Utopian Dreams showed the plans and dreams of artists and architects for a new Rotterdam. In the context of 'Rotterdam celebrates the city!', guest curator Reyn van der Lugt brought together historical and contemporary future fantasies about Rotterdam. The often controversial and imaginative projects provoke a broader debate about the future of Rotterdam.
Since the reconstruction, Rotterdam has been reinventing itself through major manifestations, far-reaching ambitions, and utopian plans. Artists and architects play a leading role in this. How does the artist view the Rotterdam of the future? And what are the urgent issues for this world city? Utopian Dreams presented a variety of answers to these questions.
Urban fantasies
In 1969 sets Wim Gijzen to transform Schouwburgplein into a green pasture, complete with cows, pollard willows and a ditch. The design has never moved beyond the drawing board. The photo montage of the cow meadow in the heart of Rotterdam, on the other hand, started to take on a life of its own.
Fascinated by the typical Dutch arched bridges Claes Oldenburg in 1977 a bridge with two bent screws whose points would touch each other in the middle. When Oldenburg learned that Rotterdam had plans for a new bridge, he was convinced that his Screwarch Bridge should come here. At the invitation of museum director Wim Beeren, he made a location study and a model. The municipality eventually had other plans.
Rem Koolhaas made a lookout tower with OMA around 1980 as an eye catcher for the Boompjes in Rotterdam. A part of the old Willems Bridge that was to be demolished across the Maas would be erected and converted into an approximately 100-meter-high watchtower, a playful competitor of the Euromast.
In the context of the Rotterdam '88 manifestation, he became an artist-architect John Körmeling asked to make a new design for the layout of the Eendrachtsplein. Körmeling got the idea. He thought it was not a square at all and placed a building in the middle that would give the square its character with its cultural functions.
Founded 2001 in April Atelier Van Lieshout AVL-Ville, a free state with its own constitution, flag, currency and community in the rugged Rotterdam Vierhaven area. In this community, visitors, residents and artists were invited to live and work self-sufficiently. After a few successful but turbulent months, the free state had to close its doors by order of the municipality.
The legendary Ponton 010 project was developed at the invitation of the Port of Rotterdam Authority. Utopia (consisting of Hans Oldewarris, Peter de Winter, Chiel van der Stelt and Victor Mani) designed a pontoon with a grandstand for 1100 people, including a stage and bar. The immense pontoon sailed back and forth across the Maas several times in the summer of 1980. The public had a front-row view of the rapidly changing skyline of Rotterdam.
Contemporary visions of the future
Van der Lugt invited five artists to develop new visions of the future for the city of Rotterdam. Author Elfie Tromp had a desk in the exhibition to work live on her future. Artist Han Hoogerbrugge took the audience on a virtual walk through everything he misses in today's city. Photographer Elian Somers questioned the contemporary urban paradise in a series of new photographs. Designer Richard Hutten made a grand gesture by beautifying the future skyline of Rotterdam with a series of low-tech windmills on the roofs of the city. The architectural collective Cookies wants to transform Rotterdam into the only city in the world where we can remain anonymous, where secrets can remain secret, where codes and passwords cannot be hacked.
Slogans for Rotterdam
During Utopian Dreams, Elfie Tromp wrote new slogans and texts in the exhibition space together with invited guests. The new slogans were collected and presented in the exhibition, and distributed digitally via TENT's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The series was inspired by 'Slogans for the 21st Century' by writer and artist Douglas Coupland, who also provided the first 'Slogan for Rotterdam'.
Reyn van der Lugt
Since the late 88s, compiler Reyn van der Lugt has been one of the organisers of art and architecture events such as Architecture International Rotterdam and Rotterdam 'XNUMX / The city as a podium, where Dutch and international artists and architects were given the space to present their visions of the future in the city. This partly focused the attention of the architecture and art world on Rotterdam and gave Rotterdam a permanent place in the post-war architecture and art debate.
Van der Lugt created Utopian Dreams in collaboration with Mariette Dölle and Marjolein van de Ven.
June is Rotterdam Architecture Month! For more info: https://rotterdamarchitectuurmaand.nl/
Photo credit: Claes Oldenburg – Screwarch Bridge – 1980/1981 (photo Jannes Linders) Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen