen
11 April 2019
‘Dutch Designs for a Cycling Country’, Presentation of results organised by Board of Government Advisors
10 April 2019
Expert meeting with Ben Judah
9 April 2019
Platform Wederopbouw, focus group reconstruction of the Rotterdam Central District area.
7 March 2019
Archiprix Rotterdam Meeting and presentation on M4H, Nieuw Mathenesse
14 February 2019
Groeikernenkring with the International New Town Institute
26 January 2019
Workshop ‘Pouring Concrete Planters’ by Maria Lisogorskaya (Assemble) & Tomas Dirrix
16 November 2018
TU Delft Minor ‘House for the future’ presentation of results
15 November2018
International New Town Day 2018, ‘New Town Boom Town’
19 October 2018
Opening event Independent School for the City.
Independent School for the City
Delftsestraat 33 III
3013 AE Rotterdam NL