Preservation of the Rietveld building for the Rietveld Academy

Sign the petition at http://www.rietveldforrietveld.org/english

My friends of Experimental Jetset informed me about this very important matter. Please read the message bellow and SIGN the petition!

Two years ago, Dutch design legend Wim Crouwel delivered a lecture at the Bold Italic conference in Ghent. In his talk, Crouwel mentioned the fact that, more than anything else, his main source of influence (as student of Minerva Academy, Groningen) was actually the architecture of the Minerva building. More than the lessons, the teachers, his fellow-students, it was the building that influenced him.
He continued by saying that he selected the schools of his children based on the architecture of the buildings. A beautiful revelation.
These words are testament to a very simple fact: a building is not just an empty vessel. It is a designed object, a machine with a soul. The architecture of a school has an influence on the students, maybe a deeper influence than teachers will ever have. Surroundings are an essential part of any education.

The current plans of the management of the Academy, to move the school out of its original building, are deeply disturbing. To break the bond between the Rietveld Academy and its roots is a shame. In Dutch, ‘doodzonde’. Once broken, this bond can never be fixed. It’s a mistake that can never be reversed.

In an article that was published in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (on 30 April, 2009), the management explained their plans by referring to the lack of space. That there is a lack of space is undeniable, but moving to another building is not the solution. The lack of space is caused by the current increase of students; a more logical solution for the lack of space would be to control this increase of students. The Rietveld should stay a small, high-quality unit, not an anonymous factory of mass education.
On that note, we should keep in mind that the current economic situation will mean a decrease in students anyway. Due to the current crisis, it is more probable that the Rietveld will shrink, not grow, in the near future. The Rietveld should embrace this return to small-scaleness, and see it as an opportunity to invest in the quality of education, rather than the quantity.

As a more important reason to move out of the original building, the article in De Volkskrant (30 April, 2009) mentions the desire to gentrify the ‘Bos en Lommer’ area in Amsterdam, a so-called ‘Vogelaarwijk’: a district that is part of a select group of districts known as the most problematic and poorest neighborhoods in The Netherlands. By locating the Rietveld academy to such a poor district, the reasoning goes, the district will be elevated to a higher standard. It’s pseudo-’thinking-out-of-the-box’ management logic of the worst kind: “Let’s dump some hipsters in there, to whiten things up a bit”.
It’s a way of reasoning that’s either terribly naive, or really patronizing. Poverty can only be solved by looking at underlying social-economic factors; it cannot be solved by moving an art academy to the “wrong side of town”.
However, a closer look reveals that this decision is not naive at all, but actually a very cynical money-making scheme. As we learn from the article in De Volkskrant, this whole plan has been thought up by the current director of the Rietveld Academy (who, as it happens, will leave the Academy in a short time), and the project developer in charge of the GAK building (the proposed future building of the Rietveld). As becomes clear in the article, the goal of this plan is to get a few millions of euros from the government and city council, to subsidize this gentrification project. This money will be used to buy the building from the project developer. (Keep in mind that this building was impossible to sell; it has been empty for many years now. In the Volkskrant article, the project developer mentions that, much to his regret, the building could not be demolished, as it is an official monument). Selling this otherwise unsellable building to the Rietveld Academy is a great way to get rid of the property and receive public money at the same time. This plan will probably mean big bonuses for all those involved. In plain Dutch, we call this GRAAICULTUUR (look it up).

What’s more, the moment the Rietveld allows itself to be used as such an instrument of gentrification, it will have to relocate everytime the managers, politicians or developers decide it’s time to gentrify another neighborhood. The academy will turn into a disembodied entity, forced to change places every few years. A ghost school, without roots, without history, without future. A soulless Golem, growing for the sake of growing, moving for the sake of moving, without any purpose at all.

One final note. In the original article in De Volkskrant (30 April, 2009), the head of the Supervisory Board ridicules the current location of the Rietveld Academy, saying the school is much better off in a ‘multi-cultural environment’ such as Bos en Lommer. It’s a remark that shows extremely bad taste. The current location of the Rietveld is in fact a very interesting area, historically important for art, design and especially architecture. It’s an area that features such highlights as Berlage’s Plan Zuid, Duiker’s Open Air school, the Olympic Stadium and Citroen Garage by Jan Wils, and the Children’s Homes by Aldo van Eyck
Moreover, it is an area that is seen generally as a district that will have a great economic importance in the near future (see the entry on ‘Zuidas’ on Wikipedia). To dismiss this area as a district of crematoria (as the head of the Supervisory Board did) is deeply disturbing.
(We know it’s a cheap shot, but still we think it’s worth thinking about: if the director of the Rietveld, the project developer of the GAK building and the head of the Supervisory Board think it’s so important to gentrify the area of Bos en Lommer, why are they are not moving there themselves? Of course, this is something that will never happen. They rather locate a few busloads of students there).

Further reasons can be found on the website.

Sign the petition at http://www.rietveldforrietveld.org/english

Thanks in advance!

All the best,
The Rietveld Preservation Society.