Willem Steigenga & Samuel van Embden

During the 1960s, a rift between urban planners and architects increased as the first group relied on data and other facts, whereas as the second was led by artistic considerations. The two inaugural lectures of Willem Steigenga and Sam van Embden, published in English for the first time in this booklet, are important testimonies to this rift. Steigenga, originally a social geographer, was appointed in 1962 at the University of Amsterdam. He paid little attention to questions of architecture and beauty. In 1964, Van Embden became professor at the Delft Institute of Technology (TH Delft) --where he had studied under the influential Professor Granpré Molière--and dedicated his speech to the importance of form in town planning. The two lectures are preceded by an introduction written by Yvonne van Mil and Arnold van der Valk.