2012 - 5th edition
MAKING CITY
The theme of the 5th edition of the Architecture Biennale Rotterdam was Making City. By 2050, more than 7 out of 9 billion people are expected to live in cities. The major socioeconomic and environmental problems of this century are therefore urban problems. IABR 2012: Making City explored the relationship between planning, design, and policy, and the ways in which this can advance and strengthen the city.
Just as for earlier Biennales, the 5th IABR: Making City produced its own research and development program focusing, both theoretically and concretely on the interplay between planning, design and politics. With three IABR–Test Site projects, in São Paulo, Istanbul and Rotterdam, as well as seven collaborative projects with the Dutch government and a selection of ‘best practices’ from around the world, the IABR explored ways of ‘making city’ that may be future proof. The Biennale called on administrators, policymakers, politicians, market players, designers, and citizens to work on the development of the city in a more integrated way.
As part of the 5th IABR: Making City, broadcaster VPRO presented an extensive program of television and radio documentaries under the title ‘Leve de Stad’ (‘Long Live the City’).
Curators
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Asu Aksoy
Asu Aksoy is a professor at the Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Communications. Between 2010 and 2016, she was the director of İstanbul Bilgi University Cultural Policy and Management Research Centre (KPY). She worked on academic research programmes on communications, migration, media and cultural identity in the UK and Turkey.
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George Brugmans
George Brugmans served as General Director of the IABR from 2004 to 2014 and then as President of the IABR until 2021. He was chair of the Curator Team of the 5th IABR: Making City and chief curator of the 9th IABR: Down to Earth. Inspired by what he had seen and recorded around the world as a film producer and documentary filmmaker, Brugmans took the future of the city as his guide for the IABR.
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Joachim Declerck
Joachim Declerck is an engineer-architect, founder and partner of Architecture Workroom Brussels (AWB)- European think-and-do tank for innovation in architecture, urban and territorial development. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Ghent (BE) since 2014.
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Fernando de Mello Franco
Fernando de Mello Franco was the Secretary of Urban Development of the City of São Paulo from 2013 until 2016, after which he became, among others, a Director of URBEM (Instituto de Urbanismo e Estudos para a Metrópole). Fernando de Mello Franco is one of the founding partners of MMBB Arquitetos in São Paulo, Brazil. He was a visiting professor at Harvard.
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Henk Ovink
Henk Ovink was appointed the first Special Envoy for Water of The Netherlands in 2015. He was senior advisor for US Secretary Shaun Donovan of HUD in his role as Chair of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force from 2013 untill 2015. Before joining the Task Force Ovink was both Director General Spatial Planning and Water affairs and Director National Spatial Planning for the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment in the Netherlands.
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ZUS (Elma van Boxel & Kristian Koreman)
ZUS [Zones Urbaines Sensibles] was founded by Elma van Boxel and Kristian Koreman in 2001. ZUS investigates the contemporary urban landscape on every possible scale by means of solicited and unsolicited designs. The output of the office ranges from political research to urban planning and from landscape design to architecture. In 2007 they received the prestigious Rotterdam Maaskant Prize for Young Architects.
