In a workshop with students of the Master Interior Architecture: Research + Design, Mark Wigley will discuss the contemporary relevance of Constant’s vision of networks – and the long life of the New Babylon project.   

The workshops are part of a larger program organized by Kunstinstituut Melly and Het Nieuwe Instituut.  

Kunstinstituut Melly and Het Nieuwe Instituut are proud to co-present an evening talks program and parkour surrounding the legacy and 101-year anniversary of Constant Nieuwenhuys. The program centers upon Nieuwenhuys’ visionary utopic architectural project New Babylon, as well as the landmark exhibition held in 1998 and curated by architecture historian Mark Wigley. Created in 1956, New Babylon offered a vision of a future built environment spanning the entire surface of the Earth, held aloft on pillars; of a society organized around leisure and play, work only being performed by automated machines. How does this vision look today? How does the proposition of New Babylon change from 1998 to 2021? And what was the impact of this exhibition upon those who saw it?

5 – 6 pm
At Kunstinstituut Melly, conversations and refreshments with special guest Mark Wigley and Rotterdam’s MIARD centering on the vitrine display presenting materials from our exhibition archive of the 1997 exhibition Constant: New Babylon. We will then enjoy a short walk to our neighboring institution, Het Nieuwe Instituut. 

6:30 – 8 pm
At Het Nieuwe Instituut, a lecture by Mark Wigley on the historic exhibition Constant: New Babylon.