Rotterdam ‘Walls’
Why is Rotterdam the site for the research? It is not an obvious choice to make. There are no powerful and brutal walls as physical constructs separating groups of people, like in Berlin, Jerusalem, Korea, or Ceuta; nor are there laws or rules legislated to segregate, like in Apartheid South Africa or Malaysia. There are, in our findings, only seemingly timid and subtle examples. But it is precisely because of their understated nature that make Rotterdam ‘ walls’ fascinating and challenging.
Consider a town of only just a bit more than 600,000 inhabitants; more than 160 nationalities; more than one third of the population and more than half of the children born are not of Dutch decent. Demographically this is a real heterogeneous city; cultural diversity should characterize its urban life. In a decade the demographic figures will increase substantially. What is now the polarity of Dutch vs. the ‘others’ will probably become ‘allochtonen’ vs. the ‘others’ (Dutch) in the future.
Most of Rotterdam’s diversity is hidden and concentrated in certain areas. Ethnic groups have low participation of city’s social, political and cultural affairs. Many groups take on, what Bert van Meggelen calls, ‘absent presence’. 1 They are ‘somewhere else’. The gigantic absence makes these groups visibly invisible, loudly unheard. Are they excluded (passive absence), or are they excusing themselves from the civic platform (active absence)? Is this passive absence derived from the prejudice of the Dutch population? Are stories about crime just heresy and paranoia? Are all foreigners unwilling to integrate and generally speak poor Dutch language? Amongst the population, in the name of tolerance and liberalism, perhaps open debate and cross-cultural encounters have long been avoided.
Indeed, because there is no brutal physical wall or legislated segregation in Rotterdam, its walls are easily overlooked and neglected, its codes of inclusion and exclusion abstract and implicit, its networks intricate and elusive, and its spatial implication subtle and underestimated. This research project is an attempt to employ a lens, through which one can start to see beyond Rotterdam’s masks, and ultimately imagine the coexistence of cohesion and diversity. This lens is the membrane, the border, the transitional zone, the ‘wall’, between different conditions. The immaterial ‘walls’ in Rotterdam, made of cultural, religious or economic differences are as important as physical divisions.
Why is Rotterdam the site for the research? It is not an obvious choice to make. There are no powerful and brutal walls as physical constructs separating groups of people, like in Berlin, Jerusalem, Korea, or Ceuta; nor are there laws or rules legislated to segregate, like in Apartheid South Africa or Malaysia. There are, in our findings, only seemingly timid and subtle examples. But it is precisely because of their understated nature that make Rotterdam ‘ walls’ fascinating and challenging.
Consider a town of only just a bit more than 600,000 inhabitants; more than 160 nationalities; more than one third of the population and more than half of the children born are not of Dutch decent. Demographically this is a real heterogeneous city; cultural diversity should characterize its urban life. In a decade the demographic figures will increase substantially. What is now the polarity of Dutch vs. the ‘others’ will probably become ‘allochtonen’ vs. the ‘others’ (Dutch) in the future.
Most of Rotterdam’s diversity is hidden and concentrated in certain areas. Ethnic groups have low participation of city’s social, political and cultural affairs. Many groups take on, what Bert van Meggelen calls, ‘absent presence’. 1 They are ‘somewhere else’. The gigantic absence makes these groups visibly invisible, loudly unheard. Are they excluded (passive absence), or are they excusing themselves from the civic platform (active absence)? Is this passive absence derived from the prejudice of the Dutch population? Are stories about crime just heresy and paranoia? Are all foreigners unwilling to integrate and generally speak poor Dutch language? Amongst the population, in the name of tolerance and liberalism, perhaps open debate and cross-cultural encounters have long been avoided.
Indeed, because there is no brutal physical wall or legislated segregation in Rotterdam, its walls are easily overlooked and neglected, its codes of inclusion and exclusion abstract and implicit, its networks intricate and elusive, and its spatial implication subtle and underestimated. This research project is an attempt to employ a lens, through which one can start to see beyond Rotterdam’s masks, and ultimately imagine the coexistence of cohesion and diversity. This lens is the membrane, the border, the transitional zone, the ‘wall’, between different conditions. The immaterial ‘walls’ in Rotterdam, made of cultural, religious or economic differences are as important as physical divisions.
Conclusion
The project is not a statement of inclusion or provocation of hasty cohesion. It is a search for defensive and exclusive walls, as well as productive, liberating, calming, and sympathetic walls. It tries to go beyond the obvious typologies and venture into productive values of a wall which inevitably separates and positively liberates both sides. It respects both, benefits both, and does not apologize or compromise for its efficiency.
At the end of the research it is clear that this work need to be expanded and deepened into future research; and the research results have become poignant enough to demand design proposals.
The project is not a statement of inclusion or provocation of hasty cohesion. It is a search for defensive and exclusive walls, as well as productive, liberating, calming, and sympathetic walls. It tries to go beyond the obvious typologies and venture into productive values of a wall which inevitably separates and positively liberates both sides. It respects both, benefits both, and does not apologize or compromise for its efficiency.
At the end of the research it is clear that this work need to be expanded and deepened into future research; and the research results have become poignant enough to demand design proposals.
