Almere

Almere, a Future Pioneer?

Almere is not only a pioneer in the way it became and is a city. By positioning itself as a future city it could stress its uniqueness. The very limited past of the city allows it to only concentrate on the future. Future is the keyword that already had been the focus of on of the 2000s European Capital of Culture Helsinki. By having the citizen as the major interest group of the progress, cutting edge strategies of crowd-sourcing1 and involvement are also going to start to be playing a major role.

Young History of Almere

Almere had been starting off very differently compared to the broad mass of cities. One can either say that they skipped at least the first half of an alphabet for example by still being nothing but ground of the sea when other cities developed their identities by flourishing in the middle ages or fighting wars. Basically Almere has been in the position of rapidly catching up, where at the moment it is performing the adolescence of city development. In this whole cycle still the question remains on what a future can be built on without much of a past.
Almere is on the way of defining and finding new ways how to create it on its own. On the architectural level is has to deal with a bad reputation concerning parts of the city that were built in the 70s and 80s. The recent inner city is a relict from these times and going to be replaced by a complete new center just on the other side of the central railway station. The recent one is already today completely accessible for people with impairments.
In terms of creating memory for a city that has no memory yet the platform “Geheugen von Almere” had been started. It follows the simple idea of creating something new if there yet is no history. Citizens are telling their stories, communicate and exchange: a new approach in giving a city face.
In terms of city planning the city already had new ideas on how to navigate through the city with out a map implemented by naming the streets of Almere-Stad after areas and cities in the Netherlands, so that people who know the country do know exactly in which area in the city they are. Here one can see a new path on city shaping showing a playground for experiment the architects and planners had.
It is to hope that a new path in repurposing the soon-to-be old inner city also is being taken. As soon as the new center is being built, the buildings in the then former part are expected to become home to art communities when the prices for real estate are going to fall. This is a development often being seen in former industrial cities.
If Almere is continuing on its path of being open to innovation and also experimentcity it could be heading towards becoming a real future city. Marcel Kolder is supporting this by saying the following: “I think, we are for a new town, and that is what we want. In Europe you have a lot of new towns, or old towns which have a part as a new town and most of the time they are no places to live, because there are a lot of foreigners, people dont have jobs, etc. “
As an example for parallels to a future city the next section is going to deal with Helsinki, capital of Finland, after this chances and opportunities of open-source and multi-culturalism are being shown.

Parallels with a Future and Knowledge City: Helsinki

Helsinki that had been Cultural Capital in 2000. As a city with a relatively young history it had positioned itself as future city. It is mostly known for its remarkable new architecture and center for Finnish design. In November 2009 it been entitle to become World Design Capital 2012.
Finland’s capital is not only one of the youngest cities being capital, but also is being situated in one of the fastest growing regions in Europe2, Helsinki metropolitan area grew by 150 000 inhabitants within the last decade and also shows a similar, but not as rapid growth in population as Almere. Founded in 1550 by the Swedish King Gustav I. Wasa it has been relatively irrelevant until it became capital in 1812 with around 5000 inhabitants. Within the last hundred years the city grew from closely 100 0003 by over 550% to 576 632 in 2009. To have a small comparison: the city of Almere also has ambition to grow by another six-digit number within the next years: “In 2018 we have 250 000 inhabitants, and we want to go to 300000” Marcel Kolder of the citizen group confirms.
In addition, having burned down in the late 17th century, Helsinki had to be completely rebuilt and designed at the beginning of the 18th century. The countries only University moved to Helsinki 15 years after becoming capital.
Helsinki is indeed well known for its architecture, all of it naturally the young architecture of the last two centuries: classicism, Jugendstil and functionalism. Still a rather ugly side being dominated by Eastern block “Plattenbau” is co-existing in the city. Almere's features are recent architectural developments, cradle to cradle and land architecture. As mentioned before the many buildings from the 70s and 80s are not particularly good for the city's reputation.
Besides music Finnish design and architecture are the key disciplines in the cultural sector. Knowledge, especially the Hi-tech and service sector, is the main focus of the city in terms of economy. Almere is also aiming to becoming a knowledge city which is going to be explained later in the essay.
The development of Helsinki as being successful is showing that something similar can also happen to the young, but rapidly growing Almere.

Organizing European Capital of Culture Bottom-up

Besides being geographically and historically a newbie in the whole procedure of European Capital, Almere is cutting-edge by being the first city having the citizens as major interest group for the process. It had taken a while and needed a change in politics until their voice had been heard in the council, but thanks to their endurance they were successful. Starting as a small interest group in 2004 the Alderman thought the idea was ridiculous. Since about two years the idea is now taken seriously:
“Four years ago our Mayor was also laughing at us. He just told at a big conference that he was laughing in the beginning, but then he said, you kept on going for four years, and it became bigger and bigger, now I have to, I cant say no to all those citizens who want to get the city to a next level. All those people. So its so nice. It would have never happened without us, its going to happen with us.”, so Marcel Kolder, initiator of the European Captial citizen group.
After convincing the mayor, the issue was put to the city council to agree on financing a first survey that states the actual status of the city, chances and investments to be done. January 2010 is going to be the mission critical point in time when rapport, plan, content and financials for the bid book are going to be organized. Then again the council has to agree on the concept and mostly about the money. There are already reservations of half a million Euro a year in the upcoming budgets for the project. In case Almere is becoming Cultural Capital in 2018 the city council has to invest 25% of the cost. The rest of the financing will be coming from the other governments, companies, and bigger companies by also 25% each. In case of 20 million Euros spent by the council it is going to be a total cultural budget of 80 million Euros.4
The people group started off with 25 volunteers working for the project. Today they are building the core of the group building different working circles doing parts in development, communication, etc. The diversity in the group simply happens and is not artificially brought by concept. Almere hosts 170 different nationalities. The citizen group itself consists of eight different nationalities, from Bosnia to Iran to Surinam. Here it is visible that Almere might be a step ahead looking at involvement and participation structures that do not need a construction from the outside to be diverse, but simply is. An ideal concept of the future is not only to stop segregating according to origin, but to even include automatically without having to think about it. Special projects aiming for social cohesion might become unnecessary, because it could happen on its own simply with the power of people. If this is happening, Almere could be the model city for an equal and open society. Still, up to this point it is not going to be an easy way, and not everything is working out as perfectly as it should. It is indeed very likely that issues of race and injustice are popping up. As a young city though, Almere is capable and flexible enough to deal with these topics, and hopefully it is going to find new creative ways when doing so.
Marcel Kolder is describing this as the following: “So in this phase, after 30 years we are now with all people and citizens thinking about what do we want to become as a town, do we want to become as a town, an old town, a new town, a town of the future or and this can help I think, to become a really nice town.
To sum up, Almere is not only a pioneer, but has as a young city a very good position to also become a future city. Being the first city that is having the citizen as major interest group it is already cutting-edge.

Almere, Can the "Ugly Duck" Become a Surprise Act?

Surrounded by historical and acknowledged beautiful cities, Almere is – in comparison – the bread in the collection of nice cakes. As going to be shown later on, this can not simply be seen as a disadvantage when looking at the former European Capital of Culture, Linz in Austria, and the current one Ruhr2010. In addition the concept of having the people as main driving force for such a project is yet unique.

The Bread in Between the Cakes: A Comparison with Other Dutch Cities

When asking Marcel Kolder, the main driving force behind Almere 2018, on his perception of Almere as a rather exceptional candidate when looking at the other Dutch cities that are bidding to become European Capital of Culture in 2018 he gave the following comparison: “Those towns are like a piece of cake. There is a lot of culture, a lot of sugar. You put a small layer of chocolate around it, or something like that and then it is a cultural city, and it's such a thin layer. I think it does something for this sort of city, but I think it is good. But we don’t have and are no cake. We have bread crust. In this town you will notice the differences. It is my believe and our believe. So you will see it and it is good for the town. In 2014 it’s a national thing, it s not a regional thing. And I hope that a lot of Dutch people will see it is good to chose this town, so it was for Glasgow, and it was good for Essen.”
As a matter of fact Almere is playing a different role in this context. All of the cities have chosen themselves themes as one can see in the document attached in the appendix. When “Den Haag said half a year ago: we want to become the design city of Europe, (and then) Eindhoven became angry, because they are.”, so Kolder.
Yet Almere has no fixed “theme”. Also it has no nice old buildings, neither any important historical, political, cultural nor big economical role. In addition there is not enough institutions for higher education or an art school present. It is quiet an unwritten paper of which's history has not been shaped yet. This city could become the place where the programme of European Capital of Culture can lead into new directions.
The significant difference Almere is having is organizing itself bottom-up: “I think that is the best way for all those cities to become cultural capital, to think about lets start form the bottom-up, lets get ideas from the citizens, from the cultural places and make.”, Marcel adds.

After looking at two more “industrial” city success stories, namely Linz 2009 and Ruhr 2010, new directions for the process and programming as for example the bottom-up idea and possible positive effects for Almere are being shown.

Other European Capital of Culture Success Stories

Two of the recent European Capitals of Culture are not particularly known as beautiful historical cities in the common sense: Linz, the Austrian European Capital of Culture in 2009, and the current Ruhr2010 in Germany:
Linz primary has an image as an ugly steel industry city which the city marketing aimed trying to change over the year. In addition a main part of the programme for this city had also been rewriting its history in terms of facing its own dark history from the NS (national socialist) times. Diverse projects were created to look at the topic from an artistic and scientific side.5
Ars electronica, flagship of the city, had been celebrating its 30 year anniversary, and had been transformed into an own “ars electronica center” as a permanent space for the museum of the future.
With Linz one can see that a candidate for European Capital of Culture does not necessarily have to have a nice history, but can indeed use the context of changing towards a future direction as well as the image.
Also Ruhr had been through a major shift from being an area of coal industry on the way to transforming itself into a cultural center. Flagships in the area are the Zollverein, the former coal mine appointed for being the most beautiful industrial world cultural heritage. In Dortmund the former building of a brewery, the “U” is being repurposed into a new center for the creative industries and going to be re-opened this spring.
Still, Almere is not really a city for steel industry and has not yet a representative festival. The example of the two cities here is to show that it does not necessarily need an extraordinary beautiful town to get the title.
Marcel Kolder is giving a short example on this and possible parallells for Almere: “And also Linz, it had been seen as the city of steel industry, and we are the city of young urban professionals and young families and young marketers.”
As already mentioned in the beginning of this essay, Almere can set an example with new and experimental architecture and repurpose creatively its soon-to-be- old city centre.

After having shortly looked at two examples of industrial town European Capitals of Culture, the last paragraph of this section is going to show more possibilities for Almere in terms of its cutting-edge approach.

Advantages of the Process

The usual process of a city deciding wether or wether not to participate at the bid of becoming capital of culture is either made by the politicians or stake holders in the cultural scene. Almere is the outstanding example of a citizen group involving as many people as possible in the process. This might have been one of the reasons why Bert van Meggelen, a famous consultant in the field had chosen Almere over the other seven cities in the Netherlands.
As having seen before it was neither the city council nor cultural organisations having the interest of making the city culturally significant. In fact the citizen group had been laughed at for four years before being taken seriously. One reason must be the persistence, the other must be the open political system being used in this town:
“We have a unique concept in this town it is called public market. On every Thursday citizens can step into the city hall and talk about important objects and issues. So to talk with the politics, with the major and they are open. They are also living in the neighborhood and they are open. You can always step into their office of these people, its so easy because it is a new town. We don’t care 1.0, but we are 2.0 , we are making new steps for society etc. I think this is can happen because Almere is the city where It can happen.”, so Marcel Kolder of the citizen group.
As already being mentioned, this open approach, the approach of organizing the process bottom-up is outstanding.
The second advantage for Almere is even more striking: Bert van Meggelen, cultural consultant in 2001 for Rotterdam and a former long-term jury member for the European Union had been choosing Almere over the other Dutch cities participating in the bid:
“He had been asked by every other city in Holland 'can you help us', and he choose Almere. He is an successful man, and you become successful when you follow successes or chances that are successful and proud. And also that Bert thinks that the chances to become cultural capital are actually quite high”, so Marcel Kolder. He adds that at the moment “he is helping Essen and some European countries in there cultural steps. And he said to us: it is so nice to do not The Hague or BrabantStad or other, because I think it is so special to have a new town as a cultural city instead of the all old towns they are always cultural cities, because they have culture. This is another idea, another concept. It is also an institute from all the citizens. This is also unique in Europe”.
To sum up one can say that our “ugly duck” Almere actually has high chances in this competition. It is not only unique with not having much to offer in terms of “old” culture, but also the history of former European Capitals proves that this is not necessary. The system of setting an example for a “city 2.0” and opinion-leader Bert van Meggelen guiding the project is giving it a positive future perspective.
As the last section of this essay a closer look at the major issue the city is facing is being given: What are the possibilities for the future of the city to create and define its culture?

Creating Culture Bottom-Up.

Almere is having the unique possibility to set an example in creating a cultural life bottom-up and as a concept in becoming a whole city. From the cultural side there are three topics being looked at in-depth: first of all the missing diversity and demographics leading to a missing cultural life, because of no target group available for special disciplines. Then a closer look at the CCAA, Creative Cities Amsterdam Area, is being done in terms of possibilities of the Creative Industries. At last again the circle is being closed with an idea on creating culture from the citizen, bottom-up.

Missing Diversity – Missing Culture?

Diversity in the demographics is one of the essentials for the city to be able to host a whole range and variety in cultural life. Only with having the specific target groups for i.e. an opera house it would be worth it to build an opera house.
As Almere is a city of young people the city hosts a museum for contemporary art, the de Paviljoens. The museum is built out of a wagon installation that had been commissioned by Jan Hout in 1992 for Documenta, Kassel, Germany. Originally the building was only meant to stay 100 days, but then was bought by the city council of Almere to build a museum for contemporary art with national and international programme with an interdisciplinary approach. Also Macha Roesink, director of the museum that in the beginning only was a temporary exhibition space, is also seeing Almere's main essential for a cultural scene in the demography of the city:
”Well, there is already a lot, but what is missing, yes, but this is just a matter of fact and I always speak of missing, but it is a matter of fact it is like, because the demographics are not yet in balance, but are becoming in balance, you do not have a natural audience. And what could be interesting, if there would be more higher education, of any kind.”
Also Marcel Kolder is seeing the main issue in the structure of the citizen groups, becoming attractive for knowledge society, and, letting culture grow through the process of European Capital of Culture: “The challenges we have as a new town to become a diverse city, a creative city. ” He continues: “we are missing certain citizens, we don’t have students, we don’t have rich citizens, there is a lot of young urban people who just married with young children, both working, high morgidge its an urban city. So we miss public. But to get public you want to get a new diverse city. You have to do something you have to be attractive to those people. We hope that cultural capital can do something for the attractiveness of the city. Creating places where also students will come. Maybe developing also to have a university in this city, all those things. we miss a university”.
In addition the attitude towards learning and change is open to. “We see our city as a school and learn from other cities and learn from our citizens to develop our city because it was a city with one layer of citizens, they all worked at fiat, we were all working at fiat.”, so Kolder.

Creative Cities Amsterdam Area – How does Almere Participate?

The department of economic affairs that CCAA is being part of is aiming to get the city to a more diverse level. The main goal is supporting companies in settling their business in the city. Sabrine Strijbos is working for both organisation and is responsible for relocating companies in the sectors of call centers, fashion, design, and other devisions. As mentioned earlier, the city is facing population growth. In addition it is already facing the issue of not having enough jobs for the citizen. Thus the aim for the creative sector with the CCAA is to connect associates in the fashion industries to become stronger by bundling knowledge and money with London, Barcelona or Berlin to enable bigger projects.
According to Strijbos the city council is helping with broadening the company networks and giving economical development help. Thus great expectations there in terms of creating economic value and work.
Justifying the economical support for creative industries will be one of the main challenges for the department. Economical support is especially needed for the hospital infrastructure. This is why wise decisions and priorities have to be made in the context to fulfill as many expectations as possible, and guarantee both essentials of urban life: health care and variety and safety of jobs.
Again Marcel Kolder is seeing this positively as a challenge for the city to be solved with culture: “So maybe we can develop a new model to bring new towns or part of towns to a next level. To get a more diverse culture and festivals. So it’s a European development program we try to do. And our town is part of it.”

Which culture already has emerged from the city is going to be topic of the next part of this essay.

Culture for the Citizen and Culture from the Citizen: What is the Potential?

“People will be. It is also because there is a lot of discussion to become Cultural City or not in the newspapers. And for the first time in four years people are going to think about culture.” so Marcel Kolder, initiator of the citizen group.
One part in culture that the city already is strong at is street and youth culture. It is the young people shaping this city: “It's the rap and breakdance scene. And you probably have heard of Ali B and Reincer. And those are kind of artists that are very known from eight and nine years ago, and they have also grown famous on national level.” so Macha Roesink, director of the museum of contemporary art.
Marcel Kolder is supporting this with saying: “We have a lot of youth. Most of people in Almere, more then 60 – 70 thousand people are younger than 20. So we have a youth culture here, so one of the themes is going to be also the youth culture. So our teams are already there.”
It is more important for a city to focus on what is already existing. ”I am not so sure if you need al the disciplines, because the disciplines are on a different scale of policy.” Macha Roesink sais.
As mentioned before the other cultural strengths and themes are according to Kolder the following: “I think our themes are new media, new themes, experimental themes. But we have new architecture, we don’t have old architecture. The theme is what we are.” It is not going to be about importing cultural highlights. Marcel Kolder strong opinion on this is the following: “You have to look for things what you are and get to the next level and don’t try to fly things from outside in. So the idea is also not going to be to fly in 2018 some symphonic orchestra or beautiful art, but to develop from now on our own orchestra if we want some, I don’t think so. To develop our own things and show it to the world”.
In the eyes of Macha Roesink this might be endangered by plans of the council in terms of developing a museum prestige object: “the Gemeente, as you can see from the internet, they have a different approach. Since 11 years they do research on what kind of museum Almere should need.“ This again shows the contrary side of developing culture, not particularly bottom-up, but top-down.
In the idea of becoming European Capital of Culture Roesink is still seeing a big opportunity: “Well agains all odds, the potential is very high, because it can be a really really special case study, what it takes to have a completed city, but also new land, in what period of time you can create cultural atmosphere and how you can stimulate that. Because this is a very valuable tool, to see what are the actors and to create a scene.”

Final Conclusion: Almere for EcoC!

After looking into the “case study” of Almere at this point of the candidacy, just shortly before the council deciding to actually go for the bid, now a last glimpse and comment on the three main topics ar being given.
In the beginning a closer look into the future indicators positioning the city as a cutting-edge and special candidate in the process had been taken: the possibilities of the city with having a relatively young history with fast growth, an example of the future and knowledge city Helsinki and the bottom-up system the candidacy is taken care of are a striking approach.
Secondly Almere, as not being the most attractive city in the Netherlands culturally, had been compared with the other Dutch candidates. On the example of other recent capitals one can see that it is possible for industrial cities to get the title. In addition it had been shown that again the approach with the citizen group is different and mostly striking in this process.
In the last part of the essay the cultural scene and possibilities of the city had been looked at in detail. The conclusions here were that a diverse cultural life needs diverse demographics, a challenge that will both can be solved by building schools for higher education, but also the factor where time is playing a great role. The same can be applied to the challenges the department of economical affairs and the CCAA, the programme for the support of creative industries, is facing. At last the potential of creating a cultural scene in the city had been investigated.
Now at the end of this essay the time has come to validate the actual chances of the pioneer Almere in its chances to become European Capital of Culture. This candidate, though, is so unique that it one way or the other is going to become a matter of taste. More important then actually getting the title is the movement and state the citizen group had reached so far, and what it is going to reach in the future. Setting examples for city development and new forms of democracy are some examples.
Summarizing this, for a last glimpse on the city's perspective the words are given to Macha Roesink:
“It (Almere) should be proud of what it is already. And there the same, we have big potential, because there is no way you can compete with other cities in terms of there variety. There is no comparison with what the other cities the other possible candidates. This area, this Almere has a totally different dimension by 2018 that itself is to be seen positively. If it is said we are as good as we are, just be proud of what is already achieved but we are not there yet, its not a problem, we need to see the possibility. The cards are not yet played out so i think that is going to be very interesting.”

- Essay on ECoC Candidacy - Written in course of the Study Management Creative Industries, NHTV Breda