Francine Houben tours China and shares Mecanoo's humanistic approach: People, Place, Purpose and Poetry

Francine Houben is the founder and creative director of Mecanoo, based in the Netherlands with satellite offices in America and Asia. Mecanoo’s iconic designs include the Delft University of Technology Library, the Library of Birmingham, the Longgang Cultural Centre in Shenzhen and the largest performing arts complex in Asia, the National Kaohsiung Centre for the Arts in Taiwan.

Francine will tour China to share and exchange insights on her practice with the Chinese public. Through her interactive talks, she will reveal her unique humanistic approach to design, following the principles: People, Place, Purpose, and Poetry. Always seeking inspiration in the details of specific sites and locations, Francine bases her work on precise analysis coupled with an intuition built over three decades. She interweaves social, technical, playful and human aspects of space-making together creating a unique solution to each architectural challenge.

Francine will take the public along her design process, highlighting the inspiration forming the National Kaohsiung Centre for the Arts in Taiwan, named ‘the living room of culture’ by The New York Times. She will present her ideas for the mobility of the future with the Delft City Hall and Train Station and celebrate libraries as cathedrals of the 21st century with a preview of the renovations she is leading for the New York Public Library and the central library of Washington, DC – designed by Mies van der Rohe.

Francine Houben was professor of mobility aesthetics at the Delft University of Technology and visiting professor at Harvard and Yale. As curator of the First International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, she brought the theme of the aesthetics of mobility to the forefront of international design consciousness.  Francine has received honorary fellowships from the Royal Institute of British Architects, the American Institute of Architects and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. Queen Máxima of The Netherlands presented her with the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Prize for her wide-ranging oeuvre. Francine is a lifelong member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and received many accolades including Woman Architect of the Year and Business Woman of the Year.

"Architecture must appeal to all the senses. Architecture is never a purely intellectual, conceptual, or visual game alone. Architecture is about combining all the individual elements into a single concept. What counts in the end is the arrangement of form and emotion." 

Public Lectures - People, Place, Purpose, and Poetry.
Free Admission.

3rd of June, 18:30–20:00
College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University
D3 Lecture Hall, 5th floor Building D
1239＃ Siping Road, Shanghai

6th of June 2019, 19:30-21:30
Design Society, Shenzhen
Mountain View Theater, L3 Sea World Culture and Arts Center,
1187 Wanghai Road, Nanshan District

For more information and press kit, contact Marie-Anne Souloumiac 高若兰