Dirk van den Heuvel: Bakema and the Open Society

Jaap Bakema and the Open Society is the first extensive book publication on the Dutch architect Jaap Bakema, his ideas and ideals for society at large. Throughout the post-WWII decades Bakema was inspired to build for a democratic and open society. His body of work, his teaching and writing, and his international presence are testimony to the vicissitudes of the welfare state and the roles played by architecture and planning in its construction.

In the midst of the ongoing neo-liberal crisis of today and its conservative cultural fall-out, these ideas on the open society have regained relevancy, in particular in light of the current debates on how to involve citizens in city building and how to create alternatives for our crumbling welfare states. Brought back from the past Bakema’s legacy functions as a mirror to remind us of the radical potential of architectural conceptualization in its commitment to societal questions.

This publication highlights internationally acclaimed and lesser known work through Bakema’s texts (some of which are published in English for the first time), accompanied by a rich, visual documentation from the archives. The book contains interviews with contemporaries, who worked with him in different contexts, and essays that critically probe the socially engaged aspects of his work and the contexts in which they came into being.

Jaap Bakema and the Open Society has been compiled and edited by Dirk van den Heuvel. It counts with contributions by Brita Bakema, Christine Boyer, Lard Buurman, Dick van Gameren, John Habraken, Carola Hein, Herman Hertzberger, Frans Hooykaas, Arnold Reijndorp, Izak Salomons, Johannes Schwartz, Jorrit Sipkes, Carel Weeber. Graphic design by Jaap van Triest.

Jaap Bakema (1914–1981) was one of the leading voices of the post-WWII avant-gardes. He oversaw the transition from CIAM to Team 10 and in the Netherlands he belonged to the so-called Forum-group together with Aldo van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger, who launched structuralism in architecture. At the same time he stood at the helm of one of the leading architecture firms of those days, the office of Van den Broek and Bakema in Rotterdam, which was responsible for key projects of the period such as the Lijnbaan shopping centre in Rotterdam. In Germany Bakema was responsible for the design of one of the Hansaviertel towers, the town hall of Marl and the research complex of Siemens in München. Bakema can be regarded as the ultimate representative of the build-up of the Dutch welfare state and its changing policies from a universalist approach to the neo-liberal turn in the 1970s.

Dirk van den Heuvel is an Associate Professor at TU Delft. He is co-founder and head of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, a collaborative research intiative between TU Delft and Het Nieuwe Instituut. In 2017 he received a Richard Rogers Fellowship from Harvard University GSD. Van den Heuvel was curator of the Dutch contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014, “Open: A Bakema Celebration”. He also curated the exhibition on Dutch Structuralism: “An Installation in Four Acts: Education, Ideals, Building, the City” for Het Nieuwe Instituut, and a show on the architecture of the house as a paradigm for the architectural discipline: “Changing Ideals: Re-thinking the House”, in Bureau Europa, Maastricht. His publications include the books: “Jaap Bakema and the Open Society” (Archis 2018), “Architecture and the Welfare State” (Routledge 2015, with Mark Swenarton and Tom Avermaete), “Team 10: In Search of a Utopia of the Present 1953–1981” (NAi Publishers 2005, with Max Risselada), and “Alison and Peter Smithson: From the House of the Future to a House of Today” (010 Publishers 2004, with Max Risselada). Together with Madeleine Steigenga and Jaap van Triest he authored “Lessons: Tupker / Risselada. A Double Portrait of Dutch Architectural Education” (2003). He is an editor of the publication series “DASH. Delft Architectural Studies on Housing” (nai010publishers) as well as of the online journal for architectural theory “Footprint”. He was also an editor of the Dutch journal “OASE” from 1993 until 1999.

Supported by the Embassy of the Netherlands in the Czech Republic.