independent school for the city

UPCOMING EVENTS

The Independent School for the City organizes various public events, addressing topics that respond 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.
May 11

The Albanian Calls is a feature-length video essay, thatcaptures the discourse surrounding what it means to be an international architect in contemporary Albania, exploring both opportunities and challenges. It examines the agency of architects, the shifting relationship between public and private space, and the intersection of architecture and politics. The Albanian Calls investigates how architecture shapes Albania’s emerging identity, while at the same time how the country’s unique architectural environment prompts a reflection on the state of the practice as a whole, as well as on the role of an individual architect working in a foreign country.

May 20

The Independent School for the City and Het Nieuwe Instituut have teamed up to invite Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg of Space Popular for a talk on Wednesday 20 May, titled 'The Global Home'. They will talk about their work that explores the relationships between media and the built environment through research, design and artworks. The studio has realised buildings, exhibitions, public artworks, furniture collections, and interiors in Asia and Europe, as well as virtual architecture for the immersive internet.

May 29

For School's Out! in May, we've invited stylist and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek to talk about her work together with Photographer Ari Versluis on the Exactitudes project. Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities of Rotterdam’s heterogeneous, multicultural street scene. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity.

Jun 13

Aditya Prakash (1924), the father of Vikram, was one of the Indian architects who collaborated with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret to turn Chandigarh - the famous modernist new capital for the state of East Punjab (India) - into a reality. Although unknown to most, he and other Indian architects such as MN Sharma, BP Mathur and JK Choudhury, have played an important part of modern and contemporary Indian architecture. Vikram Prakash will speak about his father's architecture in Chandigarh under the rubric of Non-Aligned Modernism, understanding modernism not as a Western idea but as an ongoing global project. New date: Saturday 13 June 2026

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