Architecture of AppropriationArchitecture of Appropriation

This statement was presented during 'Architecture of Appropriation. Between institutions and activist practices.' at Het Nieuwe Instituut, June 6, 2019.

Poortgebouw is a monumental building constructed in 1878, located on the south side of the Maas riverbanks between the Erasmus and Willemsbrug. After years of dilapidation, and illicit plans by the municipality of Rotterdam to revamp the building into a gigantic brothel, a group of activists squatted Poortgebouw with support of a neighbourhood initiative in October of 1980. When Poortgebouw was squatted, the building was located in an obscure part, outside the city centre. The area was mainly empty and there were few facilities like tram, metro or even bridges to connect the head of the south district to the rest of the city.

Two years later, the municipality gave the building in use of loan to the inhabitants - that formed the communal living association Vereniging Poortgebouw - with the agreement that the association would take care of the interior, while the owner (the municipality at the time) would be responsible for the exterior. The layout of the interior as designed by the inhabitants, originated from the ideological objective for personal and social spatial use that resulted in the construction of: 28 studio's, 7 bathrooms, 3 living rooms, an 'eetcafé', venue, theatre and workshop space and a photo development darkroom. Following the nearly next four decades, Vereniging Poortgebouw established itself as an autonomous community with a DIY spirit that is dedicated to underground culture, music and functions as a social active platform in Rotterdam.

The division in responsibility for the interior and exterior, can be seen as a performative act in the use of institutional and counter-institutional heritage. The growing dissonance between the institutional and counter-institutional, the formal and the informal, echo's the social, economic and political dynamics of Rotterdam since 1980. Exponential aggressive urban planning, transformed the area into a landscape of inaccessible vaults that inhibits informality, estranging Poortgebouw in form and content from its surroundings. In 1999, the municipality sold Poortgebouw - neglecting to inform the association - to a private real estate speculator who on his turn later resold it to another owner in 2016. Currently, the existence of the association is pressured by demands of the neighbourhood, the municipality and the owner to conform to commercial needs that coincides with gentrification.

The case of Poortgebouw should be considered as a chapter in the transformation narrative of the southern district of Rotterdam; through violent urban policy, that is focussed on exterminating precarity (armoede bestrijding) and displacement of marginalised communities based on class, race and income. Instead of facilitating a dignified life for the local population, the municipality of Rotterdam is confusing city development with grandiosity that is painfully branded by the slogan 'Rotterdam, Make it Happen' which marks all construction sites. The present day display of exorbitant residing wealth, combined with specific austerity measures of the area is sending a clear unwelcoming message to those who do not have. The bodies who rebuild the bombed city, are not allowed to enter what they have created, revealing the strong socialist spirit of the hard-working south side as sheer propaganda for long anticipated capitalist endeavours.

In line of counter heritage, counter memory can be reiterated to raise agency for maintaining diversity, informality and engagement; social elements that are vital for a meaningful human experience as opposed to the uncanny sense of emptiness that is ever so dominating in the process of rapid urbanisation. Archiving can be an important instrument for maintaining counter memory. Therefore, members of Poortgebouw have cared for documenting, constructing and employing our own frame of narrative through what we consider to be the 'Autonomous Archive' and encourage fellow community-based projects to underline their endurance by pointing out the ability to own ones form and frequency of acknowledgement by means of autonomous archiving in the hope that the animated palimpsests of the south will not be dismissed or completely erased.