On Wednesday, December 3rd, Mazzocchioo.Talks #11 will take place at the Auditorium Hall of the National Museum of Romanian Art, featuring lectures by Bas Princen and Kersten Geers.

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BAS PRINCEN is a Dutch artist and photographer whose work explores the complex relations between architecture, landscape, and image. Based in Rotterdam and Zurich, his practice moves between documentation and construction, questioning how architecture is represented and reimagined through photography.

He has exhibited widely, most recently in What Mad Pursuit (Teatro dell’Architettura Mendrisio, 2023), alongside Aglaia Konrad and Armin Linke. His solo shows include Bas Princen. Image and Architecture (Vitra Design Museum Gallery, 2018); Reservoir (deSingel, 2011); Five Cities (Istanbul, 2010); and Artificial Arcadia (Rotterdam, 2004)—each tracing how the photographic image mediates the built environment.

From the beginning, Princen has collaborated closely with OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen, contributing photographic essays that define their visual and conceptual identity. His curatorial and editorial work includes MANIERA 01 & 02 with OFFICE and Studio Anne Holtrop, and The Lives of Documents: Photography as Project (Walther König / CCA, 2024). Among his books are Artificial Arcadia (2004), Reservoir (2011), and Wiel Arets – Bas Princen (2015). His work has been recognized with the Charlotte Köhler Prize (2004) and the Silver Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2010, with OFFICE).

KERSTEN GEERS is an architect, writer, and educator whose work pursues radical coherence in architectural thought. He studied Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Ghent and ETSA Madrid, and is co-founder of OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen. From the outset, OFFICE has collaborated with artists and photographers—most notably Bas Princen—whose photo-essays have shaped its monographs and exhibitions.

OFFICE’s work has been published in El Croquis and a+u, and documented through Volumes 1, 2, 3 (with 4, 5, 6 forthcoming). The practice has received the Belgian Prize for Architecture (2009), the Silver Lion at the 12th Venice Biennale (2010), and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2021).

Geers has taught at the Berlage Institute, Columbia GSAPP, Yale, Harvard GSD, and EPFL Lausanne; he is currently Professor at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio. A founding member of San Rocco magazine, he has developed the Architecture Without Content and Everything series of research and student projects, as well as the Difficult Double conference series. His recent publications include Excess of Architecture (2022), Experiments in Thickness (2023), and Without Content (2021).

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Mazzocchioo examines architecture at the crossroads of academia and practice, collecting precise and meaningful cultural fragments from its history and ongoing production through texts, drawings, and conferences.
More at www.mazzocchioo.com

The Mazzocchioo.Talks concept envisions each conference as having its own character. Structured around two guests, each edition develops a distinct theme emerging from the intersection of their paths. Every conference, held in autumn, is accompanied by a small publication featuring interviews.