The reduction is to take effect on October 1, 2010 and will last until July 1, 2011, Telegraaf reports. The care-taker government hopes that this will soften the blow of the crisis for the building sector.

Some of the rules for the lower tax are:

• Only for houses of two years and older.
• Only for labour costs.
• Only for improvements that will raise the resale value of your house.

(Photo by Yola de Lusenet, some rights reserved)

The appointment fits right into the city government’s fantasies of turning the city into Anton Pieck‘s wet dream. A group critical of—and therefore silenced by—the municipality, pointed to the damning example of staid Bruges in Belgium earlier.

Publicist Rogier van Kralingen told Radio Netherlands: “People don’t visit Amsterdam just because it gives them a flavour of the past, but because it has a strong spirit of freedom. The city has an open-hearted, liberal feel to it. If a city wants to create a good environment for its residents and international businesses – which, let’s face it, will have to provide most of our income – you need to maintain a healthy balance between tourism, recreation and people’s freedom to do what they want.”

It’s not like the city and borough councils needed more ammunition: here’s a list of things they have already outlawed. And what’s keeping the Robert-Jasper Grootveld statue?

The Unesco decision makes downtown Amsterdam the seventh World Heritage site in the kingdom.

(Photo by Colleen Taugher, some rights reserved)

An entire year after having been commissioned by the City of Amsterdam, a wall graffiti with annexed garden downtown on the Prinsengracht by The London Police apparently has to be painted over, as it doesn’t ‘embellish’ the area of downtown Amsterdam it is in. Nonsense!

Seasoned Amsterdam residents know that this bit of nannyism is bureaucrat code for ‘we’re still trying to get Amsterdam on the Unesco list and this probably won’t help’.

Why was it put up in the first place? Why take one year to devalue something you’ve ordered? Who complained about it? Does it have something to do with Amsterdam’s new, slightly more conservative mayor Eberhard van der Laan? Was someone bored at work?

Funny, Miami, New York, Munich and other big cities around the world have no problems with their London Police wall graffiti at all.

(Link: parool, Photo of Graffiti by London Police by Pierrot, some rights reserved)

Smack in the middle of China on the Yangtze Kiang river lies the huge capital of Hubei province, Wuhan. Nicknamed one of the ‘four furnaces’ of China because of its oppressive humid heat in the summer, the city will become home to this lily shaped tower, shaped so that it can stand in its own shade.

Soeters Van Eldonk architects designed the building in collaboration with Grontmij engineering for Wuhan University, and it will house the New Energy Centre. Since it is to become an environment for studying new energy technologies, Soeters van Eldonk hope to have the tower both emit zero carbon and use zero energy. The huge roof consists of solar panels and a solar chimney for cooling.

Construction will start at the end of the year.

(Link: Inhabitat.com. Photo: Soeters Van Eldonk architects)

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)

On 29 March 2010 we finished work on the latest favela painting and our first part of ‘O Morro’: Praça Cantão. It is central square at the foot of the community of Santa Marta, a favela in the heart of Rio de Janeiro.

Livening up slums in Brazil is a project by Haas & Hahn – Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn. They once filmed a documentary on hip hop in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo for MTV, after which they decided to bring funky works of art to unexpected places, starting with painting enormous murals in the slums of Brazil together with the local youth.

The goal is to have the ‘O Morro’ project sponsored by a community of supporters who will finance the infrastructure, materials and people needed to complete the work. You can donate through their site in a number of ways, including one text message every month for just 3 euro a pop.

Find out more about this project on Facebook and Twitter.

(Link: trendbeheer.com, Photo; favelapainting)

Some street-wise, pop-up furniture designed by Carmela Bogman and Rogier Martens was installed in Utrecht on 17 May 2010. The residents can pump up the furniture themselves (se pic) and when then are finished using it, it lowers itself down again.

It looks nice, I want to try it too, but I have to admit, the comments I read on the French site I got this news from needs to be addressed. Yes, it screams unhygienic. I mean, people walk on this furniture with dog pooh and who knows what under their shoes and then the idea would be to sit down and, what, have a sandwich on the table surface? Ick.

I can’t really get an idea of how fast the furniture goes back down and I can imagine not wanting to get my foot stuck, never mind a small child getting any of their limbs stuck under it.

As my Dutch friends say, the idea is nice, but the execution, well, kinda sucks.

(Link fubiz.net, Photo Carmela Bogman, thanks Laurent!)

Last week inhabitants of the Horstermeer polder just south of Amsterdam removed a 10 ton weir placed there by the AGV water board (Amstel, Gooi and Vecht regions). They claim the dam creates a dangerous situation.

The water board wants to let nature run its course in a part of the polder by letting water levels rise, effectively turning part of the polder into marshland. The inhabitants fear that since their houses are typically located at the lowest point of the polder, the centre, these higher water levels will damage their properties.

According to the polder dwellers, the water board never filed official plans for their dam, so that the inhabitants could not legally protest its placement. The water board has reported the theft of a weir to the police.

Water boards are a parallel government in the Netherlands for the management of water.

Video: Republiek Horstermeerpolder.

According to Mickey Bosschert, real estate agent for religious property, some 1200 churches in the Netherlands will be sold in the next ten years. Some of these churches will be repurposed, while others will be torn down.

The latter option tends to be resisted by citizens, Bosschert told De Pers, because so many memories of baptisms, weddings and funerals are often attached to a church. Big church buildings in the middle of a city often occupy desirable locations.

Churches go for between 0.2 and 5.5 million euro. A famous, recently repurposed church that drew international attention is the Dominikanenkerk in Maastricht (see photo), which now hoses a book store. British news paper The Guardian called it the most beautiful book store in the world. That is quite the accolade, considering it is owned by a chain and the interior has that chain store look.

(Photo by FaceMePLS, some rights reserved)

Slot Loevestein is looking for new castle watchers (or just one, but two works better I presume), as the couple currently acting as such, as well as running the bed & breakfast on the grounds, is retiring.

This 14th century castle used to be a prison, and one of its most famous inmates was lawyer, poet and politician Hugo de Groot (Hugo Grotius) often protrayed as the ‘father of modern international law’. In 1621 Hugo de Groot pulled off a very cool escape in a book chest, an idea he got from his wife, Maria van Reigersberg who was living in the castle, albeit probably not locked up.

(Link: rtl.nl, Photo of Castle Loevestein by StimpsonJCat, some rights reserved)