Back to School with... Rick ten Doeschate - session #1 with Lara Schrijver

the historic perspective

For this edition of Back to School with…  we’ve invited architect Rick ten Doeschate of CIVIC Architects to curate a series around the topic of representation and the formal expression of public buildings.

During this series we dealt with the fact that architecture debate has for the past thirty years revolved around ‘extra-architectural’ issues such as economy, program, health and sustainability, while subjects such as ‘Aesthetics’, ‘Design’, ‘Style’, ‘Representation’ have scarcely been discussed. In this series we wanted to broaden the view on the formal dimension of architecture. On three evenings we will illuminate the subject from three perspectives: the historical, the architectural, and the political.

In this first session we focused on the historic perspective of representation and the formal expression of public buildings. Historically, the term ‘representation’ in architecture has encompassed a variety of connotations, from highly formal exercises in spatial composition to expressions of political structure. These various approaches have been influenced by societal context and by foundational debates within the discipline. This lecture highlights a number of key moments in the 19th and 20th centuries that can help to address the role of architecture today as a complex fabric of the social and the formal. 

See for more info on the complete series here