Amsterdam Squats: A Culture Of Resistance

Wander around Amsterdam’s music venues, and it won't be long before you stumble across a piece of the city's social history. You could get lost amid the entertainment pens for a while; the clubs and bars that are designed to wring the most out of those good time tourists who are happy with the sounds of bygone summers. But there are several venues where the focus rests squarely on musical proceedings, where it’s encouraged to check out unfamiliar soundscapes.

It might come as little surprise then, that the spaces most dedicated to exploring musical forms are rooted in the city’s squatting and progressive yesteryears. Examine the history of Amsterdam’s conflict over the occupation and function of its urban spaces, and you’ll find a city whose battle lines are clearly drawn. For some, the speculative trade of Amsterdam’s empty buildings is the sovereign right of their owners. For others, it’s an infringement of civil rights and inner-city democracy. Back in the 70s and 80s, housing shortages and the occupation of property were fiercely contested topics, and even today the subject is fraught with controversy. Only two years ago the Dutch government passed a bill to criminalise squatting, sparking riots and leading to the forceful eviction of over 200 squats in Amsterdam alone, before the Supreme Court of the Netherlands decreed that no eviction should occur without the intervention of a judge. A similar law in the UK was just passed in September, criminalising squatters amidst a melodramatic smoke screen.

Several of Amsterdam’s venues stand like castles, outposts where the battle between community and hierarchy has fallen in the favor of the music makers. Paradiso, one of the city’s most-recognised concert halls, was eventually transformed from a disused Open Community church into a ‘cosmic recreation centre’ after it was seized by hippies in 1967. The city council gave in to pressure from lobby groups to find a centre for the free lovers after the Vondelpark became over-run with youngsters hungry for revolution. Similarly, the nearby Melkweg (Milky Way) was created in 1970 by an enterprising drama company, after they discovered a derelict milk factory and converted it into their new meeting place and theatre. These actions, of groups taking it on themselves to change derelict buildings into centres of expression, have long been ingrained into the city’s social responsibility; in fact, it’s virtually considered a citizen’s duty.

Perhaps the group most responsible for Dutch attitudes to squatting was the Provo movement, a collective of theatrical anarchists who deliberately set out to provoke reactions from the police and the general public – who they believed were brainwashed, addicted consumers or “despicable plastic people” – using street actions to elicit social change en masse. Inspired by Duchamp as much as Marcuse, their street theatre soon turned into full-scale anarchy, as they handed out pamphlets, incited police brutality, planted smoke bombs during the 1966 royal wedding and ran rings around authority figures by spreading all kinds of rumours and misinformation. Their magazine Provo stated that “Provo has something against capitalism, communism, fascism, bureaucracy, militarism, professionalism, dogmatism and authoritarianism. Provo has to choose between desperate resistance and submissive extinction. Provo calls for resistance wherever possible. Provo realises that it will lose in the end, but it cannot pass up the chance to make at least one more heartfelt attempt to provoke society.” Contrary to Howard Beale’s morose resignation after his boardroom showdown in the movie Network, the Provos took some comfort in the futility of their disruptions: how far can you go, when you have nothing to lose? Their famous “White Plans” – pro-cannabis campaigns and solidarity with workers, anti-war protesters and squatters – have shaped Dutch political attitudes for years, promoting a healthy disregard for authority.

This ‘right to disobey’ has inspired many determined young people, who dreamt of having their own meeting place, to overcome their inner policeman and make it happen. Music is often found at the crossroads of these power struggles, in the grey areas between legalities and rights. Kees Heus, programmer at Paradiso, remembers that the emergence of house music and rave culture in Amsterdam wasn’t overtly political, but more like a great adventure: “[By] ’88, it had really caught on. There were raves happening everywhere, especially in abandoned warehouses around the harbor. It was all highly illegal, but because there were no residents in these areas, no one minded for a few years. But by ’92, people had realised that you could make money from it, and then it all changed.”

While it didn’t take long for rave’s warehouse utopia to get closed down, some unofficial venues managed to wrangle their newfound cultural status for good. The OCCII is one such building that has its roots in the squatters’ movement, finally becoming a ‘legal’ venue in 1989 after five years of feuding with the police and authorities. During the 80s, the focus of the squatter movement shifted from the housing shortage to more cultural activities, with some political alignments: self-government instead of centralised bureaucracy, livability instead of economic growth, preservation of existing buildings instead of demolition and new development, and the safeguarding of community culture instead of paving the way for mass consumption. The OCCII, whose name translates as Independent Cultural Centre, has put on music and cultural events as a sign of resistance from the very first day.

The initial impression of the OCCII is its carefully restored façade. Built in 1883 as a stable for horse-drawn trams, the wooden front has been carefully re-built, paying close attention to the original design by Dutch architect Abraham Salm, essentially bringing the old building back to life. The colour scheme of white, blue, red and yellow on woody ochre means that the building conspicuously resonates on the street. There’s something powerful about the restoration: it shines like a spectre from across the centuries, a monument to sustainability in defiance of urban re-developers. As a stable, the former use of the building was essentially a positive one, a place to renew and refresh, and it’s a spirit the OCCII maintains.

The soundtrack to the kind of struggles the 200 capacity venue has faced throughout the years has been varied. From free jazz, hardcore and punk DIY, to minimalist composers, dub, jungle and acid house-inspired 303 freakouts, anything that puts the mainstream into sharp relief can offer a different perspective, and the OCCII explores many of these outer edges. Several groups of promoters work on the music programme, and a typical week might see improv-noise trio Fully Blown on the calendar next to wave synthusiast Das Ding, or acoustic and tape machine group Woods next to Sublime Frequencies’ renowned dial-surfer Alan Bishop. The extended psych workouts of Acid Mothers Temple, or the hypnotic Casio marathons of Heatsick, for example, offer a respite from the incessant replays of quickfire news feeds and tired formulas.

This music isn't as openly political as a song like Leon Rosselson’s tribute to The Diggers, but it doesn’t have to be – honest non-commercial expression is all that’s asked. People come to the OCCII for the music, but also for the community. As Sjoerd Stolk, the OCCII’s tireless dynamo, says, ”Some people think that a lot of the DIY ethos from the 80s stemmed from a negative reaction to what was going on around them, but I don’t see it like that. To me it’s just a matter of feeling. I couldn’t find a venue with feeling, so I took the responsibility to find something myself.” This pro-active, independent spirit runs through everything that happens at the OCCII, from bands and labels selling their own home-made tapes, 7"s and t-shirts, to the screen-printed flyers, hands-on attitude of volunteers and a conspicuous absence of doormen.

The OCCII doesn’t just stand on its own either: it’s part of a wider complex of buildings and associates that surround its courtyard, and the music venue compliments a vegan restaurant, a children’s theatre, rehearsal studios, a bike workshop and a library with an emphasis on anarchist literature. Browse through their shelves, and you’ll find books on everything from feminism to property, from anti-capitalism to Dada and Surrealism. Everyone is welcome, there’s no soapbox and visitors are free to pitch in and get involved.

Another disused building turned official cultural enterprise is the OT301, located half way down the Vondelpark. Previously a film academy, the OT301 is an example of how the legal ownership of buildings can often fall into a grey area – in this case the former owner was deemed to receive his income by ‘illegal means’. This allowed the squatters, and arts funding organization EHBK, to successfully apply to buy the building. The OT301 is now a multi-disciplinary cultural center, and mixes live concerts with modern dance performances and craft workshops, as well as yoga, tai chi, and acupressure classes. There’s a cinema upstairs where you can catch some Fellini or Polanski, as well as an affordable vegan restaurant. The OT301 does more to include than challenge its visitors, and despite the quality control of activities, there’s a sense of collective benefit and well-being that runs through the programme. Daytime initiatives like the Long Players record fair – where it’s encouraged to swap with fellow sellers – micro-breweries and independent labels mean that the building is often as busy before dark as it is in the evenings, when the club opens to selectors like The Bug, Harmonic 313, Marcel Dettmann or Moodymann.

A few years ago the OT301 was awarded a prize for its cultural activities, but that was before recent legislation. While the city council might show an interest in helping develop initiatives (particularly as part of its recent plan to ‘clean up’ certain aspects of Amsterdam, like the red light district and coffee shops), the state-sanctioned remit towards culture steadily grows narrower. Although there are much fewer squats than just a few years ago, there are still plenty of locations thriving in their independence, such as Joe’s Garage social center, Het Fort van Sjakoo bookstore, the Filmhuis Cavia cinema, exhibition space Outpost and many others. Even with the noticeable decline in squats, the transformation of unused buildings into active cultural centres (complete with the council’s seal of approval) can still be seen in ongoing programs like Red Light Radio, and the development of twin newspaper buildings De Volkskrant and Trouw. Amidst the high street shops and the red-lit windows, the supermarkets, pharmacies and hardware chains, these places are some of the few hubs where people congregate at all, let alone engage in some unspoken cultural exchange.

In the end, it’s a community thing; we don’t live in a bubble. While some selfish capitalists might argue that Noah wouldn’t have been much use to the animal kingdom if he’d only built a small but well-meaning raft, it’s difficult to find common ground between sharing commodities and mass consumption, between sustainability and redevelopment, or between volunteering and trading the annual growth projections of your 2027 portfolio. In the city, despite the crowd, it’s easy to forget that there’s more out there than just winning the race. But independent venues, with a hard-fought history that continue to generate music and culture regardless of market forces, can sometimes remind us that we’re not the centre of our worlds, after all.

Many thanks to Sjoerd Stolk at the OCCII, the Anarchist Library, Kees Heus at Paradiso, Cremo and Radna.