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Once upon a time Rotterdam was the most famous reconstructed city of the western world. Its modern city centre was visited by architects, planners, and dignitaries from all over the world. The reason was not just that here the first pedestrian open air shopping centre was realised, but especially the values that the sparkly new centre seemed to embody. Modernity and industry rose up from the ruins of the pre-war period of dense suffocating historic city centres. Democracy, commerce, progress, and capitalism were the new truths. Then there was the specific nature of Rotterdam’s destruction that gave it its importance: the city was bombed by the German Wehrmacht to force Holland into capitulation and was an example of the brutal threat of Nazi Germany at the beginning of the Second World War.

Reconstruction is perhaps the wrong word for the rebuilding of Rotterdam after the war; the new plan was specifically designed to... Read more

In Spring 2024 the Independent School for the City organised an international symposium on demolition, or rather: on learning to live without it. What started out as a fringe statement, that was sometimes mistaken for being merely provocative but was actually deadly serious and meant to be taken entirely at face value, has now blossomed into a serious position to be taken by building owners, architects and planners alike. It argues that demolition wastes resources and embedded CO₂, while new construction worsens the problem. Inspired by Lacaton & Vassal’s 2004 manifesto, which advocated for improving rather than demolishing buildings, the symposium explored how this radical conservation ethos is now being put into practice. It challenges the norm equating progress with destruction, urging architecture to focus on adaptation over replacement. Read more here