New ideas for old spaces

Kultura Nova Foundation continued implementing the activities within the “Approaches to the Participatory Governance of Cultural Institutions” project by organizing the meetings for the representatives of Kultura Nova Foundation and Jaap Schoufour, Head of the Art Factories city programme from Amsterdam, with the representatives of local government of Zagreb and Rijeka that were held on 13/10/2016 and 14/10/2016.

Jaap Schoufour is a senior manager in the Spatial department in the City of Amsterdam, and from 2004 he holds the position of Head of the city programme Bureau Broedplaatsen (Art Factories) that encompasses real estate market, culture, creative economy, social cohesion and urban regeneration. Bureau Broedplaatsen is developing a platform that enables cooperation between different partners (developers, banks, users) interested in converting existing spaces in Amsterdam into creative places guided by the idea that “new ideas need old buildings” articulated in 1961 by the American-Canadian journalist and activist Jane Jacobs. Until today Art Factories have repurposed more than 65 abandoned buildings, providing a total of 1,500 different spaces that offer working, residing and gathering spaces to more than 2,500 artists, creative individuals and crafts. Bureau Broedplaatsen activities include providing expertise to the creative groups that use the spaces in the shaping of their programmes (feasibility studies, management, legal affairs); mediation upon locating potential spaces in the Amsterdam Metropolitan area; defining policies and objectives for particular instances; developing tools for the realization of projects (loans, monitoring the real estate market); initiating, encouraging and supervising property development; distributing financial support to the Art Factory founders which enables project conclusion.

After the presentation of Amsterdam’s experiences at the meetings, Zagreb and Rijeka city administration representatives presented key revitalization projects of unused spaces in the two cities afterwhich a discussion was opened about the possibilities of reviving and repurposing of other unused and abandoned city spaces for cultural and art purposes as well as particularities, opportunities and challenges that Zagreb and Rijeka are facing in the processes of industrial heritage revitalization. The discussion also included the possibilities of actively engaging local cultural initiatives and local communities.