One of the assignments this week was to find out more about the relationship between Tuindorp and the NDSM wharf. All students were divided in groups and tried to find out something about this relationship. Bart and his group focused on the past and the emergence of the NDSM wharf:
In 1910 the most people that worked in the NDSM port, lived in the center of Amsterdam. They were annoyed because other people were being drunk, and also annoyed with prostitution.
The owner (of the NDSM wharf red.) wanted to keep his employees, so he built Tuindorp. He gave his employees a house, so they would keep their distance from the center of Amsterdam so they wouldn’t annoy the other people. That was good because that kept the workers themselves happy, and boosting their morale with the green village. That place is really good for people that want to relax and where work wasn’t the only thing that mattered, so the architect designed some places where the inhabitants of Tuindorp could come together and get down to earth. The green village was enormously different to their working place and former homes.
The other point is that the NDSM wharf is now being used to exhibit creativity and art, and there are people from Tuindorp that don’t like that very much. That is the opposite of School at Sea, which is all about creativity.
Bart (student from the Azores)