A B A N D O N E D

A M S T E R D A M

vacancy as blessing and burden 1965-2015

Master thesis History Rozemarijn Stam // 6121284 Supervisor: Moritz Föllmer Second reader: Clé Lesger July 8th, 2016

A B A N D O N E D A M S T E R D A M vacancy as blessing and burden 1965-2015

Introduction 3

1. Vacancy as a phenomenon 6 1.1 Vacancy in the twentieth-century city 6 1.2 Vacancy in the post-industrial city 9 1.3 Vacancy in the context of space and place 15 2. ‘Leegstand ten tijde van woningnood’ // 1965-1980 21 2.1 Spatial developments in Amsterdam 21 2.2 Origins of vacancy 24 2.3 Reverberations of vacancy 30 2.4 The visibility of vacancy 43 3. The fight against vacancy // 1980-1990 46 3.1 State of vacancy 47 3.2 Leegstandswet // Vacancy Bill 51 3.3 Vacancy and lettability issues 57 3.4 A new way of adapting 62 3.5 The notable no-show 63 4. Vacancy in the age of culture // 1990-2015 65 4.1 State of vacancy 65 4.2 Culture and vacancy 71 4.3 The potential of vacancy 76

Conclusion 79

Sources consulted 82 Bibliography 83 Other 87

Attachment 1 Attachment 2 Attachment 3

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

It is an issue plain as day. Everyone is confronted with the billboards next to highway roads and the signs on buildings in single-use business areas. Newspapers have been clear in recent years. ‘Leegstand van Nederlandse kantoren is de hoogste van Europa’. ‘Leegstand winkels en kantoren neemt verder toe’. ‘Meer leegstand dan daklozen in Europa’.1 Headlines such as these are giving an alarming message: the problem of office vacancy is a problem and we need to deal with it. Ever since the financial crisis of 2008, there have been more and more offices standing empty, not just in Amsterdam but all across The Netherlands. On the other hand, buildings that had been vacant for years are finally being newly valued, renovated and reused. The examples are ample: big flea markets in former industrial halls, festivals in vacant offices and temporary clubs in abandoned properties that are waiting for renovation or demolition, or are simply in disuse. These places and their instigators have caused many properties that had been neglected for a long period of time to become a lively part of the city again. They restored a sense of place in these locations, putting them on city maps again. In some cases, as can be argued for the NDSM-wharf, these initiatives can be viewed as the driving force behind the regeneration of whole areas. The issue is not new, however. Vacancy is inherent to society itself, although its degree and therefore its severity have been fluctuating over the years. In the Netherlands, the end of the Second World War marked the stock of empty houses of those who would not return – for the most part this concerned Jews. At the end of the 1950s, part of the housing stock in different parts of the city proved unable to meet the requirements of modern society and needed to be replaced. City officials conceived a modernised Amsterdam, prompted by the rise of the automobile and the leisure society, among others. This vision was to be realised through grand urban renewal schemes, meaning large-scale (infrastructural) projects, demolition of a substantial part of the older city and, in its place, new construction. Accompanied by an exodus of business from the city centre due to limitations in accessibility and parking space, this resulted in a large amount of vacant dwellings as well as office and commercial spaces in anticipation of construction. Moreover, in the course of the 1970s and 1980s, a large part of the industrial basis of the Amsterdam economy was brought to an end,

1 A. Eigenraam, ‘Leegstand van Nederlandse kantoren is de hoogste van Europa’ (2013) NRC Handelsblad, geraadpleegd op 22 januari 2015 via: http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/09/12/leegstand-van-nederlandse-kantoren- is-hoogste-van-europa/; ‘Leegstand winkels en kantoren neemt verder toe’ (2014) Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving, geraadpleegd op 22 januari 2015 via: http://www.pbl.nl/nieuws/nieuwsberichten/2014/leegstand- winkels-en-kantoren-neemt-verder-toe; T.J. van Weezel, ‘Meer leegstand dan daklozen in Europa’ (2014) De Volkskrant, geraadpleegd op 22 januari 2015 via: http://www.volkskrant.nl/dossier-archief/meer-leegstand-dan- daklozen-in-europa~a3602922/.

3 and with that, the intensive use of a substantial part of the areas that had facilitated the industrial and harbour activities.2 Although the city centre has been rediscovered across the board over the past two decades, a new problem appeared: office vacancy. Although there had been other occurrences of this type of vacancy already in the 1960s and 1970s, the new millennium reinforced the problem, to the point of a twenty percent vacancy rate. Especially the business areas that originated at a time when single-use locations were in vogue have been experiencing massive vacancy. While in 2015 the vacancy rate still rose problematically, in 2016 – for the first time in years – a decrease of office vacancy has taken place. Different groups in society are actively searching for a way to deal with vacancy in all its forms and to give new meanings to old buildings. This, then, is a good time to look back to the history of the issue and review what types of vacancy were occurring, how they were dealt with and how these approaches changed over time. This is what we will focus on in the current study. The amount of academic research on vacancy increased in the past few years, mainly due to the problematic nature of the current office vacancy. The research, up until now, has mostly been fragmented and focused on specific academic fields – the subject has been mostly studied from a real estate and architectural point of view. Within the historical discipline, however, the subject has been merely touched upon in studies on urban renewal in the 1960s and 1970s and of course, on the squatting movement. By contrast, I would like to emphasise the structural nature of vacancy and contribute to a more complete picture of vacancy in Amsterdam in the past fifty years. On the one hand, this will complement previous research in different academic fields, while on the other hand also laying a basis for future in- depth research on vacancy by historians. The above leads to three types of vacancy that we will discuss here: vacancy of dwellings, vacancy of industrial sites and buildings, and vacancy of offices. Since there is no clear-cut division between these types of vacancy and the time periods during which they occurred, chronology will form the backbone of our chapters. Within this framework, three parties involved will be discussed: the municipality, neighbourhood residents, and groups of people operating beyond conventions. The latter will refer mostly to squatters, but also includes initiators of (temporary) projects in long-time vacant industrial areas, for example. Our area of interest is, as hinted earlier, Amsterdam. We will take the year of 1965 as a starting point; the year a group of young people led by student Ruud Strietman took matters in their own hands and illegally occupied an empty dwelling in the Schinkelbuurt. This is

2 P. de Rooy et al., Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Tweestrijd om de hoofdstad 1900-2000 (Amsterdam 2007) 326, 351, 394, 460-462.

4 widely seen as the first act of squatting – although avant la lettre – that gained a substantial amount of media attention. The study will commence with a general chapter on the phenomenon of vacancy, sketching the context of its development in the twentieth century and placing it within the scope of post-industrial modes of thinking about the city. This will also include a more abstract section on vacancy in the context of space and place. The actual case study of Amsterdam will be introduced in the second chapter, covering the period of 1965 through 1980, discussing the origins of vacancy and the initial reactions to its radical visibility in the city during this time. Chapter Three will continue the line of reasoning of the previous chapter, while pointing to an intensified, more aggressive dispute between the different parties involved over the period of 1980-1990. However, this period also marks the growing acceptance of alternative uses of buildings and transformations among both municipality and city residents. The final chapter will deal with the period of 1990-2015, placing two issues at the forefront: the rise of office vacancy since the new millennium, and the rise of culture within municipal policy, society, and subsequently in the handling of vacancy.

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C H A P T E R O N E: Vacancy as a phenomenon

The vacant building, as a phenomenon, is certainly not something new. With every city, town, or built community in general come empty buildings. Vacancy belongs to the city, and is in that sense part of its structure. It is inevitable, since society progresses, moving from one form of built environment to another, and a city’s residents constantly moving around within that framework. Buildings lose their original function and sometimes become obsolete. After abandonment, it can take years before a new destination for a certain property is found – either because of the characteristics of the location or by way of legal limitations and zoning plans that have to be altered first. This process can drag on for several years. This chapter will discuss the phenomenon of vacancy in a more general and abstract way, before moving on to an in-depth case study of vacancy in Amsterdam since the 1960s in Chapter Two, Three and Four. First, a general outline on vacancy in the twentieth century city of the Western world will be given, including a distinction between different types of vacancy. Subsequently, the conditions in the post-industrial and post-modern city will be considered, leading to a more abstract section about vacancy in the context of space and place.

1.1 V A C A N C Y I N T H E T W E N T I E T H – C E N T U R Y C I T Y The city is not what it used to be. Changing societal and human behavioural patterns have caused a shift in both the physical environment itself and the way people think about it. In terms of vacancy, a general outline can be given of the evolution of the building types that experienced vacancy in cities – at least in the western world – in the second half of the twentieth century. These ‘waves’, as they are described in the section below, can be considered as a typology of vacancy, which seems to be lacking in the existing literature. Each development in terms of vacancy will be elaborated on in more detail in our case study of Amsterdam.

After a long period of people moving to urban areas in Western Europe and the United States as a result of industrialisation at the end of the nineteenth century, the growing prosperity of many regions and its inhabitants after the Second World War caused an inverse trend. As the automobile became more and more accessible, a new phenomenon was made possible: people were working in a different place from where they were living. As a result, the process of suburbanisation took off, causing a de-population of inner-city areas in many big cities from the 1950s on.

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The first wave of vacancy that will be discussed here concerns residential vacancy in urban areas, which is connected to this suburbanisation on the one hand and continuing economic growth on the other. After a period of housing scarcity after the Second World War, a period of prosperity began. Many people gained the means to leave the city and move to more quiet, spacious, not to mention abundant homes in the suburbs. Additionally, a substantial part of the pre-war buildings that were left behind in cities no longer met the requirements of the time. The growing need for the renovation of these properties combined with suburbanisation resulted in a growing vacancy rate among residential buildings in many cities. In the Netherlands, as in other countries, this brought about a negative image of big city life in the 1960s and 1970s.3 The second wave of vacancy is a direct result of the relocation of many industrial facilities to low-wage countries in other parts of the world, leading to the de-industrialisation of many Western European cities – and countries for that matter – in the 1970s. This international shift rendered many industrial sites obsolete. A new destination was not found easily, which left a large part of the industrial heritage abandoned for years. This type of vacant buildings has experienced a renaissance for approximately a decade, by way of finding new purposes both permanent and temporary. The third wave of vacancy is still a pressing issue in urban affairs around the globe: the growing number of vacant offices since the 1990s and especially the 2000s. This development does not only connect with a changing work mentality, but is also related to the financial crisis of 2008. Additionally, the specific physical forms of offices have recently come under scrutiny, as a later section will show.

Since the 1950s, vacancy in cities has been considered problematic in two cases, although this paints a somewhat black-and-white picture. On the one hand, the continuing urbanisation of the past twenty years has caused the dilapidation of many smaller cities and towns, which has proved a persistent development in many countries around the globe and continues to attract attention from the press and increasingly also from artists. In the case of photography, a recent phenomenon that has received much attention in the media is ‘ruin porn’ or the capturing of the decline of the built environment.4 Notable cases include Detroit and Berlin. Some of these cities simply seem to have lost both the battle and the war, slowly

3 O. Atzema, Stad in, stad uit. Residentiële suburbanisatie in Nederland in de jaren zeventig en tachtig (Utrecht 1991) 6-7, 231. 4 See for example the well-known photo series ‘The Ruins of Detroit’ (2005-2010) by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre and Andrew Moore’s book ‘Detroit Disassembled’ (2008-2009). For further information on the influence of photography on the perception of architecture and cities in general, see: I. de Solà-Morales Rubió, ‘Terrain vague’, in: C. Davidson, ed., Anyplace (Cambridge 1995) 118-123.

7 but surely experiencing a full-fledged exodus from their built environment. The vacant properties and premises concerned include all possible types and all sorts of lots, including the vacancy of homes, offices, industrial sites and shops. This issue has attracted much academic attention over the past years, largely in the context of suggesting a way to regenerate or transform these derelict places. In part, this research focuses on giving back vacant lots to nature, as far as it has not taken over already. On the other hand, there is vacancy in otherwise bustling cities. These cities are among the few in their respective countries to stay frontrunners in the growing and increasingly international competition in offering attractive living environments for its inhabitants. The city of Amsterdam, subject of this study, can be categorised as such, at least in recent years. Vacancy in these cities tends to concentrate in specific areas, for instance residential vacancy, shop vacancy or office vacancy. Currently, as noted before, societal changes have caused traditional office space to become, for the most part, obsolete, since the requirements for working environments and the attitude towards productivity and its spatial context have shifted. This has turned office vacancy into the most common type of vacancy in these cases since around the turn of the century.

Other than the fact that vacancy can relate to specific types of buildings, a distinction can be made between different categories. Although there is no generally accepted definition of these categories, what is noted below is a combination of what can be found in Dutch and American literature and refers to economic and real estate theory. It is important to note that even though the word ‘vacancy’ usually evokes negative imagery, it would be unjust to consider all vacancy problematic. Two categories of vacancy can be viewed as inevitable elements of a healthy property market. The first, more practical, occurs when a building is first completed and the new occupant has not moved in yet. This type (known in Dutch as ‘aanvangsleegstand’) usually amounts to one or two percent of the total building stock and is, in most cases, fairly short-lived. The second category is frictional vacancy. In any property market, a certain amount of vacant buildings is acceptable, albeit for a short period of time. In fact, it is crucial in order for the market to function decently, since frictional vacancy allows certain relocation trends as buildings stay empty for a time after one party moves out and before the other moves in. The proportion normally fluctuates around four to five percent of the total building stock. Then, thirdly, there is cyclical vacancy, a category that arises as an effect of conjectural changes. In case of an economic upturn, the market will swallow vacant buildings. The final category is structural vacancy, which occurs when a building has been completed for at least three years but has been standing empty for a continuous time. The

8 minimal number of years that a building has to be vacant to be considered structurally vacant, varies according to several different definitions – but it usually is a period of at least six to twelve months.5 In this study, we will mainly focus on structural vacancy, but other categories will be considered here and there as well. For example, when the high-rise complexes in Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer were completed, the ‘normal’ type one vacancy changed to a more structural-type vacancy when it became apparent that there was a severe mismatch in supply and demand of this type of housing in Amsterdam. Basically, no one wanted to live there. This will be elaborated on in Chapter Two. Frictional vacancy, however, will not be discussed here, since this is a necessary element in the property market in order to operate efficiently and therefore is not considered actual vacancy.

1.2 V A C A N C Y I N T H E P O S T – I N D U S T R I A L C I T Y Spatial changes inherent to the deindustrialisation of the western world, taking place in the second half of the twentieth century, had far-reaching consequences the vacancy of buildings and the way it was dealt with. The following section discusses a number of tendencies that were evident in many cities in the past few decades. Again, the different developments will be connected to our case study of Amsterdam in the following chapters.

After the demise of the industrial base of many western cities’ economies, the emphasis has shifted to different areas such as (financial) services, tourism and hospitality. As an effect of the changing nature of the economy, social and spatial constellations of earlier times were restructured, says sociologist Sharon Zukin. In her 1991 book Landscapes of Power she argued that, in the decades after World War II, executives on the one hand and workers on the other generally lived and worked in areas that were either very or hardly diversified. Executives were living in mixed areas with people employed in different industries, while workers tended to congregate on the basis of the individual firms and/or industries in which they were working. As a result, when a certain company or industry was in decline and workers were laid off, there was a much larger chance for working-class communities to be devastated as well – including insufficient maintenance and eventual abandonment of buildings and premises. This was even more so the case if a certain area was wholly dominated by one industry, such as the automobile industry in Detroit or the oil industry in Houston. When that sector was declining, it was bringing down the whole town, so to say. To the contrary, cities harbouring many different industries and people living in it are buffered by

5 C. Hulsman en F. Knoop, Transformatie van kantoorgebouwen. Sturingsmiddelen om herbestemming van kantoorgebouwen te bevorderen (Delft 1998) 1; J. Rabianski, ‘Vacancy in market analysis and valuation’, The Appraisal Journal (2002) 194-196, 199.

9 the diversification of their economic base and therefore more resilient to decline of a single industry.6 In the 1970s and 1980s, however, the decline of the industrial sector as a whole, rather than that of an individual industry, was fundamental to such a degree that the spatial set-up of many cities, to a large extent prompted by the rise of industry itself, became disputed. The withdrawing of industrial enterprises entailed its former shelters to fall out of function and lay vacant, in some cases for decades. Although Zukin’s argument is based on the case of a more traditional industrial economy, part of her theory can be applied to the development of vacancy and abandonment in a later period. In the last decades of the twentieth century, so-called single-purpose strategies came in vogue, in which specific areas and locations were designated to serve a single function. In The Netherlands, as in many places, this process of the separation of purposes took off as early as the 1950s. Notable examples are the dreary business areas outside of many towns and cities across the country, but many suburban neighbourhoods can also be included in this category. (Car) accessibility of these areas was a major factor in the initial popularity of these places, as well as, at least for companies, the possibility to expand their building stock.7 Generally speaking, the degree of mixed purpose construction in a neighbourhood corresponds to the period of construction. This is shown in Figure 1, for which a mix index was developed by the Dutch Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving by dividing the total amount of jobs and housing in a certain area by the amount of jobs (multiplied by 100). Here, a mix index of 50 stands for an optimal mix of functions.8 As can be concluded from Figure 1, the pre-war period constructions are generally largely mixed, with a low point between 1950 and 1970. Since 1970, mixed-purpose areas have been slowly on the rise. The single-purpose areas of earlier times have been criticised for quite some time now, both in the media and by spatial planning practitioners. Principal criticisms are that these areas are stimulating social homogeneity, and are lacking public life, architectural distinction and identity.9 In the case of business areas, recent restructuring economic forces that caused a decline in demand of these spaces form another factor. The combination constitutes an unattractive package for new companies to establish themselves in such an area. In line with Zukin’s theory of the diversification of areas acting as a buffer for decline in separate strands of the economy, this has resulted in an astonishing twenty percent vacancy among these single-purpose business areas in The Netherlands. Additionally, a third of the total is

6 S. Zukin, Landscapes of power. From Detroit to Disney World (Berkeley 1991) 9-10, 15. 7 A. Harbers and L. Pols, ‘Menging van wonen en werken’, Ruimte en Maatschappij 2 (2009) 1, 55-57. 8 Ibidem, 55-57. 9 A. Reijndorp et al., Buitenwijk. Stedelijkheid op afstand (Rotterdam 1998) en H. Lörzing et al., Krachtwijken met karakter (Rotterdam 2009) in: Harbers and Pols, ‘Menging van wonen en werken’, 52.

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Mix Index

Period of construction Figure 1 (source: PBL 2009) neglected and is degenerating quickly, as was reported by the research centre for urban and regional development Platform31.10 According to Zukin, the shifting landscape is connected to a shift in economic power. Regarding the United States, she notes: ‘The replicas of smokestack America, their dispersal and eventual abandonment, precede another historical phase, one marked by supermarkets, shopping malls, office towers. This leads in turn to their replication, dispersal, and abandonment.’11 Subsequently, these cycles yield obsolete buildings and vacant space, time and again. The evolving city, however, is not only subject to these continuing restructuring economic forces, but also to a changed perception of the city by politicians, architects and urban planners, as well as city residents themselves. The mid-twentieth century was characterised by a large-scale movement of modernism and urban renewal in many western cities, often at the expense of the older structures in the city. Key to this large-scale urban renewal scheme were standardised high-rise office buildings, highways, single-use areas, demolition followed by new construction and other radical spatial interventions, without much

10 E. van der Krabben, C.J. Pen and F. de Feijter, De markt voor bedrijventerreinen. Uitkomsten van onderzoek en beleid (Den Haag 2015). 11 Zukin, Landscapes of power, 20.

11 heed for history. Starting in the early 1960s, there was a growing amount of resistance against these tendencies and the destruction of the local built heritage they often entailed. As opposed to the functional vision of the city makers of that time, the critics of radical urban renewal proposed a more romantic vision of the city, characterised by small-scale development, mixed-use neighbourhoods, diversity, and preservation of the existing urban forms. These would help restore a visual sense of place that was largely diminished in areas affected by urban renewal projects, producing a more abstract, internationalised type of space.12 A major driving force behind the movement of resistance has been journalist and urban activist Jane Jacobs. Although writing in a period before large-scale deindustrialisation took place, she has been very influential in the post-industrial planning discourse. The much- cited Jacobs has long advocated diversity in urban neighbourhoods and buildings alike. She stresses the importance of not only mixed uses in a neighbourhood, but also of a mix of the type of buildings themselves; a ‘good’ neighbourhood in her point of view includes old as well as new buildings. However, she is not only talking about (monumental) built heritage when addressing old buildings – in her hallmark work The death and life of great American cities (1961) she urges the inclusion of a more generic type of buildings as well:

‘Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them. By old buildings I mean not museum-piece old buildings, not old buildings in an excellent and expensive state of rehabilitation – although these make fine ingredients – but also a good lot of plain, ordinary, low- value old buildings, including some run-down old buildings.’13

By stressing that large-scale construction projects built at one time are inherently inefficient for harbouring a diverse climate when it comes to culture, population and business, Jacobs emphasises preservation of the existing urban form and respect for historical structures.14 This by no means signifies a complete aversion against new construction – key here is diversity: of the type of building, of its age, and subsequently, of its use and its users. Additionally, in the spirit of Jacobs, studies by sociologists Herbert Gans and Marc Fried indicated that ‘for its residents, even a physically run-down inner-city community had redeeming social value’.15

12 V. Mamadouh, De stad in eigen hand. Provo’s, kabouters en krakers als stedelijke sociale beweging (Amsterdam 1992) 182, 218, 221; Zukin, Landscapes of power, 50-51. 13 J. Jacobs, The death and life of great American cities (New York 1961) 200. 14 Ibidem, 204. 15 Zukin, Landscapes of power, 191.

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Jacobs’ values left a clear legacy, resonating in the actions of the urban regeneration movement also known as gentrification. This has had important consequences in the context of vacancy as well. Beginning in the 1970s, gentrification can be defined as the process of conversion of economically marginal, working-class and in some cases dilapidated areas of the central city to middle-class residential and commercial use. The people involved in this process viewed the city in a new light, with newfound respect for its history. In comparison to the former (re)development schemes, gentrification ‘constituted a transition in both the mode over downtown development – from the public to the private sector, from large to small-scale projects, from new construction to rehabilitation – and the source of investment capital.’16 As for the latter, gentrification relied more on private investments than it did on public programs. Additionally, the process of deindustrialisation and a cyclical decline in property values resulted in a changing political economy. Combined, these factors made for a new mode of urban development from the 1970s onwards. Sharon Zukin marks the legitimisation of ‘loft living’ in Manhattan in the early days of gentrification as a symbolic as well as material change in the landscape. Artists and other cultural producers had set up low-rent living and working quarters in former manufacturing and assembly sites in New York. Many of these buildings were destined to be demolished to make way for new construction. But, aided by historic preservation activists, artists’ organisations successfully campaigned against demolition. These spaces, abandoned for years, were free of no longer needed, ‘obsolete’ uses such as manufacturing and were given a new purpose, instigated by both financial and bottom-up forces. In this sense, space in the centre city demanded a reorientation in a visual, sensual, as well as conceptual ways.17 This was, in a way, revolutionary. For years, demolition and new construction had been almost synonymous to improvement. This view being in vogue for a while caused the destruction of a large part of the architectural heritage in many cities, alarming many critics at the time. This is nicely illustrated by the (photo) books Lost New York (1968) by Nathan Silver, Lost Boston (1980) by Jane Holtz Kay, and Lost Chicago (1975) by David Lowe, among others. The authors all advocated the preservation of their respective subject cities’ built heritage, while a large part of these landmarks had been destroyed already at the time of publication.18 The new gentrifiers, however, rediscovered a local sense of place and the past, respecting the social value and aesthetics of older buildings and stressing small-scale development. At first, gentrification entailed mostly the renovation of old and decayed

16 Ibidem, 180, 187. 17 Ibidem, 188, 190. 18 For further reading, see: N. Silver, Lost New York (Boston 1967); D. Lowe, Lost Chicago (Chicago 1975); and J. Holtz Kay, Lost Boston (Boston 1980).

13 structures, while from the 1980s onwards there was a growing amount of new construction in gentrifying areas. Although there was a distinct and newly found appreciation for culture, history and its physical relics, it was also put to use in the sense that the historical references of a locality served as a framework for a new purpose.19 In this way, the past started to work more as a visual theme than it did as a driving force for the substantive new uses of vacant buildings. Since the 1990s, another factor has put a premium on old but characteristic buildings, and local built heritage in particular. Not only was culture moved to the centre stage, proving to be an important influence on the urban economic policies of the next few decades; but in an increasingly mobile and digital world, it also became possible for many people – most prominently, the growing middle class of young professionals and high-tech experts – to choose their own location and work from anywhere on the planet. In western cities, the amount of workers in the traditional industries – bound to a specific location – has long been shrinking. The current economic climate, therefore, requires cities to create favourable locations and environments for companies, and more importantly: to provide their (prospective) residents and visitors with an attractive living environment. Providing economic benefits, investing in a rich ‘soft infrastructure’ – high quality facilities when it comes to culture and leisure – and improving the urban landscape are among the best strategies for local, rather than national, governments in maintaining their position and strengthening their identities.20 In their quest for identity, ‘sometimes new identities are forged, but more often old identities are rediscovered in the form of cultural heritage’, urban planner Joks Janssen argued in the spirit of sociologist Manuel Castells’ landmark publication The power of identity (1996).21 This gave rise to the urban development strategy of culture-based regeneration, which, in many varieties, has dominated urban policy discourse since the 1990s.22 Vacant buildings and their individual histories, especially from the industrial glory days of cities, have proved to play a vital role in these strategies, being very efficient in adding value to a city’s identity, and its cultural and leisurely offerings in particular. Sheltering both temporary and more permanent activities, these places are acting as hubs of culture and diversity. At the same time, the growing emphasis on culture combined with the increased mobility and

19 Zukin, Landscapes of power, 192-193. 20 E. Beriatos and A. Gospodini, ‘’Glocalising’ urban landscapes. Athens and the 2004 Olympics’, Cities 21 (2004) 3, 187-189; A. Gospodini, ‘Portraying, classifying and understanding the emerging landscapes in the post- industrial city’, Cities 23 (2006) 5, 312; A.P. Russo and J. van der Borg, ‘An urban policy framework for culture- oriented economic development. Lessons from The Netherlands’, Urban Geography 31 (2010) 5, 675; E. Hitters and G. Richards, ‘The creation and management of cultural clusters’, Creativity and Innovation Management 11 (2002) 4, 236. 21 J. Janssen et al., ‘Heritage planning and spatial development in The Netherlands. Changing policies and perspectives,’ International Journal of Heritage Studies 20 (2014) 1, 6, 15. For further reading, see: M. Castells, The power of identity (Oxford 1996). 22 Russo and Van der Borg, ‘An urban policy framework’, 5, 670.

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(hyper) digitalisation noted before have caused a shift in the modes of working and higher requirements with regard to the working environment and office space in particular. As mentioned before, demand for traditional office space – including offices located in single- purpose business areas – has been in decline, resulting in a growing number of vacant offices. In general it is apparent that demand for specific spaces and buildings varies according to several major societal changes through time. These changes include the aforementioned, but also secularisation, internationalisation, a growing service economy and a tendency towards privatisation. Accordingly, this has its effects on the vacancy of buildings. ‘After the harbour basins, factories and farms from the twentieth century, we will see new groups of buildings and ensembles losing their economic and functional basis’, either to lay empty or readily available for redevelopment.23 The financial crisis of 2008, then, has had severe consequences for spatial planning and property development worldwide.24 Not only did new construction cease to a high degree, a fairly large amount of formerly occupied properties – among which not only offices, but also homes and other spaces – were abandoned by their users due to financial difficulties. As such, vacancy can be considered a very direct and crude confrontation with changes in society. At the same time, however, urbanisation has proved to be a steady force, bringing about a growing densification of many cities and forcing us to take a better look at those buildings that are there but are not being used properly, if at all. This places vacancy high on the agenda of current city makers. However, what constitutes a ‘proper use’ can be disputed – this and the general tendencies outlined above will be discussed more deeply in our case study.

1.3 V A C A N C Y I N T H E C O N T E X T O F S P A C E A N D P L A C E Since the turn of the century, there has been a growing interest in the more abstract concepts of space and place, among both empirical researchers and philosophers. Place is usually defined as a physical, tangible location, while space mostly refers to a more abstract meaning of the environment. Both can be considered as social constructions that, inversely, influence the social world of its users. Prompted by, among others, philosopher Michel Foucault and geographer Doreen Massey, it is a widely accepted view that space and place, steeped in symbolic value, find their meaning within a wider societal and cultural context and

23 Janssen et al., ‘Heritage planning and spatial development’, 16. 24 Ibidem, 14.

15 discourse.25 This, however, works both ways, according to human geographer David Harvey: ‘Space – the material form that processes assume ‘on the ground’ as buildings, infrastructure, consumption sites and so on – is both cause and effect in/of social life’.26 For instance, the built environment can act as a geographical constraint or possibility, as a ground of potential conflict or cohesion, or as a commodity.27 In this sense, vacancy, too, is a pressing issue influencing and influenced by a city’s social life. Especially when a city has large amounts of vacant buildings, of whatever kind, this can be of specific interest when considering the urban fabric. Rather than just ‘being there’ with no designated use, a vacant building can be part of the experience of a street or even a neighbourhood – precisely by doing or being exactly nothing. In the second category of cities mentioned before, namely crowded, bustling cities that experience high vacancy rates mostly among specific types of buildings, vacancy can be regarded in relation to private property, or as philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre coined it: to a privatised notion of space.28 Many Marxist thinkers such as Harvey and Lefebvre, who was one of the most influential theoreticians of space and place, consider the spatial stratification of the Western world to be moulded along capitalist lines – and in turn creating certain modes of thinking and awareness.29 They viewed the advance of capitalism in many parts of the world as a cause of the loss of diversity and local characteristics and in turn the standardisation and privatisation of space, so to speak, in these capitalist parts of the world.30 One can think of routinely built prefab houses, similar suburban neighbourhoods or generic shopping malls that are home to the same stores wherever you go, in the pursuit of saving both time and money. Currently, however, a different approach is at work: new projects are increasingly being placed in the context of their environment, referring to local attributes and local history – as opposed to the previous isolated designs.31 As was already mentioned, cities are almost forced to do so, since they are reliant on their unique – and hence local – characteristics in their effort to stand out in the interurban competition going on at the moment. This means that a reverse development from the Marxist blueprint is taking place: local peculiarities are

25 R. Kingston, ‘Mind over Matter? History and the spatial turn’, Cultural and Social History 7 (2010) 1, 112. 26 P. Hubbard and R. Kitchin, ed., Key thinkers on space and place (London 2011) 237. 27 Zukin, Landscapes of power, 42. 28 Kingston, ‘Mind over Matter?’, 114; Hubbard and Kitchin, Key thinkers, 282. 29 Kingston, ‘Mind over Matter?’, 111-121; T.F. Gieryn, ‘A space for place in sociology’, Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000), 463-496; J. Connolly, ‘Bringing the city back in: space and place in the urban history of the gilded age and progressive era’, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 1 (2002) 3, 258-278; Kingston, ‘Mind over Matter?’, 111-121; Hubbard and Kitchin, Key thinkers; H. Lefebvre, The production of space (Oxford 1991). 30 Gieryn, ‘A space for place’, 471. 31 Ibidem, 471.

16 visibly returning to many cities, in spite or maybe even because of the capitalist nature of our society. The built structures from a more standardised time, by contrast, can be considered as more and more undesirable objects, which brings us back to the issue of vacancy. These generally unremarkable buildings, be it offices, houses or retail space, are among the first to become vacant when there is a downturn in demand for a certain type of space. In a capitalist society, then, a building or a lot – whether vacant or not – always belongs to someone, as one of the system’s trademarks is private property. A large part of this property is in the hands of a ruling class. In this respect, Sharon Zukin viewed the built environment with regard to the concept of landscape as representing not only social class, gender, and race relations, but also as conjuring up ‘the entire panorama that we see: both the landscape of the powerful – cathedrals, factories, and skyscrapers – and the subordinate, resistant, or expressive vernacular of the powerless – village chapels, shantytowns, and tenements.‘32 This notion of class in relation to the built environment relates to Lefebvre’s much-cited three types of space, which also stresses the socially constructed character of space. In his theory, Lefebvre argues that conceived space, as the first category, is the domain of professional planners and politicians, concerning the urban plan, layout of the city, and the eventual creation of the city. Second, there is the perceived space that concerns the daily life and experience of the ‘little man’, in which a multiplicity of symbols are key.33 The ruling class is in some, and sometimes in many, cases used to doing what they see fit without consulting the middle and working classes – a practice in need of change according to many authors. Or as psychologist Robert Sommer, author of the renowned publication Personal space. The behavioural basis for design (1969), put it with regard to an architectural trend of his time: ‘Formalist buildings were being built without due concern for those who operated inside them. Architects and planners [should] embrace functionalism based on user behaviour as their guiding principle’.34 Later in this study, we will see this issue at work in the case of the Bijlmermeer. Of a different sort is the third type of space, called lived space or third space. This is mostly an imaginary form of space, existing in the minds of people, which is fed by and thrives through the arts, literature and human imagination in general. This avant-garde lived space has the power to rise up above the first two categories of space, according to Lefebvre, in order to change the balance between them.35 Lived space should also be able to

32 Zukin, Landscapes of power, 16. 33 Connolly, ‘Bringing the city back, 266-267; Hubbard and Kitchin, Key thinkers, 281. 34 Kingston, ‘Mind over Matter?’, 117. For further information, see R. Sommer, Personal space. The behavioral basis for design (New Jersey 1969). 35 Hubbard and Kitchin, Key thinkers, 281-282.

17 give people a greater sense of self-satisfaction, hence serving both the system and the individual:

‘In order to become more self-fulfilling, an ‘inhabitant’ must develop his or her own spatial imagination, his or her own ‘lived space’, to resist not only the impositions of cartographers, urban planners and property developers, but also ideas of space that are taken for granted, inherited as ‘common sense’ or ‘daily routine’.36

In this context Lefebvre names, among others, the artworks of the surrealists – most prominently René Magritte – but also more clandestine spatial practices that move beyond generally accepted norms, such as the development of slums and squatting.37 The above is particularly interesting when considering vacancy. Vacant buildings, although owned by the proprietors of conceived space, are a prime example of lived/third space coming to flourish – be it by squatting, by creating artists’ studios or by other types of Lefebvre’s clandestine spatial practices. In a crowded city this seems to be an inevitable paradox: when a privately owned building becomes vacant, most owners will try and find a new tenant for the original purpose of the building, even if it takes years and years before they do – if they do. This is happening in the current vacant office crisis: it seems unacceptable to most owners to comply with the fact that their building will never again be used as an office, and as such, will have to be transformed to serve a new purpose. Exemptions are the flourishing high-profile office areas and financial districts exemplified by London’s City and Amsterdam’s Zuidas. Subsequently, many buildings – not only offices – lay vacant for a long time, which encourages the initiators of many types of lived space to lay claim on them. In the 1970s and 1980s, this was mostly done illegally in the form of squatting, but in more recent years both owners and city governments have become more inviting in providing these parties with long-term vacant space to use on a legal basis. This will be researched in greater depth in the case study of Amsterdam. In the context of conceived versus lived space, and of the transition of uses of buildings, the space becomes reinterpretable. This is key when it comes to vacancy. One must not hold on to the original function of a building, but be receptive to new purposes and interpretations. ‘So wie es ist, bleibt es nicht,’ German poet Bertolt Brecht famously wrote. The Catalan historian and architect Ignasi de Solà-Morales Rubió coined the term terrain

36 Kingston, ‘Mind over Matter’, 114. For further information, see: Lefebvre, The production of space. For further information on the notion of third space, see: E. Soja, Thirdspace. Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and- imagined places (Oxford 1996). 37 Hubbard and Kitchin, Key thinkers, 281.

18 vague, when addressing the issue of vacant space. Although it is difficult to translate the term directly into English, the separate words terrain and vague can be traced back to their Latin and Germanic origins. Terrain can be considered as either an urban lot or building, while the word vague refers to notions of ‘vacant’ and ‘vacuum’, but also ‘free’, ‘available’ and ‘unengaged’. What fascinates De Solà-Morales Rubió when it comes to vacant space, is the relation between ‘the absence of use [and] activity, and the sense of freedom, of expectancy. [This] is fundamental to understanding the evocative potential of the city’s terrains vagues. Void, absence, yet also promise, the space of the possible.’38 Additionally, the French vague is also connected to the English ‘vague’, that is: referring to something indeterminate en uncertain, which also points in the direction of liberty and mobility.39 De Solà-Morales Rubió speaks of vacant space as ‘internal of the city yet external to its everyday use’.40 These empty buildings and vacant lots are places where the present does not seem to have conquered the past, yet the past has largely vanished as well. A few relics remain, be it objects of use or simply (part of) the building structure or foundations, about which nobody seems to care. ‘From the economic point of view, industrial areas, railway stations, ports, unsafe residential neighbourhoods, and contaminated places are where the city is no longer’.41 As noted before, certain categories of vacancy are not always problematic, such as the frictional kind or the kind that arises when a building is just completed. But what we can learn from De Solà-Morales Rubió’s writings is that even in the case of structural vacancy of a certain lot or building there is a positive side to the situation. Of course, from an economic point of view, some of these places are worthless – but vacancy can open a window of opportunity and innovation, and not least: it is subject to change. People can, in theory, create their own place in this vacant space, both mentally and physically. Because of this, vacant space can offer inspiration, either because of its history or because of the way the space is organised, or a combination of the two. However, the lack of interest from an economic perspective that De Solà-Morales Rubió elaborates on does not seem to apply to the current crisis of office space. The high rate of office vacancy that we see today is in part also a result of the economic value of the buildings. Since there is a considerable amount of money invested in these buildings, their owners are reluctant to offer their available square meters to others at a low rate or for free, even if that means that a building stays empty for a long time. Besides being convinced that their real estate is worth more than offered, even in

38 Solà-Morales Rubió, ‘Terrain vague’, 120. 39 Ibidem, 119-120. 40 Ibidem, 120. 41 Ibidem.

19 a difficult economic climate, owners are hopeful that if only they wait a little longer, their property will be bought or leased anyway. The interesting thing here is that, seen from an economic, capitalist point of view, it is in fact inevitable for buildings to lose their function. Like everything in life, the purpose for which a building is built is subject to change. The concept of ‘creative destruction’, developed by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, is inherent to a capitalist economy, since capitalism is ‘by nature a form of economic change and not only never is but never can be stationary’.42 It is the process of revolutionising the economic process from within, which means that new models are created while old ones are destroyed. In the context of the built environment, this means that some structures become obsolete – at least with regard to what the building was originally used for. When thinking of vacancy, it is likely that there was no need for, or no interest in, redeveloping the space for another purpose. The period of time that a building has been standing empty, whether there is a new use in the offing or not, can be connected to the concept of liminality. The term was coined by anthropologist Victor Turner, and used to depict ‘rites of passage’ and the passing of a certain social group from one category or status to another. And ‘as rites, they carry their own cultural scripts, often reversing people’s roles in a temporary subversion of social values’.43 According to Sharon Zukin this extends to a reorientation of cultural patrons, producers, and consumers.44 This notion can also be applied in the context of vacant space, opening it up for imagination and possibility, corresponding with the views of Lefebvre and De Solà-Morales Rubió.

Vacant space could be considered external to the city, since there is in theory little activity and productivity – but the key here is that this is all a matter of perception. To some, and in the past to many, vacant space is outside of what is ‘normal’ in our society – and to some extent, they may find the people that are attracted to it abnormal as well. Activities taking place there in a clandestine manner, which do not yield regular economic gains, might not even be considered as a productive use of the space. But when perceptions can be altered, when property owners on the one hand and the potential users of these vacant spaces on the other can come closer, the empty premises might be considered as part of the city again. In a crowded city like Amsterdam, it can even be argued that vacant space is of great value, allowing people to take a step back and be newly inspired.

42 J. Schumpeter, Capitalism, socialism and democracy (New York 1942) 82. 43 Zukin, Landscapes of power, 28. 44 Ibidem, 41.

20

C H A P T E R T W O: ‘Leegstand ten tijde van woningnood’ // 1965-1980

The previous chapter has sketched developments regarding the spatial orientation of cities in a post-industrial era, as well as provided a more abstract discussion of the meaning of vacant space. To get a sense of how these forces work in practice, we will take a closer look at one particular case. Amsterdam will be the subject of our study, taking 1965 as a starting point; the year the first house in Amsterdam was officially and openly squatted.45 Since then, Amsterdam has experienced many forms of vacancy and many ways of dealing with it. In this first chapter of the case study the period 1965-1980 will be discussed, in which the first wave of vacancy as explained in Chapter One was crucial: vacant homes. After an outline of more general developments in Amsterdam regarding spatial planning in this period, the effects of these on vacancy will be discussed and subsequently the reactions this vacancy evoked among both the city government and residents. We will use Lefebvre’s three types of space – conceived space, perceived space, lived space – as a guiding principle. Conceived space, in this sense, is the domain of local officials and urban planners, those who are responsible for the physical creation of the city – often thinking big and aiming to make grand gestures. Perceived space will be addressed as the way in which city residents reacted to (changes in) their built environment. Lived space in this context entails, as mentioned by Lefebvre himself, for the most part the phenomenon of squatting. This chapter will end with a discussion of what caused the righteous anger regarding vacancy among city residents.

2.1 S P A T I A L D E V E L O P M E N T S The changes that occurred in post-war society required a new way of looking at the city; a vision for the Amsterdam of the future. In the ‘Tweede Nota over de Ruimtelijke Ordening in Nederland’ the Ministry of Public Housing and Spatial Planning warned of steep population growth until 2000, expecting more than twenty million people to inhabit the Netherlands at that point. In that context, there was some concern about the Randstad region. Potentially unable to cope with the advent of so many people, the result could be the development of slums and ghettos.46 In this light, vacancy was the last thing on the minds of municipal governments. In order to physically prepare the city for the expected future developments,

45 E. Duivenvoorden, Een voet tussen de deur. Geschiedenis van de kraakbeweging 1964-1999 (Amsterdam 2000). 46 H. de Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling. De strijd om stadsvernieuwing (Amsterdam 2010) 54.

21 the emphasis was on neighbourhood renewal on the one hand and a sound urban infrastructure on the other. Obviously, the outlook of these plans was pre-eminently an example of conceived space, conceptualised by local officials and urban planners. In a way, some of the plans dating from this time were aimed not only at building the Amsterdam of the future, but also a somewhat futuristic Amsterdam. This culminated in the construction of high- rise apartment blocks in the Bijlmermeer on the city’s periphery. Firstly, the state of many nineteenth- and even twentieth-century neighbourhoods was considered below standard. Urban planner Hugo Priemus identified three waves of urban decay in the Netherlands. The first occurred in the late nineteenth century, when the explosive growth of cities resulted in a sizable expansion of the housing stock. Many developments, however, were rapidly built mostly by private companies and were generally of inferior quality. Coupled with poor maintenance, this soon resulted in large-scale deterioration. This led to the first government intervention in regard to public housing, symbolised by the 1901 Woningwet. The second wave of urban decay occurred in our period of interest, i.e. the 1960s. With urban renewal high on the agenda, Amsterdam’s local officials had their focus more on new construction than on the fixing of the existing housing stock. The future was what counted, not the past.47 This was mostly prompted by the functional vision for the city that was already mentioned in Chapter One, directed mainly towards prestigious projects on a large scale. Additionally, poor maintenance, poor building foundations and demolition during the Second World War caused the deterioration of the inner city, and the nineteenth- and even part of the twentieth-century neighbourhoods. In this context, a 1979 newspaper article shows a striking accordance with the Marxist space and place theory, reporting about the nineteenth-century areas as a ‘schandalige erfenis van het primitieve kapitalisme’.48 Consequently, when the existing urban structure did not fit the plans envisioned, city officials could be quite rigorous and call for demolition. At first, incidental redevelopments were carried out, but in the early seventies it was clear that improvement was needed on a larger scale.49 In 1969 this led to the ‘Eerste Nota Stadsvernieuwing’, concentrating on rehabilitation (new construction and improvements in the inner city, but mostly sustaining the existing infrastructure) and reconstruction (large-scale demolition and new construction in the nineteenth-century neighbourhoods). Amsterdam was projected as a run-down city, in which the existing high building density, poor accessibility and an inefficient layout of city districts

47 H. Priemus, ‘Housing and urban management in The Netherlands’, The Netherlands Journal of Housing and Environmental Research 3 (1988) 1, 62. 48 Stadsarchief Amsterdam (SAA), arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam: persdocumentatie op onderwerp, inv. nr. 237: article in Haagse Post (July 14, 1979). 49 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 10, 84.

22 prompted demolition. ‘Lange jaren van gebrekkig onderhoud dreigen [ook stadsdelen die tussen 1920 en 1940 zijn gebouwd] tot de saneringsgetto’s van de toekomst te maken. Dit kan de stadsbestuurders van de toekomst voor schier onoverkomelijke problemen stellen’, a 1976 newspaper article stated.50 It was made clear that something had to happen – a grand revision of Amsterdam was required. The second cornerstone of the urban renewal policies was directed towards an update of the urban infrastructure. On the one hand, the advance of the automobile in every socioeconomic class resulted in the view that the city had to be adapted and made accessible for it. This was connected to the fact that many companies – especially in the manufacturing business – left the city after World War II. The most important motives for this were a lack of space and difficulties regarding accessibility and parking facilities. In order to stimulate the business sector, extensive plans were made to make the city car-friendly – meaning spacious roads and a lot of parking space.51 Additionally, efforts were undertaken to make Schiphol airport more accessible and work commenced to create a subway line in the capital. The so-called Oostlijn had been in the works for decades, but only in 1968 the municipality approved the envisioned Plan Stadsspoor and the project could finally get started. In addition to the large-scale renewal of neighbourhoods in the existing urban structure, there was a master plan for a newly constructed neighbourhood designed for the future: the Le Corbusier-inspired high-rise apartment blocks in the Bijlmermeer that were constructed in the late sixties and early seventies. This tabula rasa project started out as an ambitious way of creating the qualitatively outstanding ‘homes of the future’, reinterpreting the ideology of the garden city within a modern framework. This meant a radical turn away from the traditional city, without giving much heed to the street level activity that was stressed by Jane Jacobs. The apartment block itself, however, would be housing miscellaneous collective facilities and activities such as children’s day care and homework guidance. A home in one of the high-rise apartment blocks with beautiful views, surrounded by lush greenery, was what the modern city dweller was looking for – or so the city officials thought, in spite of the controversial nature of the Bijlmermeer plans from the very beginning given its modernist, clean slate approach.

50 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237: article Handelsblad (July 5, 1976). 51 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 9; Rooy, Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Tweestrijd om de hoofdstad, 462; M. Wagenaar, ‘Het paspoort van Amsterdam’, Rooilijn 39 (2006) 6, 273.

23

2.2 O R I G I N S O F V A C A N C Y Before full-fledged urban renewal took off, cases of vacancy in Amsterdam mostly had to do with dilapidation of buildings.52 But along the lines brought out above, the developments prompted by the renewal efforts themselves also had a large impact on vacancy in the city. First of all, preparations for demolition and renewal were set in motion. The grand scale upon which many projects were carried out turned Amsterdam into one big construction site. Before new buildings could replace the old ones, they had to be cleared. Similarly, the method of constructing the new subway line mentioned above required a clean slate on the ground level: the structural elements were constructed above ground, after which they were descended to subway level. In effect, this meant that all buildings at the surface had to be cleared and demolished – even if they were in perfect state. Like in many large building projects, however, there was a severe discrepancy between the several stages of the process; the execution of the plans was soon behind schedule. In many cases, buildings were standing empty for long time spans after their clearing, which forced up the number of vacant buildings in the city – most notably dwellings. It was no exception for blocks to stay vacant for three years before renovation or demolition was carried out – in the neighbourhood around the Nieuwmarkt even a vacancy period of four or five years was quite common. In 1978, some 6800 municipal homes were standing empty awaiting renovation. This high number was a result of the radical approach of the city government in the early seventies in actively detecting dilapidated buildings and blocks across the city, instead of awaiting reports of landlords or residents about buildings in need of renovation or renewal. That same year, however, there was still an annual number of 1200 houses that were cleared for these reasons. An additional factor in the duration of vacancy after clearing was the high number of objections by residents when it came to the demolition of their homes. These resulted in delays, followed by the boarding up of houses and then, decay.53 The problem was also related to miscommunications and several municipal departments working in a vacuum. Even employees of the different departments confirmed that there was a severe lack of clarity towards residents. Sometimes officials of several municipal departments paid visits to the same houses, asking their residents for the same information multiple times. And when plans for demolition in certain streets or blocks were announced, the department of Publieke Werken (Public Works) gave notice to its tenants by

52 H. de Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling. De strijd om stadsvernieuwing (Amsterdam 2010) 178. 53 Rooy, Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Tweestrijd om de hoofdstad, 461; Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 300; Duivenvoorden, Een voet tussen de deur; Projectmanagementbureau Gemeente Amsterdam, Het gezicht van Amsterdam. Ruimtelijke ontwikkelingen sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Interviews bij de gelijknamige documentaire (Amsterdam 2000) 71; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: article Haagse Post (January 21, 1978), article Amsterdams Stadsblad (January 25, 1978).

24 the first of the next month, while the department of Herhuisvesting (Rehousing) assumed a year or so before actual demolition would take place. There was mutual frustration, since one department could not proceed with its work before another department had finished its own. ‘Coördinatie is zoek bij gemeentelijke ‘diensten’,’ De Volkskrant headed at the start of 1977.54 The plans envisioned were simply on too grand a scale, which resulted in a somewhat paradoxical situation: in order to improve and renew the neighbourhood, dwellings were cleared, made uninhabitable and boarded up – but in the process this literally ruined the lives of those left behind in these liminal spaces. In the meantime, vacancy was increasing in both number and duration. Secondly, in addition to poor quality of the available housing, the urban renewal areas were, according to the municipality, too monotonous regarding the type of apartments. Supposedly there was a need for less small dwellings – which many neighbourhoods mostly consisted of at that point – and more large ones with four rooms or more.55 City residents, however, did not have a say in the municipal plans. Local officials expected their plans to be welcomed with great enthusiasm, but in fact they had no idea what people living in the neighbourhoods that were subject of their conceptions of space wanted. Newspaper articles from the late seventies show that there was a severe mismatch between supply and demand, which resulted in vacancy among the new dwellings in the Nieuwmarkt and Kinker neighbourhoods in particular; there were simply not enough big families to live there.56

‘Uit hoofde van de ‘evenwichtige samenstelling’ van de bevolking van Amsterdam, alsmede de vergroting van het ‘economisch draagvlak’ van de stad, moesten er rond de Nieuwmarkt gezinnen met kinderen komen te wonen, die er nu onvoldoende blijken te zijn. Voorbeeld van technocratische planning’57

The issue of discrepancy between supply and demand of certain types of housing would return in the 1980s in a more problematic manner, which we will elaborate on in Chapter Three. A third factor, in many cases inspired by the urban renewal efforts, was speculation. In the existing literature, this factor is somewhat overshadowed by the municipal renewal

54 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: article De Volkskrant (June 5, 1976), article De Volkskrant (January 10, 1977); article Nieuws van de Dag (February 19, 1977); article Viva (June 27, 1978). 55 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 83-84, 88; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237: article Haagse Post (July 14, 1979). 56 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 88, 91, 227; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237. 57 Ibidem: article Haagse Post (July 14, 1979).

25 efforts, but newspaper articles throughout the seventies show a wide indignation about the attitude of slum landlords on the one hand and foreign investment activities in Amsterdam on the other. As for the position of slum landlords or ‘huisjesmelkers’ in Dutch, urban renewal (at least seen from the view of the space conceivers from the municipality) was synonymous with improvement – and therefore with potentially higher rents. For these slum landlords, it was no exception to either have their buildings stand empty or only make small adaptations during long periods of time under the banner of renovation and subsequently raising the rent considerably. In the new monthly rent they could even include foregone rent during the period of ‘renovation’ – regardless of whether there was actual renovation work carried out or not. For many owners, dilapidation and demolition were also simply more profitable than restoring their older properties to meet the standard of an acceptable place to live. In neighbourhoods such as the Staatsliedenbuurt, this created a chasm between landlords and residents. The municipality, in principle, was allowed to summon the landlords to restore their properties, but it was unclear whether it continuously did so or not – this also had something to do with the fact that the municipality claimed to be unable to take action when a landlord put a jar of paint in the hallway of a vacant house and called it renovation. A number of newspaper articles from the mid-seventies appear to question this: ‘De pot verf van de renoverende eigenaar bewijst niet de onmacht, maar het gemak, waarmee men controle kan omzeilen.’58 It is also noted that landlords sometimes had judicial permission to leave their premises vacant and neglected for years, sometimes withdrawing homes from the distribution to tenants.59 On the other hand, much like today, there was the case of (foreign) investors buying up Amsterdam real estate. While many local companies left the city after World War II – resulting in a changing economic focus from industry to service but also a considerable amount of vacant office and retail buildings that were left behind by these companies – Amsterdam properties in this sector proved hugely popular among British investors in particular in the early 1970s. This was forcing up the prices of real estate by mutual actions of speculation, resulting in a severe disconnection with the real world and no one interested in renting the space. ‘Nu zitten ze met peperdure leegstaande kantoren en winkelruimtes. En hoge huren die gekoppeld zijn aan de inflatie, maken de ruimten nog meer onverhuurbaar’, as was reported in an article in local paper Het Parool in October 1975. The same year, a

58 Ibidem, inv. nr. 238: article Amsterdams Stadsblad (March 1, 1978). 59 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 238, 282, 315, 322, 356, 372; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237: article De Volkskrant (March 13, 1975), article Het Volkskrant (May 15, 1976), article Wierings Weekblad (July 28, 1976), article Trouw (November 20, 1976); inv. nr. 238: article Het Parool (March 16, 1976), article De Waarheid (January 27, 1978), article Amsterdams Stadsblad (March 1, 1978), article De Volkskrant (March 11, 1978); arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 321: letters to Dienst Herhuisvesting; inv. nr. 366: letters to Dienst Herhuisvesting.

26 number of 250.000 square meters of empty office space was recorded, which in 1978 had increased to 300.000 square meters. These investment firms were sometimes involved in residential real estate as well, leaving buildings vacant for long periods of time and subsequently selling them ‘horizontally’ (per floor) with usuries.60 These firms ‘[eigenen] zich het ‘recht’ toe honderden distributiewoningen (voor laagstbetaalden) aan het bestand te onttrekken, de bewoners hiervan uit hun huizen, en daarmee vaak uit hun buurt, te verdrijven en zo vervolgens als (luxe-)appartementen met (woeker)winst te verkopen,’ Het Parool reported in the summer of 1978.61

Vacancy, however, was not the sole preserve of the existing building stock. In addition to the large-scale renewal of neighbourhoods and infrastructure in the existing city that caused an increasing number of houses to stand empty, there were also cases of newly constructed homes that were vacant for long periods of time. The Bijlmermeer apartment blocks mentioned earlier were a prime example of this. In their enthusiasm to make a contribution to the field of innovative housing and urban planning, local officials did not take into account the criticisms from more experienced countries or the views of city residents, and made premature agreements with so-called system builders.62 The original plan, however, was never carried out as envisioned, due to major misfortunes arising from financial difficulties. Soon after initial constructions at the site in 1966, the project and the land costs in particular proved more expensive than had been budgeted for. This resulted in severe cuts in the number and quality of facilities. Inside the apartment buildings, part of the elevators was crossed out, as was the presence of a janitor in each block. As for the external facilities, the initially crafty park pattern in between blocks was substituted by a less laborious proliferation of bushes and other low-maintenance plants. The provision of schools and shops was also sharply reduced, but their placement was already accounted for; the empty premises that remained vacant for a long time recalled the once heartfelt ideology behind the project. But that was not all. The access roads and public transport connections to and from the Bijlmer were delayed a great deal, which made it difficult for potential residents to actually reach their new homes. And as a cherry on top, the rents of the apartments proved higher than expected.63

60 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237: article Het Parool (October 17, 1975), article Handelsblad (October 15, 1975); inv. nr. 238: article Het Parool (July 12, 1978), article De Nieuwe Linie (July 22, 1978); Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 9. 61 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: article Het Parool (July 12, 1978). 62 Rooy, Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Tweestrijd om de hoofdstad, 387-388; Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 60; P.J. Knegtmans, Amsterdam. Een geschiedenis (Amsterdam 2011) 381. 63 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 60-61; Knegtmans, Amsterdam, 381.

27

Taking all of these factors together, the Bijlmer package was not as charming as it was supposed to be. By default, the demand of these new dwellings was much lower than hoped for – not to mention than was expected. In the context of vacancy, the empty collective spaces that were intended for schools, shops and the like were now joined by a relatively large number of unoccupied apartments. This made for a situation that was fundamentally different from what was happening in the city centre, where buildings were standing empty on the grounds of either decay or making way for new infrastructure while many people were in need of a home. Here, however, brand-new, never inhabited apartments were constructed, and nobody wanted to live in them. This also had something to do with population growth in Amsterdam, which turned out to be not as swift as expected. The low-rent dwellings with gardens in so-called ‘groeikernen’ such as Purmerend or Almere proved much more attractive than the expensive high-rises in the urban periphery. Vacancy among Bijlmer apartments occurred from the completion of the very first apartment block and contributed greatly to the rise in the number of vacant new homes in the city – the municipal ‘Dienst Volkshuisvesting’ stated in 1975 that most of the vacant new houses in Amsterdam were located in the Bijlmer.64 From 1977 on, however, it became increasingly difficult to find tenants for the dwellings. This resulted in a merger of the different housing corporations into one umbrella corporation: Nieuw Amsterdam. By 1985, a quarter of all apartments of the once promising Bijlmermeer were standing empty.65

The qualitative sources of information used to outline the developments with regard to vacancy in Amsterdam in the 1960s and 1970s show the many origins of vacancy during that time, and paint a plausible picture of the problem. However: what about the numbers? To complement the argument sketched above, qualitative data was gathered from the statistical yearbooks of the department of Research, Information and Statistics of the Municipality of Amsterdam. The yearbooks include a section on the housing stock and public housing since 1897, in which the housing shortage in Amsterdam is a recurring factor. Surprisingly, these sections mention the number of uninhabited dwellings as early as 1916, running until the wartime yearbook covering the period 1940 to 1944. The number of these vacant dwellings, however, is relatively negligible. In the early post-war period this data left the stage, only to return in 1967 – at a time when the process of, and body of thought around, urban renewal started to take off. After this point, there was a sheer increase in the number of vacant homes, as can be seen in Figure 1. In our period of interest the number quadrupled,

64 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237: article Trouw (January 28, 1975); article Nieuws van de Dag (January 28, 1975); article Het Parool (January 14, 1975). 65 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 62.

28 increasing from 1.572 vacant homes in 1967 to 9.085 vacant homes in 1980, accounting for respectively 0,6 percent and 3 percent of the total housing stock.

Figure 1: Home vacancy in Amsterdam 1967-199166

Although the peak of empty dwellings was yet to come in the 1980s, relatively speaking the number of vacant homes as a percentage of the total housing stock during those years stabilised. From 1968 onwards, however, the data on housing vacancy is split according to the time during which the homes had been standing empty. Here, you can see a clear trend in housing that was vacant for over six months, thereby excluding frictional vacancy as an effect of moving. The city government explicitly noted in the course of the 1970s that the period of time between the moving out of a former resident and the moving in of a new one had increased from a few weeks to three to four months. This had to do with higher demands in living comfort and more exhaustive refurbishing of the dwelling before moving in.67 The rising duration of vacancy in the housing stock as shown below underlines that there was structural problem at work here. The figure also shows nicely the rise and fall – however modest – of the number of vacant new homes. This is in line with and most likely caused by

66 Data derived from the yearbooks (1970-2015) of the Amsterdam office for Research, Information and Statistics (Onderzoek, Informatie en Statistiek), currently known as Amsterdam in Cijfers. See list of sources consulted for further information. The data from 1971 is missing, due to a population census that same year. 67 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237: article Nieuws van de Dag (January 28, 1975); inv. nr. 238: article Het Parool (November 11, 1976); inv. nr. 321.

29 the case of the high-rise apartment blocks in the Bijlmermeer and its newfound residents in the late 1970s, as will be elaborated on in the next section. Even though the amount of vacant homes in relation to the total housing stock does not seem too sweeping, the issue evoked strong reactions. The many newspaper articles addressing vacancy in the late 1970s in particular cried shame upon the problem, reporting on the various factors involved in it and denouncing many individual cases. At the end of the 1970s, Amsterdam was a city in decay, on the verge of a downfall in the eyes of some observers. As historian Richter Roegholt noted in 1978:

‘Schaamteloze leegstand, verkrotting en speculatie met grond en woningen; kraakacties en onberekenbaar politie-ingrijpen; leegstand zonder sloop, sloop zonder nieuwbouw, nieuwbouw te duur voor de buurtbewoners; kaalslag voor decenniën, kantoren in plaats van woningen, overloop in plaats van woningbouw. … Als een psychiatrische patiënt op zoek naar een nieuw beeld van zichzelf drijft de grote stad stuurloos en onaanspreekbaar naar de raadsverkiezingen’68

As was to be expected, the situation called for action. In contrast to the active attitude of the municipality in identifying and preparing potential objects for urban renewal, their handling of the vacancy problem was for a long time of a more passive nature. City residents, however, increasingly started to take a stand and take action on their own. These attitudes towards vacancy will be discussed in the next section.

2.3 R E V E R B E R A T I O N S O F V A C A N C Y At a time when many people, mostly in the age groups of under 30 and over 65 years old, were struggling to find a home, the situation met with great incomprehension. How was it possible for a city with a housing shortage on such a grand scale to have so many buildings stand empty, sometimes for years? In this sense, vacancy was part of a political game, a phenomenon arising from the ideals of modernisation. The group of city makers, those in the domain of conceived space, had an ideal that differed fundamentally from that of many, mostly younger, city residents. It was a case of large versus small scale, a vision for the future versus respect for the past, new versus old. The vacant space that resulted from the urban renewal efforts of the city government therefore became a contested issue. Residents of neighbourhoods subject to the renewal schemes mostly protested against the demolition in

68 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 259.

30 their vicinity, using lawful means to their end. Their actions can be considered prompted by, and part of, perceived space. The out-of-the-ordinary actions of mostly young home seekers, and squatters in particular – sometimes illegal – can be viewed as lived space. In this section, these different attitudes with regard to vacancy, as well as the actions of the municipality, will be discussed in a chronological manner.

As noted at the start of this chapter, the first occurrences of empty houses being occupied illegally but – and this is crucial – openly came to light in 1965. The actions were prompted by the mounting housing shortage, which was by then far from new – the way that people dealt with it was, however. The shift can be linked to the changing demographics of Amsterdam in the 1960s. The city became the domain of young people rather than traditional workers, as both industry declined and more people were attracted to the city for a university education and for its cultural offerings. This resulted in the presence of a large group of people with strong idealistic and potentially radical views in the city, also having more free time than others on their hands to get involved in active social movements. Additionally, the influx of this new, relatively youthful population resulted in a growing housing shortage for young people. The combination made for a pro-active attitude towards the situation, and specifically in the context of the paradox housing shortage versus vacancy.69 In 1966 the social movement Provo, well known for its provocative rallies in the mid- sixties, came up with a playful plan for all vacant houses in the city to have their front doors painted white, so that they could be confiscated by whoever needed a place to live. Following the Witte Fietsenplan (White Bike Plan) of 1965 – aimed at a free shared bicycle system – this campaign was named the Witte Huizenplan or White House Plan, using the slogan ‘Redt un pandje bezet un pandje’: occupy a building to save a building. The vacant Paleis op de Dam was crowned as the symbol of vacancy in Amsterdam, and proposed as the new location for city hall or 'kollektieve klaastempel van het magies sentrum' (see Figure 2). This can be considered a precursor to the squatting movement. The phenomenon of occupying empty buildings was named squatting, or ‘kraken’ in Dutch – referring to the noisy nature of the act itself on the one hand, and to the use of the word in World War II when addressing attacks of the Dutch Resistance on the other. The latter gave the term a somewhat romantic, noble connotation. This was extended to a notion of solidarity in the practice of squatting: people did not only squat a house for themselves, but most of all for the people who needed a roof above their head. As is shown in the many newspaper articles addressing the topic in the 1960s and 1970s, this concerned young and elderly people rather than families with

69 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 71-72; Duivenvoorden, Een voet tussen de deur.

31

Figure 2: Poster for the 'Witte Huizenplan' by Provo (1966)70

70 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG), arch. nr. 02030, inv. nr. 59a: Pamflet Witte Huizenplan (1966).

32 children. In this sense, squatting was carried out more in groups than individually. This was also expressed by a squatting guidebook, a political account in favour of squatting vacant buildings, and the installation of a 'kraakspreekuur', or squatting consultation hour, where one could go to for tips and tricks regarding squatting. This active and stimulating attitude within the movement was also related to its widespread belief that many of the urban renewal blocks destined for demolition were still suitable to live in – at the very least until the buildings would in fact be demolished. As the clearing of building blocks proceeded in anticipation of demolition, city residents and home seekers realised more and more that it would take some time before demolition would actually take place. This was related to the aforementioned financial difficulties and the grand-scale nature of the projects. This realisation motivated many home seekers to take a step further and resort to squatting, while at the same time justifying these illegal actions.71 The squatters’ actions were geared towards a greater good: preventing the municipality’s functionalistic and destructive ‘cityvorming’. Since the urban renewal projects were carried out mostly in the inner city and in the nineteenth-century neighbourhoods and thus a large pool of vacant buildings was readily available there, in the mid-seventies 90 percent of squatted dwellings in Amsterdam were located in these areas. Squatters’ organisations such as Aktie70 and Amsterdamse Aktie Partij were particularly active in trying to locate vacant buildings and other potential objects for squatting. They were frustrated by the paradox of housing shortage versus lengthy vacancy, and were not afraid to show it. Their pamphlets called for action and help from neighbourhood residents in pointing out empty spaces: ‘Help ons de lege woonruimte bevrijden’.72 When these vacant living spaces were identified, Aktie70 sent out press releases with the exact addresses, even announcing tours to visit these properties. Aside from these more public actions, they contacted the City Council to try and legally obtain vacant spaces for communal living. There was a distinct emphasis on the provision of housing for young people, and to a lesser extent, for the elderly. These people fell outside of the normal distribution norms, which were still geared towards more traditional forms of living (i.e. families) instead of one-person households or communal living. Some local officials realised early on that the municipality’s, and society’s, mind-set had to change in order to accept and embrace alternative forms of housing, but for a long time this was not converted into official policy. And even if young people were able to find a place to live, it was commonplace to have to pay extortionate rents.73

71 Rooy, Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Tweestrijd om de hoofdstad, 460, 462; Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 229, 245, 258; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237. 72 Ibidem: pamphlet Aktie70 (December 28, 1970). 73 Ibidem, inv. nr. 237 – 238: multiple newspaper articles; arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 321: internal memo’s municipality.

33

In the course of the 1970s, over a dozen action groups fighting against vacancy and the housing problem regularly cooperated, claiming that the municipality did not take enough action regarding long-time vacant buildings and against the foul practices of slum landlords and some foreign investors. Backed by community centres, they contended that the municipality was biased towards powerful parties such as large enterprises and investors. They stated that if the municipality would not lay claim to buildings that had been vacant for over six months, they would do so themselves.74 And they did. Some organisations even claimed they had no choice but resort to the occupation of long-term vacant buildings, since the government did not cooperate in finding a solution regarding the provision of youth housing. This could be expressed somewhat dramatically: ‘Men heeft besloten voor zover men dat aankan, langdurig leegstaande woningen voor bewoning geschikt te maken, langdurig leegstaande bedrijfspanden te betrekken met het doel althans voor een gedeelte van de grote groep jongeren de overwintering enigszins dragelijk te maken.’75 The Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood in particular experienced a lot of squatting. ‘Dat lag voor de hand omdat er al in een vroeg stadium was ontruimd voor de verkeersdoorbraak en dus niet vanwege de slechte kwaliteit. Een heleboel blokken hebben vier of vijf jaar leeggestaan,’ said architect Hein de Haan.76 Furthermore, it was not only relatively easy to squat a house in many areas – for some local officials were not careful in taking measures to board up the buildings decently – but also, it was commonplace to make a deal with the demolition contractors or bribe them for a small amount of money. Overall, squatters were on good terms with these contractors. Since the vacancy in many cases concerned groups of buildings, it was inviting to groups and the establishment of a temporary, somewhat fluid community. From the first ‘city nomads’ who took over vacant buildings on the ‘islands’ of Kattenburg and Wittenburg in the mid-sixties to the full-fledged squatting movement, active throughout the city, that came to flourish in the early seventies, the action of squatting was more a lifestyle than just the illegal occupation of a building. It could be considered some form of urban folklore, a subculture that was a cross-pollination of life, work, and culture with the presence of small businesses, theatres, diners, among others.77 This was enabled by the sense of freedom that was offered by the empty buildings, these liminal spaces in between different uses that could be reinterpreted again and again. Possibilities seemed endless.

74 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 229, 245, 258; D. Treep, De langdurige leegstand van woningen in Amsterdam. Een inventarisatie van de woningen, die op 1 april 1975 langer dan een half jaar leegstonden (Amsterdam 1976) 1; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237 – 238: multiple newspaper articles; arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 321: internal memo’s municipality. 75 Ibidem, inv. nr. 321: article Noord-Amsterdammer (November 23, 1973). See Attachment 1 for several examples of pamphlets, press releases and letters to local authorities as found in the Amsterdam City Archives. 76 Projectmanagementbureau Gemeente Amsterdam, Het gezicht van Amsterdam, 71. 77 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 130-131, 136,169-170, 352, 366, 372; Duivenvoorden, Een voet tussen de deur.

34

Although the bulk of vacant buildings concerned homes, there was also a considerable amount of buildings of different natures that were standing empty and were subject to squatting. After the departure of many companies after the war, for example, there was a crash in the real-estate market at the end of the 1970s, causing many more office buildings in central Amsterdam to become vacant.78 Squatters were particularly good at creating multifunctional communities within these large complexes, which in their opinion had to be retained no matter what. This multifunctionality was to be an example for the rest of the city: ‘Wij willen een stad met buurten waar wonen, spelen, werken, leren en winkelen vlakbij en door elkaar gebeurt voor jonge en oude mensen.’79 Among the pioneers in colonising the areas filled with abandoned buildings were students and artists, of whom the latter used spaces that were not directly suitable to live in as ateliers or for collective functions. Well- known artists included writer Gerard Reve, visual artist Aat Veldhoen, choreographer Rudi van Dantzig, poet Simon Vinkenoog and photographer Paul Huf. In the new millennium, it is commonplace for vacant buildings and built heritage to gain a new purpose in the socio- cultural rather than the residential sphere, which has attracted a lot of academic attention. This will be discussed further in Chapter Four. Surprisingly, though, there is also much evidence found in newspapers from the 1970s – rather than in the literature concerning this period – about vacant buildings being squatted explicitly to create public space in general, such as clubhouses or other forms of meeting places for people and organisations. These specifically socio-cultural facilities were until then not (sufficiently) provided for by the city government.80

In general in the mid-1960s, neighbourhood residents were still somewhat passive in their reaction towards the radical demolition plans, awaiting their relocation to other parts of the city and relatively neutral considering large-scale demolition. Over the course of the 1960s, however, the middle classes rediscovered the charm of old inner-city neighbourhoods such as the Jordaan with its long and narrow streets. This prompted neighbourhood resistance against demolition and a strong movement in favour of preservation and renovation. ‘[De] plannenmakers kregen te maken met wezens die niet alleen ‘Boe’ maar ook ‘Bah’ zeiden.’81 Especially when boarded-up and otherwise vacant houses began to dominate the streetscape they took action, as becomes clear from the correspondences between municipality and residents. Most reports are distinctly local in nature, concerning the direct

78 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 372. 79 Squatters’ slogan in: Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 377, 395-396. 80 Ibidem, 325; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237 - 238: newspaper articles. 81 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 156-157; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 237: article Haagse Post (July 14, 1979).

35 vicinity of the writers. Many of them are concerned with the same paradox as squatters – vacancy versus housing shortage – but they simply had a more conventional, modest way of acting on it. They were activists within the boundaries of their perceived space. They do, without exception, express their worries, questioning the moral correctness of vacancy and the motives of the owners of these spaces: ‘De leegstand (naar mijn schatting b.v. P.C. Hooftstraat 25 woningen) ontstaat door eigenaren die “op de woning gaan zitten” en onder het motto “verbouwing” de zaak jaren onbewoond houden’.82 See Attachment 2 for another example that is typical for letters by neighbourhood residents. As far as squatting was concerned, neighbourhood residents were quite startled initially – but the idealistic intentions of the squatters made their actions somewhat acceptable. ‘Hun manier om aandacht te vragen voor speculatie en leegstand had ook zijn goede kanten. Kraken werd haast een eerzaam middel tot maatschappijverandering’.83 As for buildings that were standing empty due to speculation, local inhabitants welcomed the new neighbours for having taken matters in their own hands. Furthermore, in general the squatters considerably improved the state of the buildings they occupied, fixing up properties where they could and making spaces inhabitable again by (re)installing electricity and water supply. As such they invested thousands of guilders in the improvement of their place of residence. In general, they did not rely on their vicinity as far as their living conditions were concerned; squatting was exemplary for a self-sufficient mentality. As can be concluded from archival sources, they were also very realistic about this. The empty houses were, as mentioned before, for some part made uninhabitable - sometimes in such a radical manner that the process was not easily reversed. Sometimes, this meant that squatters themselves would clear a building soon after its initial occupation. 'De situatie in het pand was van dien aard dat zelfs daklozen het niet zagen zitten: gas, water, licht en sanitair ontbraken.'84 Many spaces offered possibilities for improvement, though. Seen this combination of their fixing up of properties and the lively subculture and facilities they brought with them, the presence of the illegal residents somewhat illuminated the dreary appearance of the renewal neighbourhoods in the urban landscape with their boarded-up, empty houses.85 ‘Er ontstond een sprankelende jeugdcultuur met grote feesten (en véél feesten). De vrije liefde bloeide als nergens anders en nooit tevoren, gelukkig maar

82 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 321: letters from neighbourhood residents (1972-1976). 83 Rooy, Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Tweestrijd om de hoofdstad, 460. 84 Duivenvoorden, Een voet tussen de deur; Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 322; H. Priemus, ‘Squatters in Amsterdam. Urban social movement, urban managers or something else?’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 7 (1983) 3, 418; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238; arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 321. 85 I. Vermaas, Tot ziens op Kattenburg! De wederopbouw van de Oostelijke Eilanden 1960-1980. Persoonlijke herinneringen (Amsterdam 2006) 22; Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 156, 336, 349-350, 353, 371; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: article Haagse Post (January 21, 1978).

36 dat er nog geen aids was. Het was een bruisend geheel van freaks, studenten en ander jong volk’, noted Leo Adriaensen, historian of the Staatslieden neighbourhood (which had the largest number of squatters in Amsterdam at the end of the 1970s). However, this positive note contrasted with the feeling of some residents that the squatters were responsible for even greater delay in the execution of urban renewal plans. In some neighbourhoods the clandestine occupants also started to outnumber the original residents, which could change the attitude of the latter towards squatters in the sense that they did not feel at ease anymore. Furthermore, there emerged some disgruntlement with the fact that many squatters did not pay any rent, but did enjoy the ‘luxury’ of running water and electricity – although, as noted before, for the most part they attended to these facilities themselves.86

The authorities, then, had their own way of dealing with vacancy, and also with the reactions to vacancy by city residents – be it neighbourhood committees or squatters. First of all, the municipality tried to discern the notion of vacancy in the city by noting that part of these vacant dwellings were subject to so-called administrative vacancy but were not in fact vacant. This administrative vacancy – referring to those dwellings that were officially registered as vacant with the municipality – always lagged behind the actual vacancy numbers. In 1975, a study on vacant dwellings in Amsterdam showed that there were 8.337 dwellings registered as vacant, while the actual number was 1.416 (excluding vacant new dwellings), noted researcher D. Treep. Furthermore, in July 1980 the municipality issued a press release noting that in spite of 11.417 dwellings that were registered as vacant, the number of dwellings that in fact were unused was around 7.000. The discrepancy between these figures was due to several factors. Firstly, part of the dwellings had already obtained a residential permit, while the new residents had not moved in yet due to refurbishing, illness or other reasons. Secondly, dwellings could have been vacant due to death, while the estate was not settled yet. Third, when people were treated in a mental health institution for over a year, their home was registered as vacant, while it was not available for other home seekers. Lastly, a dwelling was registered as vacant when the former residents had been removed from the register and the new residents had not registered(yet). According to Treep, in 1975 this last factor amounted to 52 percent of registered vacant homes. Additionally, the municipality did not always check whether long-term administratively vacant houses were

86 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 156-350, 356; Duivenvoorden, Een voet tussen de deur.

37 lived in or not. These factors contributed to a considerable difference between administrative and actual vacancy, especially in regard to cases with a short period of vacancy.87 Even though the municipality – rightfully – attempted to downplay the problem of (home) vacancy, the public sentiment forced the authorities to do something about it. Some newspapers did report the discrepancy between administrative and actual vacancy, trying to put the situation in perspective: ‘Het vermeende schandaal van de hoofdstedelijke leegstand kan dus worden beschouwd als een boze droom, die bij nadering van het daglicht blijkt te zijn verschrompeld tot minimale proporties,’ local newspaper Amsterdams Stadsblad noted in 1976.88 To no avail, though: the Amsterdam City Archives contain a wealth of documents, newspaper articles and correspondences dealing with vacancy, which shows the active attitude of Amsterdam’s inhabitants. Not only did neighbourhood residents write dozens of letters, but the actions and accusations of the squatting community also pushed the local authorities towards a more active, self-aware state of mind. Self-evidently, the city government itself was far from univocal. Just as there were disagreements and discrepancies between different municipal departments, not all local officials viewed the issue of vacancy in the same way. In general, there was a lack of clarity with regard to what proportions the problem had reached. The total amount of (registered) vacant dwellings rose from circa 5.000 to circa 8.000 between 1972 and 1974, which corresponds with an increasing amount of newspaper articles reporting on the issue – but also with a large, and in the coming years also rising, number of inquiries and requests for more insight regarding vacancy from within the city government itself, to a large extent from members of the City Council or from other departments. Even members of parliament started to raise questions on the issue of vacancy. Questions were directed towards the Dienst Herhuisvesting, and, in part, to the Dienst Volkshuisvesting. Consequently local authorities became much more pro- active in tracking down empty premises throughout the city, sometimes aided by the aforementioned letters from neighbourhood residents, by the instalment by Dienst Herhuisvesting of a special division to check vacancy in the city: Leegstandscontrole. This division was in charge of tracking down dwellings that were vacant but had not yet been reported to the authorities, but also in checking whether spaces that were proclaimed empty by a range of sources were in fact vacant. The latter had amounted to large numbers by 1975, causing the division to almost succumb under the pressure of having to check hundreds of supposedly vacant buildings. Subsequently, the department was criticized by

87 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 323; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: newspaper articles; Bureau voor Statistiek Gemeente Utrecht, Leegstaande woningen in Utrecht (Utrecht 1978-1987) 1; Treep, De langdurige leegstand van woningen in Amsterdam. 88 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: article Amsterdams Stadsblad (December 1, 1976).

38 many in regard to the processing of the data they received from neighbourhood residents and the likes.89 In 1975, the head of Dienst Herhuisvesting stated, in an answer to one of these letters:

‘Gebaseerd op ten dele typisch Amsterdamse ontwikkelingen (actiegroepen, bewonerscomités, buurtgroepen, goedwillende lieden uit de burgerij, e.d.) maar ook als gevolg van brieven aan de Wethouder, vragen in de Raad en vragen van politieke vakbewegingen, kerkelijke en maatschappelijke werkgroeperingen, is een situatie ontstaan, waarin een stroom van lijsten op deze dienst loskomt van al dan niet leegstaande woningen’90

The statement – representative of the bulk of reactions sent out by Dienst Herhuisvesting between 1975-1980 – clearly demonstrates the active attitude of the urban population at the time, be it officials, activists or ordinary inhabitants keeping an eye out for their neighbourhood. Many of the reported spaces were, however, already known by Leegstandscontrole, according to the department director, but even more importantly: there was simply not enough time to check all records. Many replies to reports of vacant buildings include an apology for not being able to guarantee a timely processing of the information, while underlining that the department was doing everything in its power to fight the vacancy problem. Internal municipal memos, however, show that in spite of the large efforts made, the degree of success was rising but not viewed as sufficient. More measures were taken: at the end of the 1970s, the instalment of the ‘meldingsplicht’ or notification requirement in case a dwelling became available was intended to encourage homeowners to report their available housing for home seekers and to fight vacancy. Homeowners were required to report their dwelling within a week of it becoming vacant, also stating whether or not a renovation was planned and if so, indicating the length of this renovation. When they failed to do so and kept their property vacant, these homeowners could be subject to a jail sentence of up to three months or a fine of up to five thousand guilders. See Attachment 3 for the full articles, and for examples of both questions from the City Council and forms with which Leegstandscontrole would check the state and actual vacancy of reported dwellings.91 Many suggestions of neighbourhood inhabitants on the one hand and the actions of the squatting community on the other involved changing the original function of the building.

89 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 321: internal memos and letters (1970-76). 90 Ibidem, reaction of the head of Dienst Herhuisvesting in reply to a letter by the president of formal neighbourhood groups (April 23, 1975). 91 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: newspaper articles; arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 321-322: internal memo’s and letters (1970-79).

39

Excluding properties that were left abandoned due to decay and dilapidation, this could be interpreted as a logical effect of the building having been vacant for a long time: it had become obsolete regarding its original function and moved into a liminal state of being. For a considerable amount of vacant buildings, especially those owned by foreign investors, it was very unclear what the future of these buildings looked like.92 Squatters seized this opportunity in turning these spaces into whatever they saw fit – reinventing them, so to speak. The municipality, however, had not always been receptive to changing functions of a building’s purpose. In the mid-twentieth century, changing the original purpose of a building was considered undesirable. The Mayor & City Council stated in 1955 that century-old canal houses and other houses in the inner city were increasingly used for different purposes that were not in accordance with the nature of the building, such as industry or a garage: ‘Hierdoor worden oude gevels gedegradeerd tot façaden, welke een fabriek of een ander niet met het uiterlijk in overeenstemming zijnd gebruik camoufleren en aldus van het wezen van het oorspronkelijke gebouw slechts een misleidende herinnering achterlaten.’93 Throughout the 1970s, however, the transformation of buildings became more and more open to discussion – although on the whole it can be argued that the selection of suitable spaces (according to the authorities) was quite narrow, also due to bureaucratic requirements. In 1970, for example, the municipality rejected a request to use one of its buildings – standing empty for a long time – as a children’s day-care centre, claiming that research had shown that the space was not fit for this purpose. No particular reason was given, however. It also proved difficult to reach an agreement with property owners on temporary leases of buildings waiting for demolition. In case of transformation into living space the cumbersome progression was associated with the possibly large investments required to make the buildings a suitable place to live. The type of buildings that could be subject to transformation was mostly vacant office space. Notably, as with squatters, the municipality regularly intended to give these buildings a new allocation of a cultural nature.94 At the end of the 1970s, however, a new approach took root among city officials. In 1978, Jan Schaefer took office as city council member for urban renewal and housing, among others. He was a proponent of the ‘compact city’, making better use of the existing city and facilities. Under his authority, in 1979 the Stuurgroep Aanvullende Woningbouwlocaties (STAW) was created; a workgroup aimed at researching alternative locations in the city where dwellings could be realised, such as fallow areas, run-down business areas and

92 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: newspaper articles. 93 Article in Gemeenteblad Amsterdam, 25 februari 1955, in: Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 49. 94 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 321: letter of Mayor and City Council to Studenten Werkbureau Amsterdam (December 3, 1970), internal memo’s (1969-1977); extract from the ‘Boek der Besluiten van Burgemeester en Wethouders van Amsterdam (April 14, 1970); inv. nr. 413.

40 spaces intended for the business sector. In this context, fighting vacancy was a cornerstone of new municipal policy. This resulted in an increased production of housing, in locations that were formerly intended for another purpose and also where decayed housing used to be commonplace. With regard to squatters, local officials developed a dual strategy that was open and flexible on the one hand – offering the legalisation of squatters’ living situation – and took strong action on the other, in case squatters would not accept the municipal proposition.95 This policy would only come in full effect in the 1980s, which we will discuss in Chapter Three. The local authorities were undoubtedly compelled to change their initially passive attitude towards vacancy by the actions of the squatting community. From the viewpoint of the Mayor and City Council, the manifestation of squatters was highly undesirable. The municipal urban renewal projects already had to deal with delays and difficulties in carrying out the work as it was, and the presence of illegal residents in buildings destined for demolition only made things worse. The squatters’ community, however, was relatively indifferent: ‘Polak kan nu wel geïrriteerd zijn door de kraakacties, maar dan moet hij wel bedenken, dat die het gevolg zijn van een veel groter kwaad dan kraken: leegstand in een tijd van woningnood,’ spokesman Jan Bosman of the national consultative body of squatting groups noted in 1978 with regard to the reaction of Amsterdam mayor Polak.96 This was related to the legal security offered by a decree of the Law Lords in 1971, in which the entering of vacant homes was tolerated. Squatters acquired the ‘huisrecht’ or ‘home rights’ that protected them from a trespassing charge by showing the police that they had the intention to inhabit the premises, demonstrated through the placement of a table, a chair and a place to sleep. This process was often carried out right after an empty building was occupied. In an attempt to constrain the opportunities of occupying an empty building, in 1973 minister of Justice Dries van Agt proposed a ‘Anti-Kraakwet’ or anti-squatting bill to make squatting illegal. Efforts in this direction were made throughout the seventies, but the law was never adopted. In the 1980s, however, another law was: the ‘Leegstandswet’ or vacancy bill. ‘Een dergelijke wet maakt de anti-kraakwet overbodig omdat ze niet het symptoom kraken bestrijdt, maar de oorzaak: leegstand,’ member of the Senate Hedy d’Ancona noted. The Amsterdam city government and critics of the anti-squatting bill, such as the Raad van Kerken (Council of Churches) alike shared this view. They also argued that

95 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 263-265, 269-270, 290, 381. 96 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam: persdocumentatie op onderwerp, inv. nr. 238: article De Volkskrant (February 27, 1978).

41 the bill unjustly criminalised squatters.97 The Leegstandswet will be discussed in greater depth in the next chapter.

In comparison to the urban renewal areas in the old city, the case of the Bijlmermeer can be considered of a different order. Here, a (albeit partial) solution to the vacant new homes announced itself already at the end of the 1970s, when a new pool of potential residents was found in the Surinamese (who came to The Netherlands after the independence of their country in 1975), refugees and other new countrymen. Housing corporations jumped at the chance and liberalised the entry requirements for residents, and in some cases offering additional housing benefits. A large part of the immigrants had a lower income and a different family structure than the young urban professionals that were initially expected to live there, which on the one hand meant that on average more people inhabited one apartment, in some cases large families. One the other hand, somewhat paradoxically, part of the vacancy remained – though a very specific kind. The more modest incomes of the new residents did not allow for every family to have a car and in some cases even bikes, which meant that the spacious parking garages largely stayed empty.98 The sizable vacancy of collective spaces made public life in the Bijlmer somewhat bland. This resulted in robberies and assaults among neighbourhood residents and further damaged the reputation of the area. However, it also prompted people to take action themselves and demand better facilities in the vicinity of their homes, mostly by squatting the empty but closed-off premises of erstwhile supermarkets and parking spaces. In the case of the Bijlmer, the make-up of this group of people was, somewhat surprisingly, different from those in their twenties and thirties actively fighting for a place to live in the city centre. Here, it was teenagers on the one hand, and somewhat more elderly people on the other. In 1976, youth association Independiënte protested the poor facilities for their age group, demanding a clubhouse. The youthful group squatted a space that was intended to be a supermarket, aiming to draw attention from the municipality – that had been ignoring them up until then – to their situation. In the same year, the Soboveer group for people over the age of 40 (Sociëteit van Boven de Veertig) squatted an empty bicycle shed at Bijlmerplein. Although their cause was in effect illegal, they could count on the sympathies of many and did not have to fear a clearing of the space. ‘Men had hier zelfs waardering voor de Bijlmergrijsaards die in de vroege ochtenduren met koevoet en hamer voor zichzelf en

97 Duivenvoorden, Een voet tussen de deur; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: multiple newspaper articles. Citation: article Haagse Post (January 25, 1978). 98 Knegtmans, Amsterdam, 381-382; Atzema, Stad in, stad uit, 5; SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 322: article Vrije Volk (April 2, 1974).

42 hun medemens een sociëteitsruimte kraakten’, a newspaper article noted in June 1976. In spite of the lack of cooperation from the city government, Soboveer managed to create a social platform for the Bijlmer elderly, stimulating social interaction and providing recreational activities: ceramics, carpentry, gymnastics and festive social gatherings (‘de soos’ in Dutch). Members of Soboveer cried shame of the position of the municipality, not allowing the organisation to make use of part of the empty retail space – amounting to over 2000m2 by that time - on the central Bijlmerplein.99 The situation in the high-rise apartment blocks in the Bijlmermeer shows the repercussions of an initial plan that was implemented regardless of increasingly obvious costs; for a long time an alternative plan was not considered. The distinct ideology behind the project proved unrealistic. As was the case in the urban renewal plans for more inner-city neighbourhoods, the central Nieuwmarktbuurt in particular, the conceived space of local officials and city planners did not correspond with what city residents actually wanted. Coupled with the rising costs and the eventual cuts in many facilities that could have been beneficial to the neighbourhood, the area was forced into a somewhat comatose state of being. It was a skeleton, in possession of blood in the form of the residents, but lacking some crucial organs; keeping the blood from running the way it was supposed to. This resulted in a fair amount of social problems in the following decades.

2.4 T H E V I S I B I L I T Y O F V A C A N C Y The grand schemes for urban renewal in the 1960s and, to a lesser extent, in the 1970s had caused radical change in the streetscapes of Amsterdam’s city centre and nineteenth-century neighbourhoods. In order to reach the ideal of modernity, a substantial part of the existing building stock had to be replaced. The first effect of the urban renewal efforts, then, resulted in a great deal of vacancy in the city. This concerned housing more than it did other types of buildings. Wider societal changes, among which the increased opportunities for young people to attend university and the attractiveness of Amsterdam as a cultural centre, had led a new type of resident into the city: young, assertive and articulate. They were interested in forms of living that differed greatly from the usual family dwelling. Not only was there a great demand in units for one- or two-person households, communal living was becoming more common as well. This resulted in a housing shortage for these types of dwellings, while at the same time there was a large amount of vacant houses in the city. For some houses, it

99 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: article De Telegraaf (June 2, 1976); article Nieuws van de Dag (June 2, 1976); article De Telegraaf (July 9, 1976); article Nieuws van de Dag (July 9, 1976); article De Echo (June 9, 1976); article Nieuws van der Dag (June 9, 1976).

43 was known what would happen to them: they were awaiting delayed demolitions. For others, however, it was unsure why they were empty for such a long period of time – these buildings were subject to speculation. In both cases, the duration of vacancy provoked many actions among both house seekers and neighbourhood residents. The conceived space of the municipal officials proved to differ greatly from the perceived – not to mention desired – space of city residents. The situation gave rise to the phenomenon of squatting; people were taking matters into their own hands. The occupation of long-time empty buildings presented challenges in the face of the law and in a more practical way, since squatters often had to make fundamental adjustments to the building in order to make it inhabitable. At the same time, it allowed people to investigate new modes of living and working. The vacant space had made it possible for Lefebvres lived space to actually come alive. The municipality, on the other hand, had to deal with squatting as well as many setbacks with regard to their conceived plans for the city. While in the 1960s and early 1970s officials were preoccupied with the latter, the later 1970s showed a more active approach towards fighting vacancy and meeting demands of city residents. Taking into consideration the number of vacant homes in relation to the total number of homes in the city as shown in Figure 1, it can be argued that, relatively speaking, this vacancy was not of an extreme nature. Furthermore, the data used for this graph is derived from official records and therefore represents the administrative vacancy in the city over the years. The actual vacancy may have been considerably lower. Additionally, there was certainly a housing shortage and a waitlist for public housing – but compared to the situation today (with on average a waiting time of eight years in The Netherlands, and over ten years in Amsterdam), the six-year waitlist in the 1970s seems not at all bad. Why, then, did the circumstances evoke such ardent, and sometimes innovative reactions? Many factors could have played a role, but I would argue that an important one must have been the visibility of vacancy. Numerically, the vacancy might have been moderate, but we cannot underestimate the effects of the dozens of empty, boarded-up houses, spread throughout the city on the one hand, closely tied together when looking at urban renewal areas on the other, on the state of mind of city residents. Coupled with the knowledge that at least part of the buildings were still perfectly suitable to live in – since they had to make way for urban infrastructure and renewal projects instead of being demolished for their poor quality – and the fact that many properties were not only visibly vacant but also for a long period of time, this resulted in many people deeming the situation unacceptable. The buildings were not put to proper use. In turn this led to a proactive attitude among all kinds of city residents, either within or beyond the borders of the law. Although squatting was in fact a reaction to the improper disuse, the

44 phenomenon itself – especially given its new, innovative character at the time – was not considered to be a ‘proper use’ by the elite. This was, of course, also connected to the ‘privatised notion of space’ as coined by Lefebvre; to some extent the act of squatting opened up private space, albeit unused, for the public domain again.

45

C H A P T E R T H R E E: The fight against vacancy // 1980-1990

As discussed in Chapter Two, the larger part of vacant space in Amsterdam in the 1960s and 1970s concerned either dilapidated buildings or buildings that had to make way for major urban renewal projects. The bulk of vacancy concerned housing vacancy – the city centre, however, also experienced an exodus in terms of its businesses. How did this situation develop in the 1980s? In this chapter we will first elaborate on the state of vacancy and the heightened interest in the issue in the 1980s, before going into the details of the Leegstandswet. This vacancy bill was proposed, on a national level, to introduce a legal set of instruments to deal with vacancy, speculation and squatting. Subsequently, the issue of lettability difficulties will be introduced, which refers to a discrepancy of supply and demand in the housing market. This problem was not limited to Amsterdam, but occurred throughout The Netherlands. We will then move on to the practice of transforming buildings in order to make them suitable to serve different functions. The chapter will finish with the observation that the second wave of vacancy, as discussed in Chapter One, is almost completely absent from either literature or archival sources in this period. What is important in the current chapter are the changed relations between the three interest groups of the municipal politicians and planners, neighbourhoods residents, and squatters. Already at the end of the 1970s, the municipal course in terms of vacancy had changed towards a more hands-on approach through Jan Schaefer’s policy, as was mentioned before. At a time when local authorities started to fight vacancy more actively, the nature of the attitude of squatters, however, began to alter. As a new decade was approaching at the end of the 1970s, the overall approach and morale of the squatting movement started to change. From a collective, optimistic effort of providing a place to live to those who needed it, the situation evolved into a grimmer and more individual undertaking. The cumbersome execution of the municipality’s renewal plans was accompanied by a new factor: as it was no exception for waiting lists to be six years or longer, those potential residents also had higher demands of their future home. This made for an increasing number of rejections when home seekers were offered a dwelling by Herhuisvesting, resulting in a paralysed distribution system. Subsequently, these rejected dwellings stood empty for long periods of time. Because of this, squatters started to occupy houses that were in fact intended for other home seekers. This meant a radical rupture in the squatting ideology. The good relations between squatters and residents on the one hand, but probably more

46 importantly also between squatters and demolition contractors made it increasingly difficult for the municipality to get the squats cleared and reclaim property. The introduction of the Leegstandswet, however, would provide the instrument to deal with this. This led to a great deal of opposition, not only from squatters but also from the press and other interest groups. Interestingly, as opposed to the early years of squatting, squatters themselves started to become divided with regard to the new purpose of a vacant building. There was also a divergence within the community as to what buildings should be squatted and how far their actions should go. Part of the squatting movement started to radicalise, which also meant a cooling of relations with neighbourhood residents.100

3.1 S T A T E O F V A C A N C Y As shown in Figure 1 on page 28, home vacancy grew in the early 1980s after attaining a relatively stable level of around 8.000 vacant dwellings in the second half of the 1970s. The number of vacant dwellings reached a high point of nearly 13.000 in 1984, decreasing to around 9.000 in 1988. Structural vacancy (vacant for over six months) had – already since 1972 – gained substantial ground as opposed to the ‘normal’ frictional vacancy, which clearly indicates the problematic nature of vacancy at that time. The number of structurally vacant homes even grew fivefold, from 1.000 long-time vacant dwellings in 1970 to over 5.000 in 1986.101 Did this mean that all of the attention and efforts from mainly city residents with regard to the problem of vacancy had been in vain? In terms of tangible results, according to the administrative registration of vacant dwellings it should be argued yes. As noted before, however, the municipality underlined time and again that there was a discrepancy between the actual and the administrative vacancy; the real vacancy should be lower than what was registered. But it was also still unknown what the exact scope of the issue was; there was a lack of insight into the degree of the actual vacancy of buildings that were not registered as such and the actual use of buildings that were registered as vacant. The lack of clarity is shown in the call for further research into the state of ‘vacant Amsterdam’ from multiple departments and officials within the municipality. The Dienst Volkshuisvesting started to make use of samples in an attempt to create a representative image of the situation. A test

100 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 350, 357-359, 373, 381, 390; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 238: article Trouw (August 27, 1976); arch. nr. 5470: Dienst Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 321: internal memo’s (1975). 101 A.J. Grootenboer i.o.v. Economisch Instituut voor de Bouwnijverheid, Leegstand onder corporatiewoningen (Amsterdam 1986) 7; Bureau voor Statistiek Gemeente Utrecht, Leegstaande woningen in Utrecht (Utrecht 1987); Data derived from the yearbooks (1970-2015) of the Amsterdam office for Research, Information and Statistics (Onderzoek, Informatie en Statistiek), currently known as Amsterdam in Cijfers. See list of sources consulted for further information. The data from 1971 is missing, due to a population census that same year.

47 sample in 1981, in which 10 percent of the registered vacant buildings was included, showed that 70 percent of these buildings were in use either as living space or as commercial space.102 It is not noted, however, whether or not the occupation of the buildings was legal – which means the space could have been used by city residents who had failed to register with the city government or by squatters. It also seemed to be disputable if squatted properties should be included in the number of vacant houses or not, looking at the archival materials – although it appears as if they were mostly due to the illegal status of squatting. In the summer of 1985, a Dienst Herhuisvesting report on general vacancy in Amsterdam aimed to discern the administrative numbers of the CBS (Central Bureau of Statistics). The department claimed that press as well as politics misused the information, which led them to perform an investigation among the Amsterdam Federation of Housing Corporations and a large part of the city’s real estate agents, as well as the municipality’s own housing institution: het Gemeentelijk Woningbedrijf. Although the city centre proved to experience even more vacancy than was registered, in the rest of the city it turned out there was a substantially lower rate of vacancy than the administrative numbers led to believe (roughly fifty percent of the administrative figure). The report also brought to light the two problematic urban neighbourhoods of the 1980s: Amsterdam-Noord and the Bijlmermeer. Aside from these cases there was not much to worry about, according to the Dienst Herhuisvesting: ‘Met uitzondering van de situatie in de hoogbouw in de Bijlmermeer … en, zij het in aanzienlijk mindere mate, de complexen Molenwijk [en] Plan van Gool, … is er geen sprake van een verontrustende leegstand in Amsterdam’.103 This comment is telling when considering that housing vacancy had just peaked one year before and was still at an unusually high level. This supports our observation in Chapter Two, stating that reactions to vacancy were disproportionally intense when taking into account the numbers. The vacancy in the neighbourhoods of Noord en Zuidoost (where the Bijlmermeer is located) will be elaborated on in a later section. Another stretch of research to obtain more factual information on vacancy can be linked to the housing policy as pursued by Jan Schaefer. His vision of a compact city, as mentioned in the previous chapter, also invited plans for making vacant spaces part of the city again. One of these envisioned plans is expressed in two reports from 1983 and 1984. The Dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening (Spatial Planning department) ordered a research report on the Red Light District area in 1983, which showed a 10% vacancy rate (circa 66.000 m2) of specifically the upper floors above retail and other commercial spaces. This type of vacancy appears to have been completely overlooked in earlier periods. Their conclusion was

102 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 323: press releases and memos; inv. nr. 292: municipal memos. 103 Ibidem, inv. nr. 324: vacancy report Dienst Herhuisvesting (July 1985).

48 supported by the report Wonen boven bedrijven by the Stedelijk Overleg Stuurgroep tegen de Woningnood (SOSW), published in 1984. This work group operated more or less independently from the municipality, searching for solutions regarding the housing shortage among one- and two-person households in particular. Influenced by the contemporary body of thought, they underline the importance of mixed-use within the city to create the distinct urban ‘milieu’. As did the municipal report, they point to the existence of many vacant floors above retail and other business spaces in the centre of the city – the major shopping streets in particular. This concerned mainly ‘gekoppelde leegstand’, as a term from the time described vacant spaces that had a shared entrance with the ground floor instead of a separate one. A few more square meters to add to the retail space was sometimes considered more important than the entrance to the above floors, which often led to the removal of the stairs and, inevitably, to vacancy. Even nowadays Amsterdam has to cope with this problem. Within the framework of the compact city with mixed uses and coupled with the existing housing shortage, it was imperative to include these empty spaces in the city again. This would not only be beneficial in terms of providing housing and resist useless vacancy, but also when thinking about safety and ‘eyes on the street’, the streetscape, densification and a larger support base for local stores. The SOSW approaches the issue in a very practical manner, providing various solutions for the creation of access ways and architectural interventions. This is typical of the new mind-set of more formal Amsterdam institutions – an active rather than passive attitude, trying to improve the situation instead of just taking note of it.104 It is quite difficult, however, to assess whether or not these advices have been taken up and carried out. Although the press did take notice of the research, the SOSW report in particular, no reporting on tangible subsequent measures was found.

Besides official research efforts – which, for that matter, invariably called for further research – other measures to keep track of actual vacancy in the city were taken. Although municipal research showed relatively little vacancy, it was still considered a sizable problem among city residents. Reports on vacant houses and lots kept coming in steadily – if less than during the 1970s – which, again, points towards a continued visibility of vacancy in the streetscape. It is striking to see the discrepancy between the actual numbers versus the representation of vacancy in the minds of city residents. To show city residents its willingness to fight vacancy and improve the situation, however, at the dawn of 1981 the municipality installed the so- called ‘leegstandstelefoon’ or vacancy phone:

104 Stedelijk Overleg Stuurgroep tegen de Woningnood, Wonen boven bedrijven. Leegstandsbestrijding in de Amsterdamse binnenstad (Amsterdam 1984) 1, 3, 5-6, 10; SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 324: research report Dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening (1983).

49

‘Het doel van de leegstandstelefoon- en postbusnummer is het signaleren van leegstand. Omdat het uitzoeken van de gevallen altijd erg veel tijd en mankracht kost is het lang niet altijd mogelijk om u op de hoogte te houden van het verdere verloop van de door u gemelde zaak. In het gunstigste geval ziet u op een gegeven moment of uw melding effect heeft gehad, maar rekent u niet teveel op directe resultaten, want ook het bestrijden van bekende leegstand is een moeizame zaak.’105

It is also explicitly noted that the phone number should not be used to discuss individual housing situations and cases of squatting.106 Although the early 1980s still show a sizable amount of reported cases of vacancy by neighbourhood residents and interest groups, these reports did not seem to come in through the vacancy phone. The instalment of its number got wide press coverage, but apparently it was not especially inviting to actually use it. Already in February of 1981, Het Parool reported that the phone number was hardly being used; the line took about forty calls declaring vacant properties, the majority of which were already known by the municipality. In contrast to other newspapers, Het Parool was particularly snappy when it came to the vacancy phone, showing its dissatisfaction with it as an efficient instrument in the fight against vacancy and claiming that it would mostly serve as a way for people to express their personal feelings: ‘Het gaat niet om het ventileren van gevoelens, maar om het voeren van een beleid. De telefonische melding of aangifte kan nauwelijks als een zinvol element van dat beleid worden beschouwd.’107 This viewpoint is likely to have been shared by the larger part of city residents, seen the disappointing results of the phone. Aside from that the instalment of this phone number was in fact nothing new, for city residents had been reporting cases of vacancy for years, as noted before. It did show an increased municipal involvement and an attempt to smooth and clarify the heaps of information coming in. The somewhat pessimistic tone of the advertisement is telling, however. While giving in to the wishes of neighbourhood residents to be able to participate in combating vacancy, at the same time this sent a clear message that any individual efforts would have marginal effects. Although this seems contradictory, the municipality might have argued to paint a realistic picture and not make any empty promises, especially given the amount of frustration among city residents in the previous decade. The ability to call a special

105 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 323: advertisement for the vacancy phone (1982). 106 Ibidem, advertisement for the vacancy phone (1982); inv. nr. 322: press release (February 2, 1982). 107 Ibidem, many individually reported cases of vacancy, received by the municipality; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 261: article Het Parool (February 2, 1981).

50 phone number and report individual cases could, however, have a favourable psychological effect among city residents.

3.2 L E E G S T A N D S W E T // V A C A N C Y B I L L The continuing amount of attention, not only in local press and politics, but also on a national level, resulted in larger measures as well: from the late 1970s on the so-called Leegstandswet or Vacancy Act was in the works. As mentioned in the previous chapter, there had been governmental initiatives to implement an anti-squatting bill – but this would fight a symptom and not the problem of vacancy, it was argued by many critics. The new bill was a renewed attempt to create a legal ‘tool kit’ for local governments to deal with vacancy, speculation and squatting. Up until then there had only been legal insecurity concerning this issue, for the municipality and property owners as well as for squatters. The bill’s ambition was to rightfully and efficiently distribute living space. Its three most prominent elements were the opportunities for an easier confiscation of buildings, the anonymous subpoena of squatters and temporary lease of vacant buildings. In this context, temporary lease was the most hands-on initiative when it came to fighting vacancy in the short term. In the previous two decades, a municipal memo stated, the city government did not consider it necessary to enable temporary lease of housing that was awaiting demolition or renovation – mostly since they had their hopes up as for the progress of the renewal plans. The city official, however, openly admitted that the former policy regarding summons had been inefficient and had unnecessarily forced up the amount of vacant buildings in the city. The situation called for policy to be changed:

‘Enerzijds werd de tijdelijke leegstand tegen de achtergrond van de toegenomen woningbehoefte onaanvaardbaar geacht. Anderzijds tastte het massale ongeregelde kraken de leefbaarheid van de buurten aan en dreigde tijdig leeg opleveren aan de aannemer onmogelijk te worden’ 108

Although the focus of the statement was meant to be on the renewed municipal view, what is more striking is how the above statement of the municipality still labelled squatting as unwanted. As was mentioned in the previous chapter, however, the presence of squatters had – at least until the late 1970s – been considered stimulating when considering the neighbourhoods’ vitality. A break within the squatting movement around 1980 started to

108 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 328: municipal memo (date unknown).

51 change this, however, which has to be taken into account when evaluating the municipality’s comments. This will be discussed further below. The possibility for temporary lease was initially meant to prevent long-term vacancy in urban renewal areas. It could also help to offer a place to live for the time being to home seekers while awaiting a house where they would have an open-ended contract. The lease would have a duration of between six (minimum) and thirty-six months (maximum). The payable rent would be low, but this also meant that there was no way to claim rent control. In order to ensure a smooth and effective use of the arrangement, it was not allowed for temporary lease candidates to refuse a temporary dwelling. If they did so, they were pulled of the list for temporary lease and placed at the bottom of the list of home seekers. The new regulation was not aimed solely at providing home seekers with a temporary place to live, but also to limit loss of rent for owners of a particular property during renovation et cetera. Loss of rent was not reserved for private property, though. Housing corporations – including the Gemeentelijk Woningbedrijf – also had to deal with this due to part of their stock to stand empty. In order to limit loss of rent they also implemented another strategy, according to Het Parool: tenants were required to pay more money since the corporations were experiencing financial setbacks due to the vacancy of their dwellings. ‘‘Het mag eigenlijk niet, maar het geld moet toch ergens vandaan komen,’ aldus een functionaris van een van de Amsterdamse woningbouwverenigingen.’109 This is something that is likely to have happened on a larger scale for a number of years already, but it is unusual to see this being acknowledged like this. Even if it would seem as though an announcement such as this would have caused quite a stir at a time when housing policy and rental rates were highly disputed, this newspaper article – surprisingly – seems an isolated example. Before temporary lease was considered to be included in official policy, there actually already was a practice in which ‘house sitters’ could temporarily make use of a vacant house. A user’s contract made sure the property was left as soon as it was sold, and in order to prevent users from being able to claim rent control, the owner did not charge any rent. Newspaper articles mention cases in the city centre, in the Bijlmermeer high-rises and even along the canals. The initiative for such an arrangement could come from either an owner (who would usually find someone in his vicinity) or from people in search of a home. A Volkskrant article makes note of a couple in their early twenties that approached the owner of a gigantic villa at the Vondelpark and to their surprise were allowed to live there for the time being, free of charge. Interestingly, this form of temporary living was called a ‘nette

109Ibidem, municipal letter to the Stichting Ideële Kamerbemiddeling en Huisvesting (1985); inv. nr. 331: ‘Vaststelling Verordening op de Tijdelijke Verhuur (December 30, 1985); SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 260: article Het Parool (February 15, 1980); inv. nr. 262.

52 kraakactie’ – even if both parties agreed on the arrangement.110 The introduction of temporary lease in municipal policy, then, was more a codification of existing practices outside of the municipality’s reach than a truly innovative change. The possibility for temporary lease, in whichever form, can be considered a predecessor of ‘anti-kraak’, a well- known Dutch practice where (mostly young) people temporarily live in vacant spaces for relatively very low rent but few rights and short-term notices of having to move out. Besides offering a fairly cheap living space, this construction provides ‘eyes on the property’ so to say – preventing squatters from occupying the building. It was mostly criticism that predominated in the discussion about the Leegstandswet, though. There were major objections to the new bill, both by the municipality of Amsterdam and by other parties with various interests. The original bill proposition was accompanied by a slightly different version, proposed by the opposition (initiated by the left-wing political party Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA)). This caused the Leegstandswet to be changed time and again, making it a long-term cause both in Amsterdam and at the level of the national government. The objections were practical on the one hand, and addressing the (ideological) content of the bill on the other. As for the practical side of the story, on the most basic level the definition of the word ‘building’ was disputed – for many, it was too narrow; only including dwellings and not spaces that were built for other purposes, thereby ruling out possible transformation of buildings. A prime example for this would be brand new but vacant office space. Secondly, the bill contradicted an act that had been in effect for years – the 1947 Woonruimtewet – in the sense that both prescribed different actions in the case of vacancy, registration of vacancy and illegal occupation of buildings. This would cause a lack of clarity for both the owners of vacant space and for the municipality. Thirdly, the Leegstandswet would have required Mayor and City Council to lay claim to unjustified vacant buildings – but according to government estimations this would only be possible in fifteen percent of cases, and also, the bill did not provide the financial means to cover the costs of acquisition and renovation. This would result in a marginal amount of buildings that would in fact be confiscated, even with good intentions in doing so. And fourth, the required use of a vacancy register (leegstandsregister) was not feasible. This register was intended to keep track of all vacant dwellings in the city – hence, again, excluding many buildings that had been built for different purposes, regardless of whether it could be transformed into housing units or not. Property owners would have to register their vacant spaces themselves – and if not, they would be

110 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 260: article De Volkskrant (May 22, 1980); SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 328: municipal letter to the Stichting Ideële Kamerbemiddeling en Huisvesting (1985).

53 subject to either a fine or confiscation of their property. Not only was it doubtful whether such a bureaucratic system would be efficient, the financial consequences of the creation of the register was problematic as well. Not only in terms of actual means to purchase and renovate buildings, but also to hire additional city officials for the keeping of the register. These financial requirements were not provided for in either the municipality’s budgeting or by the national government imposing the measures, for that matter.111 It is important to note that the Amsterdam city government itself was also deeply dissatisfied with the proposed bill – even if they had been among the first calling for a legal instrument to deal with vacancy. The case of Amsterdam required a different policy seeing the gravity of the situation, according the different municipal departments involved. Especially City Council Member Gerrit Jan Wolffensperger, responsible for rehousing, declared himself against part of the new measures – which in his opinion did not suit the situation in a city like Amsterdam: ‘Een enkele blik op de situatie in een stad als Amsterdam leert, dat het onaanvaardbaar is de burgemeester op deze manier op te zadelen met alle zwarte pieten van een anti- kraakwetgeving.’ This was related to the degree of squatting in the capital in the first place. The national regulations would strongly limit the freedom of policy for Amsterdam.112

On a more ideological level many critics considered the new bill nothing more than a nicely packaged anti-squatting bill. Even though the name of the Leegstandswet would presume a different approach, still many people found that the new bill was mostly concentrated on limiting the possibilities for squatting instead of fighting the root of the issue: vacancy. The Council of Churches went so far as to accuse the national government that they were carrying out measures against vacancy in the first place to gain acceptance for their fight against squatting. And they were right: an internal municipal memo from January 1979 confirms that the squatting issue was the principal reason for initiating the Leegstandswet. The bill was biased to secure property rights, was a much-heard claim – the context of vacancy was not taken into account properly.113 And even if a judge did want to include contextual factors there was no legal base for this, remarked the vice president of the Amsterdam court of law Ben Asscher in an interview with Het Parool:

‘[HP:] Denkt u niet ook wel eens: die eigenaar heeft geen plannen voor het pand, de

111 Ibidem, inv. nr. 322-323, 328-329, 331; 413; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 261. 112 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 322-323: municipal memos and internal letters; reaction City Council Member Wolffensperger on the Leegstandswet (1981). 113 Ibidem, inv. nr. 322: ‘Memorie van Toelichting van de Regelen omtrent leegstaande woningen en andere gebouwen (Leegstandswet)’ (January 12, 1979); SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 261.

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gemeente doet er ook niets aan, kon ik de krakers maar laten blijven zitten. Maar de wet biedt daarvoor nauwelijks mogelijkheden. [BA:] Dat is volkomen juist. Als de gedaagde werkelijk kraker is dan heeft de rechter geen mogelijkheid tot belangen-afweging.’114

One of the most controversial elements of the bill was the possibility of anonymous subpoena of squatters, making it substantially easier for owners to have their property cleared. The verdict for clearing, then, would be valid for one year. Whether or not these owners had a clear plan with the buildings after clearing was not taken into account. The same went for squatters that had been living in a vacant building for years and had renovated it themselves; in case of clearing they had no rights.115 But there was more: if the Leegstandswet would push back vacancy by its regulations, then at least it should not stimulate the vacancy rate. But the latter was undoubtedly going to happen, according to a substantial amount of critics. The period of one year for which the verdict for clearing was valid, was in fact a safeguard for owners to leave their property empty for that whole year. This scepticism, in all respects, was not only expressed in formal criticisms by neighbourhood groups, squatting organisations and other critics such as the Council of Churches, but also in the press. The early 1980s in particular show a wealth of newspaper articles dedicated to invalidating the bill, either in editorials or through interviews with judges and neighbourhood residents.116

Here we arrive at two issues that were predominant in both literature and archival sources: the act of squatting itself and the radicalisation of the squatting community. Vacancy in itself was pushed to the background. Whereas the presence of squatters was relatively appreciated throughout the 1970s, this started to change over the course of the 1980s. In 1980, neighbourhood residents could be quite open to the practice of squatting and put the blame with the municipality – even when riots occurred. In the case of rioting with regard to squats near Vondelpark, residents wrote in a critical letter: ‘Het kraken op zich zelf zien wij niet als een aanslag op de buurt, maar als het logische gevolg van een veel fundamentelere bedreiging van de buurt, namelijk de leegstand van panden door speculatie en de verarming van de omgeving als woonmilieu’.117 Soon however, the tables started to turn. Part of the squatting community became more radical in their ideology and more violent in their actions.

114 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 260: article Het Parool (September 5, 1980). 115 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 323: report Raad van Kerken (September 1980); inv. nr. 331. 116 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 260-262. 117 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 345: letter by neighbourhood residents of the Vondelpark tot he municipality.

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The clearings of squats De Groote Wetering (1980) and Lucky Luyk (1982), among others, and the ‘Kroningsoproer’ – the violent revolts on the day of the Royal Inauguration of Queen Beatrix in 1980 – went down in history as some of the worst riots in recent Amsterdam history. Such incidents had a strong influence on the public opinion concerning squatters. The riots, small or big, brought with them sensation and in a way, excitement, which caused them to be widely covered by the press. They were accompanied by stories in various newspapers on the development of the squatting movement, pieces that usually ended with the conclusion: the squatters have lost the battle for public opinion. Only the left-wing newspaper De Waarheid was usually quite neutral and slightly inclined to support the squatters – or at least their cause. What is interesting, though, is that the articles make note of two country-wide surveys in the 1980s, one by the right-wing magazine Elsevier (1980) and one by the University of Amsterdam (1982). Both showed a slight approval with regard to the act of squatting itself, while over seventy-five percent of respondents (strongly) disapproved of the actions of the squatting movement.118 This points to a continuing public concern with respect to (unjustified) vacant buildings, most likely in relation to the housing shortage. As the radical wing of the squatting community distanced itself from both the municipality and city residents, another part of squatters was actually brought closer to the municipality – and to the law, for that matter. In anticipation of the implementation of the Leegstandswet, eventually on January 1st 1987, the municipality started to lay claim on buildings and legalise the status of squatters. If they waited until the implementation of the bill, the municipality would be committed to clear many squatted buildings. Legalising the squatters’ living situation was a much easier solution to deal with both vacancy and the potential ‘criminalisation’ of the squatters. This meant that squatters would have to sign a contract, pay rent, and de facto become tenants. In 1982 the government started an experiment to include squatters in the construction/renovation process: the building was delivered unfurnished (casco) and the (former) squatters were in charge of the interior arrangements and carrying out the work. Aside from some financial disagreements, this way of working can be considered an advantage for both parties; squatters had legal security and could still do as they pleased with regard to construction, and the municipality did not have to pay as much for acquisition and renovation as well as invest time in finding tenants for the dwellings as would have been the case with confiscation of vacant buildings. This mode of working proved successful: in 1989 it was commonplace for legalised squatters/tenants to

118 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 260; For further reading on the squatting community, see for example: Duivenvoorden, Een voet tussen de deur; Mamadouh, De stad in eigen hand.

56 cooperate intensively with the municipality on renovation en redecoration.119 This proper use of the buildings was finally pushing back vacancy in the city centre. After two decades of large-scale squatting of openly vacant buildings in the city, the situation had somewhat normalised. Even when it came to the more radical wing of the squatting community, things had calmed down a little after the violent early years of the decade. As for city residents, their perception of how the municipality handled housing, vacancy and the housing shortage improved considerably over the course of the 1980s: the ‘compact city’ policy had significantly lowered the number of vacant buildings in the city.120 This, of course, did not mean that either vacancy or squatting was something of the past, but the status quo in general was considerably more acceptable than it had been for many years – for the municipality, for squatters, and for neighbourhood residents alike. To some extent, the visible vacancy of the previous decade had vanished.

3.3 V A C A N C Y A N D L E T T A B I L I T Y I S S U E S Apart from the state of vacancy in the old city centre and the nineteenth century neighbourhoods – where the most problematic vacancy was seen in the 1960s and 1970s and where the most squatting occurred – there was a new development to be observed, concerning the nature of the recent building stock. This is connected to a wider development in The Netherlands, which strikingly resulted in a steep increase in the amount of academic attention with regard to the problem of vacancy in the 1980s. As opposed to the previous decades, when press coverage and correspondences with or aimed towards the city government gave the most insight into the problem, now the issue was also dealt with in a empirically grounded manner. Local examples of this new approach were already mentioned at the start of this chapter. A report ordered by the Economic Institute for the Building Industry (Economisch Instituut voor de Bouwnijverheid) noted that in the whole country, there had been an overall increase in vacant dwellings in the course of the 1980s – to a level so high that there should be consequences for public housing policy. This is consistent with our findings as represented in Figure 1. Between 1970 and 1985, there had been a doubling of the number of vacant dwellings (both newly constructed and previously lived in); from 1,2 percent to 2,4 percent of the total housing stock. The occurrence of vacancy was now,

119 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 261, 301; Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 401. 120 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 399.

57 however, concentrated in high-rise complexes and the more expensive family dwellings that had been built in the late 1970s.121 Although the press regularly reported of cases of vacant corporation homes, there was still a lack of insight into the degree of vacancy among corporation dwellings. The Economic Institute research aimed to resolve this issue. The housing corporations, at that point, owned a large part of the tenement stock but experienced relatively little vacancy, according to the researchers, and were more focused on new construction projects than on addressing the problem of vacancy. The report underlined that there certainly still was a housing shortage in Amsterdam and other parts of the country, so the cause of the growing vacancy had to lie within the housing market itself. This was associated with the so-called ‘verhuurbaarheidsproblematiek’, or lettability issues, a common phenomenon in the 1980s. As noted in Chapter Two The Netherlands experienced two waves of urban decay, at the dawn of the twentieth century and in the 1960s, respectively. A third one appeared in the 1980s, when vacancy occurred among a certain type of dwellings. This vacancy had to do with a fall in demand for these homes (given their price-quality ratio) rather than the state of the buildings, as was the case in the previous decades (excluding the mismatch of supply and demand as discussed in the previous chapter regarding the 1970s Nieuwmarkt constructions). The case of Amsterdam proved that there was, again, a misconception of what kind of dwellings were in demand by city residents – or at least what price ranges were realistic. It can be argued that the city, in some sense, was building for vacancy – something that has occurred multiple times since then. Newspaper articles from throughout the 1980s show that the problem lay with the focus of the municipality’s new developments. The bottom line was that the newly constructed dwellings were too large and too expensive, which resulted in vacancy – while at the same time there was a high demand for small and inexpensive dwellings, which were scarcely built. As soon as 1982, the Algemene Woningbouw Vereniging (Public Housing Corporation) of Amsterdam declared: ‘De vraag dringt zich op of Amsterdam het beleid jarenlang gebaseerd heeft op een niet bestaande vraag naar woningen. Naar onze mening is dat voor een deel juist. Woningbehoefte blijkt iets anders te zijn dan de koopkrachtige vraag naar woningen’.122 The policy also included newly built dwellings for artists, which in itself could be considered somewhat progressive and answering to needs from the urban population – but the problem here was that, again, these new constructions were too large and too expensive for the prospective users. A critical local

121 Grootenboer, Leegstand onder corporatiewoningen, 16-17. 122 Priemus, ‘Housing and urban management in The Netherlands’, 63; Bureau voor Statistiek Gemeente Utrecht, Leegstaande woningen, 7; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 261-262: newspaper articles.

58 official ironically inquired within his own department Herhuisvesting whether it was useful to keep stimulating the construction of dwellings for people who did not have the means to actually live in them.123 In Amsterdam, the problems concerning overly expensive housing and lettability issues were concentrated in Amsterdam-Noord and Zuidoost, as was addressed at the start of this chapter. Hugo Priemus remarked on the example of the latter: where, in its early years, the vacant homes were mostly newly constructed dwellings, in the 1980s it was mostly due to new construction that the older apartments were left vacant. Figure 3 shows that Amsterdam in general as well as the Bijlmermeer experienced a peak in the construction of housing in 1984. Vacancy, however, clearly followed the same pattern, only with a lag of one year. Besides the new construction, draining inhabitants from older residential blocks, Priemus indicated more general social developments at the time that are likely to have played a role in the degeneration of neighbourhoods and subsequently in the occurrence of vacancy, factors that were also named by the Economic Institute report. These included overproduction of dwellings, unemployment, vandalism, drug abuse, alcoholism and the likes. The occurrence of vacancy, then, in turn resulted in further degeneration. Urban renewal efforts, mostly in the form of making technical adjustments, had – at least in The Netherlands – been the typical reaction to decay and vacancy in the city. But as Priemus pointed out: these efforts are remedies, not preventions. There was a need for urban management, and in the context of vacancy that meant a better understanding of supply and demand regarding price versus quality on the housing market.124 This was good advice regarding future developments – but for the problematic housing areas at the time, it was too little too late. The estates in the Bijlmer and Noord were still dependent on technical and spatial adjustments in order to improve the situation. To this end, in 1983 an easing of the criteria to get permission to live in a certain type of dwelling was introduced in the two designated areas. This action – although not ideal – specifically aimed at limiting vacancy. In Noord, in 1985 a survey was designed to question tenants who gave notice in order to gain a deeper insight into the cause of their departure. This could be of great help in getting to the root of the vacancy problem.125

123 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 324: letter from an employee of Dienst Herhuisvesting (1982). 124 Priemus, ‘Housing and urban management in The Netherlands’, 1, 63, 66-68; Bureau voor Statistiek Gemeente Utrecht, Leegstaande woningen, 7; Grootenboer, Leegstand onder corporatiewoningen, 16-17; H. Heeger, Aanpak van naoorlogse probleemkomplexen (Delft 1993) 2; SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 324: research report on vacancy in Amsterdam-Noord (June 1985). 125 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 324: research report on vacancy in Amsterdam-Noord (June 1985), correspondences between housing corporations and the municipality, internal memos.

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Figure 3: Vacancy in the Bijlmermeer and housing production (Hugo Priemus)126

Although the press can be considered preoccupied with the issues within the squatting movement and the many, sometimes forceful clearings of squatted buildings in the city centre rather than addressing the issue of vacancy itself, the mid-1980s showed a growing interest regarding the latter. The coverage on vacancy was linked to the lettability issues discussed above, and the problems in the Bijlmermeer were linked to a wider phenomenon among high- rise complexes throughout the western world. Once hailed as the mode of living of the future, these complexes were now hotbeds for vacancy, degeneration and social problems. This caused a lot of attention for the neighbourhood. The growing vacancy (roughly twenty-five percent in 1985) was alarming to local officials, and numerous plans for adjustments were made: renovations and refurbishings, new low-rise construction in between the high-rise complexes, more facilities and a lowering of the (up until then substantial) costs of living were most prominent in trying to regenerate the area. An additional factor was that land and construction costs had fallen in the 1980s, causing dwellings built in the 1970s and early 1980s to be more expensive in terms of costs of living than the newly constructed dwellings of the mid- and late 1980s. This was obviously another unfavourable factor that added to vacancy. It was not only the actual state of the buildings and dwellings, though, but importantly also the image arising from the press that caused the attractiveness of the Bijlmermeer to plummet during those years. This was also the case in Amsterdam-Noord,

126 Priemus, ‘Housing and urban management in The Netherlands’, 66.

60 albeit to a much lesser extent. Whereas withdrawal of dwelling from the housing stock was considered taboo in the city centre, in the Bijlmer it was stimulated in order to create a livelier, mixed-use area.127 Inspiration for improvement was drawn from many different angles. In 1984, Hugo Priemus organised a conference on the subject, where guests from Boston and New Jersey elaborated on their successes regarding the living situation in high-rise complexes. Improvement was possible by creating more involvement among residents and making sure there were a few high-rises that were completely occupied and others completely empty rather than having all building semi-occupied. A sense of safety was key. Starchitect Rem Koolhaas was also asked by the municipality to develop a plan for the area in 1986, resulting in a design with markets, a forest and arbours; adjustments that would stimulate interaction, according to the architect. The inhabitants of Bijlmermeer dwellings were not always satisfied with the way the responsible housing corporation Nieuw Amsterdam handled things. Precisely the fact that solutions were sought elsewhere gave rise to disgruntlement: ‘Plannen voor de Bijlmer worden steeds door mensen van buiten de Bijlmer gemaakt, zij kijken slechts naar technische zaken, niet naar mensen,’ said one resident.128 In 1985, a survey showed that sixty to eighty per cent of residents were not satisfied with the opportunities for participation in the plans for their neighbourhood.129 This would, strikingly, point to a continuation of the approach that caused the Bijlmer to be a problematic area in the first place: a visionary approach instead of one that took into account what people actually wanted. In 1986, it became apparent that all enhancements of the previous years – adding up to about 300 million guilders – had not worked the way that the housing corporation had hoped. Vacancy was pushed back a little, but only in those areas where an intensive, not to mention expensive renovation had taken place – an operation which could not be repeated in all complexes due to limitations of both time and money. Nieuw Amsterdam intended to demolish part of the complexes in order to build new low-rise dwellings. Subsequently however, many newspapers reported that residents, backed by the mayor, strongly resisted these plans, claiming that demolition would scare away even more potential inhabitants. All the fuss caused the demolition plans to be postponed for the time being.130 The late 1980s showed an improvement in the situation, however, both in Noord and Zuidoost. The vacancy rate was decreasing – mostly due to an economic upturn and a growing amount of people wanting to live in Amsterdam, but apparently there had also been

127 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 262, 300. 128 Ibidem, inv. nr. 300. 129 Ibidem, inv. nr. 262, 300. 130 Ibidem, inv. nr. 300.

61 effort to split dwellings and lower the costs of living. This way the supply and demand of dwellings finally made a better fit. In 1989, vacancy in Noord was close to zero while in the Bijlmermeer it had been pushed back to under five percent.131 Lettability was not such an issue anymore – lessons were learned with regard to housing needs of city residents, but most importantly: Amsterdam was growing more and more attractive to people from across The Netherlands, and even all over the world.

3.4 A N E W W A Y O F A D A P T I N G For a long time it was mostly considered desirable for a vacant building to regain its original purpose when it was taken into new use. In the 1970s, however, we saw the first cases of the municipality looking into the possible transformation of vacant buildings. In the course of the 1980s, it became more and more central to municipal policy to change zoning plans with regard to the specific purposes that were allocated to a building in order to fight vacancy. Especially old office buildings were considered suitable for transformation, mostly into living space or smaller business units for start-up companies. This had to do with the realisation that things would not just go back to the way they were – Amsterdam needed to adapt to both local and societal developments: ‘Gezien de (betere) vestigingsmogelijkheden aan de rand van de stad en op bedrijfsterreinen is het noch nodig, noch wenselijk, om voor alle bedrijfspanden die vrijkomen een vervangende bedrijfsbestemming na te streven’.132 As for what purpose the abandoned buildings were to serve in the future, we can see the influence of subcultural groups such as the squatting movement, which were much earlier in recognising the potential of formerly industrious spaces other than dwellings. The 1983 research report on vacancy in the Red Light District, mentioned earlier, surprisingly takes note of this influence, albeit subtly: ‘Hoewel échte conclusies in de zin van gebruiksmogelijkheden … pas getrokken kunnen worden na een haalbaarheidsonderzoek per pand, levert het kraken toch een aantal indicaties op over de gebruiksmogelijkheden t.b.v. het wonen’.133 This clearly indicates that squatters formed some sort of inspiration for future policy, even at a time when the relations between squatters and municipality were not what they used to be. The report further remarks that it is useful to investigate the former uses of vacant buildings in order to assess its suitability for housing or other future

131 Ibidem, inv. nr. 300-301. 132 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 345: municipal memos; SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 260-262. 133 Stedelijk Overleg Stuurgroep, Wonen boven bedrijven, 5; SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 324: research report Dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening (1983).

62 transformations. This comment seems self-evident, but the rhetoric in the report shows that it certainly was not in the early 1980s.134 In 1987, this approach was commonplace. The city government even took the role of advisor in guiding private investors who wanted to redevelop vacant buildings in the older neighbourhoods. This was initially on a small scale: the municipality aimed to redevelop four buildings per year. Stimulating mixed-use neighbourhoods was one pillar of contemporary city council member Louis Genet, who was in charge of urban renewal at the time. His approach was clearly different from the one in the 1960s and (part of the) 1970s dictating demolition and new construction. Genet focused on giving new purposes to buildings that would become empty in the coming years: ‘Het aantal leegkomende scholen, fabrieken en kerken neemt toe, daar moeten we van profiteren’.135 There was a great need for small-scale business units for start-ups and child day care that these buildings could be used for, same as before. Especially the neighbourhood of Oost counted a large amount of vacant buildings that were being used for purposes other than their original function. The former Sint Elisabeth Gesticht was set up as a youth hostel and residence, another nursing home offered space for artists and an art library, while the many vacant schools – due to a decreasing amount of children in the neighbourhood – were used as day-care centres, youth residences, workspace and community centres, among others.136 These were the initiatives of both the city government and squatters. As was noted before, the municipality did have an eye for artists in this period and aimed to provide them with living/working quarters – however, newly constructed spaces intended for this use proved too expensive for many. It can be argued that vacant space was especially well suited to accommodate artists. Although this is not specifically addressed in the sources, it is apparent that the practice of using old, vacant buildings – especially those with an industrial past – as ateliers and living space for artists became the standard in the years that followed. More on this topic will be discussed in the next chapter.

3.5 T H E N O T A B L E N O – S H O W It is a well-known fact that during the 1970s and 1980s, a large part of the industrial bases of Western (European) cities were undermined – leaving a wealth of industrial buildings standing empty. In contrast to what had been expected, the vacancy of former industrial

134 SAA, arch. nr. 5470: Herhuisvesting, inv. nr. 324: research report Dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening (1983); inv. nr. 345. 135 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. nr. 300: article Het Parool (December 3, 1987). 136 Liagre Böhl, Amsterdam op de helling, 304.

63 complexes was scarcely covered in newspapers and literature over the course of the 1980s – and if it was, it was in the context of either squatting or future development rather than the nature of vacancy itself. In 1983, daily newspaper De Telegraaf did report on the growing vacancy of industrial buildings (both for rent and for sale). They clearly assign this to the recession of the early 1980s: ‘Juist bedrijven in de nijverheid en industrie, die gebruik maken van [bedrijfshallen], worden momenteel vaak zwaar getroffen door de recessie’.137 This resulted in the bankruptcy, merging or relocation of companies, leaving behind empty buildings. This growth in supply of this building category also caused a price decrease in this segment. Other than this article, there is not much to be found on either the vacancy of these types of buildings or the effects of the recession on it. There was some mention of old factories or warehouses, but these were almost without exception located in the inner city or in the nineteenth-century neighbourhoods.138 Those locations were clearly attracting all the attention. This must be related to the housing shortage versus vacancy situation there and the riots that accompanied it during those years. The older industrial areas were simply not as newsworthy. The newspaper articles that did report on former industrial buildings that were standing empty and squatted, for example, noted that the owners of these properties mostly agreed on their buildings being used for other purposes as long as there were no other plans for the space.139 This resulted in a living situation of relative peace and quiet for squatters or other occupants of former industrial properties in the 1980s. The early 1990s already show a slight increase in attention for the industrial complexes, now also in connection to a possible heritage status. This new dimension will be discussed in the following chapter.

As far as the municipality and city residents were concerned, vacancy in the 1980s was all about housing. This included the possibility of turning vacant office buildings into housing units. Although the municipality was substantially more active in the case of fighting vacancy, housing vacancy reached a peak in the mid-1980s according to administrative numbers, which contrasted with municipal figures that showed that there was no worrisome amount of vacancy in Amsterdam. It is difficult to ascertain whether one or the other was correct. One way or the other, officials on a national level attempted to create a set of tools to deal with vacancy on the one hand and squatting on the other. The Leegstandswet was subject to a lot of criticism, not only for practical reasons but importantly also for its further criminalisation of

137 Delpher, article De Telegraaf (March 11, 1983) via http://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:011205605, accessed on June 23rd, 2016. 138 SAA, arch. nr. 30486: Collectie Stadsarchief Amsterdam, inv. 260-262, 322. 139 Ibidem, inv. nr. 261.

64 squatters. Relations between squatters and municipality in the early 1980s were dominated by violent confrontations, not only in the case of clearing but also at other major events such as the Royal Inauguration of Queen Beatrix in 1980. There was, however, also a part of the squatting community that was open to cooperation with the municipality. In the course of the decade, many squatted buildings were legalised and renovated. The squatters had the last say as to what the floor plan and interior would look like. In this sense, these vacant houses had escaped their liminal state of being; the conceived space of the city government and the perceived and to some extent lived space of squatters were seemingly converging. The result was a falling vacancy rate in the late 1980s. Aside from the situation of urban renewal vacancy in Amsterdam, there was a wider trend throughout the Netherlands that caused vacancy to rise. This kind of vacancy was of a different nature and can be considered more inherently problematic. In many municipalities, it seemed as though for years they had been building a type of dwelling that now nobody was interested in. These dwellings were too large and, more importantly, too expensive. In Amsterdam, problematic areas in this sense were Amsterdam-Noord and Zuidoost, especially the Bijlmermeer. It can be argued that this type of ‘unwanted’ dwelling was also constructed in other parts of the city, but there they were more likely to gain tenants since the price-quality ratio was viewed as more in balance. Amsterdam-Noord and the Bijlmermeer, however, had a relatively bad reputation and because of that, people were less inclined to live there in general. Both this vacancy situation and the vacancy in the old neighbourhoods gave rise to transformation of buildings. In the old neighbourhoods, they were likely to be converted into dwellings; while in Noord and the Bijlmermeer there was an even greater need for more public facilities in the first place. Here, vacant dwellings were turned into small-scale business units or community centres in order to create a more mixed-use area. There was a definite change of perception among local officials, being more receptive to alternative modes of living and working. We can certainly conclude that this was also due to the activities of squatters and, to a lesser extent, neighbourhood residents. The brick wall around the elite’s conceived space had started to crumble. Another important factor was the growing importance of culture in this period, which we will now elaborate on.

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C H A P T E R F O U R: Vacancy in the age of culture // 1990 - 2015

As was shown in the previous chapter, the 1980s were still predominantly concerned with housing when it came to vacancy. The 1990s initially showed a lack of either interest or of worries with regard to vacancy, but the end of the decade ushered in a vacancy issue of another dimension: abandoned offices. In this chapter, we will first discuss the development of this office vacancy over the course of the 2000s. Recent years will be considered briefly as well. The second part of the chapter will deal with the connection between culture and vacancy. The importance of culture had been on the rise since the 1970s, but gained momentum in the 1990s and has been high on the agendas of both the municipality and city residents ever since. This has also had an impact on the state of vacancy. The chapter will close with a more abstract section connected to Chapter One.

4.1 S T A T E O F V A C A N C Y For the larger part of the 1990s, vacancy was not included in the yearly statistical overviews of Amsterdam – indicating that vacancy was not considered problematic as far as the municipality was concerned. Housing vacancy disappeared from the yearbook pages after 1991; although there was still a housing shortage, the problems marking the 1970s and 1980s were something of the past. The attractiveness of the city had proved a strong force in drawing people to Amsterdam, resulting in heightened pressure on the housing market and subsequently, a lower vacancy rate. At the end of the decade, however, statistical information on the vacancy of office space was included in the yearbooks for the first time. Surprisingly, however, at that point this vacancy was approaching a historical low; the oncoming new millennium proved to be an optimistic time in the minds of both businesses and real estate investors. Office vacancy had been a phenomenon ever since many businesses left the inner city after the Second World War, but – other than its potential for transformation to housing units and in that context, vacant office buildings being squatted in the 1970s and 1980s – it had never been dealt with in the way it was now. In the wake of the recession of the early 1980s and 1990s there was a relatively low demand for office space while supply was ample. In the Amsterdam city centre, there was a vacancy of ten percent in

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1994.140 It was noted that in 1998 there was a strong growth in the market for office space, with a very low level of vacancy and even a growing shortage in the amount of office space. Demand was ever increasing, even leading to a tight frictional vacancy of two percent in 1999 – a percentage of which the larger part was already tenanted. The situation led many investors and developers to commence new real estate projects in order to satisfy the demand. In 2000, the office space market had normalised with a healthy amount of vacancy to keep the market running smoothly. Soon, however, prospects from the prosperous late 1990s proved to be too optimistic. The increase in available office space grew much larger than the demand for it, causing office space vacancy to rise – and rise even more in the coming years, seen the long-term execution of the development plans. In 2000 and 2001, the office stock grew by 300.000 square meters, with another 700.000 square meters waiting to be delivered. While the city centre still provided the most office space – 1.3 million square meters – the bulk of new construction was placed at the edges of the city, in the areas of Westpoort/Sloterdijk, Zuidoost and Zeeburg/Oost.141 As can be concluded from Figure 3, the high hopes of the turn of the century had vanished by 2003, after which year vacancy started to rise steeply. This also expressed itself in the amount of coverage in the yearbooks, where the rising vacancy was increasingly analysed and explained. The urban economy was stagnating, which caused a sharp fall in demand for (new) office space – but at the same time the rush of earlier years resulted in the highest ever amount of new office space in Amsterdam that was completed in 2002: nearly 500.000 square meters. And more was to come. Office vacancy started to rise, passing the boundary of one million square meters in 2004 and rising to well over eighteen percent of the total in 2005 and 2006 – even leading over other major European cities in terms of vacancy that same year. Other than real estate investors and developers, the municipality was to blame here too: the golden early years of the 2000s had made many a local official too greedy in terms of development plans and yields from land costs.142 In general, the new situation lowered the cost of hire, and required owners to provide supplementary facilities or even rent-free periods of time in order to get tenants for their properties. Since the construction of office buildings is usually a very time-consuming pursuit, the possibilities for a timely response to changes in the market are limited. In this sense, office space is susceptible to a

140 Delpher, article De Telegraaf (March 15, 1994) via http://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010692096, accessed on June 23rd, 2016. 141 O+S, het Amsterdamse Bureau voor Onderzoek en Statistiek, Amsterdam in cijfers. Jaarboek 1999 (Amsterdam 2000) 9; Jaarboek 2000 (Amsterdam 2000) 209; Jaarboek 2001 (Amsterdam 2001) 202; Jaarboek 2002 (Amsterdam 2002) 317. 142 L. Janssen-Jansen and M. Mulders, ‘Leegstand, braakliggende terreinen en ontwikkelingsluchtbellen. Een nieuw hoofdstuk in de stedelijke ruimtelijke ordening’, Thema Bestuurskunde (2012) 1, 34-36.

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Figure 3: Vacant office space in Amsterdam 1999-2015143

143 Data derived from the yearbooks (1999-2015) of the Amsterdam office for Research, Information and Statistics (Onderzoek, Informatie en Statistiek), currently known as Amsterdam in Cijfers. See list of sources consulted for further information.

68 pork cycle, a classic economic term to describe cyclical fluctuations in supply and prices (originally in livestock markets). This naturally resulted in vacancy. It was mostly large office buildings that were affected by it, while in case of smaller-scale, affordable commercial space demand was higher than supply.144 Here we can see a parallel with the housing situation in the mid-1980s, discussed in the previous chapter. From 2006 on, the vacancy level has stabilised somewhat, circling around one million square meters of vacant office space and fifteen percent of the total stock ever since. By far the largest part of the vacant space did not have a tenant at that point. This factor could be considered inherent to vacancy, but in the wake of the economic downturn of 2008 offices with long-term leases became vacant because in some cases, it was financially more favourable to leave the space unused than to provide other parties with the opportunity to use the space.145 The financial crisis, for that matter, also caused a rise in vacancy. After a slight fall of the vacancy rate in 2009, 2010 showed a two percent increase. Vacancy was occurring in specific areas of the market, rather than spread out in different price/quality regions and locations. Apart from the higher demand for small office units as opposed to large spaces, older buildings and buildings in less favourable locations in particular were the first buildings to be abandoned. Amsterdam Zuidoost, home to the controversial Bijlmermeer developments, in particular was (again) mentioned as a problematic area, as well as the Westpoort/Sloterdijk area. The Zuidas near Schiphol Airport, on the other hand, has seen large, prestigious new constructions for multinational companies and an ever increasing demand for its office space since the mid-2000s – especially in the business services sector. This concerns mostly office space in the highest segment of the market, a segment that – aside from a decrease in rental prices – has proved to have been largely unaffected by the economic crisis of 2008. The crisis did result in the fact that for almost all new construction the future user was already known; the time when developers were building for the market was most definitely over.146 Even though the level of vacancy in terms of offices has been fluctuating minimally in the past ten years – sticking around the one million square meters line – the existing stock of vacant office space is becoming more and more problematic, with increasingly long term vacancy. The demand for office space is concentrating in the highest segment with prestigious new projects, which leaves older properties out of the loop. This phenomenon

144 O+S Amsterdam, Amsterdam in cijfers. Jaarboek 2003 (Amsterdam 2003) 12, 333; Jaarboek 2004 (Amsterdam 2004) 335-336; Jaarboek 2005 (Amsterdam 2005) 345-346; Jaarboek 2006 (Amsterdam 2006) 12, 346-347, 563. 145 Notes from lectures during the 2015 Week of the Vacant Building. 146 Data derived from the Amsterdam in cijfers yearbooks 2006-2015 by O+S Amsterdam; Gemeenteraad Amsterdam, Visie Zuidas (Amsterdam 2009) 15; Janssen-Jansen and Mulders, ‘Leegstand, braakliggende terreinen en ontwikkelingsluchtbellen’, 33.

69 was not new: in 1994 it was also noted that the market for offices was highly focused on newly completed spaces: ‘De voorspelde verbeteringen zullen beperkt blijven tot de allerbeste nieuwe objecten. De markt voor gebruikte kantoorruimte blijft nog enkele jaren in het slop zitten’.147 This is again the case. In 2009, a third of the nearly 1.3 million square meters of empty office space had been vacant for four years or more. In the Zuidoost location, many cases had been standing empty even longer.148 As is shown in Figure 4, the areas around Station Sloterdijk and Amsterdam Zuidoost are still experiencing a concentration of vacant offices (circled in blue). These buildings are vacant for fifty to one hundred percent of the surface area (see legend).

Figure 4: Office vacancy in Amsterdam, 2016 (Kantorenloods Gemeente Amsterdam) Blue circles by author149

147 Delpher, article De Telegraaf (March 15, 1994) via http://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010692096, accessed on June 23rd, 2016. 148 O+S Amsterdam, Amsterdam in cijfers. Jaarboek 2010 (Amsterdam 2010) 371. 149 Interactive map of vacant offices in Amsterdam via: http://maps.amsterdam.nl/leegstaande_kantoren/, accessed on June 22, 2016.

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It is not noted, however, for how long these spaces have been standing empty. Throughout the city, there are projects of transformations in the works. For many cases of older office space, transformation might be the only solution to its vacancy. More on this will be discussed in a later section.

Vacancy other than office buildings has, in the past twenty-five years, not been on the forefront of the news as it was the case for housing in the 1960s through the 1980s or the office vacancy discussed above. As was noted in Chapter Three, the vacancy of former industrial sites was not a hot topic in either policy or press. Only when these vacant buildings were put to new use did newspapers report on the situation, and even then the coverage was slim. Only in the course of the 2000s, when the larger development plans for transforming disused (industrial) sites into prominent spaces with a (partial) public function did these locations attract attention. Examples are the redevelopment of the NDSM-wharf and Overhoeks in Amsterdam-Noord, as well as the waterfront regeneration project of the IJoevers.

4.2 C U L T U R E A N D V A C A N C Y When discussing the vacancy of the last 25 years – and of the new millennium in particular – it is important to note that the phenomenon is inextricably linked to specific preferences among users of space, whatever type. Where vacancy in the 1960s and 1970s was quite tangibly connected to developments regarding urban renewal and speculation, the moving of industrial activities to other parts of the world and a mismatch between what residents wanted and the new construction that was built at the time, from the 1990s on the reason for vacancy can largely be linked to more abstract grounds. This has to do with a shift in the way we view things and an increased importance of sense of place. The latter also played an important role in the process of gentrification as was mentioned in Chapter One. Besides causing a new type of vacancy, culture has also caused a partial reverse of vacancy among certain types of properties. As noted before, culture started to play a role in urban policy and the economy that is ever increasing. Working and living are becoming more and more entangled, and that is also reflected in the ways that we enjoy and make use of space. Nowadays, it is not only important what you do, but also where you do it – it has become largely a matter of representation and imaging. Aside from the occupants of vacant space in the 1960s and 1970s – who already allocated a substantial part of the spaces they used to activities connected to culture, such as

71 ateliers and exposition halls – this development can be traced back to the early 1990s, when the heritage movement gained momentum. After some decades dominated by a visionary future, there was a renewed respect for the past. Historical buildings were, instead of standing empty for long periods of time in some cases, given a social function and thereby included in daily urban life again. Industrial heritage in particular, which in many cases had been vacant for years, became a hot issue in the 1990s. ‘The growing interest in industrial heritage also meant that huge, empty complexes were given protected status. This could be put into effect only by giving them a new purpose, which meant that the issue of how objects were to be used began to dominate debate’, argued urban planner Joks Janssen.150 This was a turning point in terms of heritage management, but in the light of our research more importantly also in terms of vacancy. Monuments were not necessarily static anymore, but they were given back to society. This new approach enabled many meaningful buildings become dynamic and open to new uses. A 1990 article in NRC Handelsblad by urban journalist Tracy Metz, headlined ‘Nieuw gebruik van oud gebouw kan stad redden’, emphasised that it was not only the reuse of built heritage that could be of value to the city; the importance of redevelopment of old buildings surpassed that of the individual building. The statement is a clear echo of the convictions of Jane Jacobs as mentioned in Chapter One. The preservation of a historical building, of whatever kind, could be a stimulant in the revival of a complete urban neighbourhood, as it did in New York, Virginia, and Groningen (referring to the redevelopment of the Wolters Nordhoff complex), argued Metz.151 These historical buildings are always connected to local culture, since they are part of the past of a certain place. In a time of globalisation and the possibility of an imminent convergence of cultures, lifestyles and places, there is a growing need for new sources of spatial identification and local distinction – and historical buildings offer a prime and prominent possibility for making the local past and/or heritage visible.152 This has also become a vital part of many western cities’ economic strategy and place marketing, as was already touched upon in Chapter One: cities do not only have to bear in mind their residents, but also the companies that they are accommodating within city limits and increasingly tourists as well. These different groups all highly value a distinct identity and sense of place, also in the context of constellating and expressing their own identities. It is important to note here that in Amsterdam, the squatting community in particular has been responsible for the preservation of a significant amount of historical buildings that today are inextricably linked to the city and

150 Janssen et al., ‘Heritage planning and spatial development in The Netherlands’, 2-3. 151 Delpher, article NRC Handelsblad (May 21, 1990) via http://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=KBNRC01:000029910, accessed on June 23rd, 2016. 152 Janssen et al., ‘Heritage planning and spatial development in The Netherlands’, 6.

72 its identity – hence, and in that sense bitterly, are part of today’s basis of the urban economy as they are linked to tourism and the interest of multinational companies and foreign investors in the city. In The Netherlands, the first occurrences of reuse and transformation of old, vacant buildings were seen over the course of the 1990s, relatively late in comparison with other countries. Culture – as a prime way of signifying identity – was used as an instrument in renewing and regenerating underused areas, not seldom in the form of clusters. Abandoned sites where lots of vacancy is occurring could be considered ideal for this type of clustered developments, since up until a certain point the area concerns a kind of ‘clean slate’. These localised clusters, in turn, could stimulate cross-pollination and a kind of ‘dynamic learning that reinforces and is reinforced by the agglomeration of firms in the same industry’.153 This proved to be very beneficial for the cultural and creative sector. In many cities this development took place around their waterfronts, says urban planner Aspa Gospodini: these sites were often formerly used for harbour and other industrial activities which were moved to overseas countries in the 1970s and 1980s. In this respect, again, Amsterdam is relatively late with its redevelopment of the IJoevers; cities such as London, Liverpool and Barcelona had commenced their regeneration projects as early as the eighties. Importantly, it was the combination of (high-)culture activities, the renovation of old vacant buildings – in many cases having obtained heritage status – and the creation of flagship architecture that could make the area in which it is located a ‘signifying precinct’, which could serve as epicentres of the new urban economy. In the case of Amsterdam, this perfectly describes the Overhoeks project featuring, among others, the EYE Film Institute.154 The terrain of the Westergasfabriek was one of the first areas in Amsterdam that was developed along these lines within cultural municipal policy and has proved a major inspiration for many cultural areas far beyond Amsterdam’s borders. After its original activities as a gas factory were ceased in 1967 the terrain was used for storage, but many of the factory buildings stood empty for years. In 1992, when the redevelopment process took off, the buildings were first taken into use again by temporary tenants working in the cultural and creative industries. On the one hand, this was in order to prevent more vacancy – but at the time there was also a great demand for ‘cultural spaces’ in the city, linked to the substantial increase in cultural activities in Amsterdam. According to a 1994 KPGM study, this sector had grown by 43 percent compared to 1984. The Westergasfabriek buildings

153 Hitters and Richards, ‘The creation and management of cultural clusters’, 235, 238; Janssen et al., ‘Heritage planning and spatial development in The Netherlands’, 6. 154 Gospodini, ‘Portraying, classifying and understanding the emerging landscapes’, 314, 317-318.

73 proved very popular among its target group, because of its various shapes and sizes.155 This temporary lease in order to provide space until more substantial, longer-term units became available is reminiscent of situation of temporary lease of dwellings in the 1980s as part of the Leegstandswet. Although the project initially met with a great deal of difficulties in terms of funds, soil pollution and a lack of consensus among interest groups, the eventual regeneration of the site has been a great success. A survey among the temporary users brought to light that the cultural cluster, the amount of space, the challenging environment, the historical buildings and the inspiration that could be drawn from that were on the top of the list of highly valued factors.156 In terms of the potential of vacant buildings, these are factors that can be easily recreated in many historical buildings – especially the spacious halls from an industrial era, which do not only offer lots of space and room for interpretation but also speak to the senses. It can be argued that in our mobile, digital world, it is not so much the newfound respect for history as it is for simplicity and craftsmanship, that has stimulated the renewed interest in the former sites of industrial and craft production. The times past in which these business activities flourished are viewed ‘authentic’ and worth seeking inspiration in, which the numerous culture-oriented businesses doubtlessly do. Geographer Antonio Russo and economist Jan van der Borg argued that

‘The production of ‘culture-based’ goods and services within networks of interrelated industries that find their natural environment in cities – publishing, music recording, design, and art events – is considered clean, democratic, spiritually elevating, and comforting to the public sensibility regarding ‘sustainable’ as opposed to materialistic lifestyles’157

This quote could explain why these types of culture-based economic activities have flourished in industrial environments that are perceived as raw and honest, which are not directly associated with materialism. It is commonplace to bring back elements from that industrial or crafty past, but it will never be industrious and ‘dirty’ in the way that it once was: the space is redefined. This is not necessarily a negative thing: contemporaries can draw inspiration from the past of the place where they live, work, create et cetera, but since the present is not the past, they will always give their own twist to a given site. It is all about

155 Russo and Van der Borg, ‘An urban policy framework for culture-oriented economic development’, 678; Hitters and Richards, ‘The creation and management of cultural clusters’, 239. 156 Ibidem, 240-241. 157 Russo and Van der Borg, ‘An urban policy framework for culture-oriented economic development’, 670.

74 finding a balance between permanence and change. In recent years, there has also been research into the effects of space on the imagination and creativity. It has been acknowledged in academic literature that space has an influence on the well-being of people, which has also for long played a role in urban planning and architecture. In this new strand of research specific attributes of specific spaces and places are connected to a stimulation of creativity, such as large open spaces rather than narrow corridors and separate rooms in order to enhance spontaneous interactions. But the history of a locality or an industrious vicinity can also spark the imagination.158 It can be argued that old industrial buildings with their open, accessible spaces are, in general, more likely to meet these ‘requirements’ than do most traditional office spaces. Additionally, the associations with industry versus office work would in most cases definitely result in a more industrious and favourable view of industrial activities. In terms of the potential of vacant offices, this would mean that the renaissance that was experienced by the long-time vacant industrial properties in recent years is not likely to happen for the typical office building. Not in the culture-oriented era that we live in now, anyway – but this does not mean that our perceptions cannot or will not change. The above statement is, however, reinforced by the fact that many international companies that were previously based in Zuidoost or Westpoort have relocated to the Zuidas due to reasons of design and location. The market for offices has changed; companies used to resort to moving when they outgrew their original location, but nowadays it is largely accessibility and prestige that count. Prestige is expressed in terms of exterior design, but certainly also in the degree of sustainability within the building and – importantly with regard to the previous section – the layout of the floor plan and the comfort for employees. Consultancy firm Deloitte, for example, moved to its new, energy-neutral location on the Zuidas in 2014, earning their headquarters the title of the most sustainable office building in the world and a great amount of media attention. The building features an atrium of fifteen floors high and lots of glass, open space and daylight. Deloitte’s former location, the Crystal Tower at Sloterdijk, had relatively small floors, ‘en dat, zo is volgens [hoofd facilitaire zaken bij Deloitte] Ger Glimmerveen algemeen bekend, is niet goed voor de creativiteit van een 'kennisintensieve organisatie'’.159 This type of reasoning also explains why there were 250.000 square meters of new office space delivered in 2009 (the double of that in 2008), while nearly 1.3 million square meters of older office space were standing empty. The former location usually has no

158 For further reading on the relation between space and creativity, see: T. Kristensen, ‘The physical context of creativity’, Creativity and Innovation Management 12 (2004) 2, 89-96; G. Drake, ‘’This place gives me space’: place and creativity in the creative industries’’, Geoforum 34 (2011) 511-524. 159 T.G. van Weezel, ‘Zo, weer een nieuw kantoor leeg’, De Volkskrant (August 3, 2012) via http://www.volkskrant.nl/archief/zo-weer-een-nieuw-kantoor-leeg~a3295749/, accessed on June 23rd, 2016.

75 prospective tenant in sight, which only adds to the existing amount of vacant office space.160 It can be argued that this is a reversed paradox in comparison with the housing situation in the 1970s: while at that time there was a pressing housing shortage with thousands of vacant dwellings present in the city at the same time, now many office buildings that are only a few years old are standing empty while various new, prestigious construction projects are commenced regularly. It is less the case than during the pre-crisis years, but the development bubble of those years still seems to be partially sustained.

4.3 T H E P O T E N T I A L O F V A C A N C Y As was noted in previous chapters, people have long seen the potential new, valuable uses of vacant buildings. At first, this was predominantly an issue that was stimulated in a bottom- up kind of way, carried out beyond the borders of the law by squatters. Their lived space came to flourish there. Over the years, the municipality has become, firstly, more and more receptive to these alternative uses, while more recently they have integrated the strategy of reuse and transformation in their policy – not seldom in cooperation with companies and city residents. In this sense, it could be argued that perceived and conceived space have converged over the years. As for finding solutions for office vacancy the city government, as noted before, started to address the urban office space at the turn of century. The vacancy rate among offices initially showed a historical low point in terms of vacancy but rapidly evolving into a full-fledged problem. The swing had to do with the economic crisis in the first place, but soon the city government seemed to realise that this issue was not going to go away by itself. In 2006, they installed the so-called ‘kantorenloods’ or ‘office warehouse’, an institution dedicated to finding a new purpose for the abandoned office buildings. As sketched before culture had become deeply influential on the policy level both national and local, so naturally cultural facilities were high on the list for potential new uses. Housing and education also proved important, however. Between 2006 and 2010, 100.000 square meters of vacant office space was transformed to serve other purposes on a yearly basis. In 2010, these figures were doubled; 205.000 square meters were newly developed, now also to include many hotel facilities. Since then, another 675.000 square meters have been redeveloped, mainly into housing and hotels. Transformation in a modest sense could mean dividing large spaces into smaller units, for which there had been an increasing demand since the early 2000s. In the past years, redevelopment of vacant space mostly took place in

160 O+S Amsterdam, Jaarboek 2010, 371.

76 the city centre or in the Sloterdijk area. In some cases, however, it was deemed necessary to demolish certain properties. Financial, functional and legal aspects still seem to dominate when it comes to the decision to redevelop a property or not, but recently the influence of culture can also be seen in this domain. Within the context of favourable spatial features of vacant buildings in terms of redevelopment, there has been an increasing amount of research as to what the potential of vacancy can be. In 2014 for example, the Rijksdienst voor Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) issued a report – with the corny tagline ‘Seven shades of grey’ – in which they researched the cultural and historical value of office buildings, thereby determining whether or not they could potentially be of value as a redeveloped object. They distinguish between different architectural periods and styles with distinct features that could be of value for future uses or be beneficial in terms of transformation (e.g. large open spaces).161 Further, location is an important element to take into consideration. Bluntly said, a ‘good building’ (with a favourable spatial outlay and floor plan, architectural value et cetera) on a good location has a good chance to get a new life after transformation while a ‘bad building’ (with small rooms, low ceilings, few windows et cetera) on a bad location does not have a chance. A bad building on a good location and a good building on a bad location are likely and disadvantaged candidates for transformation, respectively.162 As noted in the RCE research, the location of a vacant building is on top of the list of important features. In areas where the location is (as yet) undervalued, the current (cultural) climate offers a way out by accommodating temporary events. Most obvious in this context are the many annual festivals, but other temporary uses and pop-ups can also offer a solution. The above has pointed towards a few elements of vacant buildings that could make it fitting potential candidates for transformation or for successful reuse. In this sense, one could speak of ‘potent vacancy’, referring to those buildings that have become obsolete with regard to their original function but offer various opportunities for alternative uses in terms of their layout, their history and/or their vicinity. Prime examples are the former industrial sites of the Westergasfabriek and the NDSM-wharf. The opposite category, then, would be termed ‘impotent vacancy’, referring to those buildings that have become obsolete with regard to their original function but are limited in terms of what they can offer possible future users. This could concern a cramped or otherwise unfavourable layout of the space, an unattractive location or negative associations concerning the original/previous use. This second category is, at least in the present era, more likely to concern vacant offices in single-use areas (as

161 Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, Kantoorgebouwen in Nederland 1945-2015 (Amsterdam 2013). 162 G. Everraert and L. Melchers (Gemeente Rotterdam) during a lecture on the approach of transformation in Rotterdam during Festival Leegstaand Vastgoed (10 maart 2014).

77 was already mentioned in Chapter One) or on remote locations. Vacant buildings labelled ‘impotent’ would not necessarily be lost causes, but they would be more likely to be demolished since it would require large investments to renovate and refurbish the properties in order to make them attractive and useful. Their location features could change over time if multiple, mixed-use developments would take place, but this would only be possible on the long term.

There have been calls for experiments with vacancy in the past few years, however. The Dutch architectural studio RAAAF (Rietveld Architecture-Art-Affordances) is taking the view that vacancy is not necessarily a problem, but that it offers endless possibility and opportunity for experiment and innovation. In this sense, they embody the notion of lived space – trying to make the imaginary real. Vacancy, then, is a playground of the imagination. The people behind RAAAF brought the issue of vacancy in our country to the fore at the 2010 Venice Biennale with their installation Vacant NL, emphasising the potential of vacant buildings.163 This notion brings us full-circle with what we discussed in Chapter One as argued by Ignasi de Solà-Morales Rubió among others: the freedom, innovative potential and window of opportunity that is represented by vacancy.

163 For further reading, see: R. Rietveld et al., Vacancy studies. Experiments and spatial interventions (Rotterdam 2014).

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C O N C L U S I O N

In this study, I have attempted to provide readers with a rich yet nuanced narrative on the origins, types and development of vacancy in Amsterdam over the course of the five decades since the first proactive city residents took possession of a long-term vacant building. Additionally, I have tried to explore a wide range of reactions to this vacancy by various interest groups that developed over time – including perspectives from a architectural, legal, real estate and cultural point of view – as well as placing these within the context of wider societal trends. The period from the 1960s to the 1980s were marked by the vacancy of dwellings and a failing housing policy, causing a pressing housing shortage. The conceived urban renewal efforts of the city government did not turn out as was hoped for, notably with regard to implementing the plans. This resulted in whole blocks, waiting for demolition, standing empty for long periods of time. Vacancy became a synonym for the urge for modernisation that many a city resident was starting to turn against, and commonplace in the streetscapes of the nineteenth-century neighbourhoods. This crude visibility of empty houses and, to a lesser extent, office buildings, combined with a lengthy keeping of the status-quo evoked righteous anger amongst both neighbourhood residents and home seekers. Within the sphere of perceived space, neighbourhood residents largely resorted to contacting the municipality through calls or letters. The paradox of vacancy in time of a housing shortage soon caused the situation to become untenable. Hence, within the sphere of lived space, some of the home seekers took matters into their own hand and started to illegally occupy buildings, creating and investigating new modes of living and working. Whereas the municipality at first was preoccupied with the urban renewal scheme itself, and miscommunication between different departments within the city government was commonplace, the late 1970s and early 1980s showed a more active attitude towards the issue. This was due to the dissatisfaction of city residents on the one hand, and to their perception of squatters on the other. In the course of these years, there were more opportunities for city residents to contribute to the fight against vacancy, and both national and local governments were working on a set of legal tools to deal with the issues in the form of the Anti-Kraakwet and eventually the Leegstandswet. These were, however, mostly seen as instruments to fight the practice of squatting. Although squatters were initially viewed as undesirable by the municipality, in the long run they have substantially contributed to the preservation of many historic monuments – which had been widely accepted in the literature on the squatting community – but they also proved an inspiration as to what vacant buildings

79 could be used for in the future, not to mention bring to light alternative modes of living and working. They also put a premium on culture early on. This period of the late seventies and eighties surprisingly also showed a variety of quantitative research into the extent of vacancy, leading contemporary observers to conclude that there was in no way an alarming case of vacancy among dwellings in the city. This points to the importance of the visibility of vacancy in the streetscape, which urged people to intervene themselves. This did not mean that there was in fact no problematic vacancy, to the contrary: in these years large, expensive family dwellings had been built, in which subsequently no one was interested. There was a high demand for smaller, inexpensive housing units. The problematic areas in the case of Amsterdam were located in Amsterdam- Noord and Zuidoost. Vacancy fuelled degeneration and in turn was fuelled by it. Especially the Bijlmermeer was a never-ending story, resulting in millions of guilders and years of renovation, reconstruction and new developments in order to make the neighbourhood somewhat attractive. The end of the 1980s, however, saw an increasing amount of interest in living, working, and residing in Amsterdam, which caused an elevated pressure on the housing market and silently freed it from a large part of its vacancy problems. The second wave of vacancy as noted in Chapter One, disused industrial sites and buildings, were surprisingly absent from both the literature and sources consulted. This type of vacancy has only been in vogue in a relatively recent period of time, when these properties were redeveloped on a large scale. These new functions often involved cultural or creative activities, which the 1990s – relatively stable when it came to vacant space – put on the national and municipal agendas through the heightened importance of culture. Culture has also proved influential on design practices and perceptions of attractive living and working environments, putting a premium on large open spaces, lots of light and a rich history. This has proved very beneficial for long-term vacant premises, as noted for industrial heritage in particular. With regard to the latter, it could also be argued that these spaces evoke some sort of misplaced nostalgia, connected to a strange fascination for decay and transitoriness. The new perceptions and requirements of space, then, also have their effects on the potential redevelopment of current vacant spaces. We can speak of potent versus impotent vacancy, the former having many points of departure for new uses and redevelopment while the latter does not. This can be of help in assessing the potential of the current wave of vacancy that began in the course of the new millennium, concerning offices. Lately, however there have been calls for experimenting with part of the existing vacancy. This would mean that there is not always a need to look for a solution, but to look for what is possible. This would be a new way of creating and shaping lived space: vacant space as a driving force of

80 the imagination. Self-evidently there is not always room for this kind of exploration – especially in crowded cities with high land prices. Since the design of this research was quite ambitious in covering fifty years and a variety of phenomena connected to vacancy, it is inevitable that there are some shortcomings to this study. In each chapter, it would have been possible to study the type of vacancy that was dealt with in greater depth, mainly by including a wider variety of archival resources. When addressing squatters, it could be insightful to go through a wider selection of literature and archives to distinguish their different attitudes towards vacancy. This was, however, not possible in the current study given its time-consuming nature. In the final chapter, then, I have chosen to gloss over the details of the municipal strategy in transforming vacant offices, given its recent nature as opposed to the historical outlook of this study. These instances could give clues for future research. Moreover, it would be interesting to take Lefebvres lived space as a starting point, including the more recent ways that it has expressed itself not only in literature but also in practice (e.g. by architecture and design firm RAAAF). One way or another, this study has shown that vacancy has been a continuing phenomenon in our society, developing within the framework of wider societal changes. This in itself makes it a subject worthy of further research. At a time of increasing urbanisation, though, it can be concluded on the one hand that vacancy in our big cities is not so much the problem – the vacancy left behind in shrinking cities and regions can be considered much more problematic. It could be very valuable to research this side of the phenomenon further. On the other hand, in cities that keep growing and densifying, it can be of great value to investigate to what extent vacant space is beneficial to city residents’ well-being. In this sense we could draw inspiration from Ignasi de Solà-Morales Rubió: it could be of great value to foster our terrains vagues. They can offer space, room to breathe, a new perspective. In an ever-changing city, that might be considered imperative.

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