Our Swedish Neighbor

During our stay at the Expodium residency in the beginning of 2012 we asked the residents of the modernist neighborhood Kanaleneiland to hang an IKEA uniform on their balcony washing racks. This intervention aimed to question the role of IKEA in this local 'problem neighborhood' - the plans for the doubling of its retail space in Kanaleneiland were subsidized by the municipality of Utrecht as part of the regeneration process of this underpriveledged area. In exchange IKEA promises jobs.

The image of the uniforms adorning the apartment blocks reminds of neighborhoods built and sustained by companies, like 'Phillips dorp' in Eindhoven. In this case the factory took care of the housing, the jobs and the social reproduction of the inhabitants. Contemporary examples we can find in China, where huge housing compounds are built for the factory workers.

For a small publication, which will be launched in January 2013, we are departing from the pictures we took of these IKEA uniforms in Kanaleneiland. We will use this blog to unfold thoughts on uniforms and uniformity - the bounds between industrial labor and modernist neighborhoods like Kanaleneiland. The uniform represents the uniformization of the body, informed by efficiency and the aim for increasing production.

Synchronously with the development of neighborhoods like Kanaleneiland, new, cheap workers where introduced in the Netherlands and in Utrecht. First Italian and later Moroccan and Turkish guest workers came to work in construction and in factories. Now a large part of the inhabitants of Kanaleneiland are offspring of these immigrants.

IKEA also developed in the same time. It started in the fifties with stores in Scandinavia aimed to sell modern and affordable furniture to furnish the new built apartment blocks. In the seventies the company opened its first retail spaces abroad and in 1978 the first IKEA store in the Netherlands opened. The main selling point of the immensely successful chain is the cheap pricing, made possible again by uniformization, efficiency and cheap labor.

Le Corbusier in Toward an Architecture (1921)

002 - Chronocyclograph

"A house is a machine for living in"

Time and motion studies by Frank Gilbreth, 1913

"It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone."

Frederick Taylor in the Principles of Scientific Management (1911)

003 - Frankfurter Küche | rationalized kitchen

kitchen developed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1926)

Inspired by the compact and functional kitchens on boats and in trains, the Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky designed a kitchen with no waste space. She based her design on time-motion studies of tasks performed in a kitchen and paths regulary travelled. The modern kitchen was mass-produced and therefore affordable, based on ergonomics and was hygienic. One person - the woman/mother - is able to perform all tasks with a minimum of movement and effort.
The 'Frankfurter Küche' has been installed in 10.000 working class apartments in Frankfurt.

Simmering Statecraft
an article by Sandy Isenstadt on modern kitchens and politics
Cabinet, Issue 26 - Magic Summer - 2007

005 - Short history of guest workers in Utrecht

After the Second World War the Dutch economy grew quickly and was in need of cheap labour. First Eastern Europeans were recruited to work in the mines in the South of the Netherlands. In the 1960's the Dutch government went on recruiting in Southern Europe. The Italians were the first to arrive in Utrecht, soon followed by the Spanish and the Greeks, who started working in the metal factories and food industries that flourished in and around Utrecht. Then in '62 the first Moroccan laborers arrived and in '64 the Turks. Like many cities in the Netherlands Utrecht was short on housing, and preferred young guest workers without a family. The ones that came to Holland with a contract were housed by the factories, who for this purpose purchased buildings in the inner city, where the immigrants shared rooms. The catholic church at that time asked it's followers to house the Italians and Spanish, as brothers in faith. These men were taken in by the catholic families of Utrecht. Others, who came without a contract, had to abide with "huisjesmelkers" (slumlords), in overcrowded dwellings, where conditions often were below what then was called humane.

During the 60's and 70's these people were called "gastarbeiders" or guest workers*, because it was assumed they would soon return home. A lot of the Italian and Spanish guest workers did remigrate to their homeland, but most of the Turks and Moroccans stayed and brought their wives and children to the Netherlands. In order to reunite with their families, these men were not allowed to live in a pension or with a guest family. They had to buy a house (at this time they were not allowed to rent from the municipality or from the housing corporations). So they went to the old neighborhoods of Lombok and Pijlsweerd. Here they inhabited old homes no longer suited for renting out, because of overdue maintenance. Unable to pay the mortgage on their own, they rented out rooms to other guest workers, becoming slumlords themselves. Thanks to the work of the "migrantenraad" (board of migrants) they were later allowed to rent a house from the municipal housing. Also, the actions of the Turks Nomaden Komitee (Turkish Committee of Nomads) helped to improve their position. During the 80's a lot of these immigrant workers moved to the neighborhoods of Zuilen, Ondiep, Hooggraven and Rivierenwijk. Then in the 90's many of them moved further out of the city, into the post-war, modernist neighborhoods of Overvecht and Kanaleneiland.
At this very moment with the renovation of Kanaleneiland, there is pressure to move on again.

Poster from 1983.
Source: International Institute for Social History

(*in the '80's they were called ethnic minorities, in the '90's "allochtoon" (which translates as foreigner/immigrant) and in the 2000's they are called the New Dutch)

Registration of an action by the Nomaden Komitee in 1978.
A film by Audio Visueel Sentrum in Utrecht

Demonstration for residence permits for youngsters in 1983. Source: www.50jaargastarbeidersutrecht.nl

006 - Introduction into modernist architecture or "nieuwbouw"

'We weten (...) dat zich "der lebensraum" der menschen gewijzigd heeft, maar zeker is, dat we nog slechts nauwelijks voorvoelen hoe deze grootere "lebensraum" in de woningen en in de nieuwe wijken onzer steden tot uitdrukking zal komen.'*

From the 1930's onward there is a lot of discussion about the future cities of the Netherlands. Many people move away from the countryside and the cities start growing quickly. This migration shakes the foundations of former city planning. New solutions have to be invented. Two Dutch groups have been very influential in the developing of modern architecture. Opbouw in Rotterdam and De 8 in Amsterdam. Springing from the Bauhaus school in Germany, they had designed and built huge socialist cities in the USSR. After the Second World War they introduced Het Nieuwe Bouwen ("nieuwbouw") to the Netherlands.

In the 1920's new inhabitants were housed in satellite neighborhoods, merging the qualities of the countryside with the city. These 'tuindorpen' (garden suburbs) were sometimes built by idealistic factory owners, to house their laborers, or by municipalities or housing corporations. They were designed to maintain a village-like atmosphere and to inspire a decent, bourgeois character. Opbouw and de 8 were critical about these neighborhoods, because they were to closed off from the rest of the city and designed to please personal taste. The design of future cities should be based on a systematic and scientific method.

Also of great influence in that time is the idea of 'Raumstadt', developed by the German architect Schwagenscheidt while working in the USSR. Architecture expresses itself by the empty space that it creates. These spaces are confined by the buildings of the city and by connecting these spaces, a dynamic city can be created. He also stresses the importance of nature in between the houses.

Lotte Stam-Beese, 1938

Preadvies as written by Opbouw and De 8 (1932)

New neighborhoods are intersected with green area's, that on their turn connect with city parks.

Apartment blocks are organised in rows, oriented towards the sun, for equal sun hours.

Every apartment block is located on a public road, for easy connection to public services
(ambulance, trash).

Raumstadt: the systematic construction of a city

A group is a small cluster of houses with a crèche, a kindergarten and a communal dining room.

A quarter is a cluster of groups with schools, shops and a laundry.

A rayon is a cluster of quarters with communal buildings like a workersclub.

A city is a cluster of rayons with a city center

In this intellectual war zone the creation of Kanaleneiland was commenced in 1957. A major inspiration was Pendrecht in Rotterdam, but we can also see the influence of the wijkgedachte, combined with an ideal of mobility. More than in Rotterdam the envisioned mode of transport was to be the automobile (In the beginning of the planning there was also place reserved for a helicopter platform).

In connection to our research programme, we are interested in why IKEA seems to be so interested to set up shop in these modernist neighborhoods all around Europe?

*Stam-Beese, de 8 en Opbouw, 1938, p.215-216.

Pendrecht, Rotterdam in 1965

Kanaleneiland, Utrecht during construction in 1960

These ideas, based on a socialist model, were of great influence in post-war Netherlands. Especially in Rotterdam, where the destruction of the German bombings eradicated most of the city, completely new neighborhoods were designed by Lotte Stam-Beese. Stam-Beese studied at the Bauhaus and worked at the National Bureau for the Standardisation of City Planning in the USSR. In 1946 she started working at the Dienst Stadsontwikkeling in Rotterdam, where she worked for 25 years as the chief architect. She designed Kleinpolder, Pendrecht, Westpunt (Hoogvliet), Het Lage Land en Ommoord. She also made sketches for Rotterdam-oost / Capelle aan de IJssel and Alexanderpolder.

At the same time the "Wijkgedachte" (neighborhood concept) was introduced by the commissie Bos. Ir. A. Bos was the director of the Dienst Stadsontwikkeling in Rotterdam. In the wijkgedachte, developed by the American Clarence Perry, neighborhoods can be attached to the city as relatively independant and self-sufficient zones. The wijkgedachte principally prefers the identity of a neighborhood over it's connection with other neighborhoods and the surrounding landscape.

007 - Functionalism and Uniformity

Kanaleneiland was designed in 1958 by urbanist van der Stad. He planned 7,350 homes for nearly 30,000 inhabitants. The 'wijkgedachte' (neighborhood concept), functionalism and the serial, industrial construction methods have been leading in the construction of the district in the sixties. The result is a neighborhood of great gestures, a far-reaching linearity and a frequent repetition of the same pattern of buildings. The basic pattern for the layout of Kanaleneiland is a block made of a row of flats and a row of single-family houses. Two of these stamps form a square, with a parking street and playgrounds. Between the squares are avenues in north south direction. Every 500 meters there is a wide green belt in east-west direction, which is ended by a high flat right on the canal.

(Meurs & Steenhuis, 2005 - from the KEI website)

Air photo of Kanaleneiland Noord, Utrecht. (Historische Vereniging Vleuten de Meern Haarzuilens)

After the Second World War the new way of building had its break through in Dutch city planning. The horrors of the war paved the way for the new avant-garde ideas on the modern city and the modern way of life. While before the war housing projects where often small scaled and adopted to the existing buildings, in the fifties and the sixties whole new neighborhoods were built on the edges of the city. These new neighborhoods were planned in one go, following modernist ideals. Examples of these neighborhoods are Pendrecht in Rotterdam and Kanaleneiland in Utrecht. The ideology that lies at the roots of these area's, which are characterized by similar apartment blocks built in a repeating pattern, stems from pre-war architecture theory. Especially the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) has been very influential. Light, Space and Air were the new objectives of the modern architects. Form follow function in their drawings and all buildings form a unity. Also they were very interested in the introduction of pre-fabrication in the building process, which speeded the construction and made the new apartments affordable. Through the introduction of these new techniques and the large scale in which they were working, they strived to introduce all citizens into the modern way of life.

Maquette of Kanaleneiland, picture taken by Hulskamp, A.F.S.J

Maquette of an apartment block in Kanaleneiland

008 - Cora Nicolai-Chaillet and 'Goed Wonen' on the Auriollaan

Cora Nicolai-Chaillet, an interior designer inspired by modernism and the new building, might be a pivotal figure in our history of Kanaleneiland. She believed that dwelling is an art of living and that people should be educated to inhabit their apartments in a modern way. From 1955 she worked for the Dutch magazine 'Goed Wonen' (Good Dwelling), which promoted a modern life style. Nicolai-Chaillet wrote articles and furnished model apartments to teach people how to manage their house. One of these apartments was located on the Auriollaan, a street in the new neighborhood Kanaleneiland.

Interior of the model apartment on the Auriollaan, Utrecht (source: NAI)

Nicolai-Chaillet believed in a functional and flexible interior which connects to the architecture and the design of the public space. Together the design should form a rhythm from a small to a large scale. Her interior design was based on scientific studies of time and motion, she used activity diagrams as her starting point.

Next to her work for 'Goed Wonen' she gave many lectures, especially to women, to introduce them in the modern way of living. For these lectures she used scale models of furniture and standardized, modular kitchens made by Bruynzeel.

Model of a composed kitchen of standard elements made by Cora Nicolai-Chaillet (source NAI)

"Have you ever noticed that furniture and groups of furniture always bring us to a halt? In traffic lanes and in the open spaces in a room we walk back and forth, we play and we carry. About space we have a flowing, streaming association. But assemblies of furniture surround quiet 'lakes', where the waves of spatial movement barely penetrate. (...) In a seating area one faces each other, preferably arrayed around a center. That arrangement loosens our thoughts, thoughts that would not emerge if we would sit back to back, as in a train compartment. This center could be a table, which casually also serves to carry cups, ashtray and cigarets, but more than that this table forms a symbolic center where all thoughts meet and where the conversation rises from the encounter."

Cora Nicolai-Chaillet in 'Goed Wonen'

Cora Nicolai-Chaillet educates women about the furnishing of their apartment using a model. (source: NAI)

009 - Spaghetti in the Dutch kitchen

Maybe the kitchen is the domestic space where different cultural backgrounds become the most apparent. The staircases of the flats in Kanaleneiland are often filled with for us unknown aroma's, coming from Turkish and Moroccan dishes. The Dutch kitchen, characterized by mashed potatoes and meatballs, began to change in the fifties. Immigrant workers brought recipes from other parts of Europe, and the first Chinese restaurants settled in the cities. Also the Indonesian kitchen became popular as a result of the Dutch colony.

IKEA is famous for its Swedish meatballs, adorned with the Swedish flag, which they sell in every country. In the kitchen department you will find the mass produced pots and utensils. To adopt to the local market IKEA started selling chop sticks and a wok in China. Not long after that the wok was introduced in stores all over the world.

But when was the spaghetti spoon introduced in the Netherlands?

informal strategies

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