All Things Urban

Starting on 31 January 2022, this intensive 12week course in contemporary urbanism takes the modern city as its subject and Rotterdam as its testing ground. It will explore the urban dynamics by bringing together different disciplines from historical research to artistic expression. Participants in the programme will delve into the inescapable contradictions and complexities of the contemporary city. Using Rotterdam as a pars pro toto for many other cities in the world, we’ll be looking beyond its current popularity and trying to see the city as it really is, and as we can imagine it to become. Collectively we’ll explore the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead of us, but also look explicitly at the character of the city. This is not only defined by its trendy restaurants and iconic buildings, but also by its sharp edges. It’s a place that can be old, new, dirty and beautiful at the same time. It is this complexity that we love, and which simultaneously poses challenges for our city. This intensive programme includes a series of lectures, excursions and workshops focusing on specific research methods and pressing social issues such as Climate, Migration, Crime and Inequality in relation to our urban surroundings. Participating in the programme gives you the opportunity to meet a diverse team of urban specialists, designers and researchers. You’ll work together in a community of learning where you will have the freedom to deepen your knowledge and to develop your own position towards the pressing urban issues of our time. Apply before December 6.

The programme is open to everyone who professionally deals with the city. From architects to sociologists, from urban designers to historians and from artist to developers.

You can apply for the Dirty Old Town programme by sending a motivation (1A4), your CV (max 2mb) and examples of previous work (max 8mb/5 pages) to [email protected]

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The Independent School for the City is a playground for all urban thinkers, do-ers and designers – based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It brings together critical and experimental ideas in the field of urban research, design, strategy and activism. Through a range of diverse activities, it offers a platform where urban professionals can meet to informally discuss the challenges facing the modern city. The school is an initiative of Crimson Historians and Urbanists and ZUS and is rooted in their practices of combining a critical and activist approach to the city with effecting real change through architectural and planning projects. The independent school for the City is founded on a strong belief in an incremental instead of a tabula rasa approach to city planning which blurs the lines between critique and practice on the one hand, and research and policy on the other.