The squatting movement has played a major role in the design of the urban fabric and the domestic interior, and proposed alternatives to the dominant, market-oriented housing policies. To acknowledge their legacy as well as its contemporary relevance, Het Nieuwe Instituut is conducting a collective research into squatting as an architectural practice: Architecture of Appropriation. Bringing together the expertise of the squatter movement with that of architects, archivists, scholars, lawyers, and policy makers, this research project forms the basis for a new acquisition policy for the State Archive for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning.

This lecture focusses on new approaches to the representation of precarious, and often criminalized spatial practices within the institutional framework of a museum and its operating platforms, while acknowledging the fragility of these communities and the need to carefully limit the processes of institutional appropriation. Taking as a departure point the case of Architecture of Appropriation, the role that museums could have in the construction of the history of the city and its inhabitants is examined.

Marina Otero Verzier

Marina Otero Verzier is an architect based in Rotterdam. She is currently Director of Research at Het Nieuwe Instituut, and curator of WORK, BODY, LEISURE, the Dutch Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2018. With the After Belonging Agency, Marina was Chief Curator of the Oslo Architecture Triennale 2016. From 2011-2015 she was based in New York, where she was Director of Global Network Programming at Studio-X, Columbia University.