Went to Taiwan last week to speak on a conference. It’s really great to be invited to do a thing like this. Since I’m not an academic and I don’t have a research department behind me it’s great to do these kinds of lectures, to be able to communicate my views on creativity, on talent… Read More
Creative Eindhoven (2) – Strijp R and Piet Hein Eek
Here is the story they told me at Strijp-R last week. We went there with a group of project managers from Amsterdam. Eindhoven is not that far and we were really interested on how they do things there. We went to see the redevelopment of the former Philips Electronics factories. In the afternoon we visited… Read More
The Fightclub XL – How to start a project (2)
Talked to Astrid and Boudewijn earlier this week. We were sitting in their office of the Vechtclub XL. I was asking them how things had grown like this. Having been there two weeks earlier I had really gotten inspired. This is why I decided to go back. Everywhere else these places are built with subsidies… Read More
Creative Eindhoven 1
Eindhoven was always an industrial place. It was never a real city. More a collection of villages like Strijp, Woensel, Stratum and others. It was Philips (the electronics company) and DAF (cars and trucks) that made the place look big. I was born in Veldhoven which is one of the smaller villages to the south… Read More
Twente (2) – Models for future growth
Twente is a metropolitan area in the east of the Netherlands. Metropolitan maybe a big word here, these three cities, Almelo, Hengelo and Enschede have a mainly industrial past of textile and machine building among them while around 650.000 people live there. Twente is on the eastern border of the Netherlands, 200 kilometers from Amsterdam.… Read More
Richard Florida and the Biennale in Maastricht
Last week brought us the Biennale of Redevelopment in Maastricht, Netherlands. The program started some weeks ago in Amsterdam with lectures and the kick off meetings of several studios where different projects of redevelopment were discussed. It ended this week in Maastricht with an interesting program of lectures and visits. See their website at http://www.biennalemaastricht.nl/… Read More
Twente (1) – Emscher park and Hengelo
Yesterday I went to Emscherpark. I have been going there at least twice a year, since 1992. I remember the first time I arrived in Duisburg Nord Meiderich. The new park by Peter Latz was under construction. I couldn’t believe my eyes, so overwhelming that I didn’t want to see it, it was simply too… Read More
Creative Cities 