Making City - main exhibition fifth IABR

25, Museumpark, Centrum, Rotterdam, Netherlands

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Other Projects by Kossmann.dejong

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The Danish National Maritime Museum, Helsingør

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KAAP SKIL Maritime & Beachcombers Museum, Texel

Making City - main exhibition fifth IABR

25, Museumpark, Centrum, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Firm

Kossmann.dejong

YEAR

2012

SIZE

100,000 sqft - 300,000 sqft

Making City  
Kossmann.dejong has designed the main exhibition, Making City, of the fifth International Architecture Biennial Rotterdam. Making City
shows how the city of tomorrow could emerge and the role designers can
play in this process. The exhibition presents the city as an
opportunity, not as a problem. It is exactly the city that can offer a
convincing response to the challenges of the twenty-first century. But
then we first have to manage to design and organise the city in a
different way. Current projects from over thirty cities across the world
show how that may be feasible. Design centre stage 
The world is becoming urban at a terrifying rate. Around 2050 over seven
of the world’s nine billion people will live in cities. This
unavoidable urbanisation poses enormous political, social, economic and
environmental challenges. At the same time cities offer the solutions
for twenty-first-century issues. The city is our future, but only if it
is governed, designed and planned better than is the case now. Making City explores future city scenarios and puts design centre stage.
Spatial manifesto
The spatial manifesto Making City will be exhibited in the
NAI’s main hall in Rotterdam for five months. Thirty-three projects from
all over the world will show current thinking about cities. Upon
entering the exhibition the visitors will start their journey in the
central space, where titillating quotes about urbanisation and a brief
introductory film will be presented. This film, and a series of
monumental photographs immediately highlight what the exhibition is
about.
Graphic lines on the floor will lead visitors from the introduction
space along the thirty-three projects. The projects have been grouped
around to nine themes, and are very diverse in the way they are being
presented. Walking along all the themes and projects, the visitors get
to know the challenges and solutions around the topic of urbanisation. Living collection
The projects that are being presented in the exhibition reflect
developments as they are currently taking place. As some projects will
continue to develop they may be updated in the course of the exhibition.