Phoebus Focus XXI

Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens… Antwerp is famous because of her many talented artists. But what about Brussels?

In this edition of Phoebus Focus, researcher Lara Yeager-Crasselt takes you to the roaring Brussels art scene with a focus on the extraordinary portraiture, with Michael Sweerts as pioneer.

Lara Yeager-Crasselt (1983) is a scholar of the art of the early modern Netherlands, and Curator of The Leiden Collection, a private collection of Dutch and Flemish art based in New...

More than a decade in the making, this is a textbook of architecture rich with design techniques and useful for every architect whether a first-year students or experienced practicing architects. The book teaches the reader how to design by adapting to human needs and sensibilities, yet independently of any particular style. It explains much of what people instinctively know about architecture, and puts that knowledge for the first time in a concise, understandable form. There has not been su...

In Bronze Age Europe, an enormous amount of metalwork was buried in the ground and never retrieved. Patterns in the archaeological finds show that this was a deliberate practice: people systematically deposited valuable metal objects in specific places in the landscape, even in non-metalliferous regions. Although this practice seems strange and puzzling from our modern perspective, these patterns demonstrate that it was not simply a matter of irrational human behaviour. Instead, there were su...

Hitler and the Nazis were defeated in 1945. Barely three years later, the world witnessed the birth of the State of Israel. The author of this book (who is an expert on the Third Reich) addresses the question of whether Hitler's actions accelerated the creation of a country of their own for the Jews. At one point during his reign, Hitler even concluded an agreement with the Zionists with the aim of encouraging Jews to emigrate to Palestine. Not only this fact is surprising, but also the fact ...

Alis Nocturnis

On the Wings of the Night

– 58 Squadron motto

June 17, 1940 - The crew of a lone and crippled bomber are deep within enemy territory, desperately trying to find their way back home. A story of two men, their friendship, their convictions and the ultimate price they paid. An attempt to create a human image for two RAF graves in the General Cemetery of Culemborg, a friendly city in the middle of the Netherlands.

The innovation of higher education is incredibly important to the future of our society. In this volume, Jeroen Lutters traces the source of his pedagogical philosophy on higher education, the Free University of Bernard Lievegoed, founded in 1971. Fifty years after this alternative form of higher education was launched, the concept remains a crucial guideline for Lutters in creating a non-reductionist, de-disciplined, multi-level form of higher education. Essential reading for those looking f...

Re-Framing the Politics of Design is a research, exhibition and book project exploring the role of designers in collaboratively giving shape to future changes addressing complex challenges such as climate change, mobility and migration. By looking at concrete, situated case studies, this book explores the current need for designers to re-frame their political agency, engaging with the deep relationality connecting us all, humans (and not only those who already have a voice in society and are...

Graphic Design Is (…) Not Innocent questions ingrained approaches, values and assumptions of graphic design in globalized societies. The publication aims to initiate a dialogue between designers, scholars, critics and commissioners, who investigate responsibilities, potentials, politics, limits and risks of designing visual communication. How innocent is graphic design? Whom is it addressing, whom is it in/excluding? What does it bring about? When defining the role and impact of visual comm...