Portraits

KAAN Architecten, founded and led by Kees Kaan, Vincent Panhuysen, and Dikkie Scipio, promote Dutch building traditions of sustainability, welfare, pragmatism, and quality through a collaborative and analytical design approach. The Rotterdam-based firm, who run satellite offices in Paris and São Paulo, gained wide renown through complex public commissions that surpass traditional notions of typology and method. Their range includes government offices, museums, urban development projects, as well as buildings for health care, education, and research.

This first substantial monograph on KAAN Architecten offers a comprehensive survey of their most important projects to date. The 15 buildings documented in the book are presented as different characters with varying physiognomies, but which belong to the same family and feature similar traits—hence the title of the book. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, visualisations, plans and drawings, and through essays by French architect, critic, and scholar of architectural history Pierre Chabard and by Dutch architectural critic, writer, and editor Ruud Brouwers, Portraits explores KAAN Architecten’s work using different lenses. By mapping out their complex genealogy, the book also highlights that the firm’s designs are not single autonomous entities but rather parts of a shared vision.