The Dutch entry at La Biennale di Venezia’s 14th International Architectural Exhibition will examine the work and ideas of the architect Jaap Bakema. The exhibition Open: A Bakema Celebration will critically reflect on the idea of the open society through Bakema’s work and research. It will constitute one of the first activities of Het Nieuwe Instituut and Delft University of Technology’s new Jaap Bakema Study Centre. The 14th Venice Architecture Biennale opens on 7 June and runs through 23 November.
The internationally prominent Dutch architect Jaap Bakema (1914–1981) concerned himself with social issues and was active within the international avant-garde movements CIAM and Team 10. His Rotterdam office, Van den Broek en Bakema, was responsible for a number of the Netherlands' most important postwar projects, including the Rotterdam shopping street Lijnbaan. Its archive is housed in the collection of Het Nieuwe Instituut. Bakema also worked as a professor of architecture at Delft University of Technology.
The Jaap Bakema Study Centre was founded in October 2013 by Het Nieuwe Instituut and Delft University of Technology. Het Nieuwe Instituut manages one of the world's largest architecture collections. The architecture faculty at Delft University of Technology is esteemed around the world for its notable research in the field. Working together allows the two institutions to benefit from each other’s expertise, resources and contacts. The study centre’s inaugural research programme comprises a broadly conceived study of the history and contemporary relevance of Dutch structuralism.
Open is curated by Guus Beumer, the director of Het Nieuwe Instituut, and Dirk van den Heuvel, an associate professor of architecture at Delft University of Technology and the head of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre.
Rem Koolhaas, the chief curator of La Biennale di Venezia’s 2014 International Architectural Exhibition, has chosen the overarching theme Fundamentals: Absorbing Modernity, 1914–2014. Koolhaas has cited the First World War as the beginning of modern globalisation.
Koolhaas has asked the curators of all national pavilions to respond to this overarching theme in relation to their respective national identities. Het Nieuwe Instituut views Bakema as a compelling exponent of the Dutch welfare state and the idea of an open society.
14th International Architectural Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia.
Dates.- 7 June–23 November 2014.
Dutch entry.- Open: A Bakema Celebration.
Curators.- Guus Beumer and Dirk van den Heuvel.
Design.- Experimental Jetset.
