Treppen 

The series Treppen focuses on recent buildings in Egypt that will probably never be finished because of the drop in the volume of tourists. These ‘intermediate constructions’ refer not only to the classic etchings of Piranesi or to Freudian dream interpretation in which interior features such as stairs are given sexual connotations. They also bear witness to the direct and dynamic relation between architecture, urban planning, landscape and the economy. That relation will be closely monitored in the future, for example in the programme ‘Interior and Landscape’. A renewed partnership with the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR), which will be entitled ‘Urban by Nature’ next year, and the contents of the Dutch contribution to the biennales in São Paulo and Shenzhen later this year, both also fit in with this theme. 

High Rise/Down Fall

This series of photographs by Schwartz offers a melancholy picture of the well-known MVRDV pavilion during EXPO 2000 in Hannover. After all, this pavilion symbolises an entrepreneurial and innovative Netherlands that identifies publicly and on an international platform with the innovative strength of architecture and design. And now the same building is an equally potent symbol of the cuts in spending on culture imposed by the previous Dutch cabinet. The relation between culture, politics and entrepreneurship is thus also in need of recalibration, and The New Institute sees its core task to be making a fundamental contribution to the debate concerning the creative industry and the question of innovation. A part of this is the 2015 programme, that will go further into the phenomenon of the World Expo and more specifically the forthcoming edition in Milan.

Curator/artist: Johannes Schwartz