The Community Centre
The State Archive at Het Nieuwe Instituut offers an opportunity to research and question the many unknown designs of community centres from a historical perspective. With their varied functions, these centres pop up in the State Archive under varying names - village halls, peoples' houses, neighbourhood centres, social centres, youth clubs, and club houses. They also vary over time, as can be seen from designs from the mid-19th century Ons Huis to community centres by OMA and Pi de Bruijn from the seventies and eighties. During this event various speakers will discuss the influence of these spaces on the atmosphere, the behaviour, and the image of community centres.
Architect Pi de Bruijn (co-founder of de Architekten Cie. and architect of the Transvaal community centre in Amsterdam (1973-1975) will speak about the design of collective spaces, and David ter Avest (city geographer and researcher on meeting places in the spatial and social domains) will discuss his 'Living rooms in Rotterdam' project (2015). Other participants include Leontien Leijdekkers (floor manager of BOOST Transvaal - a meeting place for newcomers, residents and organisations from Amsterdam). During the evening there are four intermezzi with the presentation of the highlights and characteristics of community centre designs from the State Archive. What do these archival documents mean for designing community centres today?
Pi de Bruijn
Pi de Bruijn completed his studies at the Faculty of Architecture at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in 1967. He then left to work at the Architects Department of the then London City Council in Southwark, London. On his return to Amsterdam, he worked for the Municipal Housing Department, until he established himself as an independent architect in 1978, as a partner in the Oyevaar Van Gool De Bruijn Architecten BNA bureau. In 1988 he founded de Architekten Cie. together with Frits van Dongen, Carel Weeber and Jan Dirk Peereboom Voller. Pi de Bruijn served as a university professor at the TU Delft from 1993 to 1998. Pi de Bruijn has a wealth of experience as an architect and urban planner in projects that are complex, long-term and sensitive.
Christoph Grafe
Christoph Grafe (Bremen, 1964); architect, curator and writer; living and working in Amsterdam, London and Wuppertal. Professor of Architectural History and Theory at the University of Wuppertal. From 2011 to 2017 he served as the director of the Flanders Architecture Institute in Antwerp. Visiting professorships at University of Hasselt (Belgium) and Politecnico di Milano. His bookPeople’s Palaces – Architecture, Culture and Democracy in Post-War Western Europe was published by Architectura & Natura in 2014. Editor of OASE and publisher/ editor of Eselsohren. Member of the editorial board of the Journal of Architecture (RIBA) and the advisory board of the Baukunstarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen. Acted as interim city architect (with Bob van Reeth) in Antwerp in 2015.
