Last Saturday, Partizan and friends (Chris Keulemans en Eva de Klerk) were guests at the Hamburger Gängeviertel, a squatted complex of houses, warehouses and an abandoned factory, smack in the middle of the übergentrified city centre of Hamburg. The Viertel is like a Gaellic village: a blot of subversiveness, surrounded by glass-and-steel office highrises, international hotel chains and the cities' court buildings.

The Viertel got squatted just over six months ago. Over 200 artists took to cleaning the place up, scaring the pidgeons off the attics, and kicked inn a wild cultural programming, with 5 parallel expositions, parties, debates and what have you. At the same time they started to take on the marode building structures of the area to make them winter proof and liveable again. Surprisingly, the city did not shut the squat down immediately.

Now, more than six months later, the Gängeviertel still is one of the driving forces behind the local, very energetic 'Recht auf Stadt' movement. Not In Our Name, Marke Hamburg! states the mission. The piece is a witty text against top down city engineering, exclusive gentrification and commercial branding. A text against a mono cultural Hamburg, against the mechanisms of the ever growing, entrepreneurial city, against social and functional dualism. A text in favor of a more social and liveable city, the do-it-yourself city, the city of the people.

As a protest against a recent decision of the Bauprüfamt to shut down all public activity of the squat due to safety concerns, the whole public programme of the Viertel has been moved into the public spaces of the city.

Thus it was, that we found ourselves under the arcades of Brahms Kontor, a nearby former theater/music hall now office complex, hosting and presenting a discussion on how artists and creatives can reclaim the city, in which they have found themselves instrumental to big city unreal estaste interests. Although the Staalvilla, the Tolhuistuin and the NDSM rent their spaces, and the Gängeviertel inhabitants have squatted their place, they shared a common passion to take control and ownership over these places.

(Sprechstunde Amsterdam)

(Chris Keulemans)

(Edwin Gardner)

(Eva de Klerk)

(police visit)

The Blitz visit to Hamburg ended on the steps of the Südkurve of the Millerntor in St. Pauli. Under the waving black skull-and-bone club flags, FC St. Pauli, the Zweite Bundesliga club that holds between a soccerclub, a anti-fascist bastion and a neighborhood block party, beat Rot Weiss Oberhausen with 5:3.

A special shout goes out to Marion and Nora, our hosts for the weekend!

Text and pics by Joost Janmaat, Edwin Gardner and Björn König.

Last week NS Vastgoed agreed to having the Liberty City exhibition in Amsterdam Central Station.The exhibition commissioned by the Amsterdam 4 & 5 May committee will take place at the place where the national 5 May train is ending its tour through the country.

The space is the former International Ticket Office of the Dutch Railways at track 2 in direction of track 1.

In the coming weeks Partizan Publik will work with architect Theo Deutinger, graphic designer Jasper van der Berg and producer Pieter Schipmolder on the realization of the exhibition.

From 26 April the Liberty City exhibition will be opened for visitors.

Theo Deutinger and Andrew Snow of TD Architects, partner in the Liberty City project published in MARK magazine in collaboration with Partizan Publik an info-graphic of Free Cities in the world.

They found out that 90% of the free towns on the globe are in English, Spanish, German or Slavic speaking nations.

Deutinger and Snow distinguish between German free-market towns, Sloboda settlements and 'New World' cities.

Reference: Robert Thieman (ed.), Mark 24 (2010).

Amsterdam Centraal, or the central train station in Amsterdam, is in transformation since 1997. Stationseiland Amsterdam, Station Isle Amsterdam, is the name of the project.

The main partners of this reconstruction project, the dutch railways company NS, railway developer ProRail and the Amsterdam Municipality anticipate with this transformation the impact of the realization of the North-South Metro Line and the High Speed Train connection to Paris on the Central Station area.

The re-design is led by Benthem Crouwel Architects and Merkx and Girod Architects.

The People united will never be defeated: The People properly guided will never stray.

Last Saturday, the Studio Beirut collective launched Beyroutes in the city that it honours: Beirut. With many of the contributors packed into the tiny Papercup Bookstore, it became a happy, emotional, and shamelessly self-boosting affair.

From an upper shelve of a book cabinet, Chris Fruneaux speeched about the deep friendships that underlie the making of the book. In a talk with the Royal Netherlands Embassy’s Cultural Attache, Joost Janmaat revealed some of the inner workings of the beast we refer to as Studio Beirut. In a far corner, Rani al Rajji could be found recruiting stunningly beautiful girls into the ranks of the Bounyaks. Joe Mounzer got into a signing frenzy of his own; brazenly scribbling away at every blank spot of paper that got near. And all along, Steve Eid and Pascale Hares were standing on the pavement outside Papercup, between them the intimidatingly pretty latest addition to the squad: baby Noa.

Hard core locals, engaged tourists and nostalgic diaspora: this guide was made by a broad array of committed amateurs that project themselves onto the city. For years, they have looked to this particular city to accommodate their dreams, ambitions, curiosities and insecurities.

The result was a book about Beirut disguised as a guide. For a guide, it is a pretty lousy one. it does not have much listings of great bars and fancy restaurants. it does not give you splattering colourful accounts of the luxurious places to sleep, nor the latest haunts to dance the night away. It does, however, give you personal, subjective, intimate, and contested accounts ways to look at, experience, understand or even judge the city. Thus, you can navigate the city with Joe’s assassination tour, dig into Ashrafieh with Tony Chakar’s statements on Catastrophic Space, step into the head of artist Jan Rothuizen, who drew the annotated maps or written drawings that illustrate the cover.

Beyroutes is a guide about Beirut that could be of use in any city. They say all people are unique; the cities they live in are surprisingly similar. In every city, for example, the cheap and trashy hostels can be found just around the corner from the train or bus terminal. In every city, next to the official monuments of the state you will find the accidental monuments of the people. Thus, rather than propose a re-enactment or simulation of a particular city, in Beyroutes we propose four lenses, or looking glasses to look at the city (or any city). We give you the first impression city, the official city, the accidental city, and the emotional city. In Beyroutes, these ways of looking have lead to Zinab Chahine's survival guide to Dahiyeh, and the ultimate pieces on the infrastructure of intimacy by Maureen abu Ghanem (on the etiquette of commercial sex) and Joane Chaker (on teenage love).

With so many people present, the launched resulted in a (almost) sell out of the first print, a total depletion of the Lebanese National Reserve of Stroopwafels and a smiling stack of empty 961 bottles.

the constuction site of a part of the Skopje 2014 Urban regeneration scheme

The Pretext
The Dutch Embassy wants to promote the 'Creative Cities' concept in Skopje, and they would like to see the municipality, the independent arts & culture scene and NGO's to collaborate. Together with Robert Kluijver (who worked for NGO's the UN and his own cultural heritage institution in Kabul) I went to Skopje, uncertain what to preach and what role to play in this post-colonial creative class propaganda scheme. Personally I have been very skeptical and critical of the projects that are rolled out under the banner of Creative Industries/Class/Cities etc. Being teleported to Skopje has been an interesting confrontation with my own temperaments an opinions on the matter. In Amsterdam I am critical of everything branded as 'creative', here in Skopje I find myself preaching the creative city, an awkward feeling...

The Context
The reason is quite simple, before I can be critical of a concept, the local authorities must first have adopted it as policy, which is not the case in Skopje. Here the municipality thinks of arts & culture as handicraft and traditional artisans; like blacksmiths, weaving rugs or manufacturing baskets. When you associate culture and art with urban development in Skopje it is mainly instrumentalized to broadcast the nationalist agenda of the ruling party as put forward in the Skopje 2014 plan. Skopje 2014 is an urban regeneration plan for the city that was presented a few weeks ago which has caused quite a stir and lots of discussion in the cultural scene and society at large in Macadonia. Without any open or transparent process, the future vision of the city came as a complete surprise. See the video below they posted on Youtube

The plan consist of the installation of a dozen statues of national heroes, like a 30m high statue of Alexander the Great, a triumph arch, a huge fountain, an orthodox Christian church, and a series of neo-classical and baroque museums and institutes. A celebration of a manufactured national identity based on glorifying icons and very selective and flimsy historical arguments. So pick your way of reading this: an enormous investment and support of Macedonian culture and arts or a impressive piece of propaganda of the ruling nationalist party. Oh, and by the way the project costs something between 150 and 200 million euro. (here you can read more on the local turmoil around the 2014 plan)

So, there we are with our mission to enlighten the locals with the idea of a 'creative city' suddenly all your criticism starts to evaporate in a context like this, the propagation of the creative class emerges as a lesser evil, or as a much needed alternative to rewriting history in support of nationalist propaganda. If only the government would realize that vibrant contemporary culture is essential for modern urban life and would attract the high-educated creative class, in other words money. But it's impossible to convince them that gays, subcultures and espresso-bars are good for the city's economy.

In Control
That the authorities cannot make this leap of imagination is understandable, and not even the most problematic issue here. Cultural and creative scenes can flourish without authorities stimulating or heavily subsidizing them. But the first step is acknowledging that there can be such a thing as an independent cultural scene. One that is not under direct supervision and control of the state. 'Why would you give money, if you cannot control it?' is the governments logic. All public funds should be under absolute government control. Macedonia does has a Ministry of Culture, and you can apply for funds. But although democracy is installed, the Ministry of Culture basically is working as a favor system. There are no criteria formulated upon which applications are judged. The independent art scene hardily gets funds granted from local government institutions.

Basically there is a lack of trust that is bothering civic society on all levels. In the span of little more than a decade real estate property for instance was transfered from the Federation of Yugoslavia to the Republic of Macedonia, and then again de-nationalized to municipalities and/or privatized. All this causes a lot of ownership disputes within the government itself, where members of parliament are claiming and having disputes over property, in other words mafia practices. People remain loyal to their own networks, their own groups and are quick to distrust others. This is not a fertile ground for giving space, time and trust to things you are not in absolute control of.

The Paradox of Criticism
The paradox that I experienced in Skopje is that I am criticizing the status quo, in order that it will develop in a certain direction. Progress is the aim right? The status quo is different everywhere, and progress as well. The paradox is that the direction I'm preaching for in Skopje, is the one I'm trying to overcome in Amsterdam. It's the tragedy of criticism and progress, and that as the critical intellectual you are integral part of the causing the perpetual crisis that causes the system (and what 'system' actually?) to develop. The system will perpetually encapsulate, incorporate and claim all critical inquiry and proposed alternatives. A mixed blessing, cause you got what you wanted, ... right?

Skopje on Mediamatic Travel (as part of the workshop we collectively filled Skopje's page)

Last Wednesday, the third episode of the Syrian Film Festival Box Docs kicked off with a Dutch production as its opening film. Shout, directed by Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Ester Gould, is a documentary about two Golani teenagers that get the chance to study in their homeland Syria.

As a rogue desert storm swept the streets of Damascus, Kindi Cinema - a no-nonsense concrete theatre from the sixties - filled up to the rim. The walkways were totally clogged, television crews were crowding the aisles, and film enthusiasts were quite literally hanging from the balcony. As the last spectators tried to secure themselves a spot inside the projector room, a classic coming-of-age story unrolled.

We meet best friends Ezat and Bayan in their home village Majdal Shams on the Israeli occupied Golan Heights, as they prepare to cross one of the most contested and heavily guarded borders in the world. They are about to go to Syria, the motherland they only know from their parents’ stories. Two best friends, on an adventure of a lifetime.

[Screen shot]

Where the wildest thing in their village was getting drunk in the apple orchards, Damascus totally overwhelms them. The city takes them on like a pinball machine. But as Ezat passionately starts his drama classes, finds a warm welcome with his relatives in Syria, aggressively embraces his new freedoms and falls in love with the cutest girl of the school, Bayan struggles. With his study in medicine, with living by himself, but most of all with his longing for the village and the girl he left there. As the Golani students are not allowed to cross the border until the end of the term, we see him travel as close to the border as possible, as often as possible. In the cold, he and his loved one can just talk to each other by shouting through megaphones. At the end of the term, Ezat decides to stay in Syria, while Bayan goes back to his old life.

[Kindi Cinema]

Shout is a stunning documentary. It is a road trip through family life, friendship and adolescence. It is a tale of two cities. And it is about choice and decision. About checkpoints: quite literal, as the story moves back and forth through the UN guarded borderland between Israel en Syria, and on a more emotional level, as the two teenagers constantly force themselves and each other to assess their dreams and ambitions.

[Sabine Lubbe Bakker interviewed]

As the audience started discussing amongst themselves how two European girls had succeeded in making such an authentic, a-stereotypical movie, director Sabine Lubbe Bakker charmingly weaved her way through a series of interviews, in Arabic.

Shout will be screened in the Netherlands at Movies that Matter, the Amnesty International Film Festival, Sunday 28 March at the Spui Theater in The Hague.

Tijdens een ruimte-tijd odyssee door drie decennia van stedelijke ontwikkeling, overheidsbeleid en ‘counter culture’ in Amsterdam zou u het volgende retrospectief zien: de overgang van sociale maakbaarheid naar ruimtelijke maakbaarheid of van volksverheffing naar de verheffing van een locatie.

Het huidige station in deze reis is I Amsterdam™, een sterk merk vergezeld van het ‘broedplaatsenbeleid’ oftewel de Amsterdamse poging tot city branding in combinatie met een interpretatie van het stimuleren van de ‘creative city’. De vraagt die opkomt is echter: wiens creatieve stad, wiens Amsterdam? Filosoof Henry Lefebvre benadrukt ‘the right of the city signifies the right of citizens and city dwellers [...] to appear on all the networks and circuits of communication, information and exchange.’  Is de volgende stop van stedelijke ontwikkeling daadwerkelijk het Amsterdam waar burgers van alle rangen en standen meegenieten van creativiteit en rijkdom, en het recht kunnen claimen op de stad? Aan de hand van drie kritische onderzoekers van de Amsterdamse ontwikkeling, Justus Uitermark, Merijn Oudenampsen en Eva de Klerk, resumeren we pogingen in de afgelopen dertig jaar om de het recht op de stad in praktijk te brengen.

Tachtiger jaren: ‘De stad is van ons’

In de jaren tachtig was kraken een vorm van ‘politieke ideologie en strijd’. Het streven was een ‘staat in een staat’ omheind door fysieke barricades, als militante en exclusieve vorm van een vrijstaat met de neiging tot generieke verwerping van gezag en instituties. De beweging werd gekenmerkt door een ongedifferentieerde kritiek op de ‘heersende klasse’, het stadsbestuur, de speculanten, ‘de staat’ en de sociale democratie. Belangrijk voor de lokale, stedelijke gebiedsontwikkeling in deze periode is een strategiewijziging van de gemeente Amsterdam, die vanaf midden jaren 80 ontruimingen van kraakpanden gaat combineren met de bestuurlijke aankoop van de panden in kwestie. De panden blijven zodoende behouden voor huisvesting. Aan de krakers wordt daarmee een gewetensvraag gesteld: zijn zij bereid te verhuizen om zo het algemeen belang boven hun eigenbelang te stellen? Dit is het begin van de selectieve toenadering van de overheid, of zoals Uitermark het noemt de ‘omarming van de subversiviteit’.

Negentiger jaren: 'De stad als Casco'

‘Geld verdienen in de panden, niet aan de panden’, dat is het credo van de stad-als-cascomethode. Zowel in theorie als in de praktijk keert zich deze coöperatieve stadsontwikkelingmethode tegen de gemeentelijke, op winstmaximalisatie gerichte, grondprijspolitiek. Om met het top-down ‘een ontwikkelaar, een financier’- paradigma voor een heel gebied te kunnen breken, legt deze strategie de nadruk op de collectieve verantwoordelijkheid van gebruikers voor de ontwikkeling en het beheer van stedelijke gebieden. Van meet af aan worden eindgebruikers (wonen, werken, recreëren) als actieve partners bij het ontwikkelingsproces betrokken. Collectieve afspraken vormen de basis voor een geleidelijk stadsontwikkelingsproces van onderaf, met zeggenschap en verantwoordelijkheid aan de kant van de eindgebruiker bij kwesties omtrent financiering, ontwikkeling en beheer van zowel de bouwstructuur als de omliggende buitenruimte.

Nu: broedplaatsen en de creatieve stad TM

In het ‘Creative City’ paradigma worden kunstenaars omgevormd tot creatieve ondernemers, (sub) culturen vermarkt en de ‘lokale cultuur’ moet een trekpleister zijn voor toeristen. Het beleid is gericht op de annexatie van de culturele sector, waarin een versmelting plaatsvindt van het culturele veld met de politiek-economische agenda van de overheid. Cultuur als ‘software’ voor de bestaande of nog te ontwikkelen ‘hardware’. ‘Creativiteit’ wordt eerst gelokaliseerd, gehuisvest, in haar fragiele fase door beleid en regelgeving beschermd en gemest, om na een periode van groei geslacht te kunnen worden. In principe is dit zowel van toepassing op grootschalige top-down projecten als, op het eerste gezicht meer radicale, nicheprojecten.

Partizan Publik bezoekt op zaterdag 13 maart het Gangeviertel in Hamburg en spreekt ook onder de titel 'Sprechtstunde Amsterdam'

Referenties: Justus Uitermark ‘De omarming van subversiviteit’. Agora 24.3, (2004): pp 32-35, Merijn Oudenampsen 'Back to the Future of the Creative City: An Archaeological Approach to Amsterdam’s Creative Redevelopment'. MyCreativity Reader (2007): pp 165-176, http://www.evadeklerk.com/downloads/stad%20als%20casco.pdf. Photos of NDSM by Christian Ernsten

Launching of 'Beyroutes, a guide to Beirut' 6 March, 5 - 7pm at Papercup Bookstore, Beirut.

The russian revolution of 1917 unleashed the biggest experiment in applied social utopia in human history. For more than a decade, the bolsheviks set off a barrage of extravagant visions for the total transformation of their world. They were in search for the Happy Man.

Picture from Stites, Revolutionary Dreams

One of the leading figures in this swirlingly creative dream was Alexei Gastev (1882-1939). He was a fighter and agitator in the Revolution, and in 1920 he became the founder and director of the Central Institute of Labor in Moscow. Richard Stites discusses Gastev's utopian ambitions in Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian vision and experimental life in the Russian Revolution (1991).

At the Institute, Gastev became one of the most active advocates of taylors scientific management. He set about to transform Russia into the Soviet Union - a rural society into an industrial society - by developing means to engineer mass behaviour. People that had worked with a shovel for generation had to be taught mechanical, repetitive motions. To promote an ultimate symbiosis between man and machine, worker and factory, he developed the Social Engineering Machine.

However, the exact plans to this contraption appear lost. They probably were destroyed when Gastev fell from grace and was executed during Stalins Reign of Terror. For a brilliant and beautiful introduction into Gastev, his machine and the social engineering of the early Boshevik, watch Adam Curtis' Pandoras Box, part 1: The Engineers plot.

Dutch sculptor Diederick Kraaijeveld will present his three ´Icons of Hope´: monumental assemblages, done in originally colored wood the artist salvaged in numerous abandoned buildings in Detroit. Proceeds of the sale of the pieces will go directly to urban renewal projects in the city of Detroit. This project is backed by the Detroit Unreal Estate Agency. 

Opening Friday the 5th of March 2010 18:30 until 21:30 at Carhartt Store Hartenstraat 18 Amsterdam Music by DJ Taco Fett. You are cordially invited to celebrate the opening with us.

Het Amsterdams 4&5 mei Comité riep in Theater Frascati Amsterdamse organisaties op om zich aan te sluiten bij de avondprogrammering op 4 mei en het Amsterdamse Bevrijdingsfestival op 5 mei. De onlangs aangetreden voorzitter Sijbolt Noorda presenteerde dinsdag 16 februari de plannen van het comité. Eén van de opvallendste veranderingen: de viering van 5 mei verhuist naar verschillende locaties in het centrum van de hoofdstad.

4 mei: extra aandacht voor avond en nachtprogramma

Naast de meer dan zeventig herdenkingsactiviteiten die op 4 mei 2010 in Amsterdam plaatsvinden, werkt het Comité mee aan nieuwe programma’s tijdens de avond en nacht van 4 mei. Het initiatief Theater Na de Dam is daar een voorbeeld van: in theaters in en rond de Nes vinden voorstellingen plaats. Ook in Felix Meritis, verschillende kerken, de Hollandse Schouwburg, de OBA, het Concertgebouw en diverse andere locaties worden na de twee minuten stilte activiteiten georganiseerd.

5 mei: nieuwe locaties Bevrijdingsfestival

Het Amsterdamse Bevrijdingsfestival krijgt een programma met muziek, theater, debat en tentoonstellingen verspreid over de Amsterdamse binnenstad. ‘We willen een nieuwe generatie kritisch mee laten praten en denken over vrijheid. Elke organisatie die daaraan een bijdrage kan leveren is zeer welkom’, aldus voorzitter Noorda. De titel van het festival dit jaar is Amsterdam Liberty City.

Op de Dam zullen onder andere Junkie XL, Moss en Gotcha! Allstars optreden. Er is ook een muziekpodium op het Nesplein en in drie clubs in de binnenstad. In een tentoonstelling staat de vraag centraal of Amsterdam de meest vrije stad ter wereld is. ‘De Grote Vrijheidsstrijd’ is een avondprogramma in Felix Meritis, waar tal van opinieleiders en kunstenaars hun visie geven op het thema vrijheid. Daarnaast zijn er ook op het Spui, het Beursplein en de Veemkade activiteiten. Op de Amstel vindt traditiegetrouw het 5 mei-concert plaats, georganiseerd door het Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei. 

Voor meer informatie en interviewafspraken kunt u contact opnemen met:

arthur@partizanpublik.nl

The renovation of the Bus has started. A team of VMBOT students from the Bredero College began their internship today under the guidance of Joost Janmaat, Gerbrand Dros and Jaspar Harlaar. Below the student group will be shortly introduced.

Milo Lammers. Milo is heading towards a bright future at the Maritime Academy after graduating. He likes the renovation project since together with his father he’s used to working on their own house boat in Amsterdam Zeeburg.

Ralf Hovers. With his 17 years of life experience, Ralf is a senior at Bredero. After graduating he’s in for a career in the media field.

The bus from above.

Sander Roos. Sander is 17 and working as a pizza delivery boy, which is a fundamental function in the food chain for the Staalvilla.

Michelle Cairo. Michelle is going to be a real estate agent later on. But as a experienced carpenter - helping out her dad regularly at home - she’s going to teach the boys a lesson, if need be.

The bus from the back.

Jonathan ‘John’ Cakici. John is 15 years old, and despite the freezing temperatures, he says he likes the project until now. John is gonna shake up the media landscape later on.

Bülent Karay. This 15 years old guy knows what he wants. His master plan is becoming a pilot, and if this does not work out, as a back up he ’would consider’ becoming a teacher.

Jasper and Gerbrand at the workplace.

Photos and text by Bjorn and Christian

'Since the development of technology and the dissapearance of ideological differences has led to a globalization of economic, cultural and social life on our planet, the horizontal frontier is vanishing.'

1.

This writes Bart Goldhoorn, former editor in chief, in Project Russia (2000/1). He follows by saying: '[...] our challenge lies in the vertical direction - in space.' But what is the value for contemporary culture of the exploration of the cosmos does Goldhoorn ask.

2.

He suggests that the key for solving this question might be found in the work of Igor Kozlov. He and his colleagus tried to find an answer to the question: 'how to create satisfactory living conditions in an environment that does not offer physical impulses.'

3.

Here above some examples of his work as published as published in Project Russia.

4.

5. Cosmic architecture and the Russian Avant-garde

Partizan Publik's Christian Ernsten and architect Andrea Brennen are leading a Volume research project on the relation between architecture and science with as a case study the Moon.

The Staalvila started its first collaborative project: the Bus.

1.

Partizan Publik and Tolhuistuin-caretaker Jasper Harlaar in collaboration with students from the Bredero college in Amsterdam-North will execurte a first renovation.

2.

3.

The bus is strategically located at the back entrance of the Tolhuistuin and the front entrance of the Van der Pek Neighborhood. Next steps might include a workplace/residency for local neighbors, a coffee bar and a free wireless project.

4.

5.

Joost, Jasper, Pieter-Paul, Touria en Francis hebben met vereende krachten de Moonshine Bus een zeer lastige bijzondere verrichting laten uitvoeren. Na een paar rondes langs de pont en een mislukte poging om de bus achter uit in te steken, reed Joost terug naar de Mosveld rotonde, alwaar zij opgewacht werden door de politie die hen vroeg; of waar zij wel niet mee bezig waren?
Met een grijns en een knipoog reden Jasper en Joost en Leon( van Whilling Wheels) langs de  dubbelgeparkeerde auto's op de Van der Pek. Hier werden zij met luid gejuich ontvangen door Touria en Francis.
Op naar de Tolhuistuin voor poging twee. Na veel heen en weer gemanoeuvreer,  heeft de bus voor de Staalvilla een straatje weten te keren. Palen en nietjes en plantenbakken werden door de noeste strijders naar betere oorden verwezen.
Joost op de trekker, Francis achter het stuur, Jasper het brein, Touria het hart en Pieter-Paul de longen en interne organen (koffie en Gas op die Lollie!)
Kortom......feest!
De Bus staat.
En kijk dan hoe strak hij langs de stoep staat!

Beyroutes. A guide to Beirut was reviewed in NRC Handelsblad, the Dutch quality daily newspaper on 30 January 2010. The guide book initiated by Studio Beirut was celebrated because of its succesful collaboration between Lebanese and Dutch architects, artists and others. 

Journalist Herien Wensink mentioned the maps by artist Jan Rothuizen, photos by photographer Cleo Campert as well as the 'Fantasy Houses' article by Rani al Rajji and Christian Ernsten.

Order at your local bookstore: Beyroutes. A Guide to Beirut ISBN 9789077966549. Or online via NAi Booksellers of Reisboekhandel Pied a Terre.

In 2004 heeft de Gemeenteraad gekozen voor de slogan ‘I amsterdam’. In de opdracht stond dat deze helder, kort en krachtig moest worden. Reclamebureau Kesselskramer is hierin geslaagd: de huidige slogan is makkelijk te onthouden en mensen kunnen zich eenvoudig mee identificeren. Maar is dit genoeg?

[Photo via Flickr, By Duncan Davidson]

Den Haag staat bekend als de ‘stad van de vrede’, en ‘Rotterdam werkt’. De boodschap ‘I amsterdam’ daarentegen verwijst slechts naar zichzelf. Er worden geen kwaliteiten van de stad of haar inwoners benadrukt of uitgelicht. Het benadrukt eerder individualiteit dan gemeenschappelijkheid.  Wanneer zou je ‘Amsterdam’ zijn? Ben je ‘Amsterdam’ na een dagje in de Kalverstraat? Ben je ‘Amsterdam’ als je er als expat woont maar de taal niet spreekt? Ben je ‘Amsterdam’; zodra je je hebt ingeschreven in het register? Is iedereen ‘Amsterdam’? Maar wat ben je dan?

'I amsterdam' blijft een inhoudsloze slogan, een zwakke kopie van de beroemde slogan‘I love New York’ (waar een sterke emotie uitspreekt). Of scherper geformuleerd: I amsterdam lijkt een hedonistische oneliner voor een stad die veel meer te bieden heeft. Waar gaat het nu echt om in Amsterdam? Wat maakt Amsterdam nou echt tot een unieke plek in de wereld?

Op vrijdag 2 oktober jl. stond er een interview in NRC Next met priester Wilson Varela die in 1999 vanuit Colombia naar Nederland kwam. Hij wist bij aankomst niets van Nederland, maar zijn gedachte over Amsterdam was tekenend: ‘Mijn beeld ging niet verder dan kaas, molens en Amsterdam als icoon van vrijheid.’ Inderdaad, Amsterdam is internationaal bekend als hoofdstad van een gidsland op verschillende terreinen, zoals euthanasie en het softdrugsbeleid, homoseksualiteit en vrijheid van meningsuiting. De Amsterdamse openheid richting andersdenkenden en de bereidheid omstreden kwesties met een objectieve blik tegemoet te treden is een traditie die eeuwen teruggaat. En dit is wat Amsterdam wereldwijd bekend en geliefd maakt.

Amsterdam zou erkend moeten worden als stad van de vrijheid. Nergens anders dan in Amsterdam is het zo duidelijk dat vrijheid een handeling is - Amsterdammers nemen de vrijheid: van Gay Pride tot het in de wind slaan van het rookverbod - maar ook een dialoog. Discussies over gedoogbeleid, het recht om te discrimineren en kraakbeleid zijn geen trends, maar kenmerken van een diepgewortelde traditie van vrijheidsbeoefening die voortdurend getest wordt.

Dit is Amsterdam. De stad waarin buurtinitiatieven floreren, waar alternatievelingen naar hartelust kunnen experimenteren met kunst en muziek, waar iedere nieuwkomer de kans krijgt eigen initiatieven te ontplooien. En vooral de stad waar we over al onze verschillende waarden en opvattingen kunnen discussiëren. In Amsterdam leeft men, sinds eeuwen, in vrijheid. Dat moet we koesteren en toekomst geven.

Partizan Publik

P.S. Bij onze oosterburen in Hamburg is in augustus 2009 een manifest gepubliceerd dat in gaat op de gevolgen van city branding, herstructurering en top-down gentrification. Het manifest was de aftrap van een in Duitsland inmiddels op nationaal niveau gevoerde discussie over stedelijke ontwikkeling en het 'recht op de stad'. 

Reactie van Richard Florida op het manifest van Hamburg.

Or actually - finding a wind turbine - for electrification was one of the outcomes of a meeting Partizan Publik had with people from the Tolhuistuin about designing a self-powered Neighbourhood-Coffee-Bar-Bus.

1. Bus, Buiksloterham. 24 January 2010.

Inquiry with our friends from Design 99 in Detroit proved very usefull. Mitch Cope explained that for their Power House project they use the Air Breeze wind mill. Mitch also explained he's using a Deka 8a8d 225 amp/hr battery.

2. Power House by Design 99, 16 December 2009. Air Breeze on the roof.

3. Power House by Design 99, 16 December 2009. A Deka 8a8d 225 amp/hr battery.

In the Netherlands the Air Breeze is sold amongst others by Eco-Energy in Spaarndam. I remembered then that also artist Marjetica Portc did projects with wind turbines. She did a project at the Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit, but also more recently she did a project in collaboration with Vriza at the Piraeus buiilding in Amsterdam, entitled Wind Turbine and Look Out.

4. 'Look Out with Wind Turbine' by Marjectica Portc. 24 January 2010 Piraeus Building

5. 'Look Out with Wind Turbine' by Marjectica Portc. 24 January 2010 Piraeus Building

It will be an interesting assignment to figure out how to use a wind turbine for the electrification of the bus. But besides that we still have to do work on isolation, heating, the roof, the floor and furniture. Help and advise is more than welcome.

6. Bus, Buiksloterham. 24 January 2010.

7. Interior Bus, Buiksloterham. 24 January 2010.

8. Driver's Seat. 24 January 2010.

HOW ARMENIA'S FUTURE OUTNUMBERED IT'S PASTS

Yerevan, March 2009. Photos by Karin Grigoryan

In March 2008, Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, a former Soviet republic in the Southern Caucasus, briefly made its way to our television screens. News channels displayed how, after a disputed election, angry masses filled the city’s central streets and squares. Northern Avenue, a recently finalized prestigious development project in the centre of Yerevan, being one of them. After an intense period of daily demonstrations and protest, outgoing president Robert Kotcharian declared a state of emergency and restored order. In response to his aggressive intervention, during which many were severely beaten and imprisoned, citizens made Northern Avenue into the key site for civil disobedience. During several months, mothers with children, elderly and veterans ignored the ban on public gatherings and held daily meetings at five o’clock in this street to demand accountability of the public administration.

Yerevan, March 2009. Photos by Karin Grigoryan

Although the buildings’ mortar is still fresh, the Northern Avenue is the final realization of a city plan, designed by bolshevist architect Alexander Tamanyan in 1924. Tamanyan circle shaped city is based on the fictional Sun City in Tomasso Campanella’s early utopian work La città del Sole (1602).  The twenty-seven meter wide Northern Avenue with eight to nine floor buildings on either side is the first pedestrian street in Yerevan. The owners of the expensive apartments are, amongst others, the more affluent members of the Armenian Diaspora. The assortment of shops and boutiques on the ground floor, notably Dolce & Gabbana or United Colours of Benetton and alike, clearly also cater to the high-end consumer. With the Northern Avenue the post-soviet elite of Armenia fulfilled their desire to create a place for all Armenians to be proud of and ‘an earth quake in terms of the architecture of their city.’(1)

Aerial photo of central Yerevan, the circle shaped city.

Indeed, some distraction from daily life of Yerevan seems more than welcome to its inhabitants. The ending of the Soviet Union and the subsequent war between Armenians and Azeris over Nagorno Karabakh (1988-1994) brought the average Armenian a lot of hardship. Not only in terms of war trauma and loss of family, but since 1994 a clan controlled economy, as well as, a blockade imposed by Azerbaijan and Turkey have resulted in widespread poverty. Fifty percent of the population lives below the poverty line. And even though a committed Diaspora guarantees a steady influx of money, really only the happy few live a better life since the political transformation from communism. (2) That said, the Northern Avenue has little to offer for the majority of the inhabitants of the city accept as a shortcut route for pedestrians or as a symbolic place to protest at against the current regime.

Destruction of homes

The city quarter of which the Northern Avenue is part is as large as ten hectare and used to be made up by ‘illegal’ partly wooden houses of one or two stories. These buildings were in bad condition. According to Narek Sargsyan, the city architect, the structures were of no particular architecture and could be considered as ‘a cancer in the city’(3). The privatization of the area in 2000 cleared the way for a radical urban makeover. Approximately 2000 inhabitants were convinced to evacuate from their houses. They were entitled to have a reimbursement of 300 USD per square meter. Interestingly, a bonus system gave people an incentive to abandon their houses promptly: leaving within five days meant gaining 40 percent extra per square meter. Yet, since real estate prices in Yerevan during the last few years rose at an incredible pace none of the original inhabitants of this area found alternative housing in the neighbourhood.

Numbered house, Yerevan 2008. Photo by Aukje Dekker

Not only were tenants forced from their homes and were their houses destroyed, the realization of the Northern Avenue project also meant the destruction of an important site of memory. When clearing the area, bulldozers destroyed the green zone in the nineteenth-century Pushkin Street. The old fruit trees in this street were of symbolic meaning to the inhabitants of the city. They had survived the onslaught onto the city’s greenery during the winters of the early independence years. In this harsh period electricity black outs were so frequent that people desperately burned whatever they could find to survive temperatures of minus 25. Yet, families living in Pushkin Street adopted the fruit trees. They protected them and confined them their secret stories. And over the course of time also many others sought shelter and comfort with these plants. The destruction of the neighbourhood let to protest and to the founding of a National Citizens’ Initiative, which examined potential violation of property rights. Yet, the government muted its efforts by incriminating the lawyer who defended some of the residents.(4)

Numbered house, Yerevan 2008. Photo by Aukje Dekker

Instead, in order to pacify the people, officials promised to preserve some houses on a different location. Indeed, they pledged that the buildings would be carefully taken down stone by stone, stored, and rebuild on a later moment. They envisioned a proper nineteenth century street to be fabricated, a thematic collage from the fragments of the old buildings. Twenty-nine houses were considered worthy of rescuing according to government researchers. And thus, in a truly bureaucratic way – numbering each stone of the houses carefully - the facades of the newly appointed monuments were rescued. Yet, most inhabitants of Yerevan do not believe the government’s story. The only house that was reconstructed until now happens to be the current headquarters of the ruling Armenian Nationalist Party. Still, no one knows for sure what happened to the stones, feeding to the haunted ambiance of the Northern Avenue area.

Dreams of the future

‘This street makes me afraid’, remarked Vardan Azatyan, a local art historian.(5) According to Azatyan the new avenue, connecting Republican Square with the Opera House represents a new type of totalitarian politics, which came about since the ending of the Soviet Union. The street’s architecture is the product of an agreement between the post-soviet political regime and the capital from the Diaspora and Russian developers. The cultural vision transpiring from this agreement seems to be based on a complex set of Armenian experiences. The Northern Avenue could namely be understood as inspired by a four-vectored dream of the Armenian future: to the left – based on the remnants of the country’s Soviet legacy, to the right - celebrating the country’s national traditions, backwards - into the mythical Christian past and forward – firmly embracing market capitalism.(6) And, as such, the realization of Northern Avenue is an attempt by the Armenian elite to fix the post-soviet identity.

1.

2. Northern Avenue, Yerevan 2008. Photos by Aukje Dekker

Indeed, strangely enough, the design of Northern Avenue is inspired by Stalinist architecture but becomes carrier of new type of Armenian nationalism (7), ‘high technological nationalism’, according Azatyan. To Sargsyan, the architect of the city, the Northern Avenue is, first and foremost a stylistic synthesis of the Neo-classicist Opera House and Modernist Republican Square. Yet, in explaining the origins of the project, he firmly places the dream to finalize Tamanyan’s city plan in the period of the nationalist war with Azerbaijan. It was in 1990 that Sargsyan and his colleagues were under siege in Nagorno-Karabakh, when he decided that Armenians all around the world needed the Northern Avenue as a new national symbol.(8) For Diaspora Armenians their visits to Yerevan could be seen as a spiritual experience and, align to this, their contribution to the city’s renewal a way of paying redemption for their absence. Financing the Northern Avenue is a way for them to re-root or regain a home they were once forced to abandon.

Northern Avenue, Yerevan 2008. Photos by Aukje Dekker

Mourning the past

Paradoxically, due to the construction of Northern Avenue again a part of Armenia’s past is lost, namely that of the Pushkin Street quarter. The realization of the street exemplifies how one man’s dream can be another’s nightmare. Moreover, it displays how the destruction of habitat appears to be a returning element in the Armenian history (e.g. the Armenian genocide and the loss of the national symbol, Mount Ararat).  Azatyan detects a strategic mourning amongst Armenians leading to an extreme spiritual seclude in terms of the national collective experience, namely a focus on the exclusive role of the Armenians in the Christian history and the suffering they had to endure. Explaining the remaking of the capital, he argues that Armenians make their own suffering last longer by a perpetual destruction of their own cultural environment. As such, Northern Avenue can be seen as cutting open an old historical wound.(9) And, as a result, the every day memories of the old neighbourhood are erased by mythologized history of collective survival.(10)

Northern Avenue, Yerevan 2008. Photos by Aukje Dekker

Northern Avenue constitutes a particular dream about the Armenian future, align to a nationalist ideology; the numbered stones of the houses are the evidence of a more fragmented past. The memory the neighbourhood only lives through in oral history of the people. Consequently a question comes to mind, namely: who owns the Armenian past? And, would there be space for a different politics of hope? Instead of contributing to a further marginalization of the urban poor, urban professionals could give an incentive to deal in a more profound way with the socio-economic and cultural challenges of post-Soviet Armenia. Could the Armenian dream encompass an ambitious urban agenda and a vision on human rights and social justice? At the moment, the first people move into the new apartments above the fancy storefronts of the Northern Avenue. As their first act they could reconcile with the old inhabitants of the place, which pasts were outnumbered by their vision on the Armenian future.

By Christian Ernsten and Joost Janmaat

Sources

1. Interview with Narek Sargsyan, 29 May 2008.

2. URL: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=2454&l=1 (5 October 2008).

3. Interview with Narek Sargsyan on 29 May 2008.

4. URL: http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2007/02/28/protest-outside-presidential-palace/#more-1388 (12 October 2008) and URL: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR01/017/2006/en/dom-EUR010172006en.html (12 October 2008).

5. Interview with Vardan Azatyan on 17 Januray 2008.

6. Idem.

7. Interview with Vahram Aghasyan on 22 January 2008.

8. Interview with Narek Sargsyan on 29 May 2008.

9. Public Culture 2 (2008).

10. Interview with Vardan Azatyan on 17 Januray 2008.

Housing Corporation Ymere, which owns about 100% of the housing stock in the Van der Pek neighborhood in Amsterdam - North has made two buildings available for testing out future model homes.

1. Looking from the Van der Pekstraat towards the Tolhuistuin.

2. The boarded up building on the Van der Pek Street.

The buildings at the Van der Pek Street and the Begonia Street, which will be transformed from eight household blocks into something new, are boarded up at the moment. The neighborhood use to be totally social housing for lower income families. 

The families are in a process of being relocated to elsewhere in Amsterdam and during the last years these houses where inhabitants by artists.

3. The Van der Pek Street

4. Side view of the building on the Van der Pek Street.

A critical discourse on these urban renewal development in Amsterdam is coming together. Take a look for example at the Nomads in Amsterdam - West project or at the work of academic Justus Uitermark.

5. Gardens behind the building.

6. The boarded up building on the Begonia Street.

7. Front view of the building on the Begonia Street

8. View from the Buiksloterweg on the transformation of the former Shell terrain.

At the Staalvilla we're in the process of setting up a cooperative, why? The Staalvilla is part of the Tolhuistuin a so called: incubator or broedplaats. Amsterdam has the 'creative class' high on the agenda, and these incubators are part of their vision on how the cit should develop. But what is our possition is creatives in this? Especially we as small independent creatives, that are not primarily driven by earning money, but by doing the projects they believe in.

We as 'creatives' have to acknowledge that we are being instrumental:

- IN THE CITY’S IDENTITY A.K.A ‘CREATIVE CAPITAL
- IN THE CITY’S URBAN DEVELOPMENT A.K.A ‘BROEDPLAATS’ OR ‘INCUBATOR’
- IN THE GENERATION OF REAL ESTATE VALUE A.K.A ‘AWARENESS OF A PLACE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC’
- IN THE PROCESS OF ‘GENTRIFICATION’

We as 'creatives' are primary driven by oppurtinism:

- AS LONG AS THE RENT IS LOW ENOUGH
- AS LONG AS THERE ARE ‘KINDRED SPIRITS’ AROUND

It's all OK, because what we want is:

-  AS LITTLE HASSLE AS POSSIBLE.
- TIME & SPACE TO CREATE. 

So how do we move beyond being used by, the municipality and real estate developers, we could ask ourselves these questions:

ECONOMICALLY
- CAN’T WE GET A BETTER DEAL FOR ‘MAKING A PLACE’ ‘GENERATING REAL ESTATE VALUE’ THAN JUST A “LOW” RENT?

IDEOLOGICALLY
- AS ‘CHANGE AGENTS’ CAN’T WE PLAY A MORE MEANINGFUL ROLE BESIDES KICK-STARTING GENTRIFICATION?

SO: LET'S UNITE!

A perfect way to do this, where economic and ideological interests of the group 'small creatives' can be brougth together is in the cooperative model.

- DEFINITION: A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.

- VALUES:  Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, co-operative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others. - More can be found here: Statement on the Co-operative identity

So what would be the objectives of a cooperative for small creatives are our interests:

ECONOMIC
- SHORT TERM: GET A BETTER DEAL - LONG TERM: DEVELOP OURSELVES

IDEOLOGIC
- SHORT TERM: GET INFLUENCE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF NORTH - LONG TERM: DEVELOP AND EXECUTE ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES OF CITY DEVELOPMENT IN WHICH ‘GENTRIFICATION’ IS COUNTERED

Now we'll work out what would be the first steps in terms of who to enter in dialogue with, and how to actually set up a cooperative in legal terms.

More next time ...

In fields of business, politics and design unfamiliar partnerships focused on the necessity of radical urban change seem to be occurring. These collaborations are focused on sustainable innovation among communities of different types of users. Local neighborhood strategies are enriched with experiences from elsewhere on the globe. Industrial research organizations are trying to mobilize knowledge from across the globe to innovate better and faster. Municipalities are trying to stimulate neighborhoods and their industrial base.

The incentive of these experimental collaborations, which could perhaps be referred to as ‘community labs’ is a refreshing type of culture of engagement: a process–oriented collaboration, with an open type of communication, which is not necessary end-goal driven, yet focused on sharing knowledge in order to improve.

This type of engagement can be observed among artists and architects. It is emerging out of a sense of urgency and seeks to exploit the opportunity for a new kind of artistic agency in post-industrial cities, in which, to paraphrase curator Charles Esche, ‘regional art and site-specific production are combined, a kind of everyday life art’. The role of Design 99 in Detroit is notable in this context. The architect and artist that make up this collective do not only work as commercial design consultants, they collaborate with neighbors in a social and economic deprived neighborhood where urban governance has failed to make a difference in order to develop a more sustainable security level in terms of energy and security.

These unfamiliar partnerships can also be seen to emerge in business and social institutions. The roundtable projects of economist Jeremy Rifkin are of interest. In collaboration with national and city governments Rifkin intends to develop a system for generating clean energy and of sharing the production surplus through an exchange network with the neighbors. In collaboration with architects as Stefano Boeri, he is developing a scheme for buildings that can produce energy.

A third example is the lightning division of the Dutch company Philips, which is collaborating with local governments and museums in Eindhoven in order to further develop their society driven innovation approach. In a quest to find the successor for their successful home lab, an innovation test facility, Philips opened its communication channels to communities.

As Rifkin says, if successful, these projects could very well help what explore different types of human settlements. These cooperative projects, which have a clear local basis yet are very globally linked in the peer-to-peer world wide web. They could represent a form of transformation in which a small community supervises a process of improvement in close communication with the larger urban community, which is perhaps more skeptical and less flexible.

Sources: Jeremy Rifkin, The Hydrogen Economy (New York 2003), URL: http://www.bamboostones.net/, Stefano Boeri Lecture, 'Sustainanable City', Amsterdam 18 March 2009.

Edited by Christian Ernsten, Edwin Gardner and Andrew Herscher and designed by Nina Bianchi, the Detroit Unreal Estate Agency presented in Volume #22 the ATLAS OF LOVE AND HATE.

The Atlas, which was conceptually based on an idea of the geographer William Bunge, includes amongs others work by The Netherlands - based artists Lado Darakhvelidze, Jimini Hignett and Raymond Huizinga.

Andrew Herscher wrote the introduction, other University of Michigan affiliated contributors were Mireille Roddier, Marc Maxey and Craig Wilkins.

Herscher invited Detroit - based artists Nick Tobier as well as Shelby Moffett and Robert Smiley Jr. to contribute.

Partizan Publik's Ernsten, Gardner and Joost Janmaat developed three Utopia/Dystopia scenarios based on real existing urban renewal scenarios in Detroit.

Dutch Femke Lutgerink and Corine Vermeulen contributed with beautiful material from their 'Walk-in Portrait Studio'.

Bianchi's design was published as part of Volume #22 entitled 'The Guide'.

Available in Amsterdam in Atheneum and Architectura & Natura booksellers. Soon also in Beirut and elsewhere in the world the Studio Beirut initiated BEYROUTES. A Guide to Beirut published by ARCHIS and produced in collaboration with Partizan Publik and Pearl Foundation. 

If you want to read more about the Eifel Tower, the Tate Modern or the Time Square of Beirut then don't buy this guide. BEYROUTES is not an ordinary guide, it won't bring you to the usual places.

Instead of providing facts and figures, landmarks and places to eat BEYROUTES presents a series of stories about the Lebanese capital. The stories are told by a varied group of individuals. 

Experienced researchers, artists and writers as Tony Chakar, Mona Harb, Hassan Choubassi and Michael Stanton but also by local professionals and students in the fields of architecture, arts and design as well as foreigners as artist Jan Rothuizen and other frequent visitors of the city contributed and made BEYROUTES into a guide to experience Beirut at this moment of time.

The book which designed by Pascale Hares under art direction of Nicolas Bourquin and Jeanno Gaussi is losely organized around four chapters. The First Impression City, the Official City, the Emotional City and the Invented City.

By changing in each chapter the perspective on Beirut the editors attempt to give visitors tools to engage with the city and its inhabitans without providing an over-arching narrative.

Purposely BEYROUTES focuses both on known areas as Hamra and Ashrafieh or Solidere as well as lesser known quarters of the Lebanese capitals as Dahiya, Karantina and Bourj Hammoud.

Each chapter of BEYROUTES includes a background essay from a cultural or architectural perspective, a walking tour and a series of subjective tales about the different city quarters.

BEYROUTES can also be ordered online via NAI Booksellers.

As a supplement to VOLUME # 22 The Guide, Partizan Publik presents the separate publication Beyroutes, a guidebook to Beirut, one of the grand capitals of the Middle East. Beyroutes presents an exploded view of a city which lives so many double lives and figures in so many truths, myths and historical falsifications. Visiting the city with this intimate book as your guide makes you feel disoriented, appreciative, judgmental and perhaps eventually reconciliatory. Beyroutes is the field manual for 21st century urban explorer.

Beyroutes was initiated by Studio Beirut in collaboration with Partizan Publik, Archis and the Pearl Foundation. Supported by Prince Claus Fund, Fund Working on the Quality of Living and the Netherlands Embassy in Lebanon.

The launch wil take place at Athenaeum News Centre, Spui, Amsterdam, December 22, 5-7pm.

2030: War Zone Amsterdam is an international curatorial program by Brigitte van der Sande that explores the possibility and consequences of conflict in a far-future Amsterdam. To kick off the Warzone program, Joost Janmaat and Christiaan Fruneaux took the thirty international artists on a tour to the open society that is contemporary Amsterdam. We visited the vast squatters free state at the ADM wharf, went for a beer at Angels Place, the sancto sanctorium of the radically autonomous motor club, and scrambled through the Red Light District, the world's Free Zone of bad taste, cheap food, sex and drugs, and sleazy morals.

The Amsterdam Radical Freedom Tour took off from the observation that the freedom and peace this city enjoys is not a static affair: it is constantly made. Many of the unique and very specific freedoms of Amsterdam, prosper in the cloudy realm of toleration. Euthanasia, the selling of drugs, prostitution, squatting: all these freedoms are constantly balancing on the edge between the legal and the illegal. Of Law-enforcing and toleration. This particular notion of toleration ensures that the sharp edges of freedom in this city remain a continuous matter of interpretation, discussion and doubt.

The results of the one-week artistic research will be presented at Mediamatic BANK, Saturday November 28. Don't forget to make a reservation.

At the weekly neighborhood market next to our Staalvilla, Joost, Bjorn and some friends organized a garbage boat race. The two teams had four hours to build themselves a floating contraption out of locally harvested garbage and trash. At exactly 16.00, cheered by a hundred outrageous fans, they raced each other to the other side of the Buiksloter canal, to plant a flag on the Shell compound. Notwithstanding the nifty design and the buckets of bravery, Joost and Bjorn sank on their way back.

The next garbage race will be at the Trash Festival, planned for the 5th of June at the Stenen Hoofd, Amsterdam.

Partizan Publik is op zoek naar een enthousiaste en zelfstandige stagiair. In opdracht van het Amsterdamse comité 4 en 5 mei doet Partizan Publik onderzoek naar Vrijheid in Amsterdam. Dit onderzoek moet o.a. uitmonden in een tentoonstelling in Amsterdam in mei 2010.

We zoeken iemand die affiniteit heeft met artistieke producties, maar die ook het geduld heeft voor gedegen onderzoek. Je moet zelfstandig kunnen werken.

Wij bieden een interessante werkomgeving (een jong project- en onderzoeksbureau) veel verantwoordelijkheid en de mogelijkheid om ervaring op te doen in het doen van onderzoek en de originele vertaling naar de praktijk. Partizan Publik is net verhuisd naar de Staalvilla op het oude Shell terrein net over het ij. Hier zitten we in een leuke werkomgeving met architecten, theatermakers en kunstenaars. Onze werkzaamheden liggen op het terrein van onderzoek, actie, evenementen en publicaties. Zie: www.partizanpublik.nl

Interesse: stuur een korte motivatiemail naar jeroen.visser@partizanpublik.nl

Op 19 Movember is het Internationale Mannendag en is de snorrenactie van Movember net over de helft. Tijd om op deze dubbele mannendag iets speciaals te organiseren: De Movember Fotoveiling!

Veertien talentvolle Nederlandse fotografen doneerden speciaal voor deze actie een foto aan Movember. Deze veertien foto's worden op 19 november geveild bij het Sid Lee Collective in Amsterdam. Mannen in zilveren Speedo’s zullen de stukken laten zien en veilingmeester is Charin Singh uit Nieuw-Zeeland. 

De deelnemende fotografen:
Anoek Steketee, Aukje Dekker, Cleo Campert, Danielle van Ark, Dirk-Jan Visser, Jasper Groen, Leon Hendrickx, Masha Osipova, Michiel Landeweerd, Rob Hornstra, Robert van Waarden, Roger Cremers, Roos de Bolster, Wouter Vandenbrink.

Je kan de ingezonden foto's bekijken op onze Movember Viewbook site.

Alle opbrengsten gaan naar het Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Kanker Researchfonds.

Kom ook naar de Movember Fotoveiling: een unieke kans om een mooi kunstwerk te bemachtigen, een goed doel te steunen en je te vergapen aan de snorren van de aanwezige Mo Bro’s!

Tijd en plaats:
Donderdag 19 november 2009 
Vanaf 20.00 uur
Sid Lee Collective
Gerard Doustraat 74
Amsterdam

Jameson trakteert op cocktails, Kleurgamma stelt de prints beschikbaar en Sid Lee Collective hun prachtige ruimte. De foto’s worden ingelijst door Frame Products.  De opbrengst van de veiling gaat naar het Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Kanker Researchfonds, www.avlkankerresearchfonds.nl. Movember Nederland is powered by Partizan Publik, www.partizanpublik.nl

To celebrate International Men's Day, we'll be holding a charity auction of some fantastic prints kindly donated by some of this county's top up and coming photographers and established names. Our lovely hosts for the evening will be the creative geniuses at Sid Lee Collective - they'll be laid back sounds, Jameson's Whiskey (thanks Mr Jameson!) and plenty of fun.

Up on the auction block will be 10 limited edition professionally framed photos. If you've ever wanted the chance to buy some top quality art, this is it - some of these items sell for over €1500 in the galleries, and so this is your opportunity to pick up some absolute bargains! And of course, you’ll be helping to support us in 'Changing the Face of Men's Health' in The Netherlands – all funds raised will be going straight to our beneficiary partner – the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Cancer Research Fund.

So make sure you come on down on the night, share a drink with us and show us your latest Mo styles... and who knows, you might just be lucky enough to take home something new for the house.

As a supplement to Volume #20 the Warren Special Report: From Crisis to Project imagines the redefined American Dream. Analyzing an utilizing the current crisis, the report seeks to imagine future suburbia taking Detroit's largest suburb Warren as a rolemodel. Bold visions, tools for transitionmanagement and new forms of organization and collaboration are the result of an ongoing research practice leading the way from Crisis to Project.    

As of Yesterday, Mo Bro's from all over the world work for a single cause: to grow their Mo to raise money for cancerresearch. Check the website where you can still register to join Partizan Publik in becoming Mo Bro's. Last week we've launched our media campaign. The following article was published by De Telegraaf.

Horace Cohen en Mike Starink behaard de herfst in

AMSTERDAM Acteur Horace Cohen en presentator Mike Starink laten de hele maand 'Movember' een wintervachtje staan om aandacht te vragen voor kankeronderzoek. 

Staat oktober wereldwijd bekend als 'borstkankermaand', vanaf 2009 is de november in Nederland omgedoopt tot 'Movember'. In deze maand laten mannen hun snor staan om aandacht te vragen voor de strijd tegen prostaatkanker.

Maar niet alleen met Horace en Mike zit het wel snor, iedere man kan een Mo Bro worden Sinds de oprichting van Movember in 2003 heeft deze campagne wereldwijd meer dan 35 miljoen euro opgehaald. Vorig jaar deden er zelfs meer dan 173.000 mannen mee om geld voor het goede doel in te zamelen", vertelt Charin Singh, woordvoerder van de Movember-campagne. "Eindelijk kunnen Nederlandse mannen ook meedoen. Ik weet zeker dat de snor hen goed zal staan.

Op 28 november is het tijd voor een feestje voor alle Mo Bros. Dan vindt het grote snorrengala plaats en wordt'n deelnemer gekozen tot 'Man van Movember'.

As a supplement to Volume 21 Partizan Publik published Microrayon Living, which is basically an inventory of everyday life strategies and D.I.Y. practices in the Post Soviet Microrayon. Together with several local partners we conducted research in Gldani, Tblisi and in Veshnyaki, Moscow, two identical city quarters in terms of layout, the former at the periphery of the former Soviet Union, the latter in the center of power. Striking similarities and differences came to the fore.

Microrayon living is also part of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam:Open City. The next step in the research trajectory will be the development of a scenario for a social housing strategy in this context which will be presented at the Moscow Architecture Bienalle 2010.

You can follow the research on our Social Housing after the Soviets blog. You can also order the publication at our office for free.

The Amsterdam Biennale 2009 is the first ‘crowd sourced’, ‘user generated’ biennale in the world. More than 30 curators from the Mediamatic Travel network present contemporary art from their city.

The exhibition opens on Friday with the pavilions of Kabul, Napels, Amsterdam, Melbourne, Belgrade, Boston, Talinn and Brooklyn. We will have weekly openings of new pavillions untill the end of the exhbition.

The Biennale is a part of Mediamatic Travel, the new travel-office to the contemporary art worldwide. Friday travel.mediamatic.net will go on-line.

Mediamatic and Partizan Publik will present the Travel Catalogue Destinations 2010.

With a live perfomance of Firestone and DJ Margit (Talinn), DJ Katja Novi (Talinn, Amsterdam) & DJ Velovich (Belgrade, Amsterdam).

The Amsterdam Biennale 2009 is opened from 17 October till 13 December 2009. Open from Monday – Friday from 1 pm – 7 pm and Saturday + Sunday from 1 pm – 6 pm. Location: Mediamatic BANK, Vijzelstraat 68, Amsterdam

Mediamatic Travel is a project of Mediamatic and Partizan Publik. The project is made possible by Hivos-NCDO Cultuurfonds, the Mondriaanstichting and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

Also this week: Pecha Kucha #11

On Wednesday 14 October from 20.20 hrs a Pecha Kucha in Mediamatic BANK presenting 12 elevator pitches with the lock pickers of Toool, Strawberry Earth, Hete Bliksem, 'Hot100' Sander Veenhof and more.

Vast urbanizations in developed, developing and under-development countries have one common denominator: an immediate need for quality housing. Housing the billions: never before were those involved in architecture and construction confronted with such a challenge. A one-fits-all solution seems unthinkable since most mass housing schemes in the past failed and originated in dictatorship or total absence of power. Based on an analysis of one of the housing experiments of the past, the Soviet Microrayon, Volume proposes a new prototype. A housing block, which is custom-made but mass-produced and conceived via open source standards.

Partizan Publik contributed to this edition with the Microrayon Living Supplement and an interview with James C. Scott on Societies of Rejected Standards.

The publication and exhibition that are the outcome of the "Social Housing After the Soviets" research workshop has been presented at the International Achitecture Biennale Rotterdam at the Dutch Architecture Institute (NAi) in Rotterdam under the title: "Microrayon Living"

More info and pictures here

On thursday september 25 2009 the 4th edition of the IABR will take off. The theme of the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam is the Open City, a city that is diverse, lively and socially sustainable, where people can productively relate to each other culturally, socially, as well as economically.
More specifically, with the theme Open City: Designing Coexistence, the 4th IABR raises the question of social cohesion in the city from the point of view of its designer: how can architects and urbanists make realistic contributions to the sustainable quality of the urban condition.

With three exhibitions, a unique collaboration with a public broadcaster and an extensive side program of lectures, film screenings, debates, workshops, an international master class and other events, the fourth edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) embraces the theme of the Open City, a city that is diverse, lively and socially sustainable, where people can productively relate to each other culturally, socially, as well as economically.

Partzan wiil participate in the Collective exibition were new concepts for the Microrayon are being elaborated.

> More about the exhibitions
> More about Urban Century - VPRO
> More about the Open City Event Program
> More about the Partner Program

The first Dutch Movember campaign in history is about to take off. Partizan Publik is bringing this annual, month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer to the Netherlands.

Mo Bros, supported by their Mo Sistas, start Movember (November 1st) clean shaven and then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache. During Movember, each Mo Bro effectively becomes a walking billboard for men’s health and, via their Mo, raises essential funds and awareness for Movember’s men’s health partner – The Prostate Cancer Charity. At the end of Movember, a series of Gala Partés are held to thank Mo Bros and Sistas for their support and fund raising efforts. Movember is an annual, month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer.

Talking about Gala Partés...Here are some impressions of earlier showdowns across the world:

Underground Travelling through art and culture.

What better way is there than to discover a city through its contemporary art treasures? As of October 10th 2009 there is a new way to explore artistic travel destinations, Mediamatic Travel. Focusing on art and culture this website opens up a world of local scenes in Tehran, Tibilisi, Nairobi or any of the other uncommon destinations. The site acts as a network of cultural professionals from all over the world. Local city experts guide travellers through their city favourites. The guides also give on the spot consultations that help to navigate through the art scene of the city you plan to visit. A one-hour consultation with a Mediamatic Travel guide uncovers places unseen for the ordinary traveller. The fee for this service is € 45,-. Mediamatic Travel is a growing network where cultural professionals can meet and adventurous travellers can plan their trips. New local city experts join the website everyday making more interesting places within reach. Mediamatic invites local cultural experts from all over the world to join Mediamatic Travel.

After some weeks of serious construction work, painting, carpeting and moving under the lead of head carpenter Joost Janmaat, the Partizan Office finally arrived in it's new haven, the Staalvilla. Situated in the Tolhuistuin, the Staalvilla is slowly turning from cooperate hospital of the Shell Foundation into a pumping, energetic place where a lot of different initiatives and people finally will settle down. To name a few...Archis Foundation, The Office for Unsollicited Architecture (an initiative of the NAi), Golfstromen, Studio Rooie Jas, Erik de Vroedt and many others still to come...

We are very pleased to have the opportunity to be a part of what is happening here and we are looking forward to fruitful collaborations, tons of inspiration and loads of fun!

In an interview with Metropolis M Christian Ernsten of Partizan Publik and Merijn Oudenampsen are elaborating on the importance of breaking down demarcations between various disciplines and different segments of society in order to come to a more collective approach in tackeling societal issues.

Volume #20 is dedicated to the art of storytelling. It presents the storylines of current events and architecture to show that while the truth is important, so is the ability of fiction to elevate fact. Storytelling communicates facts, but it also builds upon real-life accounts to enrich public expectations and elevate beliefs. For good reason, people say a story isn’t worth telling if it can’t be told to a child. A simple, distilled story that clarifies the crisis, and that aids the formulation of policies to better understand and animate the physical environment, is definitely worth telling.

With contributions from C-Lab, Geoff Manaugh and many others...

Today we met at de Balie to brainstorm how the exhibition and publication could look. We heard from the NAi that our space will be a 3×3m room, and we developed the following concept:

As our space is located at the exit point of the “collective city” exhibition, the idea is to build a portico entrance in the space, either at the exit from the rest of “collective city”  exhibition (conceptual coherence) OR as the exit into the stairwell to the rest of the “open city” exhibition (visual coherence? – exit into the stairwell).

A stack of newspapers will allow visitors to take home the content of our exhibition, while newspapers in the rack will be for on site consumption.

Mock-up Portico entrance at the biennial exit (collective city section):
- two sofa-chairs
- stack of give away newspapers
- bulletin board
- newspaper rack (grand cafe style)
- painted wall (funky -cheapest- green)
- code-lock/intercom on the door
- extra authentic details … like garden, etc

Inspiration:

Picture by Bert Elzerman

Students Joeri Jörg and Koen Elzerman initiated a place where people can leave items (clothes, books, sleeping-bags and domestic products) which they do not need anymore, while other people still might be happy with it. In this manner people can contribute to the daily-struggle that people have to cope with their limited economic situation. Amsterdam North is a district with many socio-economic problems, and the exchange closet delivers a micro-economic service for those who need it.

Similar to this alternative form of recycling, the focus lies on informing people about homelessness and addiction as important societal issues. The city of Amsterdam wants to initiate new asylums spread over the city, but history has shown some bad examples of starting such an asylum. The NIMBY-effect (‘Not In My Backyard’) can ruin the relation between asylum and neighbourhood, while people rarely realise that the asylum fulfils an important part of the societal needs. Above that, the line between having a house and homelessness is not that big as people might think. It does not take very much to lose your house and become homeless, especially in Amsterdam North.

The crew exists of people who have lived on the street, have been addicted or have worked in prostitution. They concentrate on telling their personal stories to the visitors of the Mosveld market, the place where the closet is situated. Goal is to decrease the NIMBY-feelings which people have in relation to these marginalised groups of society.

The launch on Saturday 13^th of June showed that people respond very positive on this form of interaction. Most of them understood the importance of facilities for homeless and addicted people, and several people spoke out their enthusiasm about the project. One of the strengths of the closet is that it does not only serve the homeless and addicted people: it also benefits the local residents and the deprived neighbourhood around the Mosveld market.

Publications in the media (NoordNieuws (2), De Echo and Het Parool), widespread enthusiasm by project partners, the city district of  Amsterdam North and housing corporation Ymere, social partners and the local residents form the basis of a long term continuation of the project.

After the successful launch of the closet, both students are now in discussion with several social partners, in order to ensure the sustainability of the intervention. The students will be related to the project until these negotiations result in a societal coalition which can maintain the exchange closet as a social facility, embedded in the neighbourhood.

You can also view the final presentation of the ‘Addicted to the City’ case at the Amsterdam City Hall last week.

Is there a way to involve neighborhood residents with a developing city park?

The 4 students of the ‘Green Team’ of the minor ‘Social Engineering in the Amsterdam Metropolis’ researched the development of the new ‘Noorderpark’, an urban park that is now being developed into one of the largest city parks of Amsterdam. Compared to other parks in the city, the Noorderpark is lagging behind in the number and diversity of its park visitors. Can the Noorderpark become as widely and highly appreciated as the popular Westerpark or the Vondelpark?

The Green Team observed a remarkable ‘invisibility’ of the Noorderpark within the adjacent neighborhoods and the borough of Amsterdam Noord. Together they created an elaborate ‘visibility’ campaign with green ‘welcome in my backyard’ posters on the windows of empty social housing, with guerilla sign posting all over the neighborhood and, together with the people of ‘Streetprov Amsterdam’, they organized a performance and a video about the ‘secret of North’: the beautiful Noorderpark.

Picture by Poland Pupupin

How can old and new communities be connected through a new form of social architecture?

The 4 students of the Overhoeks/Van der Pek case researched the possibilities of improving social ties between two neighbourhoods in Amsterdam:  Overhoeks and Van der Pek. The former is being developed at the moment, the latter is and ‘old, traditional neighbourhood in town.  What’s special is that the two are situated literally in each others shadow. According to the students, improving social ties implies “encountering each other on a regular bases in a natural and informal way”. To empower this process, the students developed the concept of the ‘Floating Market’. Their pilot was situated on the Johan van Hasseltkanaal, which wasn’t more than a physical barrier between the two neighbourhoods before their intervention. The ‘Floating Market’ transformed this barrier into a place where people can meet. The concept is based on the floating gardens developed by ‘Provo’ Robert Jasper Grootveld. The gardens consist of 1,00 x 1,00 x 0,50 foam blocks,  each of them having a floating capacity of 500 kilograms. Tied together, these foam blocks form an incredibly stable floating surface.

Based on a purely economic relation the market could function as a shared icon for the two neighbourhoods and also as a positive impulse for the wider area as well.

You can also view the final presentation of the Overhoeks/vd Pek Team at the Amsterdam City Hall last week.

Last week the university minor program ‘Social Engineering in the Amsterdam Metropolis’ reached it’s ‘official’ tipping point at the Amsterdam City Hall. The students presented the results of their 16 weeks lasting full time research trajectory to the mayor of Amsterdam Job Cohen and an elaborate jury of professional social engineers. The jury consisted of Linda Brasz (foreperson, chief secretary borough Amsterdam North), Franka Kanters (manager at private social housing cooperation Ymere), Jos Gadet (senior policy maker at the Department of Spatial Planning Amsterdam) and Bert de Reuver (member directory board IIS). The students seized the moment to put forward their case in front of this audience of influential ‘agents of change’.

Here are some impressions:

Just City with James C. Scott

To what extent do rules and standards lead to a just society? Planned utopias proved not to lead automatically to a free and equal way of living, or all-inclusive solidarity for that matter. State governance seems fated to produce a certain form of social marginalization.

Could engineering a just city entail the conscious incorporation of the lawless, the untamed and the subversives within our city borders? Do these groups, which are evading or excluded by the system, represent a way of living that we could learn from? How can their rules inspire us in engineering a more righteous place, a just city?

Yale University Professor James C. Scott is author of the most eloquent critique of the tradition of high modernist planning Seeing like a State (1998). His latest research focuses on the contrast between the lowland city-state and its labor control vs. the non-state-hill periphery in South East Asia. Based on this expertise he will comment on how the city should be studied as a living, breathing and dynamic process.

Here are some visuals of the Liberty City Liberation Day Festival at the Museumplein in Amsterdam.

Partizan Publik is building Liberty City. Until 5 May 2010 we are researching the theme of freedom in Amsterdam. What does freedom mean to citizens of Amsterdam almost 70 years after WWII? How should we celebrate liberation day nowadays?

In the months running up to May next year we are engaging in a research that will take us to many different areas of Amsterdam. We will talk with veterans, former activists and former immigrants about their fight for freedom. We will listen to policemen, teachers, youth workers, students and many other citizens of Amsterdam to hear their opinion on freedom issues. You can join our research via the Liberty City website.
You will also find the latest information on our public activities in Liberty City and on our research results.

Liberty City is a project for the Amsterdam 4 en 5 mei Comité.

Our Partners are
Studio Rooie Jas
Mediamatic
Theo Deutinger

Improv City with Alexander Scordelis

To what extent can a brave city be planned? History shows that Dream + Power + Lack of Resistance = Utopian Totalitarianism. The reign of big ideas over a blissfully ignorant society.

Engineering happiness could potentially mean balancing out planned utopias. We wonder, how to practise our urban freedom? Blissful ignorance or freedom of initiative? Routine or improvisation? What’s the function of spontaneity in pushing the boundaries of public normality? Can improvisation improve urban daily life? Raise awareness of the collective and forge solidarity? What are the rules that keep our society alive and which boundaries do we need to push to give our cities future?

Alexander Scordelis is a New York based writer and agent in the prank collective Improv Everywhere. He was involved in numerous collective performances, such as No Pant’s Day in the New York subway. He’s co-author of the book ‘Causing a Scene. Extraordinary Pranks in Ordinary Places with Impro Everywhere‘ (to be published this Spring).

A story about the importance of causing scenes for chaos and joy in securing public places and forging collectives of happy citizens.

American and international media coverage of the cultural activities by actors as Design 99, the Detroit Unreal Estate Agency and others in Detroit tends to highlight how artists makes use of the current real estate crisis, how they are attracted by easy living in $100 houses and the post-industrial spectacle of the city. Without trying to negate these qualities of Detroit, I would like to argue that there might be something more to it.

Speaking as a member of the Detroit Unreal Estate Agency, I'm curious about the lessons that can be learned from Detroit. Learning from Detroit starts I think with a re-evaluation of the urban development discourse that engineered the city, and a different understanding of what engagement with this place and its people means.

Below I drafted some of the credentials of the Unreal Estate project:
The Unreal Estate project intends to tap into the inventories of local assets and expertise in the city. In an interdisciplinary team we imagine stimulus strategies for local make-ability. As such, we don’t necessarily work against the effects of deindustrialization, suburbanization and outsourcing. Renovating the postindustrial city - along the lines of Richard Florida’s creative class – or, in turn, seeing the urban ruins as artistic opportunities is not our central motivation.

We respect that Detroit’s urban environment is still the home of many individuals and families, who ‘built’ their lives here. Align to this, it is our ambition to design or support stimulus strategies for urban transformation that lead to a resilient user-based city, which is enabling a vision on local opportunities. And, simultaneously, we intend to re-interpret and built on the value of decay, as well as, the intrusion of wildlife in the city. Decline is also creation and growth of something else if we can reframe our expectations, and offers different potential for co-existence, and strategies for urban development.

We intend to understand in artistic ways how urban engagement, as well as, urban play work under this condition. The collapse of the free market ideology creates a sense of emergency and the opportunity for a new kind of artistic agency, in which, to paraphrase Charles Esche, regional art and site-specific production are combined’, a kind of everyday life art.

Thus Unreal Estate project poses these questions:
How to intervene on the city seeking the participation of the less advantaged people? Is it possible to start urban transformation as artists avoiding the traditional patterns of gentrification and economic exploitation of symbolic values? How to imagine a new equilibrium between the city, the human communities and the natural elements (plants, water, wilderness)? How to exchange culturally between this particular (urban) situation and other places in the world?

We realize that Detroit is an important example of contemporary urban living and, potentially, a case for a hands-on study on future urban scenario’s, which are also applicable for other places in the United States and in the rest of the world.

Yesterday I made a 20mi / 32km bike trip in Detroit. From Hamtramck to Downtown and back. Traveling this distance by bike gives you a good sense of the vast scale of this city, although this distance is but a small fragment of the size of the entire Metropolitan area of Detroit.

Where some of my initial thoughts on the derelict homes, factories, warehouses and skyscrapers were tainted by romanticism, now they're drained in the realization that this is an urban reality that is everywhere. An omnipresent sprawling landscape of destruction, generated by the rationality of hyper-capitalism. Fed by the misplaced escapism of the American dream, of starting over-and-over-and-over-and-over again in the suburbs, sub-suburbs, exurbs to the point that the notion of urbanity evaporates completely.

How to reinvent living together, 'a community' and perhaps even civilization on top of the ruins of the raison d'être of the previous one...

HAPPY CITY with Nader Vossoughian

Can we build a happy city? Can we engineer happiness?A Masterclass on creative industry, social cohesion, participatory planning and creating new worlds. What is left of the highmodernist ideals? How do they translate into the Wijkaanpak, the national push to uplift the Dutch ghettos? And what instruments have we got to engineer society and change people in their beliefs and behaviour?

Sustainable City with Stefano Boeri

Financial Crisis. Ecological Crisis. Mental Crisis.

Our days are gloomy days. Yet all these crises present opportunities for a positive outcome as well. They could open the way to a fundamentally different way of social engineering, green planning and a new financial system. In the reshaping of our world after the crisis, a sustainable city is possible.

Stefano Boeri understands non-growth and human retreat as producing valuable urban eco-systems. Reforestation protects natural zones and green corridors shelter animals from the anthropocentric world. These potentially create new ways of exchange between wildlife and human beings, a new ethical order of urbanity.

Stefano Boeri (1956) is an architect, director of Boeri Studio and editor in chief of the international design and architecture magazine Abitare. Boeri teaches urban design at the Milan Polytechnic, he is visiting professor at the Harvard Design School and he is the founder of the research agency Multiplicity. With Rem Koolhaas he co-authored the immensely influential Mutations project. Boeri will share his visions on sustainable utopia and dystopia in an urban context.

A story of how innovation and creativity may change the way we build, engage and live… for decades to come.

More on Stefano Boeri:

Stefano Boeri’s personal website

Abitare – International Design Magazine

Check out these link for an overview of the complex dimensions of sustainability:

The Complex History of Sustainability - made by Amir Djalali, with Piet Vollaard (Archis.org)

BEIRUT: Walk its streets, visit its hip quarters, check the destroyed but completely resurrected city centre, talk to the armed soldiers at the street corners, listen to the old and not-so-old war stories from the cab driver, explore its old, new and upcoming neighborhoods. Only a few cities in the world offer so many layers of hidden meaning as Beirut does. In the public realm of this town there seems to be merely suggestion, projection and differences of opinion that somehow interact with people’s daily movements and actions.

Participate in the BEYROUTES guide project organized by Studio Beirut, Partizan Publik, Pearl and Archis. A project that enables you to go beyond an exotic visit to the people, buildings and places of Beirut, and to get engaged: in its past, present and future. To produce a guide that provokes to construct your own anecdotes, actions and architecture of the city.

If you want to contribute in writing, drawing, research, photography or design: sign up now for the 2nd RESEARCH workshop at ranije[at]yahoo[dot]com

Social Engineering in the Amsterdam Metropolis 2008

To remind you what social engineering new style is all about, have a look at the 2008 video compilation (dutch) edited by Studio Dus.

As a first action of the Unreal Estate Agency Andrew Herscher and Femke Lutgerink placed signs at various sites of unreal estate throughout Detroit. They were taken around by Dirk Bakker from the Detroit Institute of the Arts and Glenn Manisto.

The agency will produce, collect and inventory information on the ‘unreal estate’ of Detroit: that is, on the remarkable, distinct, characteristic or subjectively significant sites of urban culture. The project is aimed at new types of urban practices (architecturally, artistically, institutionally, everyday life, etc) that came into existence, creating a new value system in Detroit.

The project is an initiative by architects Andrew Herscher and Mireille Roddier, curator Femke Lutgerink and Partizan Publik's Christian Ernsten and Joost Janmaat.

In collaboration with the Dutch Art Institute and the University of Michigan, generously funded by the Mondriaan Foundation.

During the Beirut Summer Workshop on Public Space, Partizan Publik conceptualized a side project. Together with the workshop participants we re-designed the Lost of Room of the Lebanese National Museum.

In the Lebanese National Museum the room dealing with modern history is not there. Apparently there is no agreement on what Lebanon’s ‘National History’ is. Yet Lebanese seem to be united in the love for their capital. Although it is a contested and violent city, Beirut encapsulates many places, which are full of sweet, loving, memories and nostalgia. Indeed it is a city saturated with favorite places.

Click here to view the online result of this project.