Ole Bouman

Ole Bouman (born 1960, Amersfoort) is a Dutch German historian, writer, curator in urbanism design and architecture.

Bouman then began his career in the Netherlands as an art and architecture critic with De Groene Amsterdammer, where he wrote a weekly column between 1987 and 1997.

As a visiting student at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) from 1987 to 1988, Bouman organized and gave lectures on architectural theory alongside acclaimed academics and architects including Ernest Mandel, Amos Rapoport, Giancarlo De Carlo, and Kenneth Frampton.

He compiled and elaborated the materials from his many academic dialogues at Delft and published them in 1994 as The Invisible in Architecture, a comprehensive and critical overview of contemporary architecture co-authored by Roemer van Toorn.

In 1996, Bouman was appointed editor-in-chief of the international architecture magazine Archis, and turned it into a journal for architecture, urbanism and visual culture.

In 2000, right before Archis Magazine was to be liquidated by its owner, the Netherlands Architecture Institute, and an ensuing debate in the Dutch national parliament, Bouman became the founding director of the Archis Foundation, an NGO active in publishing, consultancy, and establishing connections between local design communities in need of expertise and the Archis global knowledge network.

During his time at Archis, Bouman also curated various exhibitions, including:

During his time at Archis, Bouman started Archis RSVP events, a series of response-based events that were organized all over the world by Archis in collaboration with the AMO (the research bureau of OMA).

In 2005, supported by Rem Koolhaas and Mark Wigley, Bouman revamped Archis into Volume, an independent magazine that pushes "architecture to go beyond itself" and to challenge its limits and discover new roles in society.

He concluded his term at Volume with a special issue, explaining “unsolicited architecture,” a practice of design “not waiting the phone to ring” but proactively searching for opportunities for architecture beyond “client, budget, location and program”.

This issue exposed the results of his teachings at MIT.

After running Volume, Bouman became the director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi), which he turned into a civic institution, positioning architecture in direct response to societal needs.

During his incumbency, Bouman also revamped NAi into an accessible and popular architecture museum named "New NAi".

Bouman was also active as the commissioner and later curator of the Dutch entry to the La Biennale di Venezia from 2008 to 2012, in which he presented his thinking on architecture and society through titles such as Archiphoenix, Faculties for Architecture (2008), Vacant NL (2010), and Re-set, New Wings for Architecture (2012).

Based on his experience at MIT, Bouman relaunched The Studio of Unsolicited Architecture (SUA) at the NAi in late 2010 to shed light on the difficulties facing the architecture profession that suffered from a major backlash in the wake of the credit crisis presented at various cities.

This effort was exemplified by a major renovation, finished in 2011, as well as the launch of a new activist agenda for the discipline of architecture called Architecture of Consequence, collaborating among others with AAO curated by Lina Stergiou.

In 2011, Bouman started to engage in practical collaborations with China by supervising Housing with a Mission, a collaborative project between Dutch and Chinese architects focusing on design solutions for social housing in China together with the Chinese developer Vanke.

Bouman left the NAi on the eve of a government enforced merger with two other institutions to represent the government defined "top sector" of creative industries which he disagreed.

In 2013, Bouman was appointed the creative director of the Urbanism/Architecture Bi-City Biennale of Shenzhen/Hong Kong (UABB).

Bouman redeveloped an industrial plant into a culture facility for the Biennale called "Value Factory", which was occupied by a variety of international cultural institutions including MoMA, V&A, Droog Design, Sao Paulo Biennial and MAXXI.

In 2014, Bouman worked with curator Juulia Kauste to stage the Finnish entry Re-Creation to La Biennale di Venezia.

The piece, which aimed to foster a new culture of making, was an integral part of the UABB and was later presented in the Aalto pavilion at the biennale de Venezia.

Since 2015, Bouman has served as the founding director of Design Society, an initiative developed by China Merchants Group and the Victoria and Albert Museum in Shekou, Shenzhen.

More than a traditional exhibition space, Design Society has been set up as a hub bringing together a museum, a theatre, a multifunctional hall, a private gallery, a café, a restaurant and many different shopping areas, including one space where the creations of talented young Chinese designers are for sale.

The organization aims to build a diverse public program with the mission to activate design as a social catalyst.

Bouman currently works as urban curator at China Merchants to disseminate the lessons for Shenzhen for a large scale of urban developments throughout China.

"Journey to the East," orchestrated by Ole Bouman, is a cycling odyssey from Amsterdam to Shanghai that navigates the historical Silk Road, fostering rich social connections and engaging with the architectural and cultural tapestry of each region.

This journey is a platform for academic discourse and collaboration, spotlighting the Silk Road's legacy as a timeless nexus of diverse communities and architectural traditions.

Bouman is the founding director of Design Society, an initiative of China Merchants Group and the Victoria and Albert Museum in Shenzhen, which opened in December 2017.

Born to German and Dutch parents from cities that were destroyed, Ole Bouman has been fascinated by post-war reconstruction and the way architecture builds society since a young age.

He continued his pursuit of this childhood fascination through his academic exploration in the history of architecture at the University of Amsterdam, where he earned degrees in Cultural History and Art & Archeology.