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Jaargang 1 Nummer 6
“After 5 years I have to leave with nothing…….”
20 I 01 I 2012
Interview with Sander Overeinder, since 2008 owner of restaurant As, situated in the Irenestraat in a chapel next to the ROC.
How was this building used before your restaurant moved in? This place was empty and only used for illegal parties or exhibitions of for instance the Rietveld Academy. It is built as a chapel next to the Monastry and has a monumental status. How did you get the idea of starting this restaurant in this place? I was asked by ING, the owner of the building, to do so. They knew me from an earlier project. What are the special characteristics of this restaurant? We use traditional food of which I know where it comes from. We also use traditional ways to make the food, for example pickling. We try to use everything from the plants and animals that come into our kitchen. In the backyard of this building, we grow weeds and keep chicken for the eggs and two pigs for the meat. With the garden I try to create an atmosphere of urban farming. You will leave this place in November 2013. How come? When you rent a building for more than 5 years, you get so-called renters rights. ING is not happy with that, and that’s the reason why I will leave. What will become of the chapel when the restaurant closes down? It will be empty again, the owner has no plan of using it. Or maybe they will put another restaurant in it. If I want to keep that restaurant, it could mean I have that I have to make a new business plan which has to compete with other plans. However I am too proud to do so.
What do you think of the fact that they are still building new offices here, while the older ones often are empty, like the Winterthur building? I think it is ridiculous and everyone knows that. It is just a matter of money and big ego’s. Now with the crisis we can see that it is not working. Why do you think that most empty buildings are just standing empty and are not being re-used for a long time? I think there are many ideas and possibilities but it is nearly impossible to carry them out. For instance before I could open this restaurant, it took me 8 months and lots of money to get all the licences and changes to the building that were obliged. And all these licenses, for which you have to pay a fee, are fixed by different
Movement Group UNION: THE OPEN BUILDING. ...IT’S ALL ABOUT MOVEMENT! The Winterthur building, in the middle of a dynamic surrounding; the corporate arrivée, the corporate employee, retired people, staff-employees, young professionals, low-income families, college/high school students... all moving around this building. But there is no connection, no interaction, all groups acting on their little island. This building can make a contribution to the neighbourhood, can make a connection on different ways, can give enlightenment and can be playful.
authorities which do not communicate. I understood that you were involved in a temporary restaurant before. Do you have a special interest in temporality? It is an adventure and you can start on interesting places. I like to bring a new atmosphere to places. This neighbourhood is empty in the weekend, the Beatrixpark is hardly used, the school and offices are closed and my restaurant is the only building that attracts people. However this is the last time I did it. I will try to start a permanent place now. It took me a lot of money and energy to start and build up this place, but at the end I am leaving with nothing. Marleen Malais en Kato Allaert
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Silent Group Seven days in a week, seven urban utopias portraying the life and death of the Winterthur building at the Zuids in Amsterdam. Based on research and interviews carried out in the neighbourhood. The answer on Q:What is ‘Stilte” care a range or answers: swimming, golf on sunday morning, fitness, landscapes....OTHER than the everyday.... tutor: Lada Hršak
Documentary
Reload (Winterthur Recharger part 01) Art direction: Chun Hin Leung, Han Konings
Directors: Milda, Bram Golfcourse Art direction: Annelies, Ninja Ramon
An old, abandoned building lives in a stressful, busy world. A vision of how his life could be is put into reality. With this, he does not only help himself but also his surroundings. sponsor: Frau Antje soundtrack: The Beach Boys ‘Surfin’ Bird
The building as Connector Directors: Patrick Kruse - Leonardo Kappel The film shows the possibilities of the building to connect the people of the neighborhoods in various activities.
Dream Art direction: Rogier van de Brink and Luuc Sonke What if this office-building was something else? this movie suggests the radical, to inspire and motivate all owners of vacant buildings.
The Green Wave casting: Stefan Frommelt graphic design: Luca Drago translation: Flavio Venturelli You look exhausted, it’s time you had a break! Have a surf on the Green wave @ winterthur.nl
Reload (Winterthur Recharger part 02) Art direction: Frank van Zuilekom, Hannah Schubert
sponsor: Frau Antje soundtrack: The Beach Boys ‘Surfin’ Bird
A little battery is out of power and finds an unusual spot to get his reload.
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Religion is slavery!
Enthusiastic and driven, that’s how you could describe Ad van Nieuwpoort. From 2004 onwards he is the reverent of the Thomaschurch in Amsterdam. He grew up in a family of salesmen, but instead of following his father he chose to study theology. The stories of the Bible are his passion. And then not the different interpretations, but the stories in their most original form directly from Hebrew or Greece. These stories are an invitation to ask questions: “That is the most important thing I am doing here: show people that they should interrogate themselves”. That is also the reason why he thinks a combination of church and theatre is a very logical one. Also in the theatre people are challenged to look at things in a way they are not used to and to ask questions about matters which seem logical. That is what he dislikes about religion.“Religion is binding, it gives answers. It is a form of slavery to tell someone what he or she should think”. This attitude is the reason that sometimes he is seen as a thorn in the side of the church. But on the other hand it is this attitude that makes everyone feel welcome in his church. Ad wants the people to become more humane. On Sunday the church community meets each other in an open and warm environment. But also for people who do not visit the service the Thomas church has a lot to offer such as concerts at lunchtime or performances of Remco Campert, Adriaan van Dis or Jan Siebelink. It is a special neighbourhood, the Zuidas, as Ad is aware. Big ego’s, important jobs, but also a lot of lonely elderly people in big villa’s. He aims to give his church a pivotal role in the neighbourhood.. His plans for the extension of the church endorse this role. He thinks of a restaurant driven by mentally handicapped people and a living room for lonely people in a glass extension on the front side of the building The financing of the extension is already clear, the only thing that is missing is a design that honours the building in its current state designed by Karel L. Sijmons. Money and progress are according to him the essentials of our time, a new religion, in which we believe massively. Nevertheless, Ad wants to make the cliché of managers and young professionals on the South Axe only caring about earning money, disappear. “We have to stop thinking in caricatures. Because that kills society.” He usually starts the weekly bible classes for young business men with something odd, like a poem, to get people out of their daily rush. The result of those classes is that the participants often leave the room feeling different. And that is exactly what Ad’s goal is.
Head Winterthur The workshop ‘Neighbouring an empty office’ really started after the building was declared unsafe by the local authorities. The large group of 120 students had to move to the church across the street. The debate with the reverent and municipality was held there. The return on Sunday morning – After one day of mounting emergency lights to the ceiling – It felt like coming home and the connection with the neighbourhood was made. We went from door to door to ask if we could boil our potatoes for the dinner. We attended the New Year reception, we were blogging and posting tweets. Loads of ideas were exchanged with the locals. Millions of square meters of empty office is in search of a new function, users, stories and a future. As long the fear of bureaucracy and safety fetishism rules over intelligence and playful spontaneity the buildings will remain empty. Potential users will avoid the buildings and their autistic vacancy with a 10KM radius. The assignment of all designers is to break down bureaucracy and fear by creating inspiring and special activism. The goal is to tempt the locals to claim the building and to make this emptiness theirs. Eight different associations have come up with their own way to do this. Many thanks goes out to the hospitable owner of the building, inspiring teachers, 120 resourceful students, creative and unyielding bar team and three very helpful firemen! Machiel Spaan.
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Mondiaal Group “Yes, I see the houses they live in, every day going to work and coming back,” Selena (34, Mexican) says. She pauses and looks out on the train station’s square from the coffee shop we are at, during lunch time. It’s the only moment she has time to speak. “I came here three months ago now. I work with one of the major law firms on Zuidas. Long hours, so I leave house when it’s dark, come back when it’s dark again. I see the windows light up; sometimes it provides me with a glimpse of a life unknown to me.” Being an expat can sometimes be isolating. One moves to an unfamiliar country, yet mostly spends time in a working environment that is undifferentiated from any global business district.
Speaking Group We started with the image of the Labyrinth – a neighborhood full of dreams and stories, and an empty building that could contain them. The Labyrinth is an ancient mythological structure whose function is revelation. It is not a maze, you cannot get lost in a labyrinth. It contains a single path that always leads to the center and then back out again. At the entrance to the labyrinth you ask your question, then you begin your journey of discovery along the indirect path, getting “lost” in following each and every step. When you reach the center, your answer is there waiting for you, calling to you, revealing itself to you if you listen. Once you have received your intuition, your answer, your task is to return to the world outside and share your answer by making something of it. We went out into the labyrinth to discover what the voices (of the people that live and work here) are saying. What we heard led us to 4 proposals. • CASINO MORE a place of promises for more of everything, a tower of supposed possibilities…and a question: is more less? • STEVE’S GARAGE – a place where little JOBS might turn a profit and generate interest. Small production spaces where people can make things and a market place to exchange and share them. A place of human resources and social capital. • HIP-NO-THERAPY – a wellness / training center where anyone can leave their everyday role at the garderobe and follow their chosen path (high energy workout; massage, sauna, release; meditation, sleep, lounge; expressive action, dance, song, burst out) to the center, to the CORE. • BITTERSWEET SYMPHONY – a vintage building movie. Starring The Architect, Merv. van Zanten, the Gardner, and others. Ghosts who still inhabit this haunted office building waiting for a new incarnation. The SPEAKING SPACE presents an on-going cycle in which these 4 proposals will be presented as a combination of audiovisual media and live performance.
The Who’s your neighbour?-initiative seeks to bridge the gap between the professional and spatial world. We want to introduce children of the neighborhood to the work that is happening in their direct vicinity. After all, what is happening in those tall towers? The approach offers a valuable experience for children: meeting with different cultures and making the world of business more tangible. At the same time, expats are made familiar with the Dutch child and their perception. “When Who’s your neighbour? approached me I was pretty excited. I have my own son; he lives with my mother back in Guadalajara. We video through Skype sometimes,” Selena’s eyes light up, “he will tell me all about his day at school. Yes, I miss him a lot.” “I was introduced to Aafke. She is in the 6th grade of primary school. It was nice having a child around. The office can get a little bit too serious sometimes. I found out she is part Spanish and knows the language, so it was easy for us to communicate.” With the initiative, for a short time the distinct social networks of the global and local are linked. Who knows, maybe they will become truly interweaved one day and we will no longer wonder Who is my neighbour?
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Getto for rich people Hans van der Made, senior urban planner of the Amsterdam planning department and involved in the development of the Zuidas for many years informed us about the Amsterdam point of view on the empty offices and the Zuidas. How does Amsterdam deal with empty buildings? Amsterdam wants to reduce the vacancy of buildings by asking tax on emptiness, discuss with owners and reduce the building of new offices. The new planned office locations are drastically reduced. Amsterdam has nominated a specific person, “kantorenloods”, who helps to find new users for empty buildings. Companies that want to start a business in a vacant building have to deal with a lot of regulation and authorities. What could be a solution for this, in your opinion? The local authorities have simplified the regulations already a lot in the past 10 years. For empty offices more regulations are abolished to stimulate re-use. The actual discussion is whether the authorities should still be responsible for regulatory review. Why should the initiator or user not be responsible himself? This would make a big difference in time and money needed. Is it possible for the local authorities to prevent the situation that people who give the environment a boost by using an empty building after a certain period are kicked out by the owner because otherwise they build up rights, while there is no other destination for the building? No, that is no case for the local authorities. It is national legislation. What do you think about the current development of the Zuidas? What is a success and what is a failure in your opinion? Commercially it is already a success. But a mix of uses should add animation and urbanisation. That could be better, but the elimination of noises is very important. Than there could be built many more homes. With a much nicer station the conditions of an international business centre arises.
Hans van der Made Is Amsterdam afraid that the Zuidas develops into a ghetto for rich people? Every neighbourhood in the city has specific residents. There is nothing wrong with that. The people in the neighbourhood of the Zuidas are already very rich. However, the high concentration of highly educated people does not exclude other groups. The Zuidas also gives work to less educated people. Houses will be built for different groups just to achieve a viable mix.
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Virtuaal Group VIRTUALITY The virtual world plays a big role in people’s lives these days. People spend a significant amount of time on their computer or mobile phone. So how does this influence our life and the way we use space? We have tried to analyze our environment in it’s virtuality. What exists in reality might not exist in a virtual world. So how do we move through the virtual world in search of information or contact? And how can we use this to rethink the value of architecture as a border between the virtual and the real world? The task of our project is to research the way we use media and how to redefine the way we use space in real time, by using the character of virtual media. Virtuality provides us freedom to experience our desires and an endless flow of social interaction.
PROGRAM There will be a constant change of program for the building, which needs to be initiated by people from the neighbourhood. The only rule is that people need to respect the structure of the building and it needs to be a collective responsibility. You could see the Winterthurbuilding as an interface for social interaction. You move through space like the way you browse on the internet. You have to search actively to find the right information: You make the choices and you can leave comments, have your say. Without human activity there is nothing.
IRENE The goal of this presentation is for you, as individual of this neighbourhood, to relate to the building in a personal way. This is why we present the building as a person, Irene. The experiences of this ‘person’ are events you could experience in the building. Irene is a metaphor we use to explain the possible transformation of the building. Within our space you can experience the possibilities for the use of the building in a way that you would use virtual space. The way you can make connections, change activities, make choices, the way you get access to a site or the way you are denied. What you will find out depends on the way you search for something.
Private Space Group The private-space group has scaled up its ambition. Instead of looking at private spaces on building level we studied private spaces at an urban scale; courtyards, the inner and often forbidden domain of the urban tissue. Although these hidden spaces can house all sorts of activities, most frequently they comprise patchworks of private gardens in dwelling areas and parking lots in office buildings. We think they have the potential to become social hot spots for their neighborhood and can play an important role in activating an obsolete office building. Since our WWWinterthur building is also equipped with a courtyard, the privatespace group developed concepts to activate this space that is now in use as a parking lot. After a field research, in which twelve neighboring courtyards were studied and documented in mental maps, the group started its creative process in a brainstorm session. Many ideas came to the table from pragmatic to poetic, all related to various themes such as obsolescence, borders, inclusion, exclusion, privacy and collectiveness. Some ideas were developed into strategies and installations that are on show today in the Winterthur building. The most appropriate concept was to fill up the complete courtyard with moneymaking program and leave the building as is. After listening to Breevast (the owner of the Winterthur block), the group understood the financial complexities of a complete transformation due to outdated building features and high sustainability demands of multinationals. However, starting the construction of new highrise right in the middle courtyard would render these so called obstacles irrelevant. This new building would generate enough profit to open up the current structure to the neighborhood, so it could be filled by hacker-spaces, incubators and a diverse cultural program. To highlight and celebrate the courtyard event, over fifty white ribbons stretch from the entrance of the courtyard to the top floor of the building.
Like a huge canopy, the ribbons create intimacy in the open space and bring a new and pleasant atmosphere to the usually desolated parking lot. Hopefully todays activated courtyard is a prelude to a vivid future for Winterthur at Zuidas. Bringing intimacy to the public sphere (by Soraya) A courtyard is an enclosed space -open to the sky- it is often the only moment where private activities happen outdoors. By re-scaling the boundaries of the courtyard, the project underlines the potential of the feeling of privacy that an enclosed space within the public realm can create. With a very light and fragile material, almost as mental walls, we draw a courtyard within the courtyard. From the office un-scaled environment to the very closed dwelling areas, the new ephemeral space will enable to gather people in lack of human-scale shared places. We believe that a temporary and moving architecture is able to leave great memories to the visitors of the courtyard and show them what potential a public enclosed space contains.
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Gastranomic Group The Building Group
Dinnner on south axis Upper-local group (Providing) food is a global problem; 50% of the World population is in hunger, while people in the so-called developed countries throw away 50% of their food [at hand]. It is commonly explained as a problem of distributing. Being located at the Zuidas, the economical hard of Amsterdam and indeed the Netherlands, we approached the problem differently; money means power, and the global food market is dictated by financial motives. So one can argue that (controlling) food means power and vice versa hunger means poverty. One solution (as we show at WWWinterthur) could be changing the global food market into local markets all over the world. With this scenario money is not an issue anymore and every person is dependent on the local market, but also: free! In the Netherlands this means that food cannot be imported anymore (criminal activity) and every citizen is dependent on food native in the Netherlands. This means for instance banana’s, Angus beef and soy are not available for common use anymore! But how to solve hunger in places around the world where local food markets (or chains) are not that self-evident as in the Netherlands? Here at WWWinterthur we opened today [friday, januari 19th 2012, red.] the first (and possibly only) exotic restaurant BANANA REPUBLIC; the only place in the Netherlands where exotic food can be consumed. BANANA REPUBLIC is part of the Dutch government and as a non-profit organisation income of this restaurant is used to initiate or invest in local food markets all over the world, where hunger is a common threat. Being the only restaurant in the Netherlands where you for instance can eat a banana for dessert, or Chinese food all together…
The Local group The local group is searching for the social aspect of eating. For us it is not about the eating itself but about the social activities that come with it. For the past week we have been trying to find ways to bring people together and come to enjoy the conversations between each other and have fun. First we tried to do this by cooking for the group with help from the neighbourhood and get them involved in our project. During the week we made some locally produced food. The meal was a ‘boerenkool’ dinner, and served with a glass of wine and a nice conversation. All of these social gatherings will come together on Friday when we have a final dinner. We have asked the people who have been eating with us to come to the Winterthur building with their friends and family and have a social meeting while enjoying a good meal so that we use the building as the social heart of the area!
We are trying to come up with a concept where the food theme is integrated in the building. A few things are important in the proces so far. We came up with the name neigbourfood, that name discribes the idea we had about local people growing food in their own garden. People can pick up seeds to grow the vegtables and can return the vegtables at the building. Also there is a greenhouse in the building were exotic foods are produced. The people from the neighbourhood can exchange the local food for exotic food at the market place. The neigbourfood app can provide information about growing vegetables and there can be discussion about these topics. The local food and exotic foods from the market can also be used by the restaurant or can be distributed to other restaurants or company’s. Local food and exotic food meet eachother in the building and exchange can take place. For buisiness people we tought about making meetingrooms in the greenhouses. With these meetingrooms different discussions and meetings can take place. Also there is awareness of this food issue we talked about al week in these meeting rooms. The showroom is the place where you enter the buidling an can deside where you go. The marketplace, greenhouse/meetingrooms or greenhouse/ restaurant. In the restaurant local people and buisiness people interact. Conclusion is that local people and buisiness people interact in the building. And local food and exotic food interact in the building.
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Ecce Homo
Paolo..... For seven years already, a man occupies the entrance of the Amsterdam South Station. His name is Paolo. He is alone and at work. His work is important because it is one of those jobs that oil the mechanism of society: he is a carrier of culture. We are, in fact, in the South Axis, the heart of the financial and business district of Amsterdam. A constant flow of people moves between the station and the office blocks, passing the spot where Paolo has conveniently placed himself. Culture is not the obvious passtime here, so all the more reason to talk about it. With his simple presence Paolo tries to lure by passers into a conversation, and it works. Would it be his looks or intense expression, who knows, but he manages to catch the eye and ear of every single person in the square. Talking to him, I discovered an extremely modest, generous and respectful person. His weltanschauung reminds me of a 19th century
gentleman, who values respect, honesty and a good education. ‘Seducer’ might be a better description - someone who uses the tool of knowledge – and maybe a funny hat for laughs. Surely, his principles are slightly old-fashioned compared to the business of the high-end tax lawyers and financiers. But there are few people who can still claim what he can: disposing of an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of history and culture. Why would he be working the streets then? Why would he not be partner in one of the big firms? His intelligence and drive should make him an excellent strategist. Paolo mentions an unbalanced emotional state because of a lack of nurture from his mother. This is actually a very strong factor of disbalance in many human lives, so I believe him. Talking in this way, you can almost touch the thin line between success and insanity. Or, what is perceived as insanity. Undoubtedly this is exactly the reason why Paolo is here, and why he has become a
part of the urban tissue. The well-educated professionals of the South Axis like talking to him because they recognise Paolo for what he is. They are no softies. Their success is built on years of study and excessive office hours. They play hard and to loosen the grip is to risk losing everything. A person like Paolo is, therefore, admired for his culture while pitied for his bad luck. The corporate world gets its corporate bum. There is a question however. Not many people in the offices nearby know about Paolo’s current problems. He told me about his declining health and incapacity to make himself explained to the doctors. It would be a good thing if one of his benefactors, instead of joining him in a brief chat about politics, would take up the phone and make an appointment with their family doctor. Could the nurture that Paolo has been lacking in his youth be given to him now that he needs it again? Marion van Kampen
