By Kirstin Ohrt, Art & Archaeology
On April 14, the Committee on Renaissance and Early Modern Studies (CREMS) hosted Merlijn Hurx, professor in the Department of Architecture at KU Leuven, who presented “Metropolises in the Mud: lnnovation in Building Technology in the Low Countries.”
Hurx’s presentation addressed one dimension of his larger European Research Council-funded project on cities built in river deltas, which represent many of the world’s most urbanized and wealthiest regions. A crucial threat to their existence, climate change has spawned a wave of innovation that seems especially urgent today—but it is not new. This project is the first in-depth comparative study of construction techniques for marshy conditions, examining three key deltas in Europe and China, that of the Rhine-Scheldt-Meuse, Po and Veneto Basin, and the Yangtze. The project probes factors that stimulated innovation—and the pace of their progression.
Through the project, Hurx funds graduate student and postdoctoral research on this topic.
