Park Books International New Titles Spring 2022

This first monograph of the Rotterdam-based firm KAAN Architecten
provides a comprehensive overview of their most important
projects to date. KAAN Architecten, who run satellite offices
also in Paris and São Paulo, gained wide renown through complex
public commissions that go beyond traditional notions of
typology and method. The range includes include government
offices, museums, urban development projects, as well as
buildings for health care, education, and research.
The fifteen designs documented in the book are presented as
different characters with varying physiognomies, but which belong
to the same family and feature similar traits, hence also the
title of the book. KAAN Architecten invite us to view the projects
with different eyes and to trace their evolution.
Building designs as distinct and at
the same time related characters:
the work of Rotterdam-based firm
KAAN Architecten
Divided into five chapters that reveal various aspects of the
works, KAAN Architecten—Portraits shows their works as individual
pieces of a complex puzzle: a fragment of a picture, a
quote from an article, a detail. The essays by Pierre Chabard and
Ruud Brouwers interweave rich visual material: photographs,
visualizations, plans, and construction drawings.
Kees Kaan is an architect and founding partner
of Rotterdam-based KAAN Architecten. He also
teaches as a professor of architectural design
at the Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft.
Vincent Panhuysen is an architect and founding
partner of KAAN Architecten in Rotterdam.
Dikkie Scipio is an architect and founding
partner of KAAN Architecten in Rotterdam. She
teaches as a professor of architectural design
at the Münster University of Applied Sciences’
School of Architecture in Münster, Germany.
ISBN 978-3-03860-285-9