Professor
Christian Rapp
Staff
Hélène Aarts, Haike Apelt, Rik de Bondt, Ralph Brodruck, Wouter Hilhorst, Renato Kindt, Anne Marie Peters-van den Heuvel
European city studios supervision
Christian Rapp, Haike Apelt, Wouter Hilhorst
Media group
Hélène Aarts, Ralph Brodruck, Renato Kindt
Rational Architecture is a chair at the Department of the Built Environment of the Eindhoven University of Technology.
Rational Architecture is geared to the typological and morphological analysis and critique of the existing city on the scale of the city as well as on the scale of the building. The assumption is that responsible architectural and urban interventions should be made on the basis of a thorough understanding of how the city came about and a carefully reasoned approach to context and detail.
Equal importance is given to the study of architectural language in order to connect an object with its past and with this, with all architectures. We see this approach to architecture as essential in nowadays planning and building practice, in order to give a building relevance in the long run. RA focuses on a cultural tradition of architecture that builds on the idea of ‘type’ as the constant carrier of architectural design. Variations of this constant, in order to respond to contemporary building questions and conditions, define the working field of the chair. The formal basis of architecture, frequently within the spatial context of existing urban constellations, is central to this.
By creatively questioning the formal fundament of architecture, RA aims to stimulate architectural research by design. Research has been integrated into Rational Architecture through the establishment of the design-based research group Bauhütte.
Christian Rapp trained as a mason, and studied architecture at Berlin and Delft Universities of Technology. He has worked for the renowned architects Otto Steidle, Rem Koolhaas and Hans Kollhoff, and was in partnership with Stefan Höhne from 1992 to 1998. He founded Rapp+Rapp together with his wife Birgit in 1999. He was awarded the Maaskant prize for young architects in 1997. After having taught as a guest lecturer at various schools of architecture in the Netherlands and Germany, he was appointed to the chair of Rational Architecture at Eindhoven Institute of Technology since 2007.
Haike Apelt studied architecture at Bauhaus University Weimar and Chalmers University in Gothenburg. She worked in the offices of Karelse van der Meer Architecten, Diener & Diener Architekten, META and Robbrecht and Daem. Alongside with her husband Marco Arts she founded hama architects in 2011. She has been a guest lecturer at several Dutch, Belgian and German universities. As a guest professor, respectively -lecturer she is involved at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Eindhoven University of Technology. From 2014 to 2020 she was a member of the design review committee in Antwerp.
Wouter Hilhorst studied architecture at Delft University of Technology and subsequently worked for a number of Dutch architecture firms. He is currently an independent architect in Rotterdam and lecturer at the Eindhoven University of Technology. In his practice, making takes a prominent place, and next to his architectural projects he designs and makes furniture. His architectural projects are done independently as well as in collaborations with fellow architects. He has taught at Delft University of Technology and the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Design. He currently pursues a PhD about the configuration of residential floorplans.