Overview
Taubman College invites professionals and scholars in the fields of architecture, urban and regional planning, and urban design to teach and study at the University of Michigan for up to one academic year. Visitors' interests range from the historical to the contemporary and from the material to the speculative and engage contemporary urbanism, diverse histories, constructed meaning, built form, the role of representation, new materials, building performance, developing modes of practice/construction/fabrication, and emerging technologies. Professors on sabbatical, faculty beginning teaching careers, students who are writing dissertations, reflective practitioners, and individuals at any other stage of their careers are invited to apply to the various visiting faculty positions.
2009
Henco Bekkering
Fall 2009 The Netherlands Visiting Professor of Urban Planning
Henco Bekkering studied architecture at the School of Architecture of the University of Arkansas in the United States of America as a Fulbright Scholar and at the School of Architecture in the Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Until recently he was the senior partner of HKB stedenbouwkundigen/urbanists Groningen Rotterdam for which he will continue to act as advisor.
HKB works on all levels of scale of urban planning and design, integrating technical, social, political, economical and legal aspects, stressing contextualism, meaning and historical continuity in urban design. Since 1995 he has been a professor of urban design in the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University in Delft. His areas of interest include city form and morphology, the relation between architecture and urban design (in large urban projects), exterior and interior public space, the integration of infrastructure in cities, and pedestrian use of city centers. Together with his colleagues in Delft he established the International Forum on Urbanism or IFoU which brought together universities in Europe and the Far East including Tsinghua University in Beijing and the National Taiwan University in Taipei for further development of the discipline of urbanism internationally.
He is a member of the Board of the Dutch Registration Bureau for Architects, Urbanists, Landscape Architects and Interior Architects and the Board of the Van Eesteren Fluck Van Lohuizen Foundation that supports research, exhibitions, events and publications relevant to the discipline of urban planning and design. He has been chairman of the Assessment Committee of the Dutch National Fund for the Stimulation of Architecture and of the Quality Team for the Regeneration of the Western Garden Cities of Amsterdam. He is a member of the Dutch group of the Congress of European Urbanism that is inspired by the American Congress of The New Urbanism.
The Netherlands Visiting Professorship was created by the UM regents in the late 1940s in partnership with representatives of the Dutch government to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Dutch colony in western Michigan. The professorship has hosted geologists, economists, engineers, mathematicians, historians, literary and legal scholars, among others from over twelve Dutch Universities and institutions. The objective is to promote Dutch culture and to make a contribution toward international understanding.
