Bureau Europa presents Machine à Amuser, an intimate exhibition on the relationship between client and designer: Le Corbusier and his famous penthouse for millionaire bachelor Charles de Beistegui.

An eccentric client, a visionary architect and a gifted storyteller: with those ingredients, Bureau Europa's new exhibition, Machine à Amuser, turns architecture into a story. The exhibition revolves around the iconic penthouse that Le Corbusier designed for de Beistegui, a project that reflects both the collaboration and conflicts between the two creative minds. It thus complements Wim van den Bergh's brilliant book Machine à Amuser. The Life and Death of the Beistegui Penthouse Apartment.

Charles de Beistegui and his Penthouse

Charles de Beistegui, a wealthy and eccentric client, had a unique and carefully composed taste that often clashed with the modernist views of Le Corbusier. This led to a fascinating and sometimes tense creative process, in which de Beistegui increasingly took control of the design as a gentleman architect. The surreal-looking end result became a place for entertainment and extravagance, in line with the term ‘machine à amuser’ rather than a ‘machine à habiter’ (as Le Corbusier usually described his dwellings). The exhibition of the same name showcases this interaction and the final design.

The World of Haute Bohème

The exhibition gives an insight not only into the architectural aspects of the penthouse, but also into the world of Parisian café society in which de Beistegui resided. His lavish and eccentric parties were extensively documented in leading magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. It is therefore there that we mostly encounter the penthouse, more so than in leading architectural publications. This eccentric world is therefore illustrated through photographs, film material, original magazines and objects.

Architectural Research and Reconstruction

Author and former architect Wim van den Bergh spent years researching and meticulously drawing the eccentric penthouse. Drawing is presented as a method of architectural research and a way of getting to the bottom of the object of study. Wim van den Bergh's reconstruction drawings play an important role in the exhibition, showing the detailed and in-depth study of this extraordinary space.

The Grand Tour

The intimate exhibition ‘Machine à Amuser. The Life and Death of the Beistegui Penthouse Apartment’ will be on display from Friday 9 August to Sunday 3 November 2024 in the library and small room of Bureau Europa. Admission is on voluntary donation. Bureau Europa is open Wednesday to Friday from 12:00 to 17:00 during this period. By appointment, the exhibition can also be visited on weekends. The grand opening will take place on Friday 30 August 2024 at 16:00, to which you are cordially invited.
‘Machine à Amuser’ is part of Bureau Europa's diverse autumn programme “The Grand Tour”. For more information on the other events and dates, please visit Bureau Europa's website.

For more information, contact Myrthe Leenders, communicatie@bureau-europa.nl

In Vitro
The Many Lives of Glass

We always look through glass but rarely at glass. It is now ubiquitous as a building material, but it once brought color to everyday life. The church windows told the stories of who we are and how we should behave. Today, the use of glass in architecture is generally prosaic: a material that transmits light and connects indoors and outdoors.

In a practical sense, the use of glass offers opportunities for making new and old buildings more sustainable. Ever since industrialization, the aura of modernity has been associated with the use of glass. The future is seen in glass, the material is technologically innovated, but the old crafts are also preserved, perhaps expressed in new forms.

In Limburg, glass had a clear meaning in the creation of a regional visual identity. The city of Roermond played the leading role as a glassmaking center that also sold its product beyond the provincial borders. This was reflected in the typical stained glass skylights and the exuberant expressionist church windows of the Limburg School with luminaries such as Joep Nicolas, Charles Eyck and the Atelier Flos to contemporary architects such as Wiel Arets, Francine Houben, Mathieu Bruls and Jo Coenen.

This exhibition explores the use of glass in architecture in all its different manifestations. On the one hand, this can be a local and traditional material, but also an industrial product that has an indelible influence on how we interact with each other, with architecture and with the nature around us. In the exhibition we bring together archive material and old stained glass with introspective installations and films that explore the shine and layering of glass. Modern Limburg architecture is shown with designs and models in the context, philosophy and symbolic importance of glass.

Glass for the mind Glass has told stories from the beginning. In illiterate times, stained glass windows in churches provided text and explanations for the unintelligible Latin mass. Later, when window glass also becomes available to the middle class, the material also expresses prosperity. The purple glass that you see in some canal houses in Amsterdam, for example, is a symbol of wealth, but in many cases also fake.

The Catholic community in the Netherlands emancipated itself in the mid-19th century: a period that is sometimes called 'the Rich Roman Life'. The diocese of Roermond was restored, the Catholic experience and thus the culture flourished. The studios of architect Pierre Cuypers and glazier Frans Nicolas, who were much talked about in this movement, regularly worked together from the 1850s onwards. The architectural style referred to the late Middle Ages and that caught on: the Gothic was given a revival in the Neo-Gothic, with Limburg roots. However, contemporary secularization means that a lot of glass loses its function and place and life ends in small depots. At Bureau Europa you will soon be able to wander through the Limburg glass depot yourself, looking for orphaned pieces of stained glass.

Political charge The stained glass depot brings together the many shards from the neo-Gothic heyday of glass art. It is problematic heritage: restoration is difficult, also because of the demands of our time. Stained glass is simply difficult to implement in triple glazing. The province would prefer to get rid of it. Glass is not only causing headaches in Limburg. With her research and film, Batoul Faour portrays the devastation after the massive explosion in Beirut in 2020, which covered the city under a carpet of glass for months. The broken glass is a metaphor for the fragile political situation in Lebanon.

In her film White Heart, Christien Meindertsma zooms in on a bead with that name, which was used for centuries in colonial barter trade and with which a system of exploitation could be set up. Today the beads are produced in Bohemia and are still incorporated into native art in America, in a highly traditional manner. The film sensitively portrays the globalization of a material, but also the history of exploitation.

Inside and outside After the industrial revolution, the view on health changed: a good life requires peace, space and light. In Maastricht, Petrus Regout started equipping his factories with glass roofs and floors, and he even made the first gas pipes from glass. Later, the tuberculosis pandemic was combated with light and air, which is reflected in the architecture of sanatoriums. Many glass walls ensured that sunlight could reach the room with a horizontal focus because patients mainly lay on beds. The style of the furniture was sleek. This is practical and promotes breathing. Sanatorium visitors were the influencers of the time and the style spread like wildfire.

Architecture developed further when x-ray photography was invented, after 1900. Just as an x-ray shows the inside of the body, architecture turns the interior outward through the use of glass walls. The boundary between inside and outside, between private and public, is blurring. The architecture as we knew it seemed to disappear. This rigorous approach was also one of the hallmarks of the eminent and influential Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from Aachen. Contemporary architect Wiel Arets responds to this with his theory of the Alabaster Skin. Everyone is a voyeur, the act of looking itself is problematized – or even disciplined: after all, the Dutch (Calvinist) sun-drenched house offers full insight into private life, as proof of righteousness.

Layered glass The introduction of glass in architecture therefore represents an Umwertung aller Werte. The architecture disappears as soon as it appears, the glass wall is the membrane that separates the chaotic from the ordered. With the advent of electricity, light no longer comes from outside, but from within. Frits Peutz's Glass Palace in Heerlen is a celebration of modern construction and an expression of the merchant spirit and modernity. It is ironic that the glass architecture of sanatoriums was intended to be an antidote to modernity - and Wiel Arets' Maastricht Art Academy also uses glass as a barrier: an impenetrable film between the colorful artist's studio and the rigid city fabric.

But glass architecture also lets nature in: from the TransNaturalHouse by Mathieu Bruls in Beutenaken, which is tailored to the positions of the sun and the outdoor climate for optimal light, to the Swedish concept of the Naturhus, where people live in greenhouses without insulation or heating. Ingeborg Meulendijks created An Arboreous Imprint: relief glasses in which nature is captured in the glass itself and in the Glass Farm in Schijndel by MVRDV and their Crystal Houses in Amsterdam, the boundary between nature and culture, inside and outside, seems to blur.

Ready for the future Although it is an ancient material, glass is continuously developing. As mentioned, the restoration of old glass is difficult, because it is often no longer made in a historical manner. However, with a view to climate adaptation, insulating and renovating stained glass is very important. Glass is a flexible and extremely suitable material for the future, not least because of its durability. It can be sourced locally and recycled endlessly. With her research Made by Insects, Ori Orisun Merhav investigates how the natural insect polymer shellac can be blown into a glass coating. AtelierNL emphasizes that the raw materials for glass can be extracted hyperlocally by working with different types of sand. But sand is a finite resource and this is pointed out in the work of Giuseppe Licari. The mining of sand and silica has a major impact on the local landscape.

But it can also reduce impact: nuclear waste, which remains dangerous for tens of thousands of years, can be stored in ceramic containers, the warning of danger captured in the crystallized glaze surrounding it, as Antye Guenther's ongoing research shows.

The In Vitro exhibition provides an inspired, layered insight into the many lives of glass: from stained glass windows in 19th-century Catholic Limburg to the expressionist Limburg School; from the symbolic layer in contemporary architecture to sustainable material for the future; from local craft to industrial product with global applications in art, fashion, design and health; from the glassmaker as musician to researcher, from novelist to activist.

Duration Saturday, December 16, 2023 to Sunday, June 16, 2024
Location Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design

_______________________________________________________________________________

Note for editors (not for publication)

For more information about the content of the exhibition, please contact info@bureau-europa.nl. Curator Remco Beckers and various artists are available for interviews. If you are interested, please contact communications employee Myrthe Leenders, via communicatie@bureau-europa.nl

The OASE, The landscape, The future, Dossier South Limburg

An exhibition for and by environmental designers.

If you place the map of the London metro 1 on 1 over the landscape of the Meuse-Rhine Euregion, you will see that it has a future. The area has cities, beautiful nature and is international. There are 3.9 million inhabitants with three nationalities, who speak three languages ​​(and many more dialects) and there are many schools and universities. The Euregio also has its own cross-border culture. An OASIS, so to speak, which at the same time is not or remains an oasis without a fight.

In times of emergency, such as climate change and the problems associated with it, it is certainly a challenge for the border region to completely turn things around. Because radical choices have to be made. Without real change, the challenges facing the Euregio cannot be tackled sustainably.

Bureau Europa has asked the curators of architectural firm Maurer United to make a presentation of the future of the landscape in general, based on their fascination with designing the South Limburg landscape, to provide insight into the tricks of the trade and to educate colleagues. invite them to present their work.

In addition to a view of the interesting, but sometimes complex world of landscape design, the visitor also gets an active role as a designer: what do you do in an emergency? Where do you build the houses, the greenery and what do you agree with the neighbors?

In short: an exhibition that is for everyone who cares about the landscape and South Limburg.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Note for editors (not for publication)

For more information about the content of the exhibition, please contact info@bureau-europa.nl. Curator Maurer United Architects are available for interviews. If you are interested, please contact communications officer Myrthe Leenders at communicatie@bureau-europa.nl

Bureau Europa opens new exhibition 'Frozen Music' on 16 December.

An exhibition about the design of space and sound, with works by Strijbos & Van Rijswijk, Jacob Kirkegaard, Otomax and Het Nieuwe Instituut, among others.

In the Frozen Music exhibition the design of space and sound is explored with interactive installations, art, film and music, architectural drawings and models. During the festive opening on Friday 16 December at 5pm at Bureau Europa the exhibition will be opened with a word of welcome by curator Remco Beckers and a live performance by Glice. The exhibition features works by the renowned composers Strijbos & Van Rijswijk, sound artists Jacob Kirkegaard and Joep Hinssen, the Maastricht collective Otomax, filmmaker Mikhail Karikis, research duo Bartlebooth, the young talents Sól Ey, Christy Westhovens and Leopold Inkapööl and with architecture by Berlage, Blom, Van Doesburg, Hertzberger, Wijdeveld and more. Partnerships with Conservatorium Maastricht, Muziekgieterij and local music associations form the core of an extensive musical public programme.

Music and architecture speak the same language of rhythm, contrast, proportion and dynamics. The composer and the master buileder have inspired each other for centuries. From mimicking the sounds of nature to fascination with the human voice, even the modern electrical environment of the 21st century is a source of inspiration for modern sound artists. Music even has its own architecture: from the design of instruments to the aesthetics of musical notation. The staff and the rhythm indicators, designed by the medieval composer Pérotin, are grounded in the Gothic architecture of 'his' Notre Dame in Paris. On paper, the staff notation is literally an architectural drawing, but it also works the other way around, as the eloquent quote by Johann Wolfgang van Goethe indicates: "Architecture is frozen music". 

Strijbos & Van Rijswijk, Jacob Kirkegaard, Christy Westhovens, Sòl Ey and Joep Hinssen
Hearing sound does not only depend on external factors such as location or material, it is also the absorption of sound waves by our body itself to determine what our environment looks like. After all, the ear itself is designed to accurately determine where sound comes from due to the minimal distance that sound waves have to travel from one ear to the other. But what if there is a disruption between what we hear and the architecture of our environment? Strijbos & Van Rijswijk therefore respond to the psychological experience of location and its relationship to music and sound. For example, the work Whispers (2016) can be seen in the exhibition, in which porcelain trumpets each play one part of a total work that can only be heard when you walk around it. However, the sounds are too soft, so you never hear the entire composition in its entirety. There is also sound in places where people normally do not go. In his work Opus Crematoio (2019) for example, Jacob Kirkegaard uses microscopy and close-up to reproduce the brutal, powerful sound of the inside of a cremator: what does the space sound like that we as living humans will never hear?

Ambient sounds, consciously designed or not, can form the basis of sound art. In Christy Westhoven's work Chattering (2020), the sound of the city itself is seen as music: the fragments of conversation around us are virtually processed in an evergrowing score. Sound artist Sól Ey converts the human need for intimacy into a musical composition in which the body becomes an instrument. The electrical pulses that your body transmits to your fellow player are expressed in this interactive installation. Traffic sounds have also served as inspiration for well-known composers and modern sound artists such as Joep Hinssen, who takes the rhythms of railway crossings and car traffic jams (Traffic Scrape, 2018, commissioned work for the Showroom/Bureau Europa) as the basis for intriguing works. In Frozen Music, the work Come Fly With Me (2020) by Joep Hinssen an be heard. This work shows how much more air traffic flies over our heads than we can hear and contrasts this with the bustle at airports in the current political and social unrest over flight shame, short city trips via plane, and the expansion of air traffic in the sky as well as on the ground at airports.

Muziek- en architectuuravonden bij Bureau Europa
Met de tentoonstelling Bevroren Muziek, laat Bureau Europa de vormgeving van ruimte en geluid zien. In een gevarieerd en interactief randprogramma wordt de relatie tussen mens, omgeving en muziek extra aangehaald. In samenwerking met Conservatorium Maastricht worden er composities en een kindervoorstelling bij de tentoonstelling geschreven. Deze worden tot uitvoering gebracht door middelbare scholieren tijdens de Museumnacht Maastricht. De continue creatie van muziek, beïnvloed door omgeving, vormt de boventoon in de expositie. Van januari tot en met mei schuif je iedere maand aan bij Wim Smeets, directeur van Muziekgieterij, die je in het wildeweg bijpraat over waarom Eminem alleen maar uit Detroit kan komen en grunge alleen maar uit Seattle - sociale en gebouwde context bepaalt sterk muzikale ontwikkeling!

Het Nieuwe Instituut
Bureau Europa maakt voor de tentoonstelling ‘Bevroren Muziek’ gebruik van de Rijkscollectie voor Nederlandse Architectuur en Stedenbouw, die door Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam wordt beheerd. Te zien zijn architectuurtekeningen van theaters en concertgebouwen van gerenommeerde architecten en wordt er werk getoond uit de collectie van Th. van Doesburg. Vanwege het grootschalige conserverings- en restauratieproject Architectuur Dichterbij (2019-2024) konden de tekeningen van Van Doesburg vier jaar lang niet worden uitgeleend. Dit is de eerste keer dat zijn werk weer buiten de muren van Het Nieuwe Instituut te zien is.

Voor Het Nieuwe Instituut is collectiemobilititeit van groot belang. Fysieke presentaties brengen een nieuw publiek in aanraking met de Rijkscollectie, die inzicht geeft in zo'n 130 jaar ontwikkeling van de Nederlandse architectuur en stedenbouw. Daarnaast is het interessant om collectiestukken in een nieuwe context te tonen, waardoor er nieuwe verhalen ontstaan.

The Two-Day Symposium The Derailment of the Usual

In Maastricht, with his installation Folly / The Derailment of the Usual (2021), sound artist Paul Devens has made a sonic re-enactment of what a resident of the infamous Cité Ouvrière may have heard during his stay in this now-demolished residential barracks. The building no longer exists, but its sound can be recreated using a method called acoustic archaeology, which seeks to explore and make audible the invisible dimensions of architecture. The two-day symposium The Derailment of the Usual will take place on 15 and 16 December 2022 at the Jan van Eyck Academy and is a collaboration between Paul Devens, Bureau Europa, Jan van Eyck Academy and Conservatorium Maastricht. The speakers are: Raviv Ganchrow, Linnea Semmerling, Peter Kiefer, Caroline Claus, Niamh McDonnell, Brandon Labelle, with a performance by Jacob Kirkegaard. The exhibition Frozen Music will be officially opened with the closing performance of Glice at Bureau Europa.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Note for the editor (not for publication)

For more information about the content of the exhibition, please contact info@bureau-europa.nl. Curator Remco Beckers and various artists are available for interviews. Please contact communications manager Myrthe Leenders to inquire after the possibilities, via communicatie@bureau-europa.nl.

POWER, LUST AND ZINC

The industrial landscape and the myth of Moresnet

PRESS RELEASE 2 SEPTEMBER 2021

 

This autumn, Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design, presents the story of the element zinc. The exhibition traces the development of one of Europe’s earliest industries and its particularly dynamic border and land politics. In this context, we also encounter the ambition of European unification expressed in Esperanto, the zinc lobbying conducted in Parisian salons and through affairs, the craft and curiosity for innovation that galvanised the zinc industry, and the traces of the Euregion in the landscape. Close to the current Three-Country Point, previously the Four-Country Point, there are still shared emotions and memories but also concerns about soil quality, the zinc violet and the possibility of mining’s return.

For this exhibition, Bureau Europa has collaborated with many partners and institutions in the Euregion. All elements are diligently researched to reveal improbably fantastic narratives and capture contemporary perspectives on borders, materials and crafts. In Power, Lust and Zinc, we detail the charms of Fanny Mosselman, the fourth country at the Three-Country Point (Drielandenpunt), the unique flower that every Limburg citizen knows, and our joint quest for the birth of the universe: all connected by the zinc mined from our land.

In this exhibition, curator Remco Beckers, in collaboration with research architects Dear Hunter, visualises zinc’s decisive influence on the development of local cultures, borders and landscapes in the Euregion. Since the Napoleonic era, the industry has often been at the heart of social engineering and its effect on the surrounding nature. On a small scale, the zinc in the Meuse-Rhine Euregion clearly demonstrates how economic and political interests shape human life worldwide.

The roofs of Paris Visitors enter a fascinating world: in the basement’s darkness, visitors walk across Parisian rooftops, the most salient example of zinc architecture. The fact that Emperor Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann, the visionaries behind the French capital’s redesign, allowed themselves to be seduced by this material speaks volumes about the often-bizarre history surrounding the zinc from Kelmis. If it weren’t for Fanny Mosselman, daughter of the Vieille Montagne zinc company director and a high society lady in the Parisian salons, zinc might not have become so quickly prevalent in the 19th century, and our world would look very different today. In a world without zinc, artist Irmel Kamp’s photographic series of East Belgian zinc building facades would never have come about.

Four borders On the ground floor, visitors encounter an array of sculptures, ornaments, tools and photos that illustrate zinc’s versatility and the multifaceted impact it had on people’s daily lives. The farming village of Kelmis was suddenly enclosed in new borders, and its 3.44 square kilometres declared neutral territory. The newly formed Neutral Moresnet, the fourth country that turned the Three-Country Point into a quadripoint, existed by sheer coincidence. Its inhabitants acquired a new identity only because they happened to live on top of land containing extraordinary wealth. They were suddenly and unwittingly confronted with political turmoil and industrial interference in their lives, which otherwise would have remained unaffected. But despite this country's inadvertent existence, the inhabitants soon fostered a sense of nationality. The village doctor played a central role in this sentiment and wanted to make Neutral Morenset the world’s first Esperanto-speaking country, named Amikejo (Place of Friendship).

The zinc violet After continuously being drawn into the past, the visitor also arrives in the present. Accounts of the first zinc factories dealings with angry winegrowers are strongly reminiscent of the modern-day legal battles of multinationals such as Tata Steel and Shell. Zinc, like any industry, has a considerable impact on nature and the landscape. But the effect is not always negative. Zinc production contaminates the ground with heavy metals, but this also creates a breeding ground for a unique flower, the zinc violet, which only grows naturally in this region. And where large zinc mining dried up the earth, making it unappealing for human habitation, a new protected landscape has arisen. Industry has clearly played a role in climate and landscape change, but at the local level, there are always two sides to a coin.

Looking to the future Today around Kelmis, there are hardly any reminders of the Vieille Montagne zinc industry or Neutral Moresnet. The former country has almost become a legend, and the zinc mines are closed. The people who stayed behind can only remember the nation and its mines with nostalgia. But there is also a fear that the mines may reopen: the minerals from which zinc is extracted also contain elements used in modern electronic devices and are therefore even more valuable. The people of Kelmis still live on very prosperous land! What does that mean for their future? Will the mines ever come back? A photo series by artist Filippo Ciriani beautifully portrays this mixture of nostalgia and fear.

Public programming Accompanying this exhibition is an extensive programme of lectures, workshops and walks in collaboration with various partners.

a. The zinc identity of Maastricht The most interesting insights into zinc and the infamous history of zinc oxide as seen through the city’s historical and contemporary architecture in a compact city tour.

b. Zinc nature trail in collaboration with artist Stefan Cools and the Very Contemporary network is a walk in Bunde’s countryside guided by the buried remains of industry.

The Vieille Montagne zinc company, the new De Zinkmeesters guild and the architecture of an artificial language such as Esperanto are the subjects of workshops and lectures taking place in the autumn.

The exhibition Power, Lust and Zinc runs from Saturday 4 September to Sunday 12 December 2021 at Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design.

Curator Remco Beckers | Spatial concept Dear Hunter and Frida Stillman | Graphic design Janneke Janssen and Lyanne Polderman | Production Ilona van den Brekel | Communication Yongblood & Studio Buttons

Partners Brouwers Zinc | Filippo Ciriani | Stefan Cools | Elements 2021 | Thomas Eyck | IKOB | Irmel Camp | Maison de la Métallurgie et de l’Industrie | Vieille Montagne Museum | Museum Zinkhütter Hof | NedZink | State Archives in Eupen | Very Contemporary | De Zinkmeesters

 

NOTE TO EDITORS

Download more information in the media kit

Or contact communicatie@bureau-europa.nl

Willemijn Doelman 0629623388 or Emmanuel Merkus 0615883644

 

Love in a Mist                         

the architecture of fertility

PRESS RELEASE 17 DECEMBER 2020

In the exhibition Love in a Mist - the architecture of fertility the woman stands at the core in the story of the architecture and the politics of fertility. This exhibition looks at the agelong quest to subdue women and their nature. The built environment surrounding us seems neutral at a first glance, but is really wrought with social opinions and political agendas about the worldwide political movement against abortion and against fertility. The expo also looks at women's history in Limburg, telling the stories of Elisabeth Strouven, the women of the Sphinx factories, the Midwifery School in Heerlen. Love in a Mist - the architecture of fertility opens 14 February 2021 to 15 August 2021 at Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design in Maastricht. With works by Desirée Dolron, Bernie Krause, Atelier van Lieshout, Next Nature Network, and more...

Curator and architect Malkit Shoshan of Harvard University brings her research and successful exhibition Love in a Mist (Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2019) to Maastricht, where it gets extra Dutch and Limburgish layers. Doctor and activist Rebecca Gomperts (Women on Waves) plays a central role, her work and her remarkable methods to help women get a safe abortion aboard her ship just one of the inspiring stories in this exhibition. Gomperts was justifiedly named on of 2020's most influential people by Time Magazine.

Mevr. de Architect The public programming will include a series of lectures, organised in collaboration with Merel Pit, editor-in-chief of Mevr. de Architect (A.ZINE). Women architects are invited to talk about their work, ambitions, and their vision for architecture. A number of scholars will talk about typically feminine insights in architecture history. The lecture series will coincide with the eponymous publication which is to be released in spring.

Suppression of woman and nature The name of the expo alludes to the flowering plant Love-in-a-Mist and the stories surrounding this plant. Not only did it have the reputation of seduction, but also symbolises virginity and underscores woman's intimate relationship with nature. Woman and her 'typical knowledge' of nature have traditionally been problematised. Control over a woman's body was deemed a social issue. Abortion was a taboo, but fertility improvement, contrariwise, was encouraged. The synthetic growth hormone DES is an example of this encouragement, even though it was proven later that DES had particularly destructive side-effects for pregnant women. As it was also derogatorily applied in agriculture, the way a woman's body is treated is reflected in the exploitation and degeneration of nature.

Worldwide a political battle is ongoing and the right to abortion is at stake. In the Netherlands too woman's position remains a relevant issue: at work, in medical practices, and in child care, for example. This exhibition takes you from the abortion clinic to the womb, from the courthouse to the farmer's fields and the swamp, as imagined and told by activists, legislators, scientists, artists, and designers.

Love-in-a-Mist The exhibition also tells the story of Wilhelmina van de Geijn, who in 1937 became one of the first women in the Netherlands to graduate in natural history. This got her the curator's job at the Natural History Museum in Maastricht, in spite of the city council's malcontent. Still, Van de Geijn has a lot of heritage in Maastricht: she modernised the museum and together with landscape architect Mien Ruys redesigned the gardens into a recreation of a Cretaceous landscape. Wilhelmina lived the rest of her days in the famous Huis op de Jeker, with the best view on the museum.

The women of Limburg There are strong women anywhere and anytime. Independent communities of women have always existed, such as the autonomous beguinages for single women; the sisters who were able to care for and educate other women; the ladies' abbeys that housed the most knowledgeable women in Europe; the factory workers who inspired a nation. It is no coincidence the first women's strikes in the Netherlands happened in the same Maastricht where Dutch women could also vote for the first time.

Zooming in on architecture and on the social structures, the space that has been made for women, it becomes clear there are many factors that limit women to exercise their abilites. At the same time, the ladies on the barricades struggle, fight, and overcome these limitations and turn them to their advantage and their emancipation.

The exhibition Love in a Mist - the architecture of fertility can be visited from Sunday 14 February to Sunday 15 August 2021 at Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design. The address is Timmerfabriek, Boschstraat 9, 6211 AS in Maastricht. Bureau Europa is opened Wednesday to Sunday, 12pm to 5pm.

Colophon
Curator and spatial designer Malkit Shoshan | Curator regional context Remco Beckers | Supervision Floor van Spaendonck | Production Ilona van den Brekel | Graphic designer Sandra Kassenaar | With activists, artists and designers Atelier van Lieshout, Desirée Dolron, FAST, Rebecca Gomperts, Bernie Krause, Zacharias Kunuk & Ian Mauro, Next Nature Network, Tabita Rezaire, Diana Whitten.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 NOTE TO THE EDITOR

For all press-related questions or appointments, please contact

Emmanuel Merkus, 06 15 88 36 44 or communicatie@bureau-europa.nl

Via communicatie@bureau-europa.nl you can also contact us for questions concerning the content of 'Love in a Mist'

For images in high resolution, please contact :                                                          Remco Beckers,  r.beckers@bureau-europa.nl

Floor van Spaendonck is Bureau Europa’s new director

22 July – 1 October 2019
Starting 1 October 2019, Floor van Spaendonck will be the new director of Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design. She succeeds Saskia van Stein, who, since 2014, was in charge of the Bureau and announced her departure in May to allow a smooth transition to the next period of the cultural plan. Bureau Europa is very grateful to Saskia van Stein for all of her work and dedication.

Starting 1 October 2019, Floor van Spaendonck will be the new director of Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design. She succeeds Saskia van Stein, who, since 2014, was in charge of the Bureau and announced her departure in May to allow a smooth transition to the next period of the cultural plan. Bureau Europa is very grateful to Saskia van Stein for all of her work and dedication.
 
Floor van Spaendonck is no stranger to the world of architecture, design, and culture. She previously worked at Het Nieuwe Instituut (the national institute for architecture, design and digital culture, which was the successor to the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (NAi) in Rotterdam) and until recently was the director of the Cinekid Festival.

In her broad cultural practice, Floor van Spaendonck has gained extensive and wide-ranging experience in architecture biennales, spatial planning issues, innovation processes, debates, research, cultural policy, and international cooperation.

Floor van Spaendonck continues to hold a variety of social and cultural positions, including memberships of advisory and supervisory boards, and is involved in various cultural projects in an advisory and developmental capacity.

As a presentation, debate, and knowledge institution for architecture and the broader design practice, Bureau Europa is in the next phase of its development. Starting from a dynamic architectural remit that covers Maastricht and the broader EU region, Bureau Europa managed to secure a place in the local, national, and neighbouring European agenda in the field of architecture, the spatial, the designed environment, and design.

The challenge now is to build on this, to strengthen Bureau Europa’s position with regard to design practice and future scenarios for Maastricht and the Euroregion, and to maintain a high level of public engagement.

This will include formulating strong ambitions for the coming years in the context of the new period of the cultural plan. By intensifying cooperation with its current network and attracting new partnerships and programmes, further impetus can be given to the agenda and the renewal.

This new phase also requires programming decisions and vision. The new director will draw up plans for this.

Consultations will be held with the municipality, province, and government, both about these plans and about financing that can support Bureau Europa’s ambitions.

The Supervisory Board of Bureau Europa is confident that Floor van Spaendonck will be able to put her knowledge, experience, and network to good use for Bureau Europa, starting with the new period of the cultural plan.

Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design, was established in 2006 as NAi Maastricht, a branch of the former NAi in Rotterdam. Since 2013, the organisation has operated independently as Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design.

As a knowledge institution, presentation platform, and network organisation, Bureau Europa presents exhibitions, lectures, workshops, city tours, and other discursive activities in the fields of architecture, urban design, the designed environment, and design, for a generally culturally engaged public. From a social perspective, Bureau Europa wants to promote knowledge production and talent development within the cultural domain. These objectives materialise in cultural projects, both within the institute and in public spaces. Bureau Europa focuses primarily on the shared social agenda of Europe and the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion.