Amsterdam Navy Yard

an impression of a secret place

Imagine a place that has been

closed for 350 years but will

open up tomorrow.

In every city, there are places that go unnoticed. They are there

physically, but they are not on our common mind map. There is

such a place in Amsterdam. It’s been kept so secret that they

have built a wall to prevent people from looking inside. It’s so

closed off that the key to the main entrance gate has been

lost.

Have you ever been to Hannekes Boom? When you were there,

chilling with your beer, gazing across the water, you didn’t

realise you were looking at 14 hectares of land that are currently

cut off from the city. Do you know that old wall you always

bike by on your way to work, close to Central Station? Ever

wondered what happens behind it?

It’s the Marineterrein, the Amsterdam Navy Yard, which has

been strictly for naval use until now and will open to the public

in six months, after 350 years of secrecy.

I know what you’re thinking: it’s the Navy Yard, she’ll tell us a

story about ships. But what we really want to tell you today is a

story about a place with meaning.

You have to imagine that the area you see now was once all

water. Yet it was the high technology of its time, it was the

place where marine culture was transmitted, where the Dutch

hegemony was created. The recipe was simple: a craving for the

exotic and its riches, a perfectly functioning naval production

machine, and a workforce to fuel it all. The Marineterrein is an

enclave in the center of Amsterdam that was the backbone of

Dutch dominance in the Golden Century.

But today, although the area is still an enclave that evolves

independently from the rest of the city, it has started to lose

its function.

As soon as this happened, architects and urban planners

started to dream about the Marineterrein. Plans of the area

where barely available, as a matter of fact the area was blurred

on googlemaps until a few months ago. So of course architects

could not experience the spatial qualities of the area as it was

not accessible.

Luckily we could and we did, as we visited the area last week.

I’m telling you: we’re not going to present a masterplan for the

area, we are not going to treat it like a blank canvas.

The reason for this is that

Amsterdam needs time to

rediscover and reclaim the site.

We only went there once and in that short time we saw loads

of interesting opportunities and qualities; so imagine if the site

could be visited by many more people many more times: each

trip you would discover new qualities, each time you would add

value to the area.

Drawing from the insights we gained from a range of

professionals in the fields of planning, architecture, ecology,

cultural interventions and more, we thought about what might

belong, or not belong, in this place.

But after reviewing the challenges and opportunities of the site,

what we realized was that it was the quality of the site, the very

essence of it, that was special and deserving of attention as

those who will actually be responsible for its future make their

decisions.

The quality of the Navy

Yard is that it is a space of

contradictions.

We see in it a web of paradoxes, from our own experience

of it being open yet closed, to each physical boundary and

contrast, to its rich history based on functions of modernity and

innovation.

Our perception of the simultaneous openness and closedness of

the site begins in its obscurity. It is a place which is both present

yet invisible, directly in the city centre yet not on the mental

map of the citizens. You can see straight onto it from across the

water, no fences, yet if you were to try to enter you would find

it behind a wall, a locked gate. It is like dazzle camouflage on

a ship - designed in such a way as to confuse the viewer into

believing it is neither accessible nor inaccessible, neither near

nor far.

This perceptual contradiction is manifested when visiting the

site. The physical space itself is full of character expressed in

contradictions. When finally passing through the threshold, it is

into an open and airy space. The feeling intensifies as you near

the water’s edge, opening out to an unhindered view of the city,

water and sky.

Yet while looking out on

this vista, you feel enclosed,

protected almost, on

manicured lawns strewn with

abandoned buildings.

Throughout the space, silence and the scent of old trees

pervades. There is, quite astonishingly, unique plant life to be

found behind the locked wall, a green but carefully maintained

wild environment. Meanwhile, the buildings, placed seemingly

haphazardly throughout the space, are a medley of old and new,

in use and out of use, locked and unlocked.

It is a walled garden with only one wall. The boundaries of site

are what separates it but also what connects it, as the water

that surrounds most of it is both its moat and its medium for

interacting with the city around it. The water’s edge is defined

sharply, but inside its amoebic cells float silently, awaiting their

evolutionary potential.

Over time, the site has also been contradictory in its use. It

has served a public function for a limited few. It has been a

secure area for years, mostly hosting private functions for

naval use, valued for its security and secrecy. This runs almost

counter to its history of connectivity, a central hub creating

and sending ships out to the ends of the world and the limits

of human knowledge. Shipbuilding was the latest technology,

the embodiment of innovation and craftsmanship. Then after

hundreds of years of building ships, the water was filled in with

land, and the marine element moved from the hands of the

shipbuilders to the minds of the naval administration.

And now, all of these incongruities will be open to the public.

In a city that will inevitably close in on such central real estate,

how do we prolong the integrity of this place’s identity while it

transitions piecemeal, grows “organically,” into another island

of Amsterdam?

How do we maintain the

special contradictory quality of

the space?

What will happen to the

Navy Yard once it opens? In

the coming years before it is

transformed irreversibly, what

should be done to survive the

limelight?

Will it need some help, some intervention, however gentle and

fleeting, to let it move through this transition period?

What would this intervention be? Should it take care of the way

people cross the perimeter, conquer the ground and station

themselves inside? How to capture the contradictions of this

unique space and keep them, making sure that the paradoxical

nature of the Navy Yard never gives way to ordinary, usual,

unimaginative planning?

The main gate to the Navy

Yard stood locked for so many

years that no one remembers

the name of the last person

who held the key in his hands.

It just became one of those secret doors in the city that you

walk by, wonder what’s behind it, want to open but just never

happen to have the key.

But what if you had?

What if everyone got his own personal key to the Navy Yard?

A key that would be linked to its story, so that opening the old

rusty gate would become a very personal, intimate experience?

Imagine this magic key.

Maybe you would use it only once, or maybe it would last

forever? Maybe only you would use it, or maybe it would work

only when shared with someone? Maybe it would open the gate

only when you are in front of it, or maybe it would work at a

distance? Maybe the key would be real? Maybe virtual? Maybe

it wouldn’t exist at all?

Or, what about a scenario in which the Navy Yard would become

an indispensable place in the city where nothing is missing?

[KEYS TO THE KINGDOM]

How to get people to

experience the feeling of

being in a space that is both

open and closed, locked and

unlocked?

Can the Navy Yard be shaped in such a way that when you

want to stay online for work or leisure, there is no better place

to be? That just like the waves that surround it, the radio waves

of connectivity are abundant, free, welcoming, making it a

natural point to work, create, innovate and start your journey of

exploration just like centuries ago?

[WIFI & NOFI]

At the same time it can provide exactly the opposite - having

myriads of quiet spots, sanctuaries, acoustic bars, Faraday

cages where no signal reaches you and no signal escapes from

you, where phones become silent, where laptops cease to

function, forcing you to look around, to look into yourself, to

start a conversation with the person standing next to you and to

share something that you never thought was missing, but might

become indispensable.

The Navy Yard revealed its rich history with each step taken.

Here is the evacuation area. Over there, docking is restricted.

Anchors, cannons, and sails scattered here and there. What

stories can each of these artifacts tell us?

What if there is a residency space for archaeologists, historians,

ecologists and other specialists to unearth, dissect and explore

the area? Will these specialists fill in the black pages of history

of this area? Will they finally be able to tell us how many

species of birds make their home atop the centuries-old elm

trees, or the material foundation that has enabled this man-

made island to exist? Imagine further that these experts will

curate interactive tours that introduce the story of the area

underneath the surface:

“As you look to the right, this helicopter pad just last year

transported the first lady of China incognito... As you walk left,

notice the naval flags atop the building where naval students

learned to signal...”

In time, the spatial qualities of the Navy Yard will be transformed,

but the intervention will establish a continuous mind map for

the visitors of today and of tomorrow.

[INVISIBLE STORIES]

So we’ve asked you to imagine a place that has been closed off

for 350 years but will open up tomorrow. A place that deserves

respect for its rich and complex past.

It is not a blank canvas for

developers to unfold their

master plans.

The qualities and location

of the Navy Yard should be

understood and reinforced

through its conscientious

design and use. Only then

Amsterdam can seize this

exclusive opportunity to add

this exceptional place to its

city centre.

This booklet was created by an international and

interdisciplinary team of urban professionals,

operating within the Navy Yard Studio of the

Thinking City Summer School 2014 in Amsterdam.

Studio Participants:

Alina Bibisheva RU

Evelyn Rose Ellis US

Gertjan Rohaan NL

Kim Ngoc Le US/VN

Marianne Bøe NO

Negash Gebriye Desalegn ET

Parima ‘Boom’ Kotanut TH

Susheela Sankaram US

Tero Konttinen CA/SF

Viola Petrella IT

Vladimir Bataev BY/NL

Studio Coordinators:

Jerzy Gawronski NL/PL

Juha van ‘t Zelfde NL/SF

Nathan de Groot NL

Radna Rumping NL

Roel van Herpt NL

Special thanks to Liesbeth Jansen and Thijs Meijer

of Projectbureau Marineterrein Amsterdam.

amsterdamnavyyard.tumblr.com

Amsterdam

July 2014