A duo lecture in Sonneveld House with designer Sabine Marcelis and architecture historian Hetty Berens. Marcelis and Berens will each reflect upon De Stijl as a design movement by looking at a specific interior design project. The two stories make clear that De Stijl was far from being an isolated avant-garde project but was and remains highly influential.
Sonneveld House is a prime example of the Nieuwe Bouwen style. The design drawings show that while the functionalistic form of the house came easily, deciding on a functional layout proved to be more difficult. Starting from various archive materials, architecture historian and curator Hetty Berens explores the design history of the house. What choices were made and who was involved in the project?This lecture is part of the Rotterdam Architecture Month 2017.
The French artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster created a work especially for Sonneveld House. Opera-house is a domestic opera based on the Sonneveld family’s arrival in their new home. By means of several soundtracks and objects, Gonzalez-Foerster transforms the static environment of the museum house into a theatrical space for active exploration.Opera-house is based on early 20th-century operatic music and technology, but also on the experience of moving from a traditional to a modern
Rotterdam and Dessau were important cities for the modernist avant-garde as it gained influence in both architecture and the arts. An intense exchange of ideas occurred between the two cities, ideas that aimed at improving a disrupted society. The Van Nelle Factory was built in Rotterdam and the Bauhaus was built in Dessau between the two World Wars. Both buildings have become icons of modernism and are on the UNESCO world heritage list.Simultaneous Modernism (8th October 2016 - 19 February 2017
Het Nieuwe Instituut has purchased two tubular-steel armchairs and a glass coffee table designed by Willem Hendrik Gispen, which originally furnished the living room of Sonneveld House. The pieces are unique and were made in 1932 specially for the Sonneveld family. The items are on display in Sonneveld House from 10 September 2016. Sonneveld House (1933) is the only publicly accessible house that is almost entirely furnished with Gispen items. Leen van der Vlugt, the architect of Sonneveld
From 12 June 2016 Irish artist Eva Rothschild will present work that responds to Sonneveld House’s status as a museum and monument. She created a series of large, geometric sculptures that will be placed throughout the house alongside a number of smaller, more discreet pieces.The larger works create an alternative architecture that questions what is possible spatially within the house and highlights the sense of control that Rothschild sees as inherent within the domestic environment. This
The intervention A Mental Image - Blavatsky Observatory by the Mexican artist and architect Santiago Borja offers a unique space for contemplation on the roof of Sonneveld House. Urban noise fades into the background up here above the city, where visitors to the observatory can engage with the elements in the resulting silence.
On the roof of Sonneveld House, the observatory is being built that Santiago Borja devoted to Helena Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society. A space for contemplation above the rumour of the city. His project A Mental Image – Blavatsky Observatory opens for the public on February 13
Marco Pasi specialises in the history of hermetic philosophy and related currents. On 11 February, he will deliver a lecture in Sonneveld House on the connection between theosophy and modernism in relation to the intervention by Mexican architect and artist Santiago Borja in Sonneveld House. This will be followed by a talk by Borja about his work entitled A Mental Image - Blavatsky Observatory.Santiago Borja builds an observatory on the roof of Sonneveld House, which is on view from 13 February
Het Nieuwe Instituut regularly invites a designer, architect or artist to respond to Sonneveld House, one of the best-preserved private houses built in the Dutch Functionalist style. From 13 February to 22 May this is Mexican artist and architect Santiago Borja. He built an observatory on the roof of the house, which dates from 1933, offering visitors a space for contemplation.With his work A Mental Image – Blavatsky Observatory, Borja points to the influence of Western esotericism on the