The Volkskrant Building · Manufacturing Difference in Amsterdam’s Creative City

The Volkskrant building more than any other place exemplifies

Amsterdam’s transformation into a ‘creative city’ over the past fifteen

years. Boukje Cnossen and Sebastian Olma trace the history of this

infamous and inspiring place from its deep roots in the squatting heyday

of the eighties to its present renaissance as the Volkshotel. The focus

of their entertaining yet rigorous analysis is the period from 2007 to

2014 when the Volkskrant building hosted an art factory ()

run by the former squatters collective Urban Resort.

Artists, activists, city officials, entrepreneurs, and property

developers share their stories of the good times and the struggles in

and around the Volkskrant building. How did a group of former squatters

turn it into a place for both creative entrepreneurship and subversion?

And how could it happen that this countercultural project ended up

attracting the attention of one of the largest property investors in the

Netherlands?

This detailed inquiry into the practices and interests shaping the

epicenter of Amsterdam's creative scene provides a look behind the shiny

façade of creative city policy. The authors show how the Volkskrant

building came to be more than a space for creativity alone, as it opened

up the possibility for a new infrastructure of citizenship.