Rietveld Preservation Society
June 2009
The management of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam have come up with a ludicrous idea: to leave its monumental building, designed by Rietveld in 1967. Visions of continuing growth and the lure of millions of subsidy seem to feed these megalomanic plans.
The desired new location is an abandoned office-building in “Bos en Lommer”, an area of Amsterdam that is part of a select group of districts known as the most problematic and poorest neighborhoods in The Netherlands. By relocating the Rietveld academy to such a poor district, the reasoning goes, the district will be elevated to a higher standard. It’s a way of reasoning that’s either terribly naive, or really patronizing. Poverty can only be solved by looking at underlying social-economic factors; it cannot be solved by moving an art academy to the “wrong side of town”.
A more logical solution for the lack of space at the current location would be to control the increase of students. The Rietveld should stay a small, high-quality unit, not an anonymous factory of mass education.
Please sign the petition here.
The desired new location is an abandoned office-building in “Bos en Lommer”, an area of Amsterdam that is part of a select group of districts known as the most problematic and poorest neighborhoods in The Netherlands. By relocating the Rietveld academy to such a poor district, the reasoning goes, the district will be elevated to a higher standard. It’s a way of reasoning that’s either terribly naive, or really patronizing. Poverty can only be solved by looking at underlying social-economic factors; it cannot be solved by moving an art academy to the “wrong side of town”.
A more logical solution for the lack of space at the current location would be to control the increase of students. The Rietveld should stay a small, high-quality unit, not an anonymous factory of mass education.
Please sign the petition here.