Lecture date: 2012-02-28
Hosted by Chris Lee
The presentation will focus on the re-activation of late-modernist templates about architectural interventions on infrastructure. Since the Second World War many of these templates have been ambitious statements on behalf of society, which nevertheless were either forgotten or ridiculed. Today, however, the field possesses the means and insights to upgrade and realise some of these concepts, such as the open platform-building, the megastructure, the monumental grouping. The practice seeks to learn from failed attempts historically, but nevertheless, in cannibalising history, aims to insert a sense of continuity into the modernist project.
D’Hooghe and Peeters are partners in the Organization for Permanent Modernity, an architectural and urban design firm comprised of an academic group at MIT in Boston and a professional practice stationed in both Boston and Brussels. The formalisation and objectification of infrastructural elements is central in their current work. Projects include a masterplan for the slaughterhouse district in Brussels (including a 25,000-square-metre market building); a series of public facilities and town centres around Brussels; a plan for the protection and expansion of the coastline between France and The Netherlands (2009); and a competition-winning entry for a large landfill in South Korea (2008).
The formalization and objectification of infrastructural elements is key to the current work in the organization. Current projects include a masterplan for the slaughterhouse district in Brussels (including a 25,000 sq.m. market building), a series of public facilities and town centers around Brussels, a plan for the protection and expansion of the coastline between France and the Netherlands (68km, 2009), as well as a competition-winning entry for a large landfill in South-Korea (401 sq.km2, 2008). The organization comprises of both an academic group group at MIT, and a professional firm stationed in both Boston and Brussels.
Alexander D’Hooghe is associate professor in Architectural Urbanism at MIT. He directs the ‘Organization for Permanent Modernity’ in Boston. Not only a professional firm but also a academic group at MIT, D’Hooghe has both groups interact around the same discipline, and also published for the organization internationally, most recently with ‘the Liberal Monument’ (Princeton, Fall 2010), and has papers in relevant journals in Germany, Israel, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, US, etc. D’Hooghe obtained his Ph.D. at the Berlage Institute in 2007 i.c.w. T.U.Delft, after achieving a Masters in Urban Design at the Harvard GSD in 2001, and a master in Architecture and Civil Engineering from the University of Leuven in 1996.
Luk Peeters obtained a Masters in Civil Engineering-Architecture and a Master degree in Urbanism at the University of Leuven and Ghent, Belgium. He started working at CHORA, London with Raoul Bunschoten on urban scale problems. The next twelve years he worked for the TPF group and Grontmij, two large international offices for design and engineering, where he managed the architectural and urban design of large-footprint projects for both corporations and public authorities. He joined the ORGanization in 2007, where his experience in large industrial buildings and a passion for industrial poetry brought a new vision in the research on the projects for Shed City and the Big Box. He became partner in 2009 and is since then in charge of the Belgian office.
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