This is Tomorrow 2025
Cursus
This is Tomorrow is the centrepiece of Independent School for The City yearly education program. It is a three-month course that uses Rotterdam as a laboratory for research into social and spatial issues that are relevant to cities all over the world. Known for its harbour, its diverse working class population and its lively architecture scene, Rotterdam is also something of a frontline in the struggle for justice and equality in the capitalist world. At the same time, being a hub in the network of global trade, things that happen in Rotterdam have (in)direct effects in far-flung places around the world and vice versa.
As a school, we are therefore challenged to shed light on how the city functions and contributes to global issues such as climate change, migration, the right to the city and to explore how we can use research, art, (urban) design, history, and architecture to change things for the better. By alternately looking closely at local urban phenomena, and then zooming out to global tendencies we will see how the future is already here, in front of our eyes. Through lectures, excursions and workshops, the programme offers participants the freedom to deepen their knowledge and to develop their own position towards the pressing urban issues of our time.
We invite all professionals with a strong commitment to cities – regardless of discipline – to join the laboratory environment of This is Tomorrow and develop skills that can be applied in cities around the world.