Housing Acts

Abstract

For more than a century, we’ve been designing housing—and redesigning it. We’ve measured, regulated, and planned. We’ve debated typologies, written manifestos, passed laws, and protested when neither were enough. Beneath it all, there’s been something quieter and more persistent: the desire for a home.

Housing Acts starts from that desire and moves outward—tracing how wishes for housing have been imagined, legislated, and resisted. The exhibition brings together a selection of 20th-century books written by architects who believed that housing—and the city—could be otherwise. These books were manifestos: statements that shaped the discourse of their time and offered new directions for dwelling.

Each is placed within a larger timeline—alongside key moments of Dutch housing legislation and three waves of public protest. The rent strikes of the 1930s, the squatting and housing movements of the 1980s, and the national demonstrations of 2021 are rendered through archival collages, capturing a recurring tension between everyday realities and institutional response.
Together, these fragments tell a story of housing as a field of conflict and invention. They remind us that homes are not neutral spaces—they are the outcome of decisions, negotiations, and sometimes resistance.

Housing Acts is an invitation to reflect on what kind of housing, and what kind of city, we still wish for.