TKA’s new-build sits on the edge of the historical city centre, in a context marked by differentiation in scale and infrastructural operations. Until World War II Amsterdam’s Jewish community was located here in the Waterlooplein quarter, one of the most densely populated areas in the city. After 1945, all that remained was a depopulated, impoverished neighbourhood where government intervention was the most obvious move.

Until that time the seventeenth-century immigrant area, famous for its vibrant trade and street market, was dominated by the voluminous synagogues of the Moses and Aaron church. These large buildings were a logical foil to the small-scale tightly packed development of residential and commercial properties. In the fifties and sixties, major piercements rent the city into fragments which were then left to develop independently. This was how the Amsterdam City Hall cum Music Theatre came to be located on the site of the celebrated second-hand market. A little further up, on the north-east side of Jodenbreestraat, stood the Maupoleum, which fifteen years earlier had ushered in a new scale of building.

City reconstruction

In the post-war reconstruction plan presented in 1953, Jodenbreestraat was part of the circulation route that ran from Amstel Station to Central Station. This circulation route was there to enhance accessibility to the city centre, promoting activity in the Central Business District as well as improving the flow to North Amsterdam. These plans additionally served to ‘advance the status of this part of the city and make it a healthy organ of the urban body’.2) In the first instance the northeastern side of Jodenbreestraat was designated for a market place with waterscaping and the planting of trees. Execution of the reconstruction plans was delayed for some time due to complications regarding expropriation procedures and compensation to businesses, in particular the textile wholesalers in Antoniesbreestraat. In 1968 the wholesalers sought a permit from the city council to erect a mixed-use building on the site of the market place, financed by the said Caransa.3) This was granted without a hint of protest. At that time the University of Amsterdam also showed interested in the site.4) Accordingly, wholesalers and university were each allocated a portion of the new building, the Burgemeester Tellegenhuis, designed by the architectural office of Zanstra, Gmelig Meyling and de Clerq Zubli (1968 – 1971).
Neither the reconstruction plan nor the design for the Burgemeester Tellegenhuis encountered much resistance at that time. The demolition of entire housing blocks was seen as an ‘irrevocable consequence of progress’ and only one member of the amenities authority questioned ‘whether this modern architecture might clash with the surrounding development.’5) The site boundary line allocated to architect Zanstra allowed for a forty-metre-wide street; the height was to approximate that of a recently completed nine-storey building, the Wibauthuis.6)
Any misgivings felt at that time by the department of Public Works were no doubt confined to details, such as the preservation of a monumental property. Wide streets bordered by large buildings and trees were regarded as positive by those making the decisions. A member of the city council wanrned that ‘One should not make a museum of the city.’7) But while the reconstruction plan was underway, the notion of the city slowly began to change. An opposing faction made its first appearance. Locals and architects joined together to protest against the gradual disappearance of housing from the city centre.8) The effect of fierce campaigns directed against the inflexible, bureaucratic municipal bodies was such that Public Works felt forced to change their plans for the inner city; the CBD formation was halted just beyond Jodenbreestraat. Antoniesbreestraat, which should have been equally wide, was filled in once more by other architects (Van Eyck and Bosch), and remained a narrow street. What should have been a marked orchestration of the flow to and from the city centre was now reduced to an incursion, a mere incident. The Maupoleum was made to look ridiculous: ‘It’s standing alone there out on a limb’, Zanstra conceded some years later.9)

Symbol

Meanwhile the Maupoleum had grown to symbolize all that was ugly and lacking in quality. The carbuncle had to be cut away; with a little plastic surgery it would seem as though the city council had made no miscalculation at all. In 1994 the council and the Philips Pension Fund (the owners of the building) decided that the Maupoleum should be demolished. From an architectural and urban standpoint, there was too much criticism surrounding the building and the interior no longer met the needs of the day.10) Nor did the city council desire to see it converted to receive office accommodation only.
By sheer coincidence, the Amsterdam Academy of Arts had for some time been considering relocating certain of its faculties, and had its eye upon the area between Valkenburgerstraat, Rapenburgerstraat and the Maupoleum. ‘The Academy were convinced that a good art education can only flourish in a cultural centre.’11) By accommodating the varying disciplines in close proximity within the school, each could inspire and stimulate the other. High-quality technical facilities were also desired to best prepare students for the professional world. In 1991 an urban design competition was held whose entrants included Koen van Velsen, Wiel Arets and Teun Koolhaas. Because the prized design by Arets was too expensive and didn’t conform to the Spatial Planning department’s 1990 urban plan for the area, the Academy took Teun Koolhaas under their wing, to prepare a spatial plan and design for the Theatre School: ‘The idea was to stitch the Academy as a whole into the historic heart of the city.’12) After protracted discussion it was decided that the school and the Philips Pension Fund should share the site. The latter would be allowed to develop an office building and the area would gain a dynamic urban function into the bargain. The Theatre School consists of eleven departments that together present a great many public performances. This public aspect fitted in well with Spatial Planning’s Inner City Policy Plan (1993), one of whose key aims was to strengthen the function of city centre.

Maximization

As the pension fund and the school were each allocated only half of the total site, TKA had to find additional square metres. However important enhancement of the city image was, the essential thing was to save money, or rather, guarantee a profit: the floor area is now doubled. TKA had the new-build border directly on the water, which lends it an urban ambience to begin with. Zanstra in his day had left space for a walkway along the waterside. On the side of Jodenbreestraat the built mass was likewise widened by moving the building line seven metres forward. The building height was scarcely reduced; the facades are 21 metres high so as to coincide with that of the Moses and Aaron Church and the Portuguese synagogue. But the roof summit is 27 metres and so the new building is every bit as tall as the former Maupoleum. By assembling spaces as advantageously as possible and allowing some of the staircases to be somewhat steeper than usual there was eventually enough room for both clients. Teun Koolhaas describes the two buildings as ‘workhorses’, structures that make space for intensive use on a relatively small lot.
If the Maupoleum was reproached for being too large, there now stands an even larger complex, though it does appear less massive. Dividing the plot into two and treating the two buildings differently (each was designed by its own TKA team) effectively masks the enlargement of scale. Similarly, narrowing Jodenbreestraat serves to soften the spatial gulf between the new-build and the inner city.
TKA concede that they had to carve a path through the ‘political, financial and spatial jungle’ before the drawings were approved. The amenities authority took a critical position and lodged one objection after another. In August 1994 for example they wrote in their memo: ‘All in all a well-meaning plan but not of the quality needed here.’ TKA had to change the elevations a number of times before the design was approved.
The new building had to be sited above an existing underground parking lot that protruded above ground level. This saved a small fortune but it did mean that the foundations of the Maupoleum determined the internal arrangement of the new design. The briefs for the two buildings had absolutely nothing in common; the Academys programme was difficult to accommodate on the available surface area. In short, a complicated task further complicated by a provincial head wind.

Variation

Today one might wonder whether the Maupoleum was as hideous as was always asserted. In the last years of its existence its condition declined, the facades turned grey, garbage and hypodermic syringes accumulated in the arcade and the anti-squat brigade roller-skated through its rooms. In some of these rooms there was a breathtaking play of light through a facade with a taut rhythm and balanced proportions. A typical example of its time, ‘a monument to the arrested BDC formation’,13) the Burgemeester Tellegenhuis might well have been worth preserving. It was one of the stronger designs to come out of the late-sixties architecture. But other sentiments carried more weight, the Maupoleum simply had to go. The usually protest-happy Nieuwmarkt quarter has until now responded positively to the new-build, even though the locals find it a little overbearing. Compared to the enormous glass wall of the Academy on the side of Antoniessluis, the lock keeper’s house shrinks to the size of a Legoland house; here the newcomer most definitely clashes with the historical city centre.
Whereas Zanstra treated his building as a monolithic entity expressly to generate criteria in Jodenbreestraat for the development to come, TKA’s designs turn a different face to each side in an attempt to harmonize with the neighbours. That variation in Teun Koolhaas’s architecture stands in stark contrast to the modular regularity of a Maupoleum. Consequently the office building’s elevation on Jodenbreestraat appears opportunistic and unsure of itself, whereas its predecessor was consistent and took a firm stance. It seems as though TKA had difficulty choosing between vertical canal-house-style articulation and a classical composition. As a result the two are juxtaposed so that the proportions have a certain awkwardness. The ‘entablature’ is top heavy, the pillars of the arcade look perilously slender and have a varying centre-to-centre distance. This weakens the otherwise regular arrangement, with a glass stairwell every three bays.
The intricate nature of the task can be read in the elevations of the Theatre School. The contrast between the open street side – where the public can stream in at set times – and the enclosure of the rear elevation – to protect the privacy of the students – is expressed perhaps a little too literally. This the elevation enunciates as a disordered articulation, something the plastered section of the facade does nothing to lighten, giving it the character of a confused collage. The architect wished to proclaim the building’s vibrant nature in its elevations. If this is indeed the bustling school that Koolhaas claims, is it necessary to express this in the architecture?
Inside, the Academy is a spectacular affair. The ‘black box’ of theatre auditoria and studios constitutes the core of the building, allowing the entire plot to be built up around it into a compact entity. All spaces are connected by two corridors that divide the building lengthwise into three strips. The central strip containing the theatres adds a luxurious ‘bath house’ and various camera studios. The various spaces are stitched together ingeniously, and some of the views are phenomenal. Though the civil servants in the adjoining building have to be content with a standard office, their view over the city is similarly panoramic. The light courts created by the comb-like structure bring a well-lit spaciousness to the offices, vaguely reminiscent as these are of the top floor of the Maupoleum.
TKA have savoured both the fresh and rotten fruits of Jodenbreestraat’s history. The task of revitalizing the area and going one better than the hated Maupoleum is pure pleasure; the installing of such a bulky programme in a small-scale city centre, on the other hand, is no easy task. TKA have accomplished their mission, the building is in place. The municipal amenities authorities gave their approval, the clients are satisfied. The end-product is buildings that will never be the subject of protest.
Yet it is difficult to leave it at that. There has been too much compromise for feasibility’s sake on this historically rich and urbanly important site. The complex is an illustration of what evidently is considered acceptable in terms of urban planning and, visually, of architecture, a diluted brand of ‘city restoration’.
Its architecture is denied any form of critical potential. TKA interpret the city as a homogeneous continuum of architecturally neutral buildings with a few landmarks among them. This interpretation here translates into a ‘unique (educational) building’ and (office) development that submits to the cityscape. The architecture of this cityscape seems inspired by vague Beaux-Arts notions and images of American block development from the previous century. Both the meaning and significance of this decor are still a mystery, unless it was an unarticulated desire for a nineteenth-century city of perimeter blocks. The altered relationship of this new building with that of the city network remains implicit. Yet this is only partly TKA’s problem. As long as the city of Amsterdam is incapable of providing one vision pulling together the successive competing urban visions confronting parts of the city during the last forty, fifty years, then we can hardly expect architecturally unambivalent work from architects who have to work there.

6. The Wibauthuis, the new home for, among other things, the department of Public Works along the newly developed city radial of Wibautstraat and Weesperstraat, was designed by N.J.J. Gawronski in 1961-1968.

8. See for example D. Tuijnman, ‘Woningbouwplannen aan de Jodenbreestraat’, Wonen-TA/BK, no. 14, 1979, p. 2; Tuijnman wanted to ‘wrap’ the Maupoleum in housing so as to make the street narrower and reinstate housing in the city centre.