2024: Jakoba Mulders Kindred Spirits

Every year, the Van Eesteren Museum focuses on an annual theme. The theme for 2024 is: Jakoba Mulders Kindred Spirits. Within this theme, we explore the role of women in the design world, focusing on female architects, urban designers and designers for a year. Indeed, Cornelis van Eesteren was not the only person who was important in the realization of Amsterdam's expansion districts. The voice of the women who contributed to this story has been largely understudied in the past, and the museum wants to change that this year. In doing so, the museum also investigates the role of gender in the design process. In the twentieth century, mainly men were in control of design processes and female use was often ignored. With the annual theme Jakoba Mulders Kindred Spirits the Van Eesteren Museum wants to correct female underexposure and, above all, take the step towards the present by paying attention to female design professionals in contemporary practice.

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“It male profession urban planning is very suitable for women to work in.”

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Jakoba Mulder (1900-1988) is one of the main actors in this story. This architect and urban planner is best known for her designs for the Amsterdamse Bos and the Amsterdam playgrounds. For decades, she worked with Van Eesteren at the Public Works Department, where she played an important role in the development of the city. In 1958, she succeeded Van Eesteren as head of the municipal department. She is this year it symbol, it Point of view and departure and it framework for the annual theme. Kindred Spirits refers to her female contemporaries, but also her contemporary female colleagues, focusing on the importance of the work of female architects and urban planners, specifically seen within a network of collaborations. After all, architecture and urban planning are never created by one person, but by a diverse group of people. With the annual theme, we aim for a broad and layered story, with great diversity from different generations.

Women of the AUP.

The second major exhibition in the annual theme is Women of the AUP. about four female architects who have all worked on Amsterdam's overall expansion plan: Jakoba Mulder, Koos Pot-Keegstra, Manon Peyrot and Annie van Hattem. The exhibition not only shows the individual work of these largely forgotten architects, but also, above all, the coherence in the ideas about architecture of the four. The exhibition shows various archival material by the four architects from the Amsterdam City Archives and Nieuwe Instituut, photos, videos, sound clips, drawings and objects. The exhibition highlights a 1 on 1 element of the architects. In the 1 on 1 element an important architectural design is central. The exhibition is designed by Bureau Ira Koers and graphic design by Vanessa van Dam with content advice from Ellen van Kessel and Linda Vlassenrood. The exhibition is made possible in part by Nathalie de Vries (MVRDV) and Marlies Rohmer Architecture & Urbanism.

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For Women Only
The For Women Only exhibition opens in the summer. The exhibition tells about product design from the Good Living tradition that was designed thru men pre women. This perspective is also applied to contemporary design. The exhibition shows products such as plastic giant Tupperware, Venus razor blades, but also the groundbreaking Satisfyer. The exhibition is curated by Lisa Hardon and Mijke Tonnon.