School's Out! #49 - XL edition & Housewarming with Oliver Wainwright
A festive opening of the Independent School for the City's new location on the top floor of "Het Archief" on the Robert Fruinstraat 52. With a lecture by Guardian's architecture and design critic Oliver Wainwright and tunes by DJ's Steve Balearics and Lotus. Friday 28 March 2025, 19:00 - Late
Tickets are available for 7,50 euro
The Independent School for the City is moving to a new location on the top floor of "Het Archief" on the Robert Fruinstraat 52 in Rotterdam. We warmly invite you all to our housewarming party! Expect a festive School's Out XL edition with a talk by the Guardian's architecture and design critic Oliver Wainwright, followed by drinks and DJ sets from Stef and Lotus!
Oliver Wainwright will talk about "The New Utopias". City building is back – and being weaponised like never before. Silicon Valley tech bros are drawing up plans for libertarian free states. The Saudi monarchy is concocting sci-fi fantasies in the desert. Donald Trump has a megalomaniacal ambition to transform Gaza into the “riviera of the Middle East”. Bjarke Ingels is busy conjuring everything from a Mindfulness City in Bhutan, to a floating city for the UN, to a masterplan for the entire planet.
What is driving this new age of city building? Who are these heady visions for? And what are the consequences for people and the planet? This talk will unpick the motivations and machinations behind this alarming new epoch of grand urban plans, and what it means for the future of our cities.
Preliminary Programme
19:00 Doors Open
20:00 - 20:15 Welcome and presentation of the Independent School for the City's new location.
20:15 - 21:30 Talk by Oliver Wainwright + Q&A
21:30 - 22:30 DJ Set by Steve Balearics
22:30 - 00:00 DJ Set by Lotus
00:00 DJ Set by Steve Balearics
About Oliver Wainwright
Oliver Wainwright is a writer and photographer based in London. He has been the architecture and design critic of the Guardian since 2012. He trained as an architect at the University of Cambridge and the Royal College of Art, and worked in strategic planning at the Architecture and Urbanism Unit of the Greater London Authority and at a number of architecture practices, including OMA in Rotterdam and Muf in London.
He has written extensively on architecture and design for a wide range of international publications, from Building Design and the Architects' Journal, to Icon, Domus and Frieze and has won awards for his in-depth reporting on the housing crisis and the planning system. He has served as curatorial advisor to the Architecture Foundation and is a regular visiting critic and lecturer at a number of architecture schools internationally.
His first book, Inside North Korea, was published by Taschen in 2018, and his photographs have been exhibited in Seoul, Moscow, London and New York.