After the Party?: Dutch Architecture

This latest edition of Oase, one of the leading professional journals on architectural theory, asks a critical question: has the party ended? In the early 1990s, favorable economic and political conditions in the Netherlands created an advantageous climate for unorthodox design approaches and experiments. In the years that ensued, architects built on a unique aesthetic, producing works that remain pragmatic, self-assured, uncompromisingly modern and unmistakably Dutch. Since the turn of the century, however, economic design and market-driven politics have seemingly brought an end to the post-ideological party of the 1990s. Within recent years, there have been contradictions between interest groups, ideas and mentalities, which have resulted in inevitable confrontation. Today, however, it seems as though the sky has cleared, and, as evidenced in Oase 67, there is new space to think about architecture, public concerns and the culture and design future of the Netherlands and Europe.