Towards the Megacities Solution
Jubilee Congress Megacities Foundation
27 en 28 November 2008

Keynote speakers

Aaron Betsky is architect, critic, curator, educator, lecturer, and writer on architecture and design. Aaron Betsky is director of the Cincinnati Art Museum since August 2006.
From 2001 to 2006 he served as director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Although he was born in Missoula, Montana, USA, Aaron Betsky grew up in the Netherlands. He graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in History, the Arts and Letters (1979) and a M.Arch. (1983). He then taught at the University of Cincinnati from 1983 to 1985 and worked as a designer for Frank Gehry and Hodgetts & Fung. Aaron Betsky was curator of the 11th Exhibition of the Venice Architecture Biennale, 2008. Among his books are False Flat: Why Dutch design is so good (2004) and Architecture Must Burn: a manifesto for an architecture beyond building (2000).

Adriaan Geuze is landscape architect and visiting professor at Harvard University. In 1987 Adriaan Geuze co-founded West 8 urban design & landscape architecture, a leading urban design practice in Europe. After winning the prestigious Prix-de-Rome award in 1990, Adriaan Geuze, with his office West 8, established reputation on an international level with his unique approach to planning and design of the public environment. West 8 developed a technique of relating contemporary culture, urban identity, architecture, public space and engineering within one design, while always taking the context into account. Adriaan Geuze has extensive experience in directing Dutch and international teams on projects all over the world. He recently published Mosaics (2007) and Eastern Harbour District, Urbanism and Architecture (2003).

Rudy Rabbinge is Professor at the Department of Sustainable Development and Food Security, Wageningen University and Research Center. Rudy Rabbinge’s expertise lies in sustainable agriculture, population dynamics and crop physiology. He is praised for his contribution as a Dutch Labour Party-member of the Senate in the period 1999-2007 thanks to his national and international expertise on agriculture and developing cooperation. He began his career as a teacher in chemistry and biology but soon made a shift to science. He became a member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), advisor and member of several commissions concerning agriculture and crop physiology. He was the secretary of the Dutch Labour Party in the Senate. Rudy Rabbinge has written over 200 publications. One of his most recent books is called Ecoregional research for development (2007).

Joost Schrijnen is professor at the Department of Metropolitan and Regional Design, University of Technology Delft. He concentrates on the area of regional design and undertakes research into the transformation of the Randstad region into a cohesive metropolis. Alongside his work as a professor he has been space and mobility director for the Province of Zuid-Holland and was previously a member of the board of the Rotterdam urban planning and housing department. Recently he completed a strategic plan for 2030 for the municipality of Almere. Currently he works as program director of the Deltaraad. He is the author of many publications, amongst others: “Spatial developments in the Netherlands, 1975-2005: Scale increase, more actors, more disciplines” in E.D. Hulsbergen (Eds.), Shifting sense: Looking back to the future in spatial planning (2005) and The port of Rotterdam in a regional and supra-regional context (2003).

Peter Smeets is researcher at the Alterra - Research Institute for the Green World, University of Wageningen. Peter Smeets is an expert on agricultural systems, agriculture, animal husbandry, ecology, farm and captive animals, horticulture, land use planning, landscape ecology, nature management and spatial planning. He is a project leader of the following projects: Greenport Shanghai and Chongming Dongtan Agropark. He has written several publications on metropolitan landscapes, i.e. Argiculture in the Northwest-European delta metropolis (2004), Planning metropolitan landscapes; concepts, demands, approaches (2004) and The landscape dialogue: a transdisciplinary approach for planning of metropolitan delta areas (2003).

Edward Soja is Professor at the Department of Urban Planning, University of California. Edward Soja also teaches courses in urban political economy and planning theory. After starting his academic career as a specialist on Africa, he has focused his research and writing over the past 20 years on urban restructuring in Los Angeles and more broadly on the critical study of cities and regions. His wide-ranging studies of Los Angeles bring together traditional political economy approaches and recent trends in critical cultural studies. In addition to his work on urban restructuring in Los Angeles, Edward Soja continues to write on how social scientists and philosophers think about space and geography, especially in relation to how they think about time and history. His policy interests are primarily involved with questions of regional development, planning and governance, and with the local effects of ethnic and cultural diversity in Los Angeles.

Erik Swyngedouw is Professor at the Department of Geography, University of Manchester. Erik Swyngedouw’s research program aims to contribute to an international research and political agenda that revolves around analysing the geometries of social power associated with the social and material production of the environment in the context of rapidly changing global and local geographical conditions. He has produced several major works on economic globalisation, regional development, finance, and urbanisation. His most recent book is called In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism (2005). From the late 1980s until 2006 he taught at the University of Oxford, latterly as Professor of Geography, and was a Fellow of St. Peter’s College.

John Thackara is Director of Doors of Perception. Founded as a conference in Amsterdam in 1993, Doors of Perception now organises festivals and projects. In these, a worldwide network of designers, media artists, technology innovators, and grassroots innovators imagine sustainable futures - and take design steps to realize them. In addition to festival production, he also helps cities and regions build next-generation institutions. A former London bus driver, and later a book and magazine editor, John Thackara was the first Director (1993-1999) of the Netherlands Design Institute. He was programme director in 2007 of Designs of the time (Dott 07) a new biennial in North East England. In 2008 he is commissioner of City Eco Lab at Cite du Design in St Etienne, the French design biennial. John Thackara is an Associate of The Young Foundation, and is senior advisor on sustainability to the UK Design Council. His most recent book, In The Bubble: Designing In A Complex World (MIT Press) will be published this year in Italian, French, Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese.

Other speakers

Jacqueline Cramer is the Minister of the Netherlands Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment since 2007. Jacqueline Cramer has been Professor at the Copernicus Institute a Research Institute of Sustainable Development and Innovation (University of Utrecht). Since 2005 until 2007 she was visiting Professor environmental studies at the University of Amsterdam, the University of Tilburg and the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. Jacqueline Cramer has been a crown appointed member of the The Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER), member of the Supervisory board of the WWF, the University of Maastricht and the HAN University of Applied Sciences. She has also been a member of the Advisory Council for Transport, Public Works and Water Management, The Advisory council for research on spatial planning, nature and the environment (RMNO), Supervisory board of the The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).

Jacob Fokkema is Rector Magnificus at the University of Technology Delft since 2002. He is also special Professor of Applied Geophysics at the Free University of Amsterdam and Professor of Applied Geophysics of the Faculty of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, Delft University of Technology. He is Acting Rector at Ph.D. ceremonies (TU Delft), Chairman of the Faculty Committee of Science, Editor in chief of the editorial board of the Journal of Seismic Exploration and External advisor Ph.D. examinations of the University of Texas at Austin since 1998. He has been an associate-editor of Geophysical Prospecting (1985-1991), a member of the editorial board Journal of Seismic Exploration and a member of SEG and EAEG. Jacob Fokkema is (co-)author of the following publications: Plane-wave depth migration (2006), Green's function representations for seismic interferometry (2006), Analysis of georadar reflection responses (2003).

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