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Proeflokaal relieves the IJburg blues.

A artificial environment like IJburg can be so overwhelming that it makes one forget the thrills and excitement of living in a European capital. The art project Het Blauwe Huis wants to inject this ever developing housing estate with the feel of the inner city by providing mini-versions of facilities sorely missed by IJburg inhabitants. Their Proeflokaal is a modest version of a cheap neighbourhood restaurant, and all 25 seats are booked every night it opens.

On this overcast evening, it’s a relief to come from the not-so-bustling streets in to Het Blauwe Huis, a blue villa built in the middle of one of the dark, anonymous housing blocks near the tram terminus. Inside the relaxed atmosphere of the open living space, residents, office workers and artists are chatting away. Noortje Boers of Roos en Noor catering service provides the tasty pasta dish.

Proeflokaal, which takes place every two weeks on Thursday evenings, is a typical Het Blauwe Huis experiment; the organisation regularly invites artists to develop innovative, socially engaged projects for urban spaces. Portuguese film maker Daniela Paes Leao recently finished her investigation of the IJburg area; she is joined at the table by Argentinean architects Pio Torroja and Mauricio Corbalan, the villa’s current residents and ideas people.

The walls of the living space are decorated with the results of another project by artist Silvia Russel. She hosted a series of drawing workshops for mothers with young children. The large, colourful sheets of paper reveal some of the more -and less- joyful experiences of being a mother in IJburg.

Het Blauwe Huis looks onto a spacious garden, set up by landscape architect Rudy J. Luijters. It’s bare now, but will provide the area in the coming months with vegetables and herbs, just as it did last year. This year, Luijters’ garden can count on the horticultural help of enthusiastic neighbours.

Another long-running project is ‘Parade der Stedelijkheid’ (‘parade of urbanity’) initiated by architect Dennis Kaspori and Het Blauwe Huis founder Jeanne van Heeswijk; Proeflokaal is one of its branches, Van Heeswijk explains. ‘We are working on ways to accelerate urban life in areas like this’, she says. ‘We call it “instant urbanity”, but you could refer to it as “cup-a-soup-urbanity” as well’.

‘In these areas of development, like Vinex-districts or urban renovation areas, people are always wait for years for things to come’, says Van Heeswijk. ‘Here in IJburg the supermarket is still in a tent and a neighbourhood community centre won’t be available until 2008. We picked up on this by creating some of the things that are needed, in a fast and playful way. It’s important that the ideas come from the IJburg residents-then we look at how we can kick-start these things’.

A cheap neighbourhood restaurant for IJburg was already in development by the local community service Stichting Dienstverlening en Zorg IJburg, in cooperation with Stadsdeel Zeeburg. It would have taken six to 12 months, but Van Heeswijk and Kaspori decided not to wait for all the conferencing and issuing of rules. ‘Often these things are put on hold because of issues like management and cost-effectiveness. We had a meeting with the organisations and we said we could run a test version of the restaurant within three weeks. To everyone’s surprise it was an immediate success’.

Besides Proeflokaal, Van Heeswijk and Kaspori have come up with more examples of instant urbanity. Every Wednesday, Het Blauwe Huis runs a children’s library -the official IJburg library doesn’t open until 2010. And on Saturdays, they host a travelling florist on the doorstep. Manager Nicoline Koek had difficulty arranging a place for her business, because of insufficient regulations from the Stadsdeel. Now she runs the first flower shop in IJburg.

‘We have eighty to one hundred and twenty people coming to the house on Saturday, for flowers, but also to chat and have a coffee’, says Van Heeswijk ‘On Wednesdays we have an additional forty to sixty visitors. It’s amazing how this project helped to gain momentum for Het Blauwe Huis in such a short time’.

by Marinus de Ruiter
Amsterdam Weekly, 20-26 april 2006

Proeflokaal at Het Blauwe Huis, Willy Mullenskade 13, is on 27 April, 11 and 25 May, 8 and 22 June and 6 and 13 July from 18.30. Meals cost €7.50 (€6 for children). Reservations: 06-38595379 or info@blauwehuis.org

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