Architect and author Reinier de Graaf unveils the manuscript of his forthcoming novel ‘The Masterplan’. Like his highly acclaimed collection of essays ‘Four Walls and a Roof’, his latest book is a merciless meditation on the paradoxes and dilemmas of the architectural profession.
As a novel, it is also a highly personal account of the profession’s psychology.
The presentation takes the form of a conversation with Michelle Provoost and Wouter Vanstiphout, members of the Independent School for the City’s Dean Team.
Reinier de Graaf joined OMA in 1996. He is responsible for building and master planning projects in Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, including Holland Green in London (completed 2016), the new Timmerhuis in Rotterdam (completed 2015), G-Star Headquarters in Amsterdam (completed 2014), De Rotterdam (completed 2013), and the Norra Tornen residential towers in Stockholm. In 2002, he co-founded AMO, the think tank of OMA, and produced The Image of Europe, an exhibition illustrating the history of the European Union.
He has overseen AMO’s increasing involvement in sustainability and energy planning, including Zeekracht: a strategic masterplan for the North Sea; the publication in 2010 of Roadmap 2050: A Practical Guide to a Prosperous, Low-Carbon Europe with the European Climate Foundation; and The Energy Report, a global plan for 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, with the WWF. De Graaf has worked extensively in Moscow, overseeing OMA’s proposal to design the masterplan for the Skolkovo Centre for Innovation, the ‘Russian Silicon Valley,’ and leading a consortium which proposed a development concept for the Moscow Agglomeration: an urban plan for Greater Moscow. He has curated two exhibitions, On Hold at the British School in Rome in 2011 and Public Works: Architecture by Civil Servants (Venice Biennale, 2012; Berlin, 2013). He is the author of Four Walls and a Roof, The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession.
Video courtesy of independent School