As a South African PhD researcher, I led a remote fieldwork exercise aimed at bridging the gap between architectural projects in Het Nieuwe Instituut’s national collection and the actual built spaces. Our main focus was on exploring the urban spaces of Rotterdam’s renowned Lijnbaan shopping street, which was designed by the Van den Broek and Bakema office in 1953.
Our goal was to reconnect the archive with the city, intertwining the spaces of ideas with lived reality. This approach allowed us to construct a comprehensive narrative about the original design intentions, architectural design, its impact, and the lasting legacy of the built projects. This was hosted on the Jaap Bakema study centre website:
Although the Lijnbaan was once hailed as a triumph of modernist architecture planning, it has undergone several renovation cycles and is now considered a national monument. To gain deeper insights into its unique qualities and conditions, we compared the Lijnbaan with a similar project in Johannesburg, South Africa: the Small Street shopping mall. Despite the contrasting density, demography, and socio-economic conditions, both projects shared typological traits, particularly the concept of a pedestrianized street connecting urban blocks.
To facilitate this comparison, we utilized a blend of archival materials and social media technologies, including street films and interviews conducted with a smartphone. Our remote aspect was crucial, as we deployed proxy researchers to the actual sites to create films and engage with visitors. For this, we had the assistance of Bing van der Meer, an architecture student from TU Delft, and Siwe Mathenjwa, an architect from Johannesburg, who led the fieldwork.
Jhono Bennett 