Exhibition the Edible City
at the NAi-M closes
June 27, 2007
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The Edible City exhibition at the NAi-M (the Netherlands Architecture Institute) has finally come to a close. Showing more than 40 architectural, design and urban planning projects, the exhibition was about food systems and the urban environment. There was a time when city-dwellers could more or less provide for their own alimentary requirements aka food sovereignty. But since the Industrial Revolution, the chain of food from field to fork has greatly increased in length and has even evolved into a lace-like structure. If you missed this iteration of the exhibition, chances are you will have an opportunity in the near future to have a look, see and do.
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To celebrate a job well done and some much anticipated spin-off, NAi-M director Guus Beumer and NAI-M staff generously hosted a delicious luncheon, amidst the burgeoning exhibition growth, inspired by the foodstuffs grown in the exhibition itself and prepared by local restaurant de Bisjop. My co-curators, co-designers and co-sustainable landscape design colleagues were there, as were a goodly number of the exhibition’s participants and of course illustrious and engaged guests from the region and the exhibition’s sponsors. And quite a handful of folks that had travelled from far, far, far away.
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Havest Luncheon speakers included:
- Fritz Haeg (Edible Estates) gave a brilliant presentation that folks are still talking about.
- Marleen Kaptein (EVA Lanxmeer) had everyone literally at the edge of their seats. Kaptein admits to being the last person on earth who would’ve thought that the subject of permaculture could be so dang thrilling. Applause!
- Daan Josee from Arhictectenbureau Kristinsson filled us in on the dirty details of closed system living in their project Zonneterp
- Martijn Verkuijl from E-concept spoke about a number of their projects – including SCORE! part of the EU’s central support structure for the UN’s 10 Year Framework of Programs for Sustainable Consumption and Production.
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Sir Fritz Haeg of Edible Estates
Afternoon luxuriously turned into drinks and drinks turned into evening drinking which turned into eating (the most amazing Chinese food I’ve ever put in my mouth – You go Maastricht!) and later we tacked on a bit of drinking for good measure. It was one of those perfect 16 hour days borne out of the knowledge that at any moment, during drinks, during the flattering discussion, during the shootin’ of the shit about urban agriculture and the designed environment and the need for discrete design commissions, during the deep kissing, that an urgency may suddenly arise to extract a pen from a tangled curl and start collaborating. Oh, the glamour…
The Edible City exhibition was based on an idea by Guus Beumer and is curated by moi-même, Debra Solomon (culiblog.org), Anneke Moors and Hans Ibelings. The exhibition design is by Event Architecture, in collaboration with Hans Engelbrecht and Margriet Visser (de Groene Stap) and the graphic design is by Experimental Jetset. Beautiful! BTW: the poster that the Experimentals made for the exhibition along with the poster of the Jean Prouvé exhibition now running at the NAi-M has been taken up in the collection of the MoMA. Proficiaat Dame en Heren!
The Edible City presents a diverse range of proposals and strategies to produce food in or near the city and that offer the opportunity to experience the city in a different way. As befits the subject, much of the exhibition was itself edible. As of today, it will all be edible somewhere else.
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- The Edible City / de Eetbare Stad
March 3 – 22 June, 2007
Netherlands Architecture Institute – Maastricht
Here are links to some of the project texts.
- – AVL Ville – Atelier van Lieshout
- – Farmers’ Markets: Nina Planck, London Farmers Markets, Carolina Verhoeven (also, thanks to Brouwer Betist en Sawadee)
- – London’s Borough Market – Greig + Stephenson Architects
– City Food – M. Dijkman, A. de Jong, D. Herzog- – de Vuurkeizer – Nio Architecten
- – Doorgeschoten (Bolted) – Maarten Kolk
- – DOTT07 Urban Farming – David Barrie, Nina Belk, Debra Solomon
- – Drinking water fountain – Jan Konings
- – Drumflowers – We can make tomorrow better – Tom Philips
- – EcoSphere – Happy Shrimp Farm
- – Edible Estates and Fritz Haeg Studio
- – EVA-Lanxmeer – Foundation EVA (Marleen Kaptein) and House of Concepts (Jorn Mols)
- – Exploded London, Egg diagram, LeisurESCAPE and images of Cuban organoponicos – Bohn & Viljoen Architects
- – Fallen Fruit – David Burns, Matias Viegener, Austin Young
- – Farmtycoon – FABRICations (Eric Frijters), WUR-Alterra, InnovatieNetwerk
- – Freegans – Adam Weissman, spokesperson
- – Garden Village Collections – Herman de Vries, SKOR (Foundation for Art in the Public Domain)
- – Grow yer own dang food Sprout Restaurant – Debra Solomon / culiblog.org and van der Plas Sprouts
- – Infra Ecology – Duzan Doepel, Jago van Bergen, Willemijn Lofvers
- – Free Range Kitchen Refridgerator, Chicken Coop, wood burning oven, climate machine – Ton Matton
- – Maastricht, Tolbert, Rotterdam – o.m. Foundation Oudheidkamer Fredewalda Tolbert (Bralt Hovinga)
- – Middlehaven Docks – SMC Alsop Architects
- РParc Unim̩tal Caen РAgence Dominique Perrault
- – Pig City, Markthal Rotterdam – MVRDV
- – South Central Farmers – Axis of Justice
- – The Kitchen of Terrestrial Mechanics – John Arndt
- – Tour vivante – Atelier SOA Architectes
- – Urban Agriculture – all over the world – ECF-RUAF
- – Food chain city / Voedselketenstad – 2012 Architecten, Het Portaal, Innovation Netwerk
- – Wasteware – Matthijs Vogels
- – Wujin WAZ Holland Park – WUR/Alterra (Peter Smeets, Rik Olde Loohuis)
- – Sand bag garden / Zandzakkentuin – Studio Jurgen Bey
- – Seven street pieces for Almere / Zeven Straatstukken voor Almere – De Pavi
- Interview about the Edible City by Règine Debatty in World Changing Part 1 and Part 2
- Stephen Colbert, anti-Freegan activist!
- Axel Aubrun’s treatise about why ‘Americans’ don’t think of food in terms of food systems
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A poetic worm composter with big plans…
debra at 15:09 | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
Tomato marmalade
à la Tal who is
back in the Old Country
June 19, 2007
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Tal taught me how to make this most delicious tomato marmalade. Actually, when Tal makes it, it’s tomato jam. When I make it, it’s tomato marmalade. He uses bay laurel, I was about to and then decided on rosemary. Tal’s jam is wetter, better to serve with a chopped liver paté that will blow your mind out of your skull. Mine is stickier, better to eat with… a spoon.
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White Death, a bit of water.
I’m happy that Tal is back with his family in the Old Country, about to start a new life, but my life’s feeling one rebbe short and it hurts to think it might be awhile before I can give his boney ass a hug.
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Sprigs of fresh rosemary.
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Get cookin’, eventually it will all clear up.
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Rosemary syrup, you could stop now if you wanted to.
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When it comes to tomatoes, Tal’s my spiritual leader. He says to use sour ones. I’m wondering about green ones. No stirring from here on out.
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Leave the skins on, the obstacles in this marmalade feel really nice in your mouth, pleasantly chewy.
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The syrup slowly becomes clear as the tomatoes sweat tart juices.
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Cook slowly and lid-free. Don’t forget to forget it.
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And just before it turns to caramel, I veer from Tal’s instructions and give it a goodly splashin’ of sherry vinegar and a few sprinklings of sea salt.
Mazal tov, Talele, and I’m thinking of you.
debra at 20:56 | Comments (8) | post to del.icio.us
Butternut Update
week 24
June 18, 2007
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What, you don’t like my hand job?
Some might call it karmic justice, but I think that I have homosexual butternut squash growing in my living room. Not that there’s anything wrong with that and maybe we can chalk it up to to the fact that I can’t tell the difference between the male and female flowers. My only experiences with growing squash were in a garden full of squash plants, not an indoor garden with 5 butternut, 3 calabash and 2 pumpkin. These butternut flowers all appear to me to be male.
Any expert advice on this subject would be welcome.
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Diagram from the University of Georgia Department of Pollination, used entirely without permission
It’s completely unnatural, I know, but I just wanted to see what would happen. I have dreams of a garden guest room under an canopy of squash-bearing plants, and of pumpkins curing on the couch in November. Because I’m rennovating in August, I thought, worse-case scenario and this ends up being messy, there’d be no harm done. For example, the bugs that everyone promised me would arrive in herds, have never arrived at all. The bugs do go for the sunflowers which end up needing constant care in the form of de-lousing and ladybug collection from outdoor sources. The ladybugs do bit of grazing, then run off or die. The interior gardening experiment is not an ahimsa-rich one.
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Where are the ovaries!?
Possible causes of the all-male flower blight:
1. Maybe the seeds from which I grew the plants are from a hybrid? I got the butternut seeds from a squash that I bought from an organic farmer growing just outside of Amsterdam. Maybe this is what happens when you try to grow the seeds from a hybrid? I’ll ask the farmer next Saturday at the market what ind of plant this was.
2. Maybe the plants have no sense of humor about indoor conditions and have absolutely no sense about their role in the interior decoration of my home. Without any sense of purpose, the butternuts have possibly given up, putting out infertile albeit beautiful flowers. There’s another interior decorating cliché right out the window.
3. Maybe I suck at hand pollination. Another cliché out the window.
4. Maybe because I have so few plants, the male and female flowers simply aren’t open at the same time and I need to preserve the pollen. I haven’t noticed anything resembling a female flower though.
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In a normal outdoor garden situation you basically ignore your squash because they grow so fabulously all on their lonesome.
- Cooperative Extension Service/The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Pollination of Vegetable Crops - Wikipedia on hand pollination
- Butternut Update week 23
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debra at 13:04 | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
