From Het Lieverdje to NDSM. Historical Background of Amsterdam´s Countercultural Places

Abstract

Amsterdam ́s alternative urban spaces like the NDSM shipyard, De Ceuvel, De Nieuwe Anita, OT301, OCCII, Pakhuis Wilhelmina, Joe ´s Garage, Vrankrijk, and Paradiso are considered Amsterdam ́s rough, arty, free, naughty, best party spots. They are the places you go to after you have seen the canal district, the red-light district, the coffeeshops, the Rijksmuseum, and Van Gogh ́s paintings. These alternative places pose as Amsterdam ́s Berlin, even as Amsterdam ́s Christiania. There you breathe "the air of freedom.” These spaces echo the flair of the 1960s countercultural movements, that occupied derelict buildings and turned them into underground hotspots. This retrospect takes us back to Amsterdam ́s Provo movement, and the transformation of its legacy: the hyper-organized and politicized squatter communities in the city center in the 1970s, their violent clearings in the 1980s, the occupation of the southern city docks in the 1990s, the squatters ́ jump over the waterway ́t Ij to Amsterdam North, and the subsequent creation of the contemporary cultural incubators like NDSM.