© DAVID CARR-SMITH 2005 : all images and text are copyrighted - please accredit text quotes - image repro must be negotiated via dave@artinst.entadsl.com
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     TOPIC-LIST        CONTENTS        4 SITES       

 GRAIN-SILO 

  TETTERODE      DE LOODS      EDELWEIS   APPENDICES       NOTES       SUB-SITES

BOOK:  DAVID CARR-SMITH

IMPROVISED ARCHITECTURE IN AMSTERDAM INDUSTRIAL SQUATS AND COLLECTIVES

This web-book presents a visual-conceptual-experiential documentation of four occupied industrial sites in central Amsterdam, researched and recorded between 1990 and 1997 and between 2006 and 2008.  

The earliest text was almost all written before 1996 and was prepared for a book whose publication lapsed. Though in some cases refering only to what is now past - the presentness of the experience it conveys is, for me at least - and hopefully also for some who made these marvellous places - a monument to their existence ... De Loods is now destroyed and the Silo gutted. The pre 1996 text is still in the present tense; to convert it to the past would be laborious and sometimes experientially destructive. Though some factual descriptions of the destroyed sites are now pointless (in terms of saving future visitors' work), to excise them would unravel text and the atmosphere of discovery and wonder that the experience of these places afforded the writing, (facts also inform interpretation of the pictures  especially vis à vis size distortion via wide-angle lenses). 

Photo subjects are never interfered with: care is taken not to disturb the arrangements/patterns of objects from large to tiny; lighting is as found - I never use flash or imported light; only extremely rarely have I had to switch on an in situ lamp to collect a picture ... and only a lamp that I knew was in normal use, and only with a recorder's sense of 'guilt'.  

Some pictures, resized and compressed for the web, have been minimally re-enhanced to conserve visibility (not to increase 'attractiveness').

The site's content will change as info is added and edited. The biggest (ongoing) additions are in the Tetterode section. Tetterode survived the late 1990s destructions and continues to evolve (mainly driven by the growth of families). A batch of recordings made in spring 2008 enables a view of the development of this huge factory-squat over 18 years.

[NB: coloured text is my in-process editing.]  

 

THE 4-SITES

BOOK INTRO pt1 :
Improvisation, art, kitsch

BOOK INTRO pt2 :
A'dam squats

BOOK INTRO pt3 :
4-sites of improvised architecture

 

 

 

"GRAIN SILO"

INTRODUCTION

GROUND-FLOOR

CENTRAL STAIR

ATTICS

DRYING TOWERS

"CORNER TOWER"

THE PUBLIC SILO & KROEG

NEW-SILO

"TETTERODE"

INTRODUCTION

DA COSTAKADE BUILDINGS

BILDERDIJKSTRAAT BUILDING

 

"DE LOODS"

INTRODUCTION

LIVING-SPACES

 

"EDELWEIS"

INTRODUCTION

LIVING-SPACES


APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1:
A'dam squatting - legality & history

APPENDIX 2 pt-1: A'dam citizens' initiatives

APPENDIX 2 pt-2: A'dam planners' initiatives

APPENDIX 3:
The 'redeveloped' squats

APPENDIX 4:
A'dam architecture

APPENDIX 5:
Disparate Content - Bofill
  

NOTES

NOTE 1:
Windows: Corb - Villa Savoye

NOTE 2:
Minimal Objects: Corb - Villa Rosche lamp

NOTE 3:
Silo public-events: info & publicity

NOTE 4:
Silo public: Kroeg stove Ernst's notes

NOTE 5:
Tetterode history

NOTE 6:
De Loods: Jolien's House notes

NOTE 7:
Tetterode Kindergarten

NOTE 8:
Tetterode childrens painted lift

NOTE #:
Silo as psychoactive site

SUB-SITES

SUB-SITE:
Improvised open-site 'eco-villages'

SUB-SITE:
Allotments:'normal' public improvisation

SUB-SITE:
Temp-Architecture

SUB-SITE:
Vernacular into Style: Berdun Village
  

SUB-SITE:
Graffiti

SUB-SITE:
"Home" via mass market products
 

SUB-SITE:
Art - Gothic-to Renn to 20thC

SUB-SITE:
Art - 20thC collage into mass-media
 

SUB-SITE:
Design & Chance

WWW SITES WITH RELATED INFO :

 

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CONTENTS   4 SITES  

SILO

  TETTERODE   DE LOODS   EDELWEIS   APPENDICES   NOTES   SUB-SITES