Jaap Bakema and the Open Society

320 pages

Jaap Bakema and the Open Society is the first extensive publication on the Dutch architect and the remarkable production of his office Van den Broek and Bakema. His ideas on the open society are extremely relevant to the current debates about how to involve citizens in city building and creating alternative systems to crumbling welfare states. This historical document will highlight both his most relevant and less known work through texts, archival materials and photography. The book contains interviews with his contemporaries such as John Habraken and Herman Hertzberger and essays that each emphasize a different aspect of his work and the context in which it came into being.

Dirk van den Heuvel