Although these crates can be found on bikes all over the country, these ones on instagram are from Amsterdam. The gallery features milk creates, supermarket crates, baskets and wooden boxes, to name but a few of the creative ways people kit out their bikes. As opposed to other western countries, the Dutch are more about dumping their bags and groceries in the front crate than cycling with a backpack.
And then across the country in Nijmegen, Paul de Graaf took pictures of the 30 odd years of graffiti peeled off the sides of punk rock venue Doornroosje, with a cool timeline from 1984 until today. He says it is a lot like the rings of a tree. Besides having the biggest names in music play there, Doornroosje is also known as one of the first places in the country that openly sold sold marijuana and hash.
Filed under: Architecture by Orangemaster @ 10:42 pm
The leaning tower designed by Renzo Piano at the foot of Rotterdam’s Erasmus bridge overlooking the Maas River was completed in 2000, and is now set to undergo extensive renovation and expansion as part of the company’s relocation from The Hague to Rotterdam. The renovations will be led by Rotterdam firm V8 Architects, which has involved Piano in the decision-making process.
With a new 20 year lease agreement for the building, KPN have the opportunity to add further enhancements to what is already a distinctive building. The intention is to achieve this in a sustainable manner, creating viable future workplaces from existing offices in the country. The core of the project seeks to maintain the identity and integrity of the existing tower with interventions.
With construction underway, work on the KPN Tower’s renovations is set to be completed by the end of 2017 when we can do a before and after kind of thing. The other notable Piano building in the Netherlands is the Nemo Science Centre in Amsterdam, built in 1997, which is also on the water.
An 18th century collector’s cupboard with mostly apothecary items apparently had 56 hidden drawers at the back of it, with all kinds of objects in them, some of which have turned out to be radioactive.
During the renovations of the museum a few years ago, the cupboard was properly restored and cleaned. After a thorough inspection of all the drawers, experts found some uranium, a common material used for colouring glass back then. Radioactivity was only discovered in the 20th century by Henri Becquerel, although Marie Curie eventually coined the term.
Researchers found almost 2000 different bits of flora in the drawers, including seeds, flowers, roots, animal parts, rocks, minerals and fossils, all used to entertain guests of the unknown original owner. The cupboard is two metres high and was made around 1730 in Amsterdam. It was moved to England soon after and bought back by the Rijksmuseum from an art dealer in 1956.
The curious cupboard is currently on display at the Rijksmuseum.
A few weeks ago, a stag do with a questionable desert theme got the media buzzing because the groom to be was riding a camel down crowded narrow streets in downtown Amsterdam.
Although it freaked out and amused people, the Party for the Animals was not amused and got the police involved claiming animal cruelty. Alderman Laurens Ivens responsible for animal welfare then said, “if this is not illegal, it should be” and basically had to look up what the rules are because he had no clue.
Back when the man was riding the camel, the police stopped him and the man renting the camel for unpaid bills, because the law allows renting animals. The police could have done nothing and not had any legal repercussions.
After Googling (!), Ivens found out that renting animals is perfectly legal and that the police got lucky by finding a reason to stop the man parading through town. Is it or is it not animal cruelty? Animals are rented all the time for shows, petting zoos and the likes, but this time it struck a nerve.
Portrait of Barack Obama made of wood by Diederick Kraaijeveld
Here’s some fake news for you, served up and spread generously by Americans on the Internet: that portrait artist Edwin van den Dikkenberg from Amsterdam painted Barack Obama’s official portrait (pic here).
According to Het Parool, Van den Dikkenberg painted an obviously very popular painting of the 44th POTUS, but it’s not going to be hanging in the White House any time soon.
The bunk was posted on Facebook and went viral. I don’t care who or what, but it is a good exercise in demonstrating that many people don’t check their facts and enjoy spreading fake news when it goes well with the walls of their echo chambers.
Van den Dikkenberg said he opened his email last Sunday and it was full of messages from the United States. He painted a portrait of Obama to show people what he could do, and didn’t expect it to be seen as an official portrait. “If Obama had personally asked me to paint him, I would have jumped two metres in the air. But that’s not the case”.
President Obama will have a portrait, the artist and image of which will be shared at a later date. And with all the commotion, probably not in a baggy, tan-coloured suit. Feel free to read about Scrapwood Obama that did make it to Washington, DC.
On 14 June, Amsterdam will play host to the world’s first international Bicycle Architecture Biennale, an event organised by cycling innovation agency CycleSpace and held at the Zuiveringshal, located at a former industrial terrain in Amsterdam West.
The Biennale will show off the work of 14 international designers from around the world and aims to see how cycling can improve urban living and how design solutions can inspire and facilitate greater cycling uptake as well as meet transit needs.
One of the main themes is the bicycle in the hierarchy of architecture, having traditionally always been less important than cars and even horses. Amsterdam is known as putting cycling first in many cases and is seen as a proper starting point for the event. The Biennale will have architects, urban planners, designers and many other thinkers work on ideas for the future.
On 24 May 2017, Amsterdam’s men’s football team Ajax didn’t get a party on the Museumplein downtown, as Manchester United took the win 2-0 in the Europa League, and it was business as usual the next day.
However, on 26 May 2017, Ajax’s women’s team won the Dutch championship (Eredivisie) by winning against Eindhoven’s PSV. And even though they’ve won the national title and the cup, they don’t get anything because, well, sexism.
Ajax Women have decided enough with this unequal nonsense and have started a petition to get their own public honouring when then they win major titles instead of having a small party in their locker room. And they’re fine with having it somewhere smaller.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam had a contest going where a lucky winner could spend a night at the museum in front of Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’ or as it is really called, ‘Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq’.
Teacher and artist Stefan Kasper, 33, from Haarlem was visiting the Rijksmuseum with his class of elementary students and turned out to be the museum’s ten millionth visitor since they reopened in 2013. He was escorted to a gallery where he was greeted with trumpet sounds and some 200 employees of the museum when he was given the great news.
And instead of just falling asleep he decided to enjoy this “moment of euphoria that nobody else will get to have” by sleeping two hours and then walking around the museum in his socks. The silence in the museum was very enjoyable, Kasper explains. “This is history”, he said.
The Amsterdam West district is cracking down on a new player in the bicycle rental market, De Westkrant reports.
Instead of using its own parking facilities, Denmark’s Donkey Republic parks its bright orange rental bikes in the street, often using public bicycle racks. The intended customers for these rental bikes are tourists, as locals already own bikes. Fenna Ulichki of Amsterdam West has now told Donkey Republic that if it doesn’t remove its bikes from public parking spaces, the district will remove the bikes themselves. It is not clear what the legal basis would be for this, considering other company bikes are also parked in public spaces.
Amsterdam is undergoing a double tourism and cycling boom. For example, the city registered four million overnight stays in hotels in 2000, and expects 8 million stays in 2017 (source: Dashboard Toerisme on amsterdam.nl, May 2017). Meanwhile the share of bicycle trips went from about 23% in 2000 to 27% in 2015 (source: Amsterdamse Thermometer van de Bereikbaarheid, amsterdam.nl, 2017). The bicycle is a hit especially among locals—currently 36% of all trips by citizens is undertaken by bike, handily beating out the car (24%).
It is not surprising then that car owners are increasingly satisfied about the amount of parking space they have. If you ask me, instead of framing this as an unsolvable and self-induced bike parking shortage, the city should simply start converting parking spaces for cars into bike racks.
(Photo: three Donkey Republic rental bikes take up most of the space in a bike rack on the Willem de Zwijgerlaan in Amsterdam West. Meanwhile, three cars easily take up three times as much space in the background.)
Dutch amateur musician Joep Beving, 41, has become a one-man recording phenomenon with his self-released recordings on Spotfiy being streamed more than 85 million times and counting. True, he became big earlier this year, but then once in a while you need some nice piano music.
Beving told British newspaper The Guardian that he never imagined that the contemplative, atmospheric piano tunes would draw such a vast audience worldwide. But after scoring with his album ‘Solipsism’ online, four record companies were soon fighting over him, a fight won by the prestigious classical music label Deutsche Grammophon.
Beving’s success is more extraordinary because he had been turned down by the only record label he approached, and had to pay to press 1,500 vinyl copies of Solipsism. “I wanted to make something tangible,” he said. By day he used to work as an advertising manager for a company that provides music for commercials. He worked on his debut album in his kitchen at night, while his girlfriend and two young daughters were asleep.
The director of new repertoire at DG, Christian Badzura, heard Beving’s music by chance when the vinyl copy of Solipsism was playing in a late-night bar in Berlin at 2 am a while back. One of Beving’s German advertising colleagues had left it with the barman. It impressed Badzura so much that he had to sign him up. As for Beving, he said he wasn’t counting on this and is truly grateful for technological developments opening up the music market and making it more democratic.
Hailing originally from Doetinchem, Gelderland and now living in Amsterdam, Beving composes music that is a search for tranquility and beauty, as highlighted by the video accompanying the music. I personally enjoy the music and can hear many influences of great composers as well as someone who is very concentrated at the piano with much ease.
