Press release: Dudok Architecture Center launches book ‘Dudok by Iwan Baan’ and opens photo exhibition ‘Dudok by Iwan Baan’ and exhibition ‘The city is the most beautiful building’.
(photo Anna’s Hoeve / Iwan Baan)
Although the book ‘Dudok by Iwan Baan’ has been for sale from 1 January 2021, the Dudok Architecture Center was only able to officially launch the book on 13 July due to the Corona situation. The Center chose to open the photo exhibition ‘Dudok by Iwan Baan’ and the exhibition ‘The city is the most beautiful building’ at the same time. Both exhibitions have been on view in the Hilversum Town Hall since the beginning of June.
The opening and launch were celebrated in a limited circle in the presence of photographer Iwan Baan, author Lara Voerman and curators Evelien van Es and Herman van Bergeijk. Among other things, the group of invited guests went up to the tower of the Town Hall to oversee the city from the air, just like Iwan Baan’s helicopter photos. Iwan Baan: “Thanks to Corona I had plenty of time to take the photos for the book: I was stuck in the Netherlands for months and could therefore not carry out my assignments abroad”.
In the book ‘Dudok by Iwan Baan’, photographer Iwan Baan shows that Dudok’s way of designing remains attractive and relevant after a hundred years: place-conscious, hyper-contextual and with a love for the environment. In 2020, Baan photographed all existing buildings of Dudok in the Netherlands, on behalf of the Dudok Architecture Centre, both from the ground and from the air. With the photos in this book, Baan breaks with tradition. He exchanges static architectural photos for images that reveal a broader story, the story of Dudok as a designer of landscapes in which to live, work, mourn and learn.
The exhibition ‘Dudok by Iwan Baan’ shows with a selection of his most impressive photos how top architect Dudok expanded cities from their specific DNA and placed buildings in their environment as a matter of course.
The exhibition ‘The city is the most beautiful building’ in the DAC shows the hitherto underexposed work of Dudok as an urban planner. As the architect of the Hilversum town hall, Dudok enjoys world fame. Less well known is that Dudok was also a gifted urban planner. He worked through all scales: from the small scale of residential neighborhoods in Hilversum in the period 1918-1925 to the large scale of the Hilversum expansion plan and the structure plan for the entire territory of The Hague. In addition, the exhibition discusses the topicality of Dudok’s ideas. In the exhibition space of the DAC you can admire the iconic urban designs that are not only beautiful, but also functional and full of character.
More information can be found on the page about the exhibitions.
The book Dudok by Iwan Baan is for sale in the Dudok Architecture Center or via the webshop
