‘Up to You’

‘Up to You’
Yona Friedman, Thomas Lommée, Navid Nuur
31 January – 28 March, 2010

Hogewal 1-9
2514 HA The Hague
The Netherlands
Opening hours: Wednesday-Sunday 12-5 pm
T +31-70 3658985
info [​at​] stroom.nl

www.stroom.nl

The exhibition ‘Up to You’ brings together the work of architect Yona Friedman, designer Thomas Lommée and artist Navid Nuur. Very consciously they deploy aspects such as time and coincidence in their work. This is something the society we live in is not prepared for. Our society is built on security, represented by ideal images and ideal numbers. All in vain, because security is an illusion. Allowing insecurity to enter the design process creates a sense of freedom. There is room for change, surprise and appropriation. Friedman, Lommée and Nuur make an inviting gesture, encouraging the public, resident or user to give his or her own interpretation of the work. Friedman’s ville spatiale, Lommée’s OpenStructures and Nuur’s interimodules provide a point of departure, but don’t comment on the final image. We the audience are asked to become active ourselves.

Traditional urban planning is based on the predictability of human behaviour. Yona Friedman (1923), however, is convinced that the development of cities is unpredictable, which makes it impossible for an urban planner to design a proper city for its inhabitants. Friedman wants to give the citizen the final say and in the 1950s he developed the ville spatiale; large, open and flexible structures, preferably raised from street level, in which the residents themselves can shape their living environment. In manuals for the self-planner (strip cartoon images) he shows us the way. In the exhibition several of these manuals and models will be shown, including one for the Binckhorst, an industrial area in The Hague.

This part of the exhibition is made possible by Helene Fentener van Vlissingen (co-author of ‘Yona Friedman. Structures serving the unpredictable’, 1999, NAi Publishers) and Angelique van Grootel.

In the work of Thomas Lommée (1979) systems, structures and the way individuals can use them collectively and individually play a central role. His research project www.OpenStructures.net develops models for a sustainable and democratic way of designing. It is an open system where anyone can design with a kind of ‘collaborative Meccano’. See: www.openstructures.net.

Navid Nuur (1976) explores and changes the way we perceive and experience a certain space starting from his interest in what we record unconsciously or risk missing because we are focusing on something else. His installations, drawings and objects are best described as modules of thought. He himself prefers to call them ‘interimodules‘. A module for a way of thinking/concept, a temporary ‘in between’.

‘Up to You’ is part one of ‘Upcycling’, a program which will run thru 2010-2011. Its aim is to investigate alternatives in creating value and meaning. The exhibition is made possible in part by: Mondriaan Foundation, The Netherlands Architecture Fund, Ingenieursbureau Den Haag, Z33 Hasselt.