The Hoerengracht (literally ‘whore canal’) is the clever name of an exhibition by Americans Ed and Nancy Kienholz currently at the National Gallery in London featuring ‘an artistic re-creation of Amsterdam’s red light district’.

Althought the play on words is excellent, this sentence, however, is rubbish: “The Herengracht, or Gentlemen’s Canal, is home to Amsterdam’s prostitutes, who famously sit in windows to ply their trade.”

The Herengracht has beautiful houses, lawyers, offices, a few nice restaurants, but no whores. The nearest girls are on the Spui, roughly two streets down. So much for fact checking.

Someone on television said this exhibition would come to Amsterdam, and I wonder why anyone would bother looking at some artsy-farty rendering of the real thing when we can go, see and even experience the real thing. I could be missing the point, who knows.

(Link: independent.co.uk)

Tonight, ‘inside’ an Amsterdam bridge called Brug 9, an interesting debate that divides the city, ‘Is Amsterdam a city or a town?’ debate will be held, organised by AlterFritz. Follow the link above for all the details (in Dutch).

Amsterdam shows its city side in a capital, international way to tourists and the world with its architecture, canals and events, but then turns around and tells its residents in Dutch uncle style what they can and cannot do, as if we were little children.

AlterFritz claims that an increasing number of residents resent the nannyism of the city’ bureaucrats, since the point of living in the big city is to be able to do your thing. Of course, you need some kind of social control, but in recent years — and I have to agree — it has gone too far, the most recent example being getting fined if caught drinking a beer on an overcrowded terrace if you’re standing and not sitting. They revoked it, but it took some protesting first. As if the city didn’t have any real problems!

As for my immigrant two cents, Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, but only has 730,000 inhabitants. Many people who live outside of Amsterdam really don’t like it for tons of reasons. My pet peeves include public transport stopping around midinight every night, chaos at Amsterdam Central Station when hailing a taxi, and you can’t get food past midnight anywhere, not even take away or ordering out. Forget any kind of breakfast restaurants except the bakery (OK, a Dutch thing in general, but this is the nation’s capital!) and the debate about having normal shops open on Sunday when people believe they should be closed. Oh, and the highest parking rates in the entire world, not something to be proud of. In this sense, Amsterdam is a closed-minded little village that believes in catering to tourists first and residents second. By catering I do mean taking their money.

Aaah, but I do like it somehow, I do live here! I love the nightlife, cultural activities, architecture, some restaurants (Dutch roulette, I call it) and I openly admit it’s close to an international airport when I want to get out of town, er city.

UPDATE: Het Parool, Amsterdam’s independent daily wrote about the debate (in Dutch).

(Link: AlterFritz)

United Nude, the design agency run by shoe designer Galahad JD Clark and architect Rem Koolhaas has expanded its on-line shoe store with an off-line version on the Spuistraat in Amsterdam. No, that is not the Rem Koolhaas, it is Rem D. Koolhaas, his cousin.

Koolhaas told De Pers it took six years to open a bricks and mortar store because only now is the collection big enough. Also, the crisis made the rent right.

(Via: Bright. Photo: United Nude.)

As you may know, Amsterdam was basically built in what can perhaps best be described as a swamp, and as it happens peat is not the best conceivable supporter for brick. Early Amsterdam residents got around this problem by driving huge wooden poles into the bog until it hit firmer ground and then building their houses on top of this wooden foundation.

It turns out, Parool says, that a changing climate is leading to longer droughts, which in turn lowers the water level and causes the poles to dry out and crumble.

It is mostly privately owned houses that are in danger of collapsing, as housing corporations have already replaced their pillars.

The Parool article quotes alderman Maarten van Poelgeest and a spokesperson of Waternet who both say that the situation is serious without going into much detail, although the latter says that “there is no need to panic, this won’t be an issue before 2040.”

(Photo by Wikipedia user Dohduhdah.)

A tour company in Amsterdam claims it wants to hire alcoholics as guides, writes Z24 (Dutch).

Amsterdam Excursions believes that habitual drunks know where to find the bars for its tour of Amsterdam watering holes. In order to test suitability the company lets applicants fill out a questionnaire, open a beer bottle without an opener, and do a breathalyser test.

So far it appears only people who drink in the street or quietly at home have shown up, not the ‘kroegtijgers’ (bar flies) the tour company was hoping for.

This is the same company that organized an economic crisis themed tour.

I once read that the cities of Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris made up an interesting cultural triptych, and an upcoming exhibition of Jacques Brel photos entitled ‘Le Pont d’Amsterdam’ by his official photographer Jean-Pierre Leloir in Amsterdam seems to support this imaginative theory.

Brug 9, a newly opened Amsterdam venue under a canal bridge will be featuring an exclusive, three-day photo exhibition of famous photos of Belgium’s iconic singer Jacques Brel, taken by world famous French press photographer Jean-Pierre Leloir opening on October 9. The exhibition will coincidentally feature 31 photos — coincidentally because it’s been 31 years since Brel’s death on 9 October 1978. Thirty of the pictures are black-and-white, with one colour photo of his last concert.

Rockarchive Amsterdam’s Michelle Lemesle, a Parisienne and huge fan of Brel, is supplying the photos for this exhibition. “Jean-Pierre Leloir is the most unknown famous photographer there is and has a huge archive of photos,” explains Michelle to anyone who asks when people come to her gallery.

The event is organised by MSTRDM, Alter Fritz and Rockarchive, with yours truly DJing at the opening.

(Photo: Jean-Pierre Leloir, courtesy of Rockarchive, Amsterdam)

Poor, poor Amsterdam. It’s tough having everyone wanting to clean you up and use you as the symbol of everything bad in the world. As if the US was so clean and well-balanced. Fox News is so ignorant it’s sad. Dear American readers — do something!

“Robbert (26) and Elian (28) live in Amsterdam. They created the TruthAboutAmsterdam website as a response to silly prejudices about Amsterdam. TV host Bill O’Reilly from Fox News (USA) is one of the most hilarious representatives of these false ideas. We aim to show you a more realistic view of Amsterdam.”

(Link: truthaboutamsterdam.com)

A group of Amsterdam citizens critical of the way the city is run has decided to change its name and logo under heavy pressure of the city government, Volkskrant reported last week (Dutch).

The group called Ai! Amsterdam (meaning Ouch! Amsterdam, a play on the official city marketing slogan of the city, I Amsterdam) has publicly criticized the city’s ban on drinking-while-standing, the gradual closing down of the Red Light district, and other less illuminated measures. The city has threatened with costly legal procedures if the group do not give up their name and logo, procedures which the group estimate would cost them tens of thousands of euro.

Ai! Amsterdam points out to De Pers (Dutch) that the city centre’s candidacy for becoming a UNESCO world heritage site (not just the canals, the entire city centre!) threatens the liveliness and openness of the city even further, creating a real risk of Amsterdam becoming just as staid as Bruges, Belgium, which is also a world heritage site. I think the group are underexaggerating things. At least Bruges started out boring. Amsterdam on the other hand has something to lose.

Ironically, the official I Amsterdam manifesto proclaims: “It’s time for Amsterdam to speak out for itself and make its relevance known in a proud, supportive and positive manner.”

(Illustration: the old Ai! Amsterdam logo, source: Ai!)

The KLIK! animation film festival will feature more than 250 films from 32 countries from 17 to 20 September in Amsterdam. This internationally known festival is in its third year and keeps gets bigger. One of the enthusiastic organisers Luuk van Huët talks about KLIK! like a proud father so I had to write something.

“Even though Internet has made it easier to access and view animation from around the globe, not enough offbeat animated fare graces the big screens in our creative capital Amsterdam and the rest of the country. We started the KLIK! Amsterdam Animation Festival to change that.”

KLIK! also has a satellite edition in the city of Mopti in Mali, West Africa, where Dutchman Willem Snapper lives. He started the Mopti Foundation to help the locals build gardens and irrigation systems and also screens films in his own backyward every week, attracting 300 visitors at a time, as there is no cinema to be found for hundreds of kilometers.

This year KLIK! has compiled a special program for the Mopti Foundation, to be judged by a jury of local dignitaries, and the winner will receive the KLIK! Mopti Award. KLIK! will also give out awards for the best design in animation and the best political animated film and the awards for the best films in the Open and Student Competition.

And if Luuk were watching over my shoulder, he’d remind me again to finally go and see the ‘South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Sing-and-Swear-A-Long!’ on Friday 18 September.

(Link: klikamsterdam.nl)

‘Gecekondu’ is a type of housing in Turkey that literally means “built in one day,” and that exploits a legal Turkish loophole that says that if you built a house in one night, the authorities cannot tear it down. Estimates say that up to half of the buildings in Istanbul are ‘Gecekondular’ (plural).

It is also the name of a one-room hotel in Amsterdam that DUS architects came up with. The building is entirely made of big square shopping bags and sits atop a pontoon. Visitors can draw the bridge at night to keep unwelcome visitors away. Staying a night is ‘free,’ that is to say, you are expected to perform chores in payment.

Parool calls it surprisingly cool (Dutch).

(Photo: DUS Architects, which has an extensive web page about this project.)