ARCAM is presenting the results of a knowledge exchange between Brazilian and Dutch architects regarding future perspectives for Amsterdam and Recife, a city in northeastern Brazil. The exhibition was opened on 14 October and was preceded by a seminar.

The project can be followed via the blog:recifeamsterdam.blogspot.com.

“We need to go from blueprint to zone planning” (Amsterdam team)
“We need to go from zoning to blueprint planning” (Recife team)

Both cities are on the threshold of major changes: In Amsterdam, the economic crisis appears to have put an end to the traditional top-down planning culture once and for all, whereas Recife, by contrast, is searching for ways of lending cohesion to bottom-up driven developments.
A dialogue between the two cities is interesting because of their spatial similarities, born of their historical ties. Recife, originally a Portuguese sea-port, was enlarged by the Dutch in the seventeenth century and, like Amsterdam, is a water city. What can be learned from that so very different city, which was in essence once the same?

With: a brief overview of Amsterdam’s and Recife’s history by means of a visual timeline; four high-profile future projects; short films; T-shirt Exchange (swap your Amsterdam T-shirt for a limited edition rXa shirt from Recife).

The project takes place during the Brasil Festival Amsterdamand the Ano da Holanda no Brasil (Holland year).

rXa is powered by Stimuleringsfonds voor Architectuur, het Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, the Brazilian Embassy in the Nederlands, the Dutch Embassy in Brasil and Microsoft.