opened a now booming food court in an abandoned car
park, showcasing dishes from 26 local nationalities.
Building on a key neighbourhood advantage – its global
food heritage – was his way of ‘making the last no-go
place in the Bijlmer into somewhere people want to go.’
And judging by the constant mobs around the Syrian,
Ghanaian and Congolese kiosks, they do. ‘We’re really
a food map of the neighbourhood,’ says Taus.
This November, on the 50th anniversary of its
construction, the Bijlmer’s metamorphosis from
banlieue to beaulieu is reaching a crescendo. Grimshaw’s
2007 glass-and-steel Bijlmer ArenA station is now the
gateway to the 60,000-seat Johan Cruyf Arena, which
hosts everything from Beyoncé concerts to Ajax FC
matches, and the ING HQ, soon to be replaced with
a sinuous steel campus by Benthem Crouwel Architects.
Across the elevated railway – once considered an ‘iron
curtain’ – the bleak 1960s walk-ups are now a ‘creative
community’ of live/work spaces painted in primary
colours. Art students beg for a place on the waiting list
before they’ve even begun university.
‘It’s like the “new Noord”,’ says documentary ilm-
maker Nina Karim van Oort, referring to the cultural
quarter north of Centraal Station. Karim van Oort
talks about the trendy B&Bs that attract creative types,
and the nightclub Jack, with its programme of
transvestite performance art and German synth-punk,
just launched on the roof of a nondescript building.‘In Amsterdam we’re very good at “cleaning up” (^) »
The elevated railway is now lined
with sought-after live/work spaces
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT,
THE KRAAIENNEST METRO
STATION, TRANSFORMED BY
MLA+ IN 2013; LOCAL CREATIVE
DERRICK WESTERCAPPEL, OF
SMIB WORLDWIDE; JOHANNES
VAN DEN AKKER’S CHAPEL
∑ 125