The theme of the 2007 Architecture Biennale Rotterdam was Power. The Biennale Power. Producing the Contemporary City explored how forces affect the contemporary city and how they will affect the city of tomorrow. The curator of this third edition was the Berlage Institute, a post-master’s program founded in Rotterdam in 1990.
Cities around the world are growing explosively because of migration flows from rural to urban areas. Most of the population growth is taking place in the non-Western world, but cities in the Western world are also growing, not so much in population as in area. By the middle of this century, two-thirds of humanity is expected to live in cities. The 3rd IABR explored how the expected 6 billion urban dwellers will live or survive in explosively growing megacities by 2050; how administrators, businesses, and residents will have to deal with global forces at the local level; and what guiding part architects and urban designers can play.
