July 6, 2015

A documentary about Rotterdam’s first Bijenkorf store

Filed under: Architecture by Orangemaster @ 5:23 pm

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Dutch journalist Peter Veenendaal recently produced the documentary ‘City of Light’ about the design, construction, and social effects of Willem Marinus Dudok’s De Bijenkorf in Rotterdam. De Bijenkorf (‘The Beehive’) opened in Rotterdam in 1930 (the picture is above is from 1935), and after barely surviving WWII, it was destroyed in 1960 to make way for a subway station and a new department store designed by Marcel Breuer.

‘City of Light’ presents Dudok’s department store as an important model for retail architecture, including interviews with historians, former employees and local enthusiasts to bring the building back to life. Before the war, Dudok’s building was the first in Rotterdam to have escalators and an electric mat to automatically sweep shoes. The roaring twenties movies of Rotterdam before the war is a reminder that Rotterdam had to seriously reinvent and rebuild itself while other Dutch cities were more fortunate.

In Dutch with English narration and English subtitles:

(Links: www.archdaily.com, WikipediaPhoto of Rotterdam, van Hogendorpsplein by Unknown, some rights reserved)

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June 30, 2015

Dutch collector wins lawsuit against Danish artist

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 12:43 pm

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Bert Kreuk, an art collector and ‘art flipper’, someone who buys art and resells it sooner rather than later to turn a quick profit, has won a lawsuit to the tune of € 898,000 against Danish-Vietnamese artist Danh Vō.

A Rotterdam court ruled in favour of Kreuk who had entered into an agreement with Vō to be promised an installation that was to be “large and impressive” and “fill an entire room”, but instead Vō presented him with an existing sculpture, ‘Fiat Veritas’, a cardboard box covered in gold leaf that was on loan to Kreuk’s exhibition ‘Transforming the Known’ at The Hague’s Gemeentemuseum. As Vō only loaned the existing artwork, which meant that it was not be sold as well as not being anything “large and impressive”, Kreuk decide to sue.

The Rotterdam court upheld Kreuk’s claim that Vō had agreed back in January 2013 to produce one or more new pieces for his exhibition and that had not been honoured. Kreuk had also taken out an injunction to prevent Fiat Veritas to be returned to Vō, but that was not upheld. The court has ordered Vō to produce the promised artwork and Kreuk will pay the € 350,000 agreed upon at the time, even though Vō’s pieces today sell for much more than that.

While Kreuk claims that justice has been served, Vō is appealing the decision claiming that his “artistic integrity has been violated by the court” by asking him to produce a “large and impressive” work.

For anyone who wants to read the background of this entire imbroglio that started about a year ago, grab a beverage and dig in here.

(Links and photo: www.theartnewspaper.com, news.artnet.com)

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May 4, 2015

Rotterdam train station attracts gate jumping

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 11:45 am

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On May 1st Rotterdam Central Station proudly announced that only travellers who check in with their public transport chip cards are allowed in the hall of the train station, which until then had been open to nearby employees out to grab some lunch and the likes. Safety was the main reason given, since crimes against train staff have been on the rise for a while and this was supposed to help. Watch the video below though if you want to see train station staff attacking the press.

Due to the low height of the gates, anyone who excels at gate jumping can get by without paying a fare very easily, as no attempt is made at stopping them in the video below. Yes, it does look like jumping hurdles. Problem is the limber people jumping the gates in the evening and taking trains are the baddies who attack train staff. Other major stations have much higher gates, but then the trick is pushing through them at the same time as someone else who has checked in, which doesn’t seem to make things any safer.

Anyone who properly pays their fare might feel screwed over for following the rules while others cheat the system and can move about the station as they please. A good point made in the video is that you can only use your public transport chip card at a train station if you have a balance of 20 euro or more on your card, which is not a requirement with other public transportation. Maybe if that amount were lowered less people would feel inclined to jump over, but it could also be, as they say in Dutch, ‘mopping up with a running faucet’.

(Link: www.ad.nl, Photo of Gates, Rotterdam CS by Passetti, some rights reserved)

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April 20, 2015

Win tickets for the Kunsthal in Rotterdam

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 12:19 pm

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Roomed.nl is giving away three pairs of tickets to the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, which is currently featuring many ‘freaky spring’ exhibitions, including ‘Your Light is My Life’ by Czech artist Krištof Kintera, running until 7 June.

Kintera’s solo exhibition is said to be full of irony, mixed with slapstick and dark humour, as well as some political statements. His sculptures and installations can move, communicate, are dysfunctional, and sometimes just plain absurd.

Also on the menu are the exhibitions ‘200 years of the Kingdom of the Netherlands’, ‘The Furry Adventures of the Cabbit and the Folk’ and enough art to make your visit complete.

(Link: roomed.nl, Photo of Kunsthal by kleiobird/Jaap Vogel, some rights reserved)

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March 22, 2015

Boijmans van Beuningen to build special satellite

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 8:00 pm

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To be designed by Rotterdam architecture firm MVRDV, the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam wants to build a € 50m private art depot to display its artworks along with the ones of private collections. This would mean an additional 145,000 artworks could be seen, which otherwise would stay hidden from view.

The museum sees this as a great way to fund itself. “We are stimulating the market and taking a piece of the market back to the museum,” director Sjarel Ex explained at a presentation at the Tefaf art fair in Maastricht on 13 March.

The ‘collection building’ does look like a bit like a salad bowl and would be built next to the existing museum. Some 10% of the space would be rented out to private collectors. The museum also plans to facilitate loans, produce condition reports and provide other collection management services.

Rotterdam’s city council will vote on the proposal on 20 May and it it is approved, the depot would open in 2018.

(Link: www.theartnewspaper.com, Photo: collectiegebouw.boijmans.nl)

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February 5, 2015

Cafe fined for playing records too loud

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 10:57 am

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During a smoking ban check last week, a cafe owner in Rotterdam was asked by a city inspector to stop playing vinyl records, claiming the music was too loud. Too loud is if people cannot have a conversation because the music is not background music anymore, which is a subjective measure and a distinct possibility. An objective measure is a dBA loudness meter with a display that cafes are not required to have.

The owner Jos Hoebe claims the inspector was looking for an excuse to nail him for something since nobody was smoking inside and decided that spinning records was ‘live music’ and therefore the cafe needs an extra permit to stay open longer. If the inspector fined the cafe for loud music, that would stick, but exacerbating the problem by singling out records as live music made Hoebe go to the media. It seems the inspector is taunting the cafe owner and in the case of the records, the inspector was making it up completely.

The inspector could have given the cafe a warning or had a productive chat instead. Hoebe asked if he could play CDs to which the inspector said that was fine, then Hoebe asked what the difference was and didn’t get an answer. Hoebe plans to see the municipal music aficionado in court.

(Link: www.ad.nl, tip Weirdomusic)

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January 23, 2015

Rotterdam firm to make twisted building in Vienna

Filed under: Architecture,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 10:06 am

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Rotterdam architectural firm MVRDV has won a contest to design a new skyscraper in Vienna by proposing a 110-metre tower with an “elegant, hourglass figure” that will reduce the impact of its shadow. The contorted form is said to prevent any of the surrounding blocks being in shadow for longer than two hours a day.

The initial comments on this building is ‘maybe it is possible to use too much glass’. The heat that will generate in summer would required specially treated glass, and ‘the bit about being concerned about shadow is creating a problem where there isn’t one’, although in some Asian countries like Japan it’s a huge deal.

MVRDV are well-known for other much talked about projects, including Rotterdam’s horseshoe-shaped market hall that will be getting a Jamie Olivier Italian restaurant soon, even though there are already two pasta places.

(Link and image: www.dezeen.com)

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January 14, 2015

World’s biggest ship named after Nazi arrived in Rotterdam

Filed under: History by Orangemaster @ 2:01 pm

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On 8 January a crowd watched world’s biggest and most expensive vessel ever built, the Pieter Schelte, float into the Port of Rotterdam. The ship was named after Pieter Schelte Heerema, founder of the Swiss-based Allseas group and a maritime engineer, but also a member of the Nazi Waffen SS, convicted and sent to prison for three years for his crimes against humanity in WWII.

The ship is owned by Schelte’s son, Dutch businessman Edward Heerema who has received much flack and petitions from Jewish groups and others to change its name. The Dutch government had given Allseas’ Netherlands subsidiary a $1 million tax break for its part in designing the ship, adding to the ship’s controversial nature. “While Mr Heerema’s father had been recognised by the courts as providing “very important” services to the resistance, he was earlier a “prominent” figure among Dutch collaborators with the Nazis,” according to the Netherlands Governmental Institute for War Documentation.

Edward Heerema distances himself from his father’s past, stating that the ship was named after “the offshore pioneer that he was”. Read more about this huge vessel and see more pictures.

(Links: www.ad.nl, www.jpost.com, Photo of Pieter Schelte ship by FaceMePLS, some rights reserved)

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November 10, 2014

Women’s Dutch roller derby debuts in World Cup

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Orangemaster @ 12:56 pm

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From December 4 to 7 the second edition of the Blood & Thunder Roller Derby World Cup will be held in Dallas, Texas, and Team Netherlands will be participating for the very first time. Notice that this World Cup doesn’t contain the word ‘women’ in it because roller derby is predominantly a women’s sport: it’s the men that have to append an extra word to their World Cup.

Not even a year old, Team NL has been working towards Dallas from the very beginning, with about half the players hailing from the country’s first team, the Amsterdam Derby Dames, and the rest from the Rotterdam Death Row Honeys, Utrecht’s Dom City Dolls, Enschede’s Eastside Rock’n Rollers, Groningen’s Northern Lightning Rollerdgirls and Eindhoven’s Rockcity Rollers.

Today it has been announced that Team NL’s first tournament game will be against World Champion Team USA. Contrary to many other international sports, the US and Canada (ranked 2nd) dominate the sport because since the era of modern-day roller derby that coincidentally started in Texas in 2001, these two countries were pretty much the only ones playing the sport. Since then roller derby has grown exponentially, and countries such as England, France and Germany are now approaching the level of competitiveness driven by the US and Canada.

Some of the Team NL girls will be travelling to the US for the first time and are as excited as can be.

(Disclosure: I skate with the Amsterdam Derby Dames. Photos of Team NL training by Branko Collin)

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October 22, 2014

Simple and soothing time lapse film of Dutch cities

Filed under: Architecture,Film by Orangemaster @ 12:39 pm

“In ,’7685 Frames of Netherlands’, filmmaker Pengcheng He documents the beauty of the old cities of the Netherlands in a charming series of tilt-shift time-lapses. He shot the video in Delft, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.”

Many people don’t see Rotterdam as one of the old cities, mainly because few old buildings were left in the city after the WWII. Delft and Amsterdam join cities like Haarlem and Nijmegen as old cities.

Amsterdam’s IJ river ferries kick it off, then the Stopera, but I’ll let you play guess the city on your own because I could possibly describe the entire video location by location (yes, that is a bit scary) having lived extensively in all three cities. Sometimes, the film even has a miniatures feel to it.

(Link: laughingsquid.com, Photo of Rotterdam, KPN building by Roel Wijnants, some rights reserved)

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