The Curator Statement, Research Agenda and Call for Practices for the next two International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR–2018+2020) have been announced. With the general theme “The Missing Link” the IABR will entirely dedicate its two next editions to the challenge brought to the table of the world community in 2015 by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN and the Paris Climate Agreement. Therefore how to translate ambitious goals into reality.

A single curator team for two consecutive biennales has been appointed. The objective is to mobilize global thinking, and activate spatial transformations that facilitate the realization of the SDGs. The urgency and the objectives are clear, so the question is no longer whether we need to, but how we are going to adjust. The three Dutch-Belgian curators of IABR– 2018+2020 are Floris Alkemade, Leo van Broeck and Joachim Declerck, while George Brugmans is the president of the IABR foundation.

During the 2018 biennale existing knowledge, design power, and initiatives will be translated into new hypotheses, approaches, and partnerships for spatial transformation. The period between the 2018 and 2020 editions is bridged on how to turn research to result, plan to implementation. The focus gradually shifts to (ways to achieve) concrete implementation: at specific locations, in policy, and in funding models, as well as in urban development and design practices.

An extract from the Curator Statement. “Adapting our way of life and consumption and production patterns to the finite capacity of our planet requires a fundamental socioeconomic transition that cannot ‘take place’  if we do not first and quite literally ‘make place’ for it. There can be no transition to renewable energy, no resilient ecosystem and no caring and solidary living environment without the actual transformation of our urban landscapes.” The Call for Practices therefore focuses on practices that actually close the gap between good plans and ambitious goals on the one hand, and their concrete implementation on the other.

IABR– 2018+2020 chooses the North-Western European Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta as its operating base. The will is to transform this Euro Delta into the primary arena of international knowledge sharing and cultural exchange. Despite significant cultural and administrative differences, the administrative parts of this delta have shared capital and also share challenges in the area of fundamental transitions. The Euro Delta presents itself as a representative and productive laboratory for the world, and vice versa.