Since 1988, Architecture in the Netherlands has been an indispensable annual review and source of inspiration for anyone professionally engaged in, or simply interested in Dutch architecture.
Every year a trio of editors looks back on the previous year’s architecture in a series of thought-provoking essays, interspersed with a selection of the year’s most compelling projects, providing readers with a nuanced reflection of the state of the profession. The editorial team for the 2024/2025 yearbook consists of Uri Gilad (Office Winhov), Stephan Petermann (Mann and Volume) and Annuska Pronkhorst (Crimson Historians & Urbanists).
In previous editions the editors have used the selection of projects to initiate a dialogue with colleagues on such pressing issues as housing construction and the adaptive reuse of existing buildings. The 2024/2025 yearbook maintains this tradition of interrogating the continuing evolution of the profession through topical issues.
In the 38th edition of the Yearbook, the editors build on last year’s loose ends. Because in 2024/2025, too, sustainability, reuse and existing construction are making an increasingly profound mark on new architecture. To illustrate this well, the 26+9 projects* are periodized according to their historical context: from the Old City to the reconstruction period, and from depreciated architecture to New Netherland.
The essays repeatedly touch on sustainability in architecture. Photographer Rubén Dario Kleimeer focuses his lens on the relationship between newly designed nature and architecture: tightly manicured landscapes, rolling wadis, pergolas and networks of steel wires on facades. Rubén captures in images the burgeoning greenery in relation to the built environment and the people who move in it. In the essay “Are we sustainable yet?” the editors delve into the world of sustainable design and construction. Drawing a single line in the countless systems and methods concerning sustainability seems an impossible task. They ask the question whether these rules and certificates actually help, or mainly distract from the essence. Is our focus on ‘green’ in danger of causing us to lose sight of the lifespan and durability of buildings?
In the third essay, “Are we still relevant?” the editors go on a tour d’horizon of this year’s Western European annuals with the question: how does the Netherlands look from the border? How relevant are we still? The result is an interesting comparison between the yearbook traditions in Flanders, Germany, Spain, France and Switzerland. Between sustainable and social housing construction, timber construction and reuse, it is difficult to distinguish Dutch architecture from our neighbors. After all the national yearbooks, is it time for a Western European yearbook?
Editor: Uri Gilad, Stephan Petermann and Annuska Pronkhorst
Design: Joseph Plateau
Publisher: nai010 uitgevers
