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INDESEM has always been an explosion of one week of learning without education. Students themselves are responsible for everything and it is them who make sure that the technical and academic staff warm to the idea of breaking plenty of rules for a week. And you should see what happens when you do! Work continues into the early hours and the building is turned inside out to get at its hidden qualities. The daily routine is disrupted and the cleaners are made aware of their importance. Each time a group of students comes together to perform the task of getting this event off the ground, their own regular studies are largely ignored for the duration. It is only much later that they realize just what they have received in return when, after their studies, it transpires that designing and realizing a building demands a comparable attitude where it is again all down to anticipating, deliberating, seeking out conditions, making (and keeping) appointments.Those taking part come from all over the world, perhaps initially attracted by names and by the Netherlands, but also by the thrill of actually being able to meet and talk with so many others who are in the same boat. The task is no more than a pretext and catalyst for getting into contact with others and discussing with them. The results are merely conceptual models of thinking. The performance that needs generating is to get a group of complete strangers to formulate and present an idea and go on to defend it against all others. In this way, the idea of INDESEM is inciting glimpses of an alternative way of learning, directed to thinking instead of just cultivating external attractiveness. And it deserves to be continued in some way to point at what might be a lesson for the regular education.

RESUMEN Herman Hertzberger pertenece a ese grupo de arquitectos que, desde comienzos del siglo XX hasta nuestros días, han entendido el binomio arquitectura–pedagogía como indisoluble, como dos disciplinas complementarias en el proceso de aprendizaje que recrean un modelo de sociedad y, por ende, del espacio donde esta se desarrolla. Hertzberger entiende la arquitectura como instrumento pedagógico y como oportunidad esencial para la configuración de un espacio de relación. Su obra nos desvela una preocupación máxima por el usuario, por los valores colectivos, en un entendimiento de la arquitectura como soporte de libertad, cuyo antecedente inmediato fue el ideario de su maestro Aldo van Eyck. Pero es en su arquitectura escolar donde esto se observa de forma más radical. A través de los numerosos proyectos realizados vinculados a la educación, se recorren todas las etapas de aprendizaje del hombre desde la infancia hasta la universidad, en los cuales se desarrolla un amplio repertorio de estrategias proyectuales vinculadas a la Escuela Activa como modelo de aprendizaje y más concretamente al Método Montessori. Su dilatada obra vinculada a la enseñanza le permite ensayar en todos los registros posibles la idea de un edificio como ciudad, difuminando los límites entre espacios privados y públicos en todas las escalas entre la escuela y su entorno, en un recorrido que va del aula a la ciudad. SUMMARY Herman Hertzberger belongs to a group of architects that understand the architecture-pedagogy binomial as indissoluble. Ever since the beginning of the 20th Century, they have embraced the complementarity of these two disciplines in the educational world, and have revealed the way architecture and pedagogy collaborate through the recreation of a model for society and therefore influence the place where education takes place. In this context, Hertzberger understands architecture as a pedagogical tool as well as an opportunity for the configuration of a space for interaction. Hertzberger´s work confirms a commitment with the child as the centre of the learning process. Moreover, the architect demonstrates major interest in collective values, together with an understanding of architecture as a basis-foundation for freedom. His direct precedents are the ideas of his teacher, Aldo van Eyck. However, it is in his educational architecture where these can be radically observed. The numerous projects that he has designed cover all the phases of the educational process: from those of early childhood to university studies. In these projects he has developed a wide repertoire of design strategies linked to the Active school and the Montessori Method. His extensive work allows him to try out the full scope of the idea of a building being like a city, by blurring the limits between public and private space, the school and its environment, in a journey that crosses from the classroom to the city.