FORUM ‘New Babylon: Continuous Now’ with Mark Wigley

Location: 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. We would like to invite people who visited the 1998 exhibition to share brief memories about it in an open mic setting... maybe you can consider this?

Do you have a memory of seeing the 1998 exhibition ‘New Babylon’? We are welcoming contributions from the public through this form.

This program requires a valid corona admission certificate (a vaccination certificate, negative test certificate or proof of recovery). For more information, please visit this website.