Architecture of AppropriationArchitecture of Appropriation

This conversation is part of the publication Architecture of Appropriation. On Squatting as Spatial Practice.

Amsterdam, 23 October 2018

René Boer (RB): Can you introduce yourselves, and tell us when you where active for the SKSU and what was a highlight for you at the time?

Petra (P): It's quite a long time ago. I think we started around 2005 when I was also doing squatting assistance in the De Pijp neighborhood in Amsterdam. Along with a few people we noticed that there were a lot of people squatting, but no students. There was a certain reluctance to come to the regular squatting information centers. Students have the same problems though, and a lot of them took anti-squat contracts. Instead of creating a conflict around that, we wanted to give them another option. That's why we started the SKSU with a few other people. We started in neighborhood centers, not in squat bars, to make it more accessible. We hoped this would attract students, and it worked, although it wasn't as big as it later became.

Kevin (K): At some point the SKSU closed, and a few years later, when we felt the squatting ban was coming up, we said to each other that we had to start SKSU again, as a counterattack for a possible squatting ban. That was in 2010, with some new people. We started doing it in the VondelbunkerThe Vondelbunker is a Cold War bomb shelter hidden under a bridge in Amsterdam's Vondelpark, and hosts a variety of activities and events.for a similar reason as in 2005, to have the bar as low as possible for the not so radical people to get into this way of life. We ran it for a couple a years; oneof the highlights was definitely squatting with the refugees, which was never done before and up till today has a resonance.

Another highlight was the attempt to start a political center in a neighborhood in Amsterdam Noord, with which we wanted to empower the residents to fight their landlord, a housing corporation, who wanted to demolish the entire neighborhood of 1,500 houses. The residents were fighting this and were becoming a little more successful. Our political center, looking back at it now, was the drop that made the bucket flow over. Not long after, the corporation pulled its plans. Up till today the residents have a stronger voice in the way in which their neighborhood is developing. We also had one of the first squatting actions after the ban, trying to work with new rules and regulations.

Gallows (G): I've been active in the SKSU since 2014. I got in touch after the evictions of the student occupationsThe University of Amsterdam witnessed a series of student protests and occupations in 2014 / 15.. I joined at that point and have ever since tried to reach out to more students. Working with the refugees was a part of the information center since the beginning - it was always just part of the work, it wasn't that exceptional for us anymore. These days it has become the largest part of the work that we do. It's now quite rare we do something for students. In terms of highlights, I guess squatting the second SpinhuisThe Spinhuis is a student-squatted social center in Amsterdam, underneath a bridge over one of its main canals.would be one of them. It was a pirate dungeon under an old bridge in the city center, and it was one of the first actions that I planned, and where most of the planning and arranging was on me.

K: Emotionally that can be a lot right! It's suddenly all on you.

RB: The idea of squatting as a 'spatial practice', does that resonate with you?

P: Sure. It's the story that we explain to people. By the way, when I hear all these stories, it seems that the SKSU grew much bigger later on. When we started, we just gave information. When people really wanted to squat, they would be forwarded to a regular squatting information center, of which there were still four in Amsterdam. The current SKSU seems to be a full squatting information center, in which I recognize the seven steps.

K: In our time, we did indeed do it this way. I could add a few details - the working groups such as the breaking team, the barricading team, the press team, and so on.

G: The police spokespersons, the neighborhood people.

P: With SKSU we always did press releases, explaining why it was important for students.

RB: It's interesting you mention that because there were different practices among sections of the movement, right? Some groups would not talk to the press; in Rotterdam, for example, people don't follow these procedures any longer, they just sneak in at night.

P: Every city always had its own way of squatting. In Utrecht it was quite different from Amsterdam. Many squatting actions were just DIY, getting yourself your own place to live.

RB: Gallows, do you feel it's still valid nowadays, these seven steps?

G: To a degree, yes. Mobilization works a bit different now, mainly because of the shrinking number of information centers operating. Maintaining mobilization lists is less necessary, everybody just knows each other. But for the rest, that's the model. There are two sides to this; you could say there are two spatial practices - doing these things yourself, or running an information center and telling people how to do it. If people need a mobilization list, it needs to be up to date, so making that happen is another spatial practice in itself. The breakers going around the city, investigating different doors, developing their own relationship to the city and sharing their knowledge, is a spatial practice as well.

RB: So you are saying that for the actual groups, squatting is as much a spatial practice as it is running a squatting information center?

G: Yes, there is a whole different layer of information involved. Also in terms of remembering all the squats that have been evicted, or all the owners of different places. If someone comes in, you need to be able to tell what happened. Having that relationship to addresses, and being able to map them in your brain, is important.

RB: Kevin, you were also active during the introduction of the ban. Did the practice of squatting change a lot at that time?

K: I think so yes, because of the effect of the ban during and right after its introduction. Within the movement at that time there was quite a lot of cohesion and energy to fight the ban, and to find a new way to keep on being able to squat. Everybody felt it as a task to search for new ways. Before the ban the squatting movement was bigger and more plural. There were outcasts interested in partying, but also people simply focusing on the living function, and you had groups more active in the housing struggle, or people focusing on free-zones. There were a lot of reasons why people were still squatting, but squatting for the purpose of housing has been made impossible. At some point everything was quite turbulent, but when the clouds settled, we saw that squatting was still very relevant for political actions and establishing free-zones, but for housing it became almost impossible.

The mayor decided that the city of Amsterdam would replace squatters with anti-squatters, so a lot of normal apartments that were squatted were evicted much sooner. This made it really complicated for people who really needed housing because it became much more unstable. As we all know squatting takes a lot of time and energy, and to do that every three or four months is not nothing. At the same time, the housing function is still the root of the movement. When people live in squats they have such a strong interaction, which makes the social cohesion of a community very strong. Since the ban on squatting, the ability of the movement to grow has been severely damaged. It has become very hard to attract new squatters.

RB: How is that right now, Gallows?

G: That's how it is. I have only squatted two houses for myself and both lasted for three weeks. And when people come in to the SKSU, especially if they're just individuals, you don't want to lie to them and tell them it's all rosy. I never had a stable housing group myself because we were getting evicted constantly. When you don't live together for long you don't form that bond. If you want to keep it up it's a full time job. It's only sustainable for a while if you fully commit to it.

RB: Kevin, you say it was quite turbulent right after the ban, but do you think the spatial practice changed much?

K: Before the ban the state kind of supported you when a place was empty for a year and you would show it to the police. After the squatting ban, this didn't apply anymore because it was illegal anyway, sowe decided not to let them in. So that changed, but for the rest not so much I think.

G: In a sense it is still quite similar, you still have an argument with a cop outside about the law. And eventually they call their chief, and because it's too much work to get rid of the entire group they just write it down and leave. The only difference is that they can 'speed evict' you after three days. So that's different, but the action procedure is still more or less the same. A bit more stressful, maybe.

P: It was also stressful before the ban because you could get 'caught in the act', for example, and it was always tricky to find enough people to support you in the action.

RB: Petra, when you look back at your squatting career, what do you think your impact on the city has been?

P: In our times, we were the ones shouting in the desert and now suddenly people realize all the social housing is gone. At the time, we already fought against selling social housing with various big actions. The first action I participated in was the famous 1920s Dageraad social housing complexLocated in Amsterdam's De Pijp neighborhood, and partly occupied in the fall of 2005.where we occupied 10 to 12 social housing apartments to prevent them being sold off. We collaborated with the local neighborhood center, so it was a collective housing struggle, but we weren't as many as in the 80s, saving one social housing block after the other. But we did some large projects as well, such as the well known struggle for the Bakkerblokken social housingLocated in Amsterdam's De Pijp neighborhood, and the site of a longstanding struggle featuring multiple squatting actions., together with the inhabitants. In the end, we managed to keep 30% of social housing. It wasn't a full victory, but also not a full loss.

RB: Kevin, you already mentioned the successes of the struggle in Amsterdam Noord, but are there any other things that have made an impact?

K: Of course, the start of squatting with refugees, which continues up till today, is quite something. The struggle we all fought at the time was the fight to continue squatting after the ban, and by now it's not completely impossible, fortunately, and we made a small contribution to that. Our impact is also indirect, to a large extent. For example, Petra founded the SKSU again, and we could not have existed without the Petras before us.

P: And we were again standing on the shoulders of a lot of other people.

K: The most concrete thing is that we made it possible for a new generation to continue squatting.

P: There are still people who are taking action and say that they have the right to live in their own way, in their own houses. And everybody has the right to do so, not just those with money or power. It's great this practice continues today.

RB: By now the urban landscape has changed completely from when you were active. What role can the application of this practice play today?

G: Although it's a spatial practice, it's largely dependent on social relations. As long as people are willing to open up spaces it allows people to meet each other and create a certain momentum. What the actual effects are, the material gains, also depend on how it plays out and how the state or the owners respond. In terms of architecture or planning there is little result I can point to. There is one house in Amsterdam West which we prevented from succumbing to unregulated rent, and with that a new action group against selling social housing called Niet Te Koop (Not For Sale) started. With many of the spaces we opened, new collectives were formed which still exist and where people were politicized.

RB: If you look from here into the near future, will squatting continue to play a role?

P: It has to. For me, besides getting a place to live, it's a political action at the core of the housing struggle. It's DIY. Not asking other people to make it happen for you, but doing it yourself. We also see that in the social center that was squatted recently in Amsterdam. They don't beg the city council, but see an empty place and just create their own space. I hope it keeps on going everywhere in the Netherlands.

K: For me it's the same. As long as people like Gallows preserve the legacy, such as the way people work, the knowledge, the structures and so forth, then things such as the new social center are still possible. Gallows probably knows better whether this can be handed over to a new generation.

G: Any movement needs a form of memory next to tactics and expertise. These institutions are one way to preserve it, but there are other ways to preserve collective memory. In such a defused and decentralized practice, to put it nicely, to trace and maintain the history of an organization is quite difficult. But I agree, if new people aren't coming in to squat, there is no reason to do a squatting information center. And then the knowledge would die.

P: With the squatting with refugees we see that the struggles are the same, and in that sense squatting continues to exist. They use the same tools, and make use of the knowledge produced by generations before them.

G: It's also good to point out that there was never a unified squatting movement. There was just a lot of people using the same tactics. It was a movement of squatters.