Nov 23, 2020
The Future of Amsterdam's Red Light District w/ René + Charlie
Failed Architecture editors Charlie Clemoes and René Boer discuss the future of De Wallen (aka Amsterdam's Red Light District), which is under increasing threat from the so-called "smooth city": the safe, clean, well-functioning and homogenous urban environment that has been taking over cities around the world in the past few decades. In the podcast, they talk about the ways in which the municipality, developers and various old white dudes are conspiring to frame the neighbourhood as an "urban jungle" and pushing to replace it with a "monumental garden". Against these moves, René has written a counter-manifesto, "Wallen 2020", which is intended to galvanise resistance to the neighbourhood's creeping sanitisation.
Links:
Wallen 2020: A Counter Manifesto
http://www.wallen2020.nl/
Zef Hemel, "'Turn the center of Amsterdam into a garden'," Het Parool, 11 October 2019
https://www.parool.nl/nieuws/maak-van-het-centrum-van-amsterdam-een-tuin~b3b72611/
Hans Marijnissen, "Ombudsman raises the alarm: 'The center of Amsterdam is a lawless jungle at night'" Trouw July 28, 2018 https://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/ombudsman-slaat-alarm-het-centrum-van-amsterdam-is-s-nachts-een-wetteloze-jungle~b939a839/