September 19, 2008

Recently discovered Jewish interior will not be wrecked for now

Filed under: Architecture,History by Branko Collin @ 5:30 pm

A uniquely preserved WWII Jewish living room in Amsterdam will stay intact a little bit longer. The room which we wrote about last week, was discovered last year by a student at that time Alexander Westra (currently of the University of Amsterdam). AT5 reports that Lebo, the company that now owns the house, has stopped the wrecking works of the property.

The house used to belong to banker Korijn who died in 1942, after which his entire family was deported to the concentration camps where they died at the hands of the Nazis. One source called the room “more authentic than the Anne Frank House.” After the war, the house at the J.J. Viottastraat in Amsterdam came into the hands of Catholic theology students who barely touched the room, although Westra apparently did uncover some traces of parties.

In the next month and a half the owner will look at possibilities to preserve the room which is built in the Amsterdamse School style. One possibility is to turn the luxurious room into a museum.

According to a spokesperson for Het Schip, the museum for the Amsterdamse School, focus for this architectural movement usually lies on exteriors. To answer a question asked earlier by one our readers, Jay Vos, the spokesperson did not know of any books that focussed solely on Amsterdamse School interiors, although the museum is currently working on a book that will also document these interiors.

The students who lived there recorded a corny video invitation to their new year’s bash in the living room last year, which 24 Oranges discovered at that wonder-wasteland of archeology, YouTube.

Photo: Alexander Westra, republished with permission. Westra sent us several photos, a selection of which we showed in our earlier article.

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September 11, 2008

Preserved interior of Jewish family home found

Filed under: Architecture,History,Religion by Orangemaster @ 9:44 am
Mezozah

Researchers have found a house in Amsterdam-Zuid on the J.J. Viottastraat that has an almost intact 1940s interior which used to belong to a Jewish family. The living room, the most important and usually biggest room of Dutch houses, is apparently more authentic than the Anne Frank House. Alexander Westra, university teacher of heritage studies at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, confirmed this yesterday.

Westra stumbled upon this unique find last year when he was working on a project on historic interiors in the capital. The family of Jewish banker Lodewijk Korijn left the home in 1942 when they were carted off to concentration camps. And since then, the interior has barely been touched.

Westra believes that the home should be protected heritage. After the war, the house was used by theology students. The living room was their common room. In the vestibule there is still an original dresser integrated to the wainscoting on the wall. Even the lighting from that era still works, which is rare, says Westra. The backroom also features a few original details even though a fire raged through it once. The interior was made in Amsterdam school style.

(Link: parool.nl)

Update 11:30, by Branko: Alexander Westra, the scientist who made the discovery, sent us some photos he took from the interior. You will find them below the fold. Thanks, Alexander! According to him, the statues of saints and the crucifix were put there by later residents.

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August 30, 2008

A peek at the Amsterdam Begijnhof

Filed under: Architecture,History by Branko Collin @ 9:09 am

Apartment Therapy visited the 70 square metre home of American radio maker Ruth at the beguinage in Amsterdam. The complex, simply called Begijnhof (Dutch for beguinage), lies smack in the middle of the city and is open to the public. Located just off one of the busiest streets in the country, the Kalverstraat, it’s a sea of calm on the inside.

A begijnhof, or beguinage, is a secluded garden around which devout women lived a life dedicated to their faith, outside the formal structure of the church. Unlike nuns, beguines took no vows and kept any property they might have. There are dozens of former beguinages in the Low Countries. Although the houses were typically small, beguinages are still sought-after property because of their court-yard lay-out.

De Begijnhof is no longer home to beguines, but still only women live there. Should you wish to do the touristy thing, and should you be able to find De Begijnhof, access is free, and the beguinage has a couple of trumps up its sleeve other than just being there and being unique. It sports one of the two remaining wooden houses in the center of Amsterdam (1470). The panels of the pulpit of the English Church were made by Piet Mondriaan, and there’s a second, Catholic church hidden somewhere behind the gables.

Photo by Andreas Praefcke, some rights reserved.

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August 26, 2008

Hirst’s diamond skull comes to the Rijksmuseum

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 9:15 am
Hirst

The famous diamond-bedecked skull by British artist Damien Hirst will be exhibited in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam from 1 November until mid-December. The museum’s director Director Wim Pijbes told De Volkskrant that the contract for showing the work is the strictest he has ever signed. “The skull has to be placed in a dark room without anything else around it. Everything we have to do is in the contract. We cannot mention who the owner is, either.”

The skull, that of an 18th century European covered in platinum and 8,601 diamonds, was sold in 2007 to a group of investors for €75m, the largest sum ever paid for a work by a living artist.

(Link: dutchnews.nl, photo ad.nl)

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August 25, 2008

Warm welcome for Olympic athletes in 1928 stadium

Filed under: Shows,Sports by Branko Collin @ 7:00 pm

The Olympic athletes arrived home today, and they were given a warm welcome at the 1928 Olympic stadium in Amsterdam. I live right around the corner, and decided to take my crummy old digital camera there. As luck would have it, the organizers had decided that the athletes would enter through the front gate, where there is ample opportunity for non-accredited press (i.e. l’il ole me) to climb onto flowerbeds and the pedestals of pompous statues.

Below you see Anky van Grunsven (gold, dressage) being interviewed by famous sports presenter Tom Egberts. It was very hard to get a photo of her not grinning like a maniac, but here she had to be serious for a moment. She was one of the first there, and being a gold medal winner had to wait until the end to enter the stadium, and she was all smiles all the time.

More below the fold…

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July 26, 2008

Fence divulges all about man-nature relationship

Filed under: Architecture,Design,Nature by Branko Collin @ 7:50 am

The Olympiaplein in Amsterdam is located in my neighbourhood, the Olympic Quarter. I must have walked and biked past this spot dozens if not hundreds of times. And yet when I did so last week, the oddness of this fence struck me for the first time. Its builder and designer has taken special care to curve the fence around some of the trees, but has locked other trees out. It is clear that this was done on purpose, but not why.

Perhaps this is a reflection on the power of man over nature. Trees cannot walk, but even if they could, people would get to decide where. Or, more likely, it is a statement of the power of man over man. We, the city council, decide where our fences run. If we want them to zigzag, we’ll make them zigzag. If we want them to form obscene drawings to observers in outer space, obscene drawings it is. Or perhaps the architect merely mused on the nature of borders in general, with the rows of trees forming one border, and the rows of steel mixing in in an oddly compromising way.

In the end, the solution is far more prosaic. This fence, designed by Ruud-Jan Kokke, replaced its modest predecessor in 2007. The district council had decided to cut down 78 trees to make room for the fence, and this decision led to a storm of protest. Once the district of Oud Zuid had decided to give in to the complaints, the fence builders had already started (Dutch). The decision was then reached to have the fence curve out whenever it met with a tree. And so all my philosophies proved right, in the end, though not in a way I expected.

The city commissioned Gabriele Merolli to make a series of photos of The Fence, and he put them on the web.

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July 10, 2008

Baby panda fed by cat in Artis zoo

Filed under: Animals,Weird by Orangemaster @ 3:32 am
Baby panda

A baby panda rejected by its mother has been adopted by a domestic cat which is suckling the animal along with its own young, Amsterdam’s Artis zoo said yesterday. “The young panda is doing well under the circumstances. For it to survive, it needs to get enough food and grow. We will see if this is the case over the next few weeks,” the zoo said in a statement.

The animal, an endangered red panda, would need to be suckled by the cat for at least a few weeks, it said, adding that it was not unique for a wild animal to be adopted by a domestic one. The panda and another sibling were initially accepted by their mother but a day later were found to have been abandoned. They were also suffering from hypothermia.

“A cat belonging to one of the zookeepers had just given birth and so we decided to try to get it to suckle the pandas,” the statement said. The second panda, was too weak when it was placed with the ca and did not survive. Red pandas, which are only slightly larger than domestic cats, are an endangered species found mostly in the eastern Himalayas. Many zoos around the world have breeding programmes.

(Link: news.yahoo.com, photo cyberpresse.ca)

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June 30, 2008

Last call before the smoking ban

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 9:12 am
Cigarette ban

This past weekend in and around Amsterdam and probably throuhgout the rest of the country a number of smoking parties were held where people could smoke just about anything including marijuana and haschsch where normally etiquette dictates that that is more of a coffeeshop thing. A DJ friend over at Ghetto Restaurant on the Warmoestraat played music about smoking and cigarettes, and cigar aficionados had get togethers all over town, if I can believe all the flyers I saw. We all know that the French, Irish, Canadians and Americans all run out outdoors in packs to smoke one, even two cigarettes in a row and then get back to their food and drinks left with the friends who don’t smoke. The Dutch also know that tomorrow, 1 July, Big Brother won’t necessarily be coming by to check and see if everyone has radically changed their habits.

Predictions are fun when they are not taken seriously, so here are some predictions for the upcoming month as regards the smoking ban.

1) The first major fine from a respectable establishment will make the news.
2) Some places will pay the fines and let people smoke in protest, at least for a while.
3) All kinds of private clubs with membership will cash in, as the ban on them will not apply.
4) Any kind of weirdo initiative will make the news, especially anything related to coffeeshops.
5) More establishments than expected will either close or change hands.
6) There will be clashes between smokers who persist and non-smokers who feel they have won the war.

Let’s wait till the smoke clears.

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May 16, 2008

Largest outdoor book market next Sunday in Amsterdam

Filed under: Literature by Branko Collin @ 9:24 am

On Sunday May 18, Amsterdam will host the world’s largest outdoor book market, or so the organisers claim. The 1,000 stall market came about because this year sees Amsterdam as Unesco’s book capital of the world. Organisers are De Kan who each year hold the much smaller outdoor book markets on Dam Square, Waterloo Square and Heineken (!) Square, so expect lots of second hand books and antiques. The market will be held in the Eastern part of the city centre, an illegal pimp’s spit past the Red Light District.

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May 13, 2008

Designer clogs from the antipodes

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 8:30 am

Lola Granola submitted this story:

“Check out these nifty designer clogs. The Cadillac and bridal “klompen” are to die for!”

Don’t hesitate to wander around Amsterdam-born, New Zealand-based designer Patricia van Lubeck’s website to discover her other wonderful art.

Thanks Lola!

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