Presentation

For more than 20 years, the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) has brought together designers, researchers, public decision-makers, knowledge institutions, and local communities to explore how design can respond to major societal challenges.

For its 12th edition, entitled SYSTEMS OF SUPPORT, the IABR focuses on the systems that make our everyday lives possible — water, energy, materials, housing, and infrastructure. Many of these systems are currently under pressure. How can we transform them to make them not only more efficient, but also fairer, more resilient, and better adapted to the future? What role can architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture play in this transformation?

The exhibition takes place at Piekfabriek, on the former Hunter Douglas industrial site in Rotterdam, which is currently being transformed into a place for living and working. The site itself embodies many of the themes explored by the biennale — housing, energy, materials, and the memory of place.

More than 50 projects, research initiatives, installations, films, and spatial presentations from the Netherlands and abroad explore where these systems are failing and, above all, how things could be done differently.

Curatorial Team

The biennale is co-directed by Wouter Veldhuis (general curator), Carola Hein, and Martina Muzi.

Carola Hein is 2026-2027 at the Paris IAS, and holder of the City of Paris Chair. She is Professor and Chair of the History of Architecture and Urban Planning at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft); Professor of Water, Ports and Historic Cities at Erasmus University and Leiden University; holder of the UNESCO Chair on Water, Ports and Historic Cities; and Director of the PortCityFutures research centre (Leiden–Delft–Erasmus).

Together with Wouter Veldhuis, Martina Muzi, and Saskia van Stein, she is the author of the curatorial statement for SYSTEMS OF SUPPORT, which explains why today’s economic, ecological, and social systems call for profound transformation, and why the IABR sees itself as a “system of support”: a place where knowledge, exchange, experimentation, and cooperation come together to envision new possibilities for the future.

Programme

• Exhibition: more than 50 projects and installations at the heart of the biennale.
• Public programme: symposia, small-scale conversations, and guided tours, announced and expanded in phases throughout the biennale.
• Collaborations: projects and activities developed with partners at the Piekfabriek site.
  

Full programme: Discover the complete programme

Practical Information

Dates: September 18 – November 29, 2026
Location: Piekfabriek, former Hunter Douglas site, Piekstraat 2, Rotterdam
Admission: Open to the public. Free for visitors under 18; admission fees apply to other visitors: https://architectuurbiennalerotterdam.stager.co/shop/systems-of-support-exhibition