
Photo: Matty van Wijnbergen
Linda Vlassenrood is a programme manager and curator whose mission is to facilitate understanding and discussion of complex urban issues in stimulating ways. She organises multi-year and shorter programmes for cultural institutions, municipalities and commercial entities; these may comprise advice, research, publications, workshops, exhibitions, educational projects, lectures and/or discussions. She excels at defining a question and then putting together the most appropriate method or process for discussing, researching or designing solutions.
Her ambition is to involve a broader group than just insiders in the development of cities. Her approach is therefore interdisciplinary by definition. As a result, she is easily able to bring together different types of designers as well as officials, citizens, researchers and other experts in the Netherlands and elsewhere. She brings multiple strengths to her role as a programme manager and curator – creativity, analytical and strategic insight, entrepreneurship, drive and energy. In recent years she has focused on data and the smart society and on the development and redevelopment of new cities, particularly in China.
She worked as a curator and then chief curator at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) from 2000 to 2011. The NAI was one of the world’s largest public cultural institutions devoted to architecture and urban planning. She curated the Dutch contribution to the International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2004. In 2011, she founded Studio Linda Vlassenrood, and she has also worked since then with the International New Town Institute as programme director of a research and exchange programme in China. She is a core team member at Stad-Forum, an independent research organisation that advises the city of Amsterdam on urban development. She is also chairwoman of the general board of the TAAK foundation. As a result of her activities, she is in demand as a speaker in the Netherlands and abroad. She has authored and co-authored numerous publications.