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.

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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.

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.

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 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

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.