Rem Koolhaas once described architecture as ‘a hazardous mixture of omnipotence and impotence’. With her new book Bold Ventures, poet, writer, and artist Charlotte van den Broeck presents thirteen haunted tales about architecture’s dark side.

Drawing on a vast range of material, from Hegel and Charles Darwin to art history Van den Broeck examine what Albert Camus called ‘the one truly serious philosophical problem’ – the concept of suicide. In buildings from Glasgow to Washington DC, from galleries to golf courses, this is an existential meditation on the heights to which the human mind can soar – and the tragic depths to which it can plunge. 

Author and poet Charlotte Van den Broeck was born in Belgium in 1991. Chameleon, her first collection of poetry, was awarded the Herman de Coninck Debut Prize, followed by Nachtroer in 2017, which won the triennial Paul Snoek Prize for Dutch-language poetry.

‘What a sensible, intelligent and beautiful book’ – Stefan Hertmans

Charlotte will be in conversation with Kevin Donovan, Senior Lecturer at Dublin School of Architecture.

Presented with the support of Flanders Literature as part of New Dutch Writing and in association with the Irish Architectural Archive.