You Can Be Sure of Hell - Oil, Rotterdam, and the Making of a Planetary Breakdown

The International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (financially) enables a number of researchers and has appointed them as so-called Agents of Change. These researchers are commissioned to reflect on the effects and (spatial) consequences of a changing world, by conducting research into specific themes that lie on the periphery of the current (architectural) discourse. In doing so, they deepen the understanding and/or catalyze the discussion on particular topics, which can then find their way into the public debate and contribute to sharpening, broadening, nurture and renewing the architectural discourse/discipline.

Theodor Reinhardt is selected as Agent of Change for this research project.

The Planetary Boundaries is a framework proposed by a group of environmental scientists, aimed at tracking nine key planetary systems indicators that take as reference the relative stability of the Holocene. While this relative stability has greatly contributed to the persistence and expansion of human habitat in particular, after centuries of acceleration of colonial-extractive practices we are now witnessing the ongoing transgression of seven out of nine of those boundaries – with implications that are difficult to grasp, but which unmistakably point to a radical and catastrophic reworking of planetary and ecological systems, putting billions of lives at risk.

Responding to IABR 2026 SYSTEM OF SUPPORT site-as-method approach, this project aims to explore the question of “How Did We Get Here?” by studying the role and entanglement of the Rotterdam port city territory in this colonial-anthropogenic planetary transformation through a particular focus on its petroleumscapes.

Website ▶

Research of

Theodor Reinhardt. Image: Matéo White

Theodor Reinhardt

Theodor Reinhardt is a researcher, designer and cartographer holding an MSc in Architecture cum laude from TU Delft. Interested in material and operational complexities of and between territories, infrastructures and planetary systems, his practice Junkspaceoddity works with maps, spaces, objects, graphics, videos, exhibitions and texts. Publications of his work include Datapolis, DETAIL Magazine, Modi Operandi and Arch+ 264, while exhibitions span Countryside: A Place to Live, Not to Leave; MAPS. New Cartographies, New Narratives; and the 17th Venice Biennale as part of Dogma. He has taught at Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam, Amsterdam Academy of Architecture and Università Iuav di Venezia.

Partners and credits

The project builds on the notion of The Global Petroleumscape, ongoing research which has led to multiple publications and data sets of Carola Hein on the role of oil in the development of Rotterdam’s port city territory (Hein 2018, 2020). The project also incorporates insights of Hein’s work with Yvonne van Mil and Lucija Azman-Momirski entitled the Port City Atlas (Hein et al 2023). Combined with the past and ongoing work by the independent organisation One Planet Port on the connection between port activities and the framework of the Planetary Boundaries (Gilliam & Tuttle, 2026), who furthermore contribute with data collection.

Historic material presented as part of the project has been developed as part of the research by Carola Hein on Oil Spaces with support from Seyed Mohamad Sedighi (collection of data for the Rotterdam port city territory) and Arnoud de Waaijer (collection of data for global flows of oil through Rotterdam).

You Can Be Sure of Hell is jointly supported by the IABR and One Planet Port. IABR acts as the initiator, facilitator and supporter of this research project.

Background information about You Can Be Sure of Hell

You Can Be Sure of Hell is a transscalar and transtemporal cartographic work, investigating the entanglement of the Rotterdam port city territory in the breakdown of Earth’s major planetary support systems. Zooming in on the petroleumscapes of the Rotterdam port city territory as key drivers of economic growth and planetary degradation, it traces their role in shaping Rotterdam’s port, urban fabric and operational hinterland. Simultaneously, the project sheds light on the involvement of those anthropogenically-animated hydrocarbons and their Rotterdam-based petroleumscapes in the transgression of 7 out of 9 Planetary Boundaries – proposed indicators of late-Holocene key planetary systems stability – through relational cartography. The Boundaries currently transgressed are: Climate Change, Change in Biosphere Integrity, Land System Change, Freshwater Change, Modification of Biogeochemical Flows, Ocean Acidification and Introduction of Novel Entities.

What is the research method of You Can Be Sure of Hell?

The project combines spatial and temporal scales – from the Rotterdam port city territory to the planetary, and from deep time to the present – to render visible complex relationships otherwise obscured in daily life. At its core is a custom geospatial projection that will combine a central disc to depict the Rotterdam port city territory with a peripheral annulus containing the full planetary context. By connecting those domains through a colour-based notational system, the piece provides insights into local spatial, infrastructural and economic processes and their respective planetary implications.

What do we hope to accomplish with You Can Be Sure of Hell?

By developing novel agential notational systems that link each of the breached Planetary Boundaries, their spatial extent on the global scale, and the local hydrocarbon-related spatial elements most involved in their breaching, the project is to produce novel insights on how specific localities within the port city territory are implicated in processes of planetary breakdown – thus simultaneously problematising and politicising those as key elements of potential intervention.

When can you expect the results of You Can Be Sure of Hell?

First results of the project will be presented as part of IABR 2026 SYSTEM OF SUPPORT.