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Een onvoltooid project
Over de toekomst van onze Groeikernen
Michelle Provoost
Wie aan de Nederlandse steden denkt, denkt allereerst aan de bekende historische steden in de Randstad, daarna misschien nog aan Groningen, Zwolle of Maastricht, maar niet veel mensen zullen de ‘Groeikernen’ of ‘Overloopsteden’ als echte steden beschouwen. Het zijn ook geen steden waar je als buitenstaander vaak zult komen. Wie gaat er wel eens kijken in Spijkenisse, Duiven-Westervoort, een dagje uit in Capelle, Zoetermeer, Haarlemmermeer, Houten, of bezienswaardigheden bekijken in Nieuwegein, Almere, Lelystad of Purmerend? Niet veel mensen schat ik zo. Ikzelf ben daarop een uitzondering, (…)




Dimitrovgrad.
An Industrial New Town in Bulgaria develops its ambiguous cultural heritage.
article by Aneta Vasileva
Der Richter der Gerichtete, John Heartfield. Source: 
heartfield.adk.de/node/3486g There is one famous photomontage of John Heartfield for a November 1933 issue of the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ). A courtroom in Leipzig. An enormous Georgi Dimitrov is looming over a small, hands-on-hips Göring, who is angrily spitting words at him. This montage addresses the Reichstag fire trial of which the Bulgarian, then a Comintern functionary and leader of the Bulgarian Communist party, was accused, but walked away acquitted and as a world famous anti-fascist hero. This is a poster (…)




The Squatted New Town, Modern Movement meets Self-organisation in Venezuela
article by Simone Rots
On the 6th of January 2021 Simone Rots defended her PhD research “The Squatted New Town, Modern Movement meets Self-organisation in Venezuela” at Delft, University of Technology. She has completed this research at the Department of Urbanism of the Faculty of Architecture, with Han Meyer as promotor, Remon Rooij as co-promotor and Ana Maria Fernandez Maldonado as daily supervisor. This is the text of her laymans talk that explains the content of the research and defines which lessons can be learned from dissertation for the current and future practice of urbanism.




Dalang Fever 3.
Data to Control or to Empower?
article by Linda Vlassenrood
Image: Ester van de Wiel Het Nieuwe Instituut and the International New Town Institute (INTI) joined forces for the participatory research project Dalang Fever 3. How Data Can Empower a Migrant Society. The project aims to understand the desires and needs of the migrant workers of Dalang, a rapidly transforming area on the outskirts of Shenzhen. Dalang Fever 3 combined the extensive working experience of INTI in Dalang with knowledge on data and the smart society from the DATAstudio programme of Het Nieuwe Instituut. Dalang Fever 3 consisted of research, an exhibition at the 2019 (…)




Utopian Radicalism - Providing radical alternatives to the ‘top-down’ planning of New Towns of the past.
Article by Sascha Herfkens
On October 3th a symposium was organised in the British New Town Milton Keynes titled Utopian Radicalism, curated by INTI. The symposium was part of A Festival of Creative Urban Living which took place from October 26 to November 13. Examples of inspiring and experimental projects organised or initiated by residents or cooperatives were brought together. These projects serve as an alternative to the traditional top-down planning that was used in the past for the design of New Towns. Although this top-down planning is still the most dominant way of designing today, there has been a growing (…)




Brokering Development
- The Kenyan Greenport
article by Bas van den Hurk
In the world of international development cooperation an interesting dynamic is taking place: globalization. Neo-liberal ideologies give space for an expanded connectivity between policy making arenas and modes of policy development. The reduction of political boundaries is most evident within Dutch development cooperation. In recent years classic bi- and multilateral development aid was modernized by the introduction of extensive private sector subsidies, giving rise to new complex public-private partnerships. Within this ‘Aid to Trade’ discourse targeting market dynamics is argued to (…)




Shanzhai City
What Will Make Shenzhen the Next Innovative City?
article by Tat Lam and Yeung Ho Man Legg
Introduction to the Shenzhen paradigm shift In the mid 1990s, OMA, the architecture office led by Rem Koolhaas, published the book S,M,L,XL with the article ‘The Generic City’. They followed up a few years later with the book Great Leap Forward. Both publications describe the Pearl River Delta and Shenzhen’s urbanization issues in particular. [1] As a result of OMA’s analysis, Shenzhen became the focus of discussions and research on topics such as rural migrants serving the urban manufacturing industries [2]; the development strategy of large-scale infrastructure and government (…)




The New Urban Agenda –the Perspective of New Towns
Article by Michelle Provoost
The global urbanization, which is presently taking place, is predicted to lead to 70% of the global population living in cities by 2050. This makes clear that cities will define the social, economic, cultural and ecological quality of human life in the 21th Century. It stresses the importance to redefine what our cities should be and the necessity to involve all the parties that are engaged with planning, developing, governing and managing cities. In recognition of the urgency of improving cities, the “New Urban Agenda” will be ratified at the Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador in (…)




Bottom-up is not enough
Article by Michelle Provoost
In the sixth year of the global economic crisis some interesting shifts have become visible in the architecture world. The stream of great iconic buildings (designed by the likes of Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, OMA, Foster, etc.) commissioned by commercial developers has lost momentum. Prestigious projects that were the architectural contribution to the globally accelerating construction economy have stalled. Buildings that had no real bearing either on functional or cultural needs but rather worked as a businessmodel, connecting to global capital flows and serving the global competition (…)




A City of Comings and Goings
Article by Wouter Vanstiphout and Michelle Provoost
Scrolling through the long list of victims of Friday 13 November 2015 in Paris, we see a heart-rending portrait of a young cosmopolitan generation from very diverse backgrounds: from the banlieues to the world of international architecture. They are not only lucky students who have seen the world on fellowships or foreign tourists enjoying themselves in Paris’s concert venues and trendy bars. Some of the victims were French citizens who had emigrated from Chile as children; others have parents who emigrated from Algeria or Congo in the 1970s. The victims represent an urban class that is (…)










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