In collaboration with JOHANNA HIMMELSBACH

Designing the Social
2021-2024
Het Nieuwe Instituut
Rotterdam
installation: video, sitting pit, signs

Commissioned to research the social design of Dutch community centres in Rijkscollectie voor Nederlandse Achitectuur, I came across the work of Frank van Klingeren, whose societal vision manifested itself in three consecutive multi-functional and user-driven community centres. Conceived as ‘Indoor Agoras’ these centres provided a space for new communities where a range of activities could take place alongside each other: sport, theatre, market, schools and churches. The annoyance this overlap caused was embraced as the backbone of community building - people meet, learn from each other, confront each other, and celebrate together.

Seen from the contemporary perspective - an atomised society, where civic debate takes place within bubbles of like-minded people - his concepts of the Agora, hindrance and decluttering seem to ask actual and valuable questions.

The Community Centre
video, 87’

The heart of this installation is a video that develops a narrative around the three experimental community centres designed by Frank van Klingeren:
De Meerpaal / Dronten
Agora / Lelystad
’T Karregat / Hazenbroeken

Using blueprints, models and publications from the Rijkscollectie and interviews with the very charismatic Van Klingeren as well as contemporary users of the spaces, we sketch the development from conception, and initial ecstatic success to decay and destruction, renovation or transformation.

Through these case studies, I unravel the underlying societal vision of van Klingeren, and how these experiments in collectivity are being reframed as a failure today.

colophone

concept, research and design
Uta Eisenreich, Johanna Himmelsbach

typography
La chinoise by Theetat Thunkijjanukij

video
Uta Eisenreich

editing
Johanna Himmelsbach, So-Yeon Kim

music
Marcus Bruystens

advice collection material
Ellen Smit

with thanks
Christoph Grafe, Ruth Höppner, Shirin Rezaee, Karin Arendsen (Boost)
Ina Hollmann, Flora van Gaalen

Designing the Social / The Community Centre