INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE ROTTERDAM

The IABR is a knowledge institute as well as a cultural platform and its main objective is to generate real-world change, using the power of imagination and design as its main instrument.
The International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) was founded in 2001 on the conviction that architecture and especially urban planning are of great social importance. Since 2004, when George Brugmans became its director, the IABR therefore mainly focuses on the future of the city where, in a couple of decades, nearly 80 percent of the world’s population will produce more than 90 percent of our wealth—and this will have to be done sustainably.
In its multiyear policy plan 2017-2020: Towards a Resilient City, the IABR expressly places the future of the city in the context of climate change and increasing social inequality. In any way, it can, and this is its main mission, the IABR wants to contribute to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and the achievement of the objectives set out in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
The IABR holds that well-designed, socially inclusive, resilient cities are of key importance. We can only solve climate problems if we solve them in the cities first. And to achieve this, good design is crucial.
The International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam is a knowledge institute as well as a cultural platform and its main objective is to generate real-world change, using the power of imagination and design as its main instrument.
How does the IABR do this? By bringing together key disciplines and sectors to carry out result-oriented research by design into the city of tomorrow, both in the Netherlands and abroad. By adding value to policymaking and decision making and by influencing the social agenda. By bringing the results – knowledge, plans, and projects – extensively into the limelight in an international setting once every two years. And, last but not least, by actively contributing to the realization of these results and actually ‘making city’.
The two most important tools the IABR uses to achieve its objectives are the IABR–Ateliers and the Biennale itself.