Based in Rotterdam, Huijben’s artistic practice involves historical and archival research, as well as publishing, writing, and sketching alternative histories of architecture through live performance, installation, and video. For its part, our building was designed by municipal architect C.B. van der Tak. It was constructed in the 1870s as a female-only civic school.
Here, a live performance and this exhibition by Huijben place the institution’s architecture at the center of their investigation. With the late nineteenth century debate around an ‘official’ national style as a backdrop, this new work searches for traces of human decision-making across the histories of the school’s use, the building, and the wider city environment.
