- You can also watch this event via the livestream on Het Nieuwe Instituut Online -

Marie Stender and Hilde Heynen will be keynote speakers at the closing event of the annual conference of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre, The Observers Observed: Architectural Uses of Ethnography. They will address the intricacies between the two fields, and investigate the productive interactions between architecture and ethnography. Dirk van den Heuvel will moderate a conversation with the two speakers and the audience.

Marie Stender's lecture Ethnography in the hands of architects will address the long standing overlappings between architecture and ethnography: ethnographers have studied local building techniques, and socio-spatial organisation of villages and longhouses around the world, and architects have sought inspiration in so-called vernacular architecture. Recently the two disciplines have however moved closer, experimenting with new ways of collaborating and combining approaches. Not just in places with ‘architecture without architects’, but also in cities, public spaces, institutions, workplaces and residential neighbourhoods that most architects are more familiar with. They have come together around ‘architecture with architects’, one could say. The focus of this keynote address is such new ways of combining approaches in these contexts.

Hilde Heynen will speak about The vernacular as counterimage. Why modernism needed ethnography. She will take a closer look at the ways modern architects of the postwar period engaged with ethnography in a time when it became increasingly clear that architectural modernism was not able to charm the masses and to become popularly adopted. Modern architects blamed commercialism, which embraced kitsch and pseudo-styles rather than the purity of avant-garde aesthetics. Searching for a way out of this dilemma, they became interested in vernacular architecture, which they saw as a more authentic version of an ‘architecture for the people’. Especially the vernacular of non-industrialised people was of interest to them, hence the need to study this folk culture through ethnography.

JBSC Conference

The Jaap Bakema Study Centre conference The Observers Observed explores ethnography’s influence on architecture. Visit the conference page to see the two day programme, on 24 and 25 November 2021.

As of 25 September 2021, Het Nieuwe Instituut follows the Museum Protocol, the rules of conduct for safe and responsible museum visits drawn up by the Museum Association on the basis of the RIVM guidelines. Under the new guidelines, we are required to check the corona pass of all visitors (aged 13 and above) attending all events (including Thursday Night Live! events). For an overview of all guidelines at Het Nieuwe Instituut, visit our website.