Starting with the modernist movement, the idea of architectural identity as seen in the local values of vernacularity went into processes of deconstruction, and turning into international style. This transition created a range of buildings that would be adaptable within numerous urban contexts in terms of their independent position within that same urban surrounding. Not always can these buildings adapt to the way the contextual interaction develops though – the context itself might either accept the new-built intruder or reject it over time. 

Some ideas appear so straightforward that we simply take them for granted and rarely, if ever, question them. The existence of - and difference between - here and there, and the related terms of now and then, are just a few of those concepts that most of us likely never think about in depth.

Ron Barten’s photographs are part of his personal research for the Interiors Building Cities graduation studio at TU Delft.  They portray the streetscape of Rotterdam with a careful eye, looking at how the city indirectly converses with its citizens, either through text, signs, graffiti, labels, and symbols. Such a diversity of languages often occurs in the space of two metres, on the buildings’ plinth. Here, the formal language of the landlord intersects with the informal response of who dwells in the city. A discussion that changes over time; a confrontation, questioning to whom the street really belongs.