LOGO PARC
start of a new research project
call for applicants
opening symposium
Jan van Eyck Academie &
Lectoraat Kunst en Publieke Ruimte,
Gerrit Rietveld Academy / Amsterdam University &
Premsela Dutch Design Foundation
Present: Logo Parc
Logo Parc is a research project in design for public space that mainly focuses on the Zuidas (South Axis) in Amsterdam: a prestigious area of high-rise offices, residential and cultural facilities on both sides of the A10 motorway.
The Zuidas is still under construction. Its train station – six minutes from Schiphol Airport – will be redesigned for high-speed trains, becoming one of the busiest stations in the Netherlands. Prominent banks, accountancy and law firms (ING, ABN AMRO, Ernst & Young, Nauta Dutilh) have their main offices there and new public/private endeavours, including a ‘museum for design’, are about to be realized. It is an area full of potential where nothing seems lacking.
Logo Parc considers these developments – economic vitality, mobility and dynamism –typical of recent cultural, social and political changes. Why, to what end, and how does ‘design’ fulfil its current role in service of economic and corporate interests at the Zuidas? These interests stretch far beyond the grey zone of the traditional office park – they appear and re-appear in both public space and in private space, in street furniture and in the deluxe kitchens and bathrooms the open-plan Zuidas apartments are fit up with.
Research into the representation of economy could generate new symbolic and critical design strategies to express corporate interests.
Symbolic, because this international business centre is an icon, a key factor in Dutch economy. Critical, because the goal is not merely to celebrate what has already been celebrated. Logo Parc takes the liberty to ask questions and mistrust the promises made.
Logo Parc’s strategies will unite architecture, communication design and three-dimensional design. Logo Parc stretches from public sign systems to indoor touch-screen heating control, from the gigantic billboards advertising superfluous office space to the political aesthetics of VISA, MasterCard and the like. Logo Parc is all around you. All in all, is an opportunity to rethink, on every scale imaginable, the politics and aesthetics of economy.
The Zuidas grows and expands and the Logo Parc research results will give substance to our perception of the Zuidas and to the way in which ‘the field’ – design in a very broad perspective – deals with the subject matter. Hopefully, the Logo Parc prototypes, proposals and ideas will inspire professional discourse, public debate, education and the market.
Opening symposium
On 16 November 2005 at 7 p.m. Logo Parc kicks off with an opening symposium at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. An array of prominent architects, architectural historians, designers and theorists will discuss the state of affairs of Logo Parc and beyond.
• Kamiel Klaasse (founding partner of NL Architects)
• Friedrich von Borries (author of Who’s afraid of Nike–town? Nike-Urbanism, Branding and the City of Tomorrow on Nike’s ‘situationist’ branding strategies
• Gerard Hadders (graphic designer, founding member of Hard Werken, designer/educator)
• Wouter Vanstiphout (architectural historian at Crimson, co-founder of Wimby Hoogvliet)
• Roemer van Toorn (architect, photographer, professor at Berlage Institute and essayist)
• Daniel van der Velden (graphic designer, writer, advising researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academie)
• Jouke Kleerebezem (artist, writer, designer, cultural developer, advising researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academie)
Admission free. For further information please check http://www.janvaneyck.nl
Reservation for the symposium
telephone 31 (0)43 350 37 29
Call for applicants
Apply for the Logo Parc design team, a one-year research position at the Jan van Eyck Academie. 3D designers, advertising professionals/students, graphic designers, artists and architects are invited to apply for a research position that starts in January 2006. Research proposals should be submitted by December 1, 2005.
Further information can be downloaded at: http://www.janvaneyck.nl )
