In Betondorp

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Looking through the architecture section in my Monocle Amsterdam guide before we left London, I found a little section about Betondorp (Concrete City). Oomoo walked past and saw a photo of the clocktower above, stopped in his tracks and asked if we could go and check it out. I was so excited that he found it interesting, and on one of the days when my friend Z was working, we made our own way there. Google Maps sent on us on a hilarious round the houses (haha) way to get to there, with an added stop at the Tropenmuseum on the way (pix from there in another post). Z was already sceptical when I’d showed her the route, but it didn’t deter me from giving it a try. It turned out to be an insane route, through what felt like the middle of nowhere in places, but it showed me and O parts of Amsterdam we would never have seen otherwise. In fact that bike ride is one of my funniest memories from our whole trip. So how did Oomoo react when we finally got there? “Is that it?!”. As in, “Muuuum, you made cycle all that way here for… that?!” I felt so bad for him. I agree, it was a bit underwhelming, but I was so curious to see it with my own eyes.

Betondorp is a garden city that was built in the 1920’s as a way of solving a housing shortage in Amsterdam, and a way of trying out a different way of building houses quickly, using concrete as it was a cheap material. Half of the neighbourhood was built in traditional brick, but as bricks were also short in supply, the other half was built using concrete, in nine new different styles of houses.

The architecture is mixed, and the neighbourhood very quiet. As if modern life has some how passed it by.

Oomoo had totally zoned out by this point, so I had to do my architecture walk quite quickly. I felt too shy to have a proper nosy along this row of houses.

Can you see him in his red beanie? He stayed in the main square

where he almost passed out from boredom, inside a, eh, rabbit?

So, as you can see, I was on borrowed time. I think I had about 10 mins to get a feel for the place.

I really liked the different style and colours of the doors.

See what I mean?

As well as spotting little signs of the the personality of the inhabitants - in unexpected places.

Did some birdwatching too.

A detail from the town hall. Such a great font! And I love the zig zag brickwork.

And the sign of the library.

I would have loved to have stuck my head in there to see what those windows, including the stained glass ones, looked like from the inside.

Betondorp’s most famous inhabitant was Johan Cruyff, one of the world’s most famous and influential footballers, and this is the house he grew up in. As a kid he could be found in the same square that Oomoo almost fell asleep in, always kicking a ball. I made sure we found the house so I could send a picture from there to one of our friends back in the UK, who’s a big Cruyff fan. Oomoo isn’t into football, but by this time we were back on our bikes, getting ready to cross the city (this time going a more central and normal route), him happy that we were leaving, and me happy that we got to see this little ‘hood. You can watch a zany little YouTube guide/film about it here. If you want to see what some of the houses and flats look like on the inside you can peruse some for sale here. I think they look really rather nice, even the one that’s a wreck. So much light! Have a good weekend alles.

Screen time

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There weren’t many good exhibitions on in Amsterdam when we were there, which was a bit of a surprise. After the lockdowns the quality of exhibitions in London have been phenomenal (I must have about 10 of them that I need to post about - if not more), so I guess I’ve been spoilt. But through googling what was near us I found a link to Nxt Museum, a new media art gallery that looked enticing. Their inaugural exhibition, Shifting Proximities (on until May 8th) didn’t disappoint. I was really looking forward to the installation above by UVA, but was a bit underwhelmed. I’ve seen their work in London before and it’s always been amazing.

We really enjoyed Habitat by Heleen Blanken though, which you might be able to make out by Z’s smile here if you look closely enough.

So dream like.

Can’t remember who this is by. Looks good though, innit.

I haven’t seen the work by Marshmallow Laser Feast before, and their Distortions in Spacetime was my favourite. It’s projected in a mirrored box, so you have to put on shoe socks on before you go in, and once you do you’re immersed in a 360 degree installation.

It worked like digital confetti in Z’s hair.

You might wonder what this is all about? Well, I’ll copy and paste from the website for ya: “In a giant star’s final moments, atoms compress to a point where density becomes infinite, time stretches to a stop and the gravitational field is so strong that not even light can escape: a black hole. But the force that creates this dark shadow also spews out a supernova explosion of matter that can eventually coalesce to form planets, plants and people. In Distortions in Spacetime, visitors will see themselves reflected in this matter and will begin to understand the cosmic connection between black holes, dying stars and our very existence.”

Makes your head hurt doesn’t it? Aside from the impossibility of it, don’t you think that if all humans got the chance to travel out into space and saw the vastness of it all, as well as our own little planet in it, we would behave better towards each other and our planet? We could really benefit from such a change of perspective.

Anyway. Back to the art. This massive room with CCTV cameras was quite something. Crazy to think how ubiquitous surveillance is now, and how much information we happily give away about ourselves without thinking.

Lastly, Yuxi Cao’s Dimensional Sampling felt very familiar to Ryori Ikeda’s work (you can see my pictures from Ikeda’s London exhibition last year in this blogpost), but was nowhere near as good. Ah well, no matter. We thoroughly enjoyed being taken somewhere else completely for a little while.

Solo walk

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Let’s go for a little architecture walk in the Jordaan neighbourhood of Amsterdam, shall we? I’m sure you’ll like it. I found myself with a couple of hours spare one afternoon, as Z was at a meeting and Oomoo did a work experience shift at L’s deli shop (he did really well and really enjoyed it. I was so proud of him and he seemed to have matured a few years in just two hours). So, I used my trusty Monocle Amsterdam guide to see what it recommended. Seeing as I was only about a five minute walk away I went to check out the 17th century Karthuizerhojfe (hofje - courtyard) almshouses on Karthuizerstraat. It was originally built as charitable housing for elderly widows, and is now residential. I was lucky enough to be there by my own, and stood there for a while just taking the quiet in.

It felt so apart from the rest of the neighbourhood, and I thought how awesome it would be to live there if you got on with your neighbours, and maybe how less awesome it would be if you didn’t.

This is the street side of the courtyard. I like how the residents make the most of the tiny spaces they have by their front doors.

See what I mean?

You can just picture yourself with a cup of tea and the paper on one of those benches couldn’t you? I don’t think you could do that here going by the chat on my local Nextdoor app. People seem to have their plant pots and anything that isn’t chained down stolen from their front gardens.

Anyway, time to keep walking. Have you ever seen a letter box in stairs before? I sure haven’t. It says ‘The Holiday Cyclist’ and there was a bike shop right next to the stairs, so I guess that kind of explains it… I’m pretty sure it had a door though, so I have no idea why this has come about.

Hoi little doggie. Fiiiiine, don’t look at me.

One of the many many many many many canals. I was texting my friend D back in London, sending her pictures as I was walking along, which she thoroughly enjoyed seeing as she was my architectural walk partner in the lockdowns. She’ll be able to see it all for herself when we go there in May - yay!

This doesn't look like much I guess, especially the shorter grey building on the right, but it was the one that caught my eye. In real life it looked incredibly cosy.

And old bank building which I think has been converted into flats. I couldn’t quite make it out standing and looking at it with a canal between me and it.

Dutch (or at least Amsterdam houses) are usually quite narrow, and as a result the inside stairs are equally so, as well as ridiculously steep. In one Airb’n’b we stayed in years ago the stairs were so much so that you practically had to crawl up them on all fours. Winching your furniture through the windows is the only way to get them in, so most buildings have hooks so you can set up a rope and get your winching on - like here.

Nice bit of randomness above my head.

Amazing bit of brick work above my head.

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of Dutch architecture, new or old. It’s just so different and beautifully done. Even the new builds look stunning, and not like the soulless glass buildings that keep popping up here. British architecture was great up until the Victorian era, but something went very wrong there. It just got really bland. Sure, there are some great buildings from the past 100 years, but as a whole something is aesthetically amiss.

This row of plants - YES! Nicely done.

The bricks are so nice, aren’t they? And the little coloured glass panes in the windows of the left hand building? And the lettering on the right hand building? It’s so funny to now be able to read it and know what it says (it was a life insurance office in a former life).

Hoi little cat. Fiiiiine, don’t you look at me neither.

And finally, it was time to pick Oomoo up from work. I’m pretty sure he’ll be taking up a summer job here once he’s old enough (and lucky boy now also has a Swedish passport so it’s actually an option). I hope he won’t mind if I tag along too.