©Ossip van Duivenbode

This exhibition transforms OMI into an office environment: the Office for Metropolitan Investigation. Visitors become office workers exploring Rotterdam's architectural heritage from 1965-1990: 'Post65 architecture'. Examining these often dismissed as 'ugly' buildings show a fascinating cultural-historical significance, and tells a lot about how Rotterdam dealt with important moments in its history.

The exhibition design recreates an office atmosphere with suspended ceilings, carpet tiles, and original elements personally salvaged from a famous Post65 office building threatened by demolition. The space is divided into two zones, following the rigid system of either the suspended ceiling or the carpet tiles.

Temporary office workers can explore the extensive archives containing historical photographs, film fragments, scale models, and vintage advertisements. Exploring Post65 architecture on a retro computer, they can print their findings on a matrix printer and contribute to the evolving Post65 map.

Starting with the prominent office buildings that transformed Rotterdam's city center in the 1970s like Rotterdam Building, AMRO Tower, and Coolse Poort, the exhibition grew with the addition of the shiny glass towers along Weena boulevard and the wildly diverse projects surrounding Blaak. These buildings now face crucial decisions: demolition, renovation, or transformation? At the time of the exhibition, Blakeburg was still planned to be demolished (but now will be transformed), and the discussion about the demolition of housing complex Pompenburg was heated, though there was still a bit of hope that the building would be saved.

Curation  Iris van der Wal and OMI (Pieter Kuster, Emine Yilmazgil, and Stefanie Korrel)

Production  Ulli Baisch and Jurgen van der Vlies

Special thanks to  Wessel de Jonge (WDJA architecten), Eric Rijper (Groosman Architecten), Mark Veldman (OMA), Wouter IJssel de Schepper (Kraaijvanger Architects), Joseph Oliver Knierzinger, Caro de Lint, Martin de Reuver, Michael Tjia, Jacqueline van Dam (Delft University of Technology), Wido Quist (Delft University of Technology), and Lucas van Zuijlen (Delft University of Technology), and Maarten Plomp