Watch Pioneers of the Dutch Modern House Now On Demand

How did progressive architecture develop in The Netherlands in the past hundred years and what have the residents of 'normal houses' gained from the wild experiments that the architects have sometimes carried out? We have put the strongest examples of innovative, avant-garde residential architecture in the spotlight for you in five online modules that can be purchased as modules through our WEBSHOP to watch on demand at your leisure. These Iconic Houses Conference modules give context to the five below themes and provide insight into Dutch residential architecture of the 20th century for architecture enthusiasts, owners of modern homes, professional managers of modern museum houses, architects and heritage specialists.

Pioneers of the Dutch Modern HouseThe program consists of five modules of circa one and a half hours, each with a live-streamed keynote lecture and an episode of a new series of thematic videos in which twenty iconic houses across the Netherlands are discussed: from the Amsterdam School and De Stijl to Postmodernism, from Gerrit Rietveld to Mart van Schijndel and many others. There are also famous examples of social housing, an area in which the Netherlands was particularly rich. Themes addressed in the live streamed lectures and video series include:

The last module includes a House Tour of Penthouse West399 in Rotterdam, designed by architects Nanne & Nolly de Ru of Powerhouse Company for their own family.

Language: the lectures are in English, the thematic videoseries is Dutch spoken with English subtitles.

Curious about the program? Check out our line-up of international speakers and our interviews with them here below.

Keynote Speakers and Expert Presenters of our Videoseries

2 September, 2021 - Module 1Hygiene and Health in the Modern Home - Architecture in the Age of Pandemics Beatriz Colomina is Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture at Princeton University. She writes and curates on questions of design, art, sexuality and media. Her books include Sexuality and Space, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media, Domesticity at War, Manifesto Architecture: The Ghost of Mies and The Century of the Bed. Her latest book is X-Ray Architecture. She has curated a number of exhibitions including Playboy Architecture, and The 24/7 Bed. In 2016 she was chief curator with Mark Wigley of the third Istanbul Design Biennial. In 2018 she was made Honorary Doctor by the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and 2020 she was awarded the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for her contributions to the field of architecture.

Click here for our interview with Beatriz Colomina.

Thematic Video 1Hygiene and Health in the Modern HomeClick here for the TEASER.Presenter Hetty Berens, an architectural historian and curator at Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, is also responsible for the Sonneveld House in Rotterdam, which has been restored to its original 1930s glory. She is a board member of the Iconic Houses Foundation and Co-Chair of the 2021 conference. In her video she explains how improved hygiene made healthier homes in The Netherlands.

Houses that she presents in this episode are: 

Click here for our interview with Hetty Berens.

9 September, 2021 - Module 2Palaces for the People Valentijn Carbo is an architectural historian at the leading private trust for the preservation of historic houses in the Netherlands, the Hendrick de Keyser Association. He currently runs their ‘Museum Houses’ project. After his graduation at Utrecht University, Valentijn joined Museum Van Loon in Amsterdam as a curator. He currently runs the project ‘Museum Houses’. This ambitious project is opening and displaying 35 of the association’s most important houses.His role has been both practical and conceptual in setting up the project. Valentijn is a board member of the Dutch Interior Foundation and participates in the interior platform of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.

In his lecture, he explores social housing in The Netherlands, and the impact of the 'woningwet' ('Housing Act') of 1901.

Thematic Video 2Palaces for the PeopleClick here for the TEASER.Valentijn Carbo is also the presenter of the thematic video. In the Model Home of Museum Het Schip he explains what building for the masses in the 1920s and 50s looked like and connects the projects either by their differences or similarities. 

Houses featured in this episode are:

Click here for our interview with Valentijn Carbo.

16 September, 2021 - Module 3Women as Influencers, Architects, and Clients in Modern Architecture and Design Alice T. Friedman is an art historian and the Grace Slack McNeil Professor of the History of American Art and Co-Director of the Architecture Program at Wellesley College. She is also a curator, art critic, and author of Women and the Making of the Modern House. Her research and teaching focuses on modern architecture and the history of design in the United States. She is particularly interested in mid-century modern architecture, in the culture of the United States in the years following World War II. Broadly speaking, she is concerned with the social and cultural history of architecture, with an emphasis on issues of gender, patronage, and the history of taste, both in the United States and in Europe, 1750 to the present.

In her lecture, Friedman sheds light on Wright's Susan Lawrence Dana house, emphasizing the contributions of Marion Mahoney, Eleanor Raymond’s house for Natalie Hammond, and the Farnsworth House with a nod to Tugendhat and Lily Reich.

Click here for our interview with Alice T. Friedman.

Thematic Video 3A Woman’s Place: Clients & ArchitectsClick here for the TEASER.Presenter Natalie Dubois is curator of applied art and design at the Centraal Museum Utrecht. Among other things, she is responsible for the three Rietveld houses that are being managed by the museum. Natalie studied art history at the UvA (Amsterdam) and NYU (New York) and museology at the Reinwardt Academy (Amsterdam). 

In this episode Natalie tells us about the different and important roles that women played in the Netherlands: Helene Kröller-Müller as client, Truus Schröder-Schräder as co-designer and Lotte Stam-Beese as architect.The significant houses with which they were involved and that are featured in this episode are: 

Click here for our interview with Natalie Dubois.

23 September, 2021 - Module 4Experiments with SpaceAnita Blom is an architectural historian and Senior Specialist in post-war architecture and urban planning at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands and author and compiler of the book Experimental housing in the Netherlands 1968-1980. She currently heads the RCE’s 'Post 65 project', which examines ways of dealing with recent heritage. She researches in particular post-war residential areas; in addition, she promotes wider public interest for the Netherland’s post-war cultural heritage and stimulates the redevelopment of post-war areas. She is also the co-author of Post-war reconstruction the Netherlands. The future of a bright and brutal heritage.

In her lecture she talks about experimental housing of the 1970s.

Click here for our interview with Anita Blom.

Thematic Video 4Experiments with SpaceClick here for the TEASERRobert von der Nahmer is an architect and the owner of the Diagoon House, an experimental home by Herman Hertzberger, and a member of Iconic Houses. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague and the Academy of Architecture and Urban Design in Rotterdam, he was an architect at Alkemade & Von der Nahmer and the multidisciplinary design agency ProForma while also teaching widely, including at the Academy of Architecture and Urban Design. He lives in the Diagoon House in Delft. His film is about the search for architectural and visual ways to guide and intensify our experience of space and time, and experiments involving these. It explores what in Dutch is called 'wooncultuur' – the culture of living in our homes.

The experimental houses that are featured in this episode are:

Click here for our interview with Robert von der Nahmer..

30 September, 2021 - Module 5Home as Self-Portrait: Architect's HousesGennaro Postiglione is Professor in Interior Architecture at Politecnico di Milano and author of The Architect's Home (Taschen), – a topic he revisits as a keynote speaker at the online conference Pioneers of the Modern Dutch Modern House. His research field is domestic interiors culture, at the intersection between people, places, and practices, crossing architecture, ethnography, and material culture. The same theoretical background nourishes also his research by design activity addressed towards adaptive reuse of minor and/or neglected heritage. Recently, he has engaged in a research investigating dwelling practices with the goal to provide new housing solutions for contemporary extremely articulated and differentiated households. He understands research and teaching – and tries to be consistent with - as an integral part of design practice.

In his keynote address, Gennaro looks at the architect’s house as an interesting form of 3D self-reflection which is otherwise rare in the architect’s oeuvre. In all houses built by architects for themselves, you see a mix of character and ideas – which may or may not be in harmony with each other.

Click here for our interview with Gennaro Postiglione.

Thematic Video 5Home as Self-Portrait: Architect's HousesClick here for the TEASER.Natascha Drabbe is the founder and executive director of the Iconic Houses network. She graduated in architectural history from Utrecht University and has published, curated, lectured and been a member of design and architecture juries at home and abroad. She was an international project manager at the Dutch Design Foundation (Premsela) from 2002 to 2006. In 2007, she set up the Mart van Schijndel Foundation, in order to keep that architect’s ideas alive and make his home in Utrecht available for guided tours, lectures and film screenings. This was followed by launch of the Iconic Houses Foundation in 2008 and the website iconichouses.org in 2012. International Iconic Houses conferences have been held in London, Barcelona, Los Angeles and New Canaan.

Houses that architects design for themselves are like test labs for new ideas. In the four houses that are central to this episode, we see the architects Van Ravesteyn, Jan de Jong, Mart van Schijndel and the Kortekaas artists duo putting their theories into practice down to the smallest detail. We also see what a challenge it is to build an experimental house with the small budget that architects usually have for their own homes. As a result, they often experiment with unorthodox, cheap building materials, which later leads to major restoration issues. Natascha lives in the Van Schijndel House in Utrecht.

Houses that are presented in this episode are: 

Click here for our interview with Natascha Drabbe.

Click on below photos for interviews with our keynote speakers.

Beatriz Colomina Valentijn CarboAnita BlomAlice T. FriedmanGennaro Postiglione

Click on below photos for interviews with the experts in our videos.

Hetty BerensValentijn CarboNatalie DuboisRobert von der NahmerNatascha Drabbe

The last module on 30 September was followed by a Live Stream House Tour of Penthouse West399 in Rotterdam, designed by architects Nanne & Nolly de Ru of Powerhouse Company for their own family.

Nanne de Ru

We talked to leading authorities on architecture in the Netherlands about the Dutch reinvention of the house in the 20th century. Find our interviews with them here below.

Winy MaasHans van HeeswijkWessel de JongeAlice Roegholt

Announcement IHC2023The 2023 International Iconic Houses Conference will be one where the Iconic Houses community can meet again in person, like the 2018 edition that you see in the sizzle reel here below. Scheduled for 22-27 May 2023 and hosted by the ten member houses in Czech Republic with Villa Müller in Prague and Villa Tugendhat in Brno as the highlights and with a post-conference tour program 28-30 May 2023 to Ljubljana in Slovenia to see the work by Jože Plečnik, that was inscribed to the UNESCO World Heritage List in July this year. For a complete photo gallery of the 2018 edition, including the house tours, follow this link.

For a complete photo gallery of the 2018 conference follow this link.

Latest update 1 October 2021