Call For Papers: The Irritant Principle of Renewal: 100 years of Aldo & Hannie van Eyck. Delft and Rotterdam, 28-30 November 2018
The 2018 edition of the annual conference of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre is dedicated to Aldo and Hannie van Eyck. In honour of their achievements and as a celebration of their work, the conference aims to bring together scholars and practitioners to explore the rich legacy of their ideas and aspirations for a humanist architecture.
Aldo and Hannie van Eyck were one of the most remarkable and influential architect couples of the second half of the 20th century, not only in the Netherlands but also in the international architecture community. In their inexhaustible quest for a renewal of post-war modern architecture, they placed the human being at the centre of their work and thinking. They found profound inspiration in ‘the child, the city and the artist’, as the famous title of Aldo van Eyck’s manifesto goes. Seminal works include the Municipal Orphanage in Amsterdam, the Arnhem Sonsbeek Sculpture Pavilion, and more than 700 children’s playgrounds in Amsterdam. It is in the context of the latter that Aldo van Eyck spoke of the ‘irritant principle of renewal’: a playground in a city was like a grain of sand in an oyster, triggering a transformation and regeneration of the social fabric.
‘The Irritant Principle of Renewal’ is both the motto for the conference and its challenge. Next to the demonstration of the internal developments of the body of work and thinking of the Van Eycks, the following topics are suggested for further exploration and debate:
- The exchange of concepts between the avant-garde and architecture
- Collaborations and polemics
- Between Holland and Switzerland
- The impact of anthropology on architectural thinking
- Children and pedagogical models
- Learning from the city
- Interiority
The full description of the themes can be accessed here or downloaded here.
Abstracts of 300-500 words plus a short bio (300 words max) should be sent to Janno Martens: j.martens@hetnieuweinstituut.nl by Monday 3 September 2018.
Notification of selection: Monday 17 September 2018
Dates of the conference: 28-30 November 2018
Convenor: Dirk van den Heuvel (Jaap Bakema Study Centre)
Advisory Board: Tom Avermaete (TU Delft), Hetty Berens (HNI), Maristella Casciato (Getty Research Institute), Carola Hein (TU Delft), Laurent Stalder (ETH Zurich)
Locations: Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft and Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam