Nancy Stieber, born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, in 1949. Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Associate Professor of Art at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Fellow (1 February 2008 – 30 June 2008)
MODERNISM AND MODERNITY IN THE NETHERLANDS: BUILDINGS, HOUSING, URBANISM, LANDSCAPES
Research was conducted in preparation for the book “The Netherlands: Modern Architectures in History” (to be published by Reaktion Books). The book examines the role architecture played in Dutch society during the period from 1890 to the present, divided into five historical periods. During the fellowship, an approach was developed for each chapter that integrates the challenges to architecture and planning in each period, the response of the design professions to those challenges, the governmental and professional frameworks within which architecture operated, the pedagogical and intellectual contexts for architectural discourse, and the chief controversies debated within architectural discourse through buildings, urban design, and theory. This narrative structure challenges conventional historical surveys of modernism which emphasise narratives of stylistic genesis. A chronological archive of photographic images and bibliography of recent literature was also compiled.