June 1, 2018
Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology
Delft 2628 BL
The Netherlands
The Berlage Post-Master Program in Architecture and Urban Design
The Berlage announces its call for 2018 applicants to its post-master program, which consists of three semesters of full-time study after which students receive a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design degree, accredited by Delft University of Technology. The Berlage encourages its students to operate disruptively within the mainstream, to adopt speculative positions that generate provocative, personal, original, and relevant architectural projects. The Berlage seeks applicants who are imaginative and self-motivated, who are prepared to work both individually and collectively across a series of design-based projects, proseminars, fieldwork excursions, and master classes, and who are eager to participate in a rich and diverse public program.
Bare Necessities
From 2016–2019, the Berlage is structured around a multiformat thematic program called "Bare Necessities," revisiting the preoccupations of architectural modernism (commerce, housing, leisure, transportation, and work), examining their sources, processes, and legacies, and assessing their influence on contemporary practice.
Fall 2018 semester: Cultures, Methods, and Instruments
For the first semester, entitled “Material Matters,” students will examine building systems in the Netherlands as part of the Berlage’s long-standing Project NL study program. From figures and tools to space, buildings, and their territories, students will relate these materials to changes in profession, technology, supply chains, tooling, taste, plasticity, political shenanigans, labor practices, building types, spatial innovation, truthfulness, and precision. A number of public lectures, excursions, and workshops, will discuss matters of materiality in depth. By examining their historical trajectories, students will be able speculate on their future role and application within the endless transformation and calibration of the Dutch built environment.
Spring 2019 semester: Societies, Environments, Economies
For the second semester, entitled “Smart, Smarter, Smartest” students will critically examine smart city sloganeering as part of the Berlage’s long-standing Project Global study program. Students will develop counter-proposals and anti-theses to "smart" master plans for Buenos Aires and London, projecting sites of real technological innovation for both cities. A parallel public lecture series from leading scholars and practitioners will present pioneering adventures and misadventures with technology in historical and contemporary master plans and building projects. Students will participate in fieldwork excursions to Buenos Aires or London, in order to meet and work with local experts and stakeholders. In turn, these local experts will lead a series of week-long design charrettes and review sessions in the Netherlands.
Fall 2019 semester: Final Thesis
During the second semester, a series of thesis preparation workshops will generate research hypotheses and design directions that will guide their third and final thesis semester. Based on tools, positions, and preoccupations refined during in the first two semesters, this final term of study is dedicated to developing student's own thesis project in detail, under a collective framework. Students will be encouraged to be highly experimental and speculative, engage in wide-ranging and multidisciplinary research, adopt a position between theory and practice, while creating visually compelling and intellectually rigorous projects.
Proseminars
Throughout the first two semesters, a succession of proseminars will engage students in bridging speculative and actual architectural production, along with issues related to the transformation of the contemporary built environment. Recent proseminars have been led by Tom Avermaete, Salomon Frausto, Filip Geerts, Olaf Gipser, Francesca Hughes, and Thomas Weaver, on subjects such as the role of the architect, the interrelations between research and project, precision and measurement, and the interrelations between centrifugality and centripetality.
Master classes
Additionally, twice a year students will work with world-renowned architects, designers, and thinkers in an intensive workshop setting to analyze a relevant issue in the built environment, experimenting with alternative formats of representation and dissemination. Recent master classes have been led by Assemble, Beatriz Colomina, OMA/AMO, Rural Urban Framework (RUF), Herman Hertzberger, and Madelon Vriesendorp.
Public program
Each semester, a public program will foster a climate of intellectual rigor and deliberate inquiry that challenges both the traditionally conceived discipline of architecture, and the production of the built environment at large. Recent lecturers include Kunlé Adeyemi, Tatiana Bilbao, Tom Emerson, Pol Esteve, Anne Holtrop, Francesca Hughes, Louisa Hutton, Joan Ockman, and Jonathan Sergison.
Teaching staff
Regular teaching staff include Tom Avermaete, Ido Avissar, Salomon Frausto, and Thomas Weaver. Recent guest critics include Alessandra Ponte, Atelier Bow-Wow, Jean-Louis Cohen, Sébastien Marot, Lars Lerup, Martino Tattara, and David van Severen.
About the Berlage
Founded in 1990 as the Berlage Institute, the Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design, located in Delft, educates architects in a highly collaborative and experimental setting, characterized by independent study with guidance and input from and exchange with leading and emerging designers and scholars. Since 2012, students have benefitted from the world-class facilities of TU Delft, as well as close exchange with its academic staff and students.
