The House Museum As Exposition Lab
18/02/2014 13:00 – 17:00
(Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam)
with Henry Urbach (The Glass House), Natascha Drabbe (Iconic Houses Network) and Job Meihuizen (Huis Sonneveld/Het Nieuwe Instituut)

Het Nieuwe Instituut and the Iconic Houses Network will be hosting an afternoon of talks on the opportunities and dilemmas of organising exhibitions in house museums. Henry Urbach, who has been the director of The Glass House (designed by architect Philip Johnson) since 2012, has been invited for this. In a short space of time, he organised a series of exhibitions in and around the museum house, and he will talk about his ambitions, projects and experiences. He will be speaking to Job Meihuizen, curator of the ‘Richard Hutten in the Sonneveld House’ exhibition, about organising exhibitions in house museums.
INNOVATIVE PRESENTATIONS
In the past few years, house museums have taken a completely different approach and created dynamic programming, with innovative exhibitions in the field of art and design. The disciplinary combination of interior, art and design is natural for house museums. More and more house museums are experimenting with this and are discovering the opportunities to tell stories that go beyond the house and its residents. In that respect, it says a lot that Urbach, a former curator at SFMOMA, is now heading a house museum. Thanks to Richard Hutten, the Sonneveld House, the house museum of Het Nieuwe Instituut, achieved its first temporary ‘intervention’ late last year.
HENRY URBACH
Henry Urbach was curator at SFMOMA, when in 2012 he was asked to head up architect Philip Johnson’s Glass House. Urbach curated a series of exhibitions in a short space of time in and around this famous house, which dates back to 1947. He invited New York artist Alex Schweder, who built a mobile living unit on the grounds of the Glass House. SNAP!, an artwork by E.V. Day specially designed for the Glass House, recently went on display in the house. Urbach also started Night (1947–2015), a sculpture-in-residence programme with a series of exhibitions based on the Giacometti sculpture of the same name. When Johnson lived in the house, this artwork had a prominent place in the room.
RICHARD HUTTEN IN THE SONNEVELD HOUSE
In 2013, Het Nieuwe Instituut opened the first temporary exhibition in the Sonneveld House, curated by Job Meihuizen. As a ‘guest curator’, designer Richard Hutten was invited to respond with his own work to the original 1933 interior. The Sonneveld House, designed in the Nieuwe Bouwen style (Modern Architecture), was further improved with twenties’ and thirties’ design and personal family objects.
ICONIC HOUSES NETWORK
In the autumn of 2013, the Iconic Houses Network organised the first Iconic Houses Symposium Europe in London. The network is an international platform that seeks to raise the matter of successfully programming 20th century house museums in different ways. Architectural historian and owner of the Van Schijndelhuis in Utrecht, Natascha Drabbe has been working on the initiative since 2009. In her talk, she will explain in brief what role the network plays.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Location: Het Nieuwe Instituut, Museumpark 25, Rotterdam
Date: 18 februari 2014
Time: 13.00 - 17.00 h
Language: English
Entrance: free with a ticket for Het Nieuwe Instituut
Tickets and reservations: Cash desk and Event Brite