Dutch law does not protect empty
housing - an owner (private or City-Council) can be compelled to rent it to
people on the housing list or to squatters - such is one of the conjunctions of
scarcity and social values on this crowded patch of sometimes hard-won land. On
many levels there is a degree of sharing of resources, sharing living in the
city, its use and thus its ownership (that property/privacy centered Britons may
well find both reasonable and socially radical).
Since to own an empty house is more
reprehensible than takinq posession of one, squatting carries virtually no
social stigma, and indeed throughout Amsterdam thousands of people lead
invisibly-ordinary lives in rented or mortgaged houses and flats which they or
their parents broke into and took posession of, presumably initially by
installing the mandatory minimum icon of domestic occupation: a chair+a table+a
bed.
There is very little private
housing in the City, most squats are in City-Council owned housing or
developers' projects (commercial/industrial buildings).
The late 1960's and 70's were the
years of most obvious growth and power of squatting as a public and social
force. An important catalytic event in the early 70's was the City's preparation
for the destruction of much of the old district of Nieuwmarkt for
metro-trenching, which involved mass-evictions, which enabled mass-squattinq.
Nieuwmarkt initiated a highly politicised active protest - public opinion and
squatting joined in opposition to this monstrous scheme. Though the City got its
way with the metro, squatting had become more organised, politically consentient
and logistically efficient.
In the early stages when efforts
had to be outwardly and collectively directed (to defend and negotiate), squats
were politically rather than domestically motivated. Establishing a base of
activities as complex as a "home" requires time, security and privacy.
As external opposition lessened and tenure became relatively predictable people
began to invest in the amenities of the site and means of personal life; or if
addicted to struggle moved on. At this stage, especially in any large and (by
then) famous squat (or squatted district such as Nieuwmarkt), there is always an
influx of people who intend to establish homes - who either inherit a squat or
squat for themselves.
The policy and technique of almost
all the collectively orqanised squats was to negotiate, publicise, inform,
sometimes threaten, and move on if unsuccessful, rather than (with a few famous
exceptions - eg: Struisvogel ["Ostrich"!]) physically fight for
possession ... only a very small minority refused to deal with the City. The
social cohesion of this amazingly practical and restrained society is such that
most of the squatted housing and many of the big commercial and industrial sites
(even some 'militant' squats) are now legalised and rented or owned (egs:
Edelweis on KNSM island / Tetterode in the Kinkerbuurt / Frankrijk in
Spuistraat). The securing of these places seems to stimulate physical and
imaginative work (mainly on the private living-spaces rather than the shared
facilities, except in complete City-initiated 'renovations') that defines them
as 'collectively-administered egalitarian housing-schemes for the evolution of
individualistic 'yuppie' apartments'! (nb: TETTERODE).
Tetterode (squatted 1981) was
considered a "school example of the new professional squatting":
"squatters were seen as idealists not terrorists"; "squatting was
defined in a democratic sense": informing the neighbours and considering
their comfort; submitting alternative-housing plans to the City; publicising the
squat's aims and treating it as a public-project. The City Council had begun to
routinely legalise squats and finance their transformation into social-housing
projects of different types to suit various social configurations (ref: TETTERODE-
INTRO: Legalisation').
Since the mid 1980s squatting had
been politically subdued, though recently a new wave of larqe scale squats have
been opened (eg: the Grain-Silo 1989). These tend to "what political
squatters call 'vagueness'": involved in personal life and work rather than
"the struggle of the movement". The Silo however has begun to emerge
as a 'culturally' active centre: an art/performance venue, a focus of
architectural projects, and as a presence among the multifarious institutions
that have interested themselves in a role within the huge so-called 'Ij-Plan' (a
City 'development' project).
A small extension of the right to
live in an empty house is the right to build ones own house in an empty
building. Empty commercial and industrial buildings are usually in the hands of
financial companies or speculators, whose public image is no more sympathetic
than a 'slothful and selfish' house owner's. Polite hard working squatters are
hardly less desirable neighbours than a security-spooked deralict factory or the
intolerable pollution of large-scale demolition and rebuilding.
Thus the commandering of (sometimes
vast!) complexes of buildings, initially on principle or to prevent demolition
and later for conversion into living-places, became normal and even welcomed by
their neiqhbourhood. In the context of public discussion and reassessment of a
City housing policy that had notoriously created slab-block suburbs (the
Bijlmeer, etc) and ignored the refurbishment of the inner-city housing stock,
the City Council was often prepared to negotiate legal settlements and finance.
Even in the very pip of the city behind the royal palace it was possible for a
very large squat to survive, legalise, and prosper: in the early 80's the
'Handelsblad Gebow' in Paleis Straat (a newspaper building squatted 1978) was
reborn as a legal institution (at the cost however of Council 'renovations' that
destroyed its improvised interiors).