The first two bridges are almost finished, and the rest will be built in sync with the realisation of the neighbourhood.
The properties are sold in shifts, so unfortunately it will take a while for the project to be completed. The first two bridges will be ready at the end of September. The drawings and calculations for the other bridges are almost done. The way things are looking now the 200 euro bridge will be built at the start of next year. This will become a small pedestrian bridge, built exactly like on the banknote, meaning that the scale will be completely out of proportion.
Mark van Wijk, Joeri Horstink and I are working on a number of projects under the label Rotganzen. Currently a project of ours that is getting a lot play in the blogosphere is Party, about stylized broken party tents.
Completely off topic: an exhibit of big party tents in Dutch would be called an ‘evenementententententoonstelling’. I’d like to see other Germanic languages come up with compound words like that. I bet you cannot! I bet you are too scared!
When Austrian engraver Robert Kalina designed the bank notes for the euro in 1996, he selected the architectural history of the bridge as his theme. Each note displays a drawing of a bridge from a certain period—but, as per the rules of the competition, Kalina could only use fictional bridges to avoid giving greater prominence to some countries.
Artist Robin Stam is now putting prominence where prominence is due—the Netherlands. He is making all seven fictional bridges very real by building them across a ditch in Spijkenisse. No word on when this will be ready.
* Several provinces have instated hunting bans for a variety of animals because of the cold weather. Zeeland, Drenthe, Noord Holland and Limburg have ordered a general hunting ban, while others have limited their bans to a selection of animals. The Party for the Animals (PvdD) has called for a nationwide ban, Trouw reports.
* Car navigation software voiced by porn actress Kim Holland was the most popular of the Navigatiestemmen.nl stable in 2010, Blik op Persbericht reports. Her voice was also the most popular in 2009. The winner of 2008, Clown Bassie, came second this year. Unrelated: recently Holland’s demand that Internet provider Ziggo release the personal data of a customer suspected of infringing her copyrights was rejected on appeal.
* The most wanted job title on Monsterboard.nl in 2010 was secretary, just like last year. Visitors searched 500,000 times for the title. Manager and controller were other popular job titles, Blik op Nieuws writes.
* Almost 1 billion worth of guilder coins and bills are still hiding underneath mattresses and in other places, Z24 reports. Half of that money is in coins, and can no longer be exchanged for euro. Paper money can be exchanged at the central bank (DNB) until 2031. The amount of unclaimed banknotes seems to be the same as last year’s.
Before the euro was introduced as a pan-European currency in 2002, the Netherlands used the venerable guilder.
Until 2006 citizens could still exchange their guilder coins and bills for euro. The deadline for trading in guilder banknotes is 2032, and the Dutch national bank (DNB) estimates there are still about half a billion euro worth of guilder bills floating around.
According to Z24, DNB bases its estimates on the missing banknote numbers. About 24 million banknotes are still to be traded in.
Filed under: Design,History by Branko Collin @ 1:57 pm
The name may be unknown to foreigners, or even to the Dutch themselves, but the designs of Ootje Oxenaar are deeply familiar to any Dutch person over the age of 10. It was Oxenaar who designed the Dutch banknotes between 1966 and 1985.
Unlike the drab money used in most of the rest of the world his designs were extremely colourful. Where Oxenaar could go for aesthetics instead of respectability, it appears to have been mostly because the Dutch bank, after some initial run-ins, let him be just a designer.
In this video he talks about his relationship with the Dutch bank, rejected designs, and the many Easter eggs he put in his banknotes. The exhibition at the Museum for Communication in the Hague runs until 10 April, 2010. It focuses on both his money and stamp designs.
Oxenaar’s Euro note designs were rejected, but can still be found on the web. Oh, how I would have loved to have unicorns on our bills!
In 2007 the Dutch mint started with a pilot project that made it the first in Europe to print money using cotton for which the producers have not been exploited. So far, the 20 and 50 euro bills produced by De Nederlandsche Bank have contained 10 to 14% fair trade cotton.
Paper factories prefer blends of cotton, and according to the mint (PDF, Dutch) “currently there is not enough good fair trade cotton to make up 100% of a bill. But the fair trade cotton market is growing spectacularly.”
The use of fair trade cotton in Euro notes is the result of a bet that the youth chapter of Christian union CNV made in 2005 with the Minister of Finance at that time, Gerrit Zalm.
Filed under: Design,General by Branko Collin @ 10:29 pm
In 2002 the Dutch exchanged their adventurous banknote designs for drab, super-safe euro ones. For those who want to take a trip down memory lane and re-experience the Netherlands’ former “monopoly money”, CR Blog has an interview with the designer of many Dutch banknotes, “Ootje” Oxenaar who at age 76 is still teaching at the graphic design department of the Rhode Island School of Design. The interview contains several examples of his remarkable designs.
* Several provinces have instated hunting bans for a variety of animals because of the cold weather. Zeeland, Drenthe, Noord Holland and Limburg have ordered a general hunting ban, while others have limited their bans to a selection of animals. The Party for the Animals (PvdD) has called for a nationwide ban, 
Before the euro was introduced as a pan-European currency in 2002, the Netherlands used the venerable guilder. 
In 2007 the Dutch mint started with a pilot project that made it the first in Europe to print money using cotton for which the producers have not been exploited. So far, the 20 and 50 euro bills produced by De Nederlandsche Bank have contained 10 to 14% fair trade cotton.