Fall Symposium to Bring Leading
Dutch Designers and Planners to Cleveland
(CUDC Quarterly 4:2 - Summer 2005)

Mark your calendar for September 25 and 26, when Cleveland will host some of the world’s most innovative architects, landscape architects and urbanists for a symposium on their work and how it can help us imagine our region’s future.

The program, presented by the Urban Design Committee of AIA Cleveland with organizational support from Kent State and Cleveland State, is a sequel to a highly successful event held in Chicago last year. Thanks to the good offices of Cor Hersbach, Dutch Consul for Trade and Cultural Affairs in Chicago, and Arnie de la Porte, Honorary Consul for Ohio, an ad hoc program committee chaired by Kent State’s Maurizio Sabini has been able to invite a stellar roster of leading figures in the vibrant design culture that has flourished in the Netherlands since the 1980s.

The keynote for the program will be delivered by American theorist and critic Aaron Betsky, who is director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute. Representative Marcy Kaptur, the only professional planner in the U.S. Congress, has agreed to speak as well, offering her perspective on the challenges facing Northern Ohio. Concluding remarks will come from Todd S. Davis, who specializes in brownfield development with Hemisphere Corporation, LLC.

Other invited guests include landscape architect Adriaan Gueze (of West 8), Frits van Dongen (of Architecten Cie), Kees Christiansee (of KCAP), Fer Felder (developer from Amsterdam) and Martin Aarts (head of planning for the City of Amsterdam). They will be joined by local speakers for several round table sessionson topics including sustainable neighborhoods, smart growth, new urban landscapes, and ports and waterways.

Click here for the symposium web site.