On Saturday 21 October 2023 Nicolaas John Habraken – the father of Open Building – passed away, just a week before his 95th birthday. The party for his birthday was planned, family, friends and former colleagues and fellow building professionals invited. This Saturday October 28th, on the day before his birthday, that same group of people comes together to share their thoughts about John’s ideas, his ambition and his contribution to their lives and work. John won’t be there in person, but his precious legacy will be carried on by all of them.

Founding partner Marc Koehler: “I first met John when he attended the opening of Superlofts Houthavens together with his friends Sjoerd Soeters and Thijs Asselbergs. He was excited that a new generation had embraced his ideas and we met several times to develop ideas for the Openbuilding.co platform.

 As the father of the first Open Building movement, John Habraken has had a major impact on multiple generations of architects since the 1960s and inspired thousands of students to explore flexible and communal housing. Over the past decade, his work has been rediscovered in the context of the emerging circular economy, community building and prefab (wooden) modular homes. I regret that I did not ask him from the start whether he had these sustainability goals in mind.

 John, your ideas are timeless, just like the buildings they evoke.
Thank you.”

In the past years, John has played an active part in the ‘revival’ of the Open Building movement in The Netherlands. In many (live and online) meetings, he encouraged new generations of architects to take another approach in urban development, architecture, building technology and the way people could play a part in creating their own living environment. When OpenBuilding.co was launched in 2019, John took that initiative to re-publish his books, be a part of (the development of) our events and share his network to create a bigger impact.

Founding partner Tom Frantzen: “John Habraken was one of those architects whose importance I did not appreciate until my career as an architect was already well advanced. But it was then that I hit the mark and understood how indebted my own work and that of many of my close colleagues was to his ideas. Hats off to John!”

And then the pandemic hit us all in 2020. But that did not stop us – and certainly not John. In one of the many online seminars and workshops that were organized by Thijs Asselbergs for the TU Delft, we counted six (!) generations of architects. The youngest being an aspiring architecture student of 17 years, the oldest was John, well over ninety. All ages in between. John’s students, their students, a next generation that rediscovered the philosophy of Open Building and their followers, the curious new generation of PhD’s and master students…  It was encouraging, to have so many different insights, experiences and characters involved, all talking about that wonderful idea that John developed in the sixties and seventies: ‘De dragers en de mensen’ (translated as Supports - An Alternative to Mass Housing).

Founding partner Thijs Asselbergs: “In recent years John Habraken has been invaluable in sharing his ideas and approach with our master’s graduates at TU Delft. In various workshops, students worked on spatial studies for Samarkand and the infill industry. A new generation of young talent was and is linked to a group of architects who have embraced John’s ideas and who apply them in various ways in their daily practice. This has created an ‘open building academy’ that must be continued. Open Building is more current than ever before. Our professional community owes John a great debt of gratitude for his rich, inspiring and timeless ideas.”

On behalf of all Founding Partners of OpenBuilding.co and myself, I would like to express our sincere condolences to John’s family and friends. We will continue to carry his legacy, and use his ideas, to bring change and innovation to our profession. And we promise to keep on organizing parties and seminars and/or make contributions to events to continue the conversation on the many important topics that John addressed with his work and enlarge the Open Building network – within and outside OpenBuilding.co activities. Thank you, John, for playing this part in our lives and that of many others.

 Caroline Kruit