Urgent Urbanism: Kees Christiaanse

As part of the Month of Urban Design, on 16 November the lecture Urgent Urbanism by Kees Christiaanse takes place.

In this event we bring the statement forward that the world is on fire and we are suffering multiple social and ecological crises that seems to lead to our final days on earth. How can we react as urban designers? We are in workfield of slow transition, the average area development takes 5-10 years? How can we act now? What can we do? How should our discipline and/or workfield change to deal with this?

Lecture by Kees Christiaanse (KCAP, ETHZ), followed by a conversation with Tess Broekmans (TU Delft / Urhahn) and Robbert Jan van der Veen (TU Delft / Echo Urban Design).

Kees Christiaanse

Kees Christiaanse is a Dutch architect and urban planner. After working with Rem Koolhaas, he started his own firms Kees Christiaanse Architects & Planners (KCAP) in 1989 and Architects and Planners (ASTOC) in Cologne. Christiaanse worked with Rem Koolhaas’ architecture firm, OMA, where he was made a partner in 1983 at the age of 30, and worked for the firm until 1989. After OMA, he founded his own two firms, Kees Christiaanse Architects and Planners (KCAP) in Rotterdam and ASTOC Architects and Planners (Cologne). He was also artistic director of the Dutch Building Department from 1993 to 1996. From 1996 to 2003 he was a professor of architecture and urban planning at the Technical University of Berlin, and is now the Chair of Architecture and Urbanism in the Institute for Urban Design at the ETH in Zurich.