Squatting in the Netherlands (
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
: kraken) is the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. The modern
squatters
Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...
movement (
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
: kraakbeweging) began in the 1960s in the Netherlands. By the 1980s, it had become a powerful
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
social movement which regularly came into conflict with the state, particularly in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
with the
Vondelstraat and
coronation
A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a coronation crown, crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the ...
riots.
Some squats in cities have successfully legalised into still extant social centres and housing cooperatives such as
ACU in
Utrecht
Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
, the
Grote Broek
De Grote Broek (English: ''The Big Trousers'') is a legalised squat and self-managed social centre in central Nijmegen in the Netherlands. It was occupied in 1984 and legalised from 2002 onwards. It spans two sides of a city block and has ent ...
in
Nijmegen
Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...
, the
Landbouwbelang
Landbouwbelang (LBB) is a squatted industrial building in Maastricht, Netherlands. It offers working space for artists and social entrepreneurs and functions as a venue for cultural events. It has been squatted since April 2002.
Landbouwbelang ...
in
Maastricht
Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...
, ORKZ in
Groningen
Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
, the
Poortgebouw
The Poortgebouw is a national monument located at Stieltjesstraat 38 in the Kop van Zuid area of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was built beside the River Maas in 1879 and experienced a range of uses until it was squatted October 3, 1980. It ha ...
in
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
and
Vrankrijk
Vrankrijk is a legalised squat and self-managed social centre on the Spuistraat in central Amsterdam. There is an events space on the ground floor and above it a separate housing group.
History
The building was constructed in 1875. It was call ...
in Amsterdam. There have also been squats in the countryside such as
Fort Pannerden
Fort Pannerden is a disused military fort situated near the village of Pannerden in the southeast of the Netherlands. In November 2006, it became the focus of national news stories because a group of squatters were evicted in a large-scale operati ...
and the
Ruigoord
Ruigoord () is a village in the Houtrak''polder'' in the Dutch province of North Holland, situated within the municipality of Amsterdam. Until the 1880s, it was an island in the IJ bay, which was turned into a polder. In the 1960s, the municip ...
village.
Squatting was
criminalised in October 2010. Between then and November 2014, 529 people were arrested. Some recent high-profile evictions have included
ADM, the
Tabakspanden
The Tabakspanden are a group of buildings standing on the Spuistraat in central Amsterdam, adjacent to the Keizerrijk and Wijdesteeg alleyways. Named after a former owner, the speculator Hendrik Tabak, they were mostly squatted from 1983 onward ...
and
De Vloek
De Vloek (, "The Curse") was a squatted, self-managed social centre in The Hague, the Netherlands, between 2002 and 2015. Located on Hellingweg 127 in Scheveningen, beside the North Sea, the squat hosted workplaces, living spaces, a venue, an ...
. The social movement continues in diminished form, with squatting still being used by certain groups, for example the migrant collective
We Are Here.
Beginnings
During the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
of the 1930s, many workers lost their jobs and were unable to pay rent. This resulted in people occupying houses in order to force a rental agreement, although they did not see themselves as a housing movement. Their legal justification was based on a 1914 decision by the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
which ruled that in order to show residential use in a property, all that was needed was a chair, a table and a bed.
Squatting in the Netherlands in its modern form has its origins in the 1960s, when the country was suffering a housing shortage whilst at the same time many properties stood derelict. Property owners kept buildings empty in order to
speculate
In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline in value.)
Many s ...
and drive the market price upwards.
As youth protest movements burgeoned, in particular
Provo movement, squatting became seen as a political, anti-speculation protest.
Marking the emergence of a squatters movement (
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
: kraakbeweging) which focused upon collective action rather than individual initiatives, the term for squatting changed from "secret occupation" (
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
: clandestien bezetten) to "cracking" (
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
: kraken) and squatters became known as krakers.
As well as mobilising the 1914 decision, squatters employed a 1971 Supreme Court ruling that the concept of domestic peace (
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
: huisvrede) required permission from the current occupant for anybody else to enter a property. This meant that property owners were required to evict squatters by taking them to court, instead of forcing entry.
This came about after squatters in Nijmegen were evicted from a property and prosecuted by the owner, who claimed that since the house was for sale it was in use. The squatters were convicted of an offence but appealed the decision and ultimately the Supreme Court ruled that a "on the basis of normal language use, 'a house in use' can only mean 'a house in use as a house'".
Consolidation
The squatting movement took on an increasingly
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
tone during the 1980s. In the
Vondelstraat Riots, police moved to evict residents from a squatted building on the corner of
Vondelstraat in Amsterdam, but it was immediately reoccupied and barricades erected. Street fights ensued between riot police and the squatters, with the building only being cleared when a military tank demolished the street barricades.
Queen Beatrix
Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013.
Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husband ...
's
coronation
A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a coronation crown, crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the ...
later that year saw more
riots when squatters chanted "No home, no coronation" (
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
: Geen woning, geen kroning).
In
Groningen
Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
the eviction of the
WNC (Wolters-Noordhoff Complex) squat in 1990 led to 137 arrests and the mayor called it war.
Some squats have gone through a process of legalisation, in which the building becomes owned or rented by the former squatters. In Amsterdam, the city council bought 200 buildings in the early 1980s, handing them over to housing associations which then made contracts with individual tenants.
The
Poortgebouw
The Poortgebouw is a national monument located at Stieltjesstraat 38 in the Kop van Zuid area of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was built beside the River Maas in 1879 and experienced a range of uses until it was squatted October 3, 1980. It ha ...
in Rotterdam was squatted in 1980 and two years later the inhabitants agreed to pay rent to the city council, forming a housing cooperative of 30 people with a bar and alternative venue on the ground floor.
In Amsterdam,
OCCII
The OCCII (Onafhankelijk Cultureel Centrum In It) is a venue for alternative and independent music at Amstelveenseweg 134, in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The organization is mostly run by volunteers and has its roots in the squatting movement. The ...
,
OT301
OT301 is a self-managed social centre in a legalized squat in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, located on Overtoom 301.
History
The former Dutch film academy was squatted in 1999 by a group of artists. After being a breeding ground for a number o ...
and
Vrankrijk
Vrankrijk is a legalised squat and self-managed social centre on the Spuistraat in central Amsterdam. There is an events space on the ground floor and above it a separate housing group.
History
The building was constructed in 1875. It was call ...
are all examples of legalised social centres. In the 2010s, Vrankrijk hosts mainly
punk
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
and
queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...
parties.
The
NDSM
NDSM is a neighborhood in Amsterdam, Netherlands located on the former terrain of the Nederlandsche Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij (NDSM) shipbuilding company. It is located in the Amsterdam-Noord borough along the IJ river and can be reached ...
former shipyard zone was recognised as a cultural hotspot and breeding place, successfully institutionalising in the early 2000s.
The
Grote Broek
De Grote Broek (English: ''The Big Trousers'') is a legalised squat and self-managed social centre in central Nijmegen in the Netherlands. It was occupied in 1984 and legalised from 2002 onwards. It spans two sides of a city block and has ent ...
in Nijmegen was squatted in 1984 and legalised in the 2000s. The
ACU in Utrecht was squatted in 1976 and bought by the squatters in 1994. It provides a venue space for
benefit concerts
A benefit concert or charity concert is a type of musical benefit performance (e.g., concert, show, or gala) featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate h ...
, an anarchist library, a bar and a vegan restaurant. ORKZ, or the Old Roman Catholic Hospital (
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
: Oude Rooms-Katholieke Ziekenhuis), is located in
Groningen
Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
on the Verlengde Hereweg. The hospital was squatted in August 1979 and legalised in 1986. As of 2004, 250 people lived there in 235 apartments. Another 150 people made use of the
atelier
An atelier () is the private workshop or studio of a professional artist in the fine or decorative arts or an architect, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students, and apprentices can work together producing fine art or v ...
s.
A derelict parking lot was taken over and made into a guerilla garden. Herbs and vegetables were grown in raised beds, fruit bushes were planted and an apiary was set up. The garden was legalised by the city council in 2012.
There are also squats which refused or were unable to legalise such as
De Blauwe Aanslag
De Blauwe Aanslag was a squat and self-managed social centre in the Dutch city of The Hague. The oldest part of the building was built in 1886. The large building formerly housed tax offices and was occupied in 1980. When the local council took ...
in
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
,
Het Slaakhuis
Het Slaakhuis, or Slaakhuys, is a monumental building in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was the former offices of the socialist newspaper Het Vrije Volk. The building is a six-storey office block located on a street called Slaak and was squatted ...
in Rotterdam,
ADM in Amsterdam and the
Landbouwbelang
Landbouwbelang (LBB) is a squatted industrial building in Maastricht, Netherlands. It offers working space for artists and social entrepreneurs and functions as a venue for cultural events. It has been squatted since April 2002.
Landbouwbelang ...
in
Maastricht
Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...
. The Landbouwbelang is a former grain silo beside the
Meuse
The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a t ...
( nl, Maas) river which houses 15 people and provides space for art exhibitions, music events and various festivals.
Vrijplaats Koppenhinksteeg
Vrijplaats Koppenhinksteeg (Freespace on Koppenhinksteeg street) was a complex of buildings first squatted in 1968 in Leiden, the Netherlands. It took its name from the alley on which it was located and was run since the 1990s by the Vrijplaats Ko ...
in Leiden was occupied in 1968 and eventually evicted in 2010. The complex, which included a bar, a
freeshop
Give-away shops, freeshops, free stores or swap shops are stores where all goods are free. They are similar to charity shops, with mostly second-hand items—only everything is available at no cost. Whether it is a book, a piece of furniture, ...
, a library meeting rooms and offices for a group supporting illegal migrants, had been negotiating with the city council in order to legalise its activities until the talks stalled in 2008.
There are also some squats in the countryside such as a squatted village called
Ruigoord
Ruigoord () is a village in the Houtrak''polder'' in the Dutch province of North Holland, situated within the municipality of Amsterdam. Until the 1880s, it was an island in the IJ bay, which was turned into a polder. In the 1960s, the municip ...
near Amsterdam.
Fort Pannerden
Fort Pannerden is a disused military fort situated near the village of Pannerden in the southeast of the Netherlands. In November 2006, it became the focus of national news stories because a group of squatters were evicted in a large-scale operati ...
(a military fort built in 1869 near to
Nijmegen
Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...
) was occupied in 2000 by people concerned about the state of the building. It was evicted on November 8, 2006, by a massive police operation which used military machinery and cost one million euros. The fort was then re-squatted and the occupiers discussed a settlement with the local council and
Staatsbosbeheer
Staatsbosbeheer, founded in 1899, is a Dutch government organization for forestry and the management of nature reserves.
Staatsbosbeheer currently oversees over 250,000 hectares of land in the Netherlands. Usually this land is open to the public ...
, the owner.
Developments
In 1987, the law was changed so that an owner could take anonymous squatters to court, rather than being required to know their names.
A law was passed in 1994 which made it illegal to squat a building which had been empty for less than one year.
After this, it became conventional for squatters to call the
police
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...
after occupying a building and if the police were satisfied that the building had been empty for more than a year and that the squatters were living there (as evidenced by having a chair, a table and a bed) then the owner would need to make a court case to regain possession.
Thus, squatting became a tactic to provide housing and also to fight speculation, conserve monumental buildings, provide groups with spaces and so on.
An example of conservational squatting is
Huize Ivicke
Huize Ivicke is a monumental building in Wassenaar, the Netherlands. Constructed in 1913 for A. F. J. van Hattum, it is a replica of the Eremitageslottet hunting lodge in the Jaegersborg Dyrehave in Denmark. It was inhabited until the mid-1980s ...
in
Wassenaar
Wassenaar (; population: in ) is a municipality and town located in the province of South Holland, on the western coast of the Netherlands.
An affluent suburb of The Hague, Wassenaar lies north of that city on the N44/A44 highway near the Nort ...
, a building which the owner refuses to repair. The villa was placed on a list of the most endangered monuments in Europe and it was squatted in 2018 by people wanting to prevent further dilapidation.
Squatting in the Netherlands, particularly in Amsterdam, became a rather institutionalised process, although the squatters movement continued to evolve with one development being the occupation of large office buildings by refugee collectives.
One such group,
We Are Here was established in 2012 and the
collective
A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...
had squatted over 30 buildings and parks by the end of 2017.
In a different development, squatting was used as a tool to contest the construction of the
Betuweroute
The Betuweroute is a double track freight railway between Rotterdam and Germany. is the official name, after the Betuwe area through which the route passes. The line is popularly called Betuwelijn, after an older track in the same region. Th ...
, a freight railway route from Rotterdam to Germany. and other environmental protestors occupied several houses due to be demolished. This included a failed attempt to squat a building in Angeren.
Criminalisation
Squatting in the Netherlands became a criminal offence on 1 October 2010. In 2016, a report was published by the Dutch Government which stated that between October 2010 and November 2014, 529 people had been arrested for the new crime of squatting, in 213 separate incidents. Of these arrested, 210 received convictions and 42 were found not guilty.
Following criminalisation, in Amsterdam an estimated 330 squats were evicted in two years.
Contested evictions included ADM, the
Tabakspanden
The Tabakspanden are a group of buildings standing on the Spuistraat in central Amsterdam, adjacent to the Keizerrijk and Wijdesteeg alleyways. Named after a former owner, the speculator Hendrik Tabak, they were mostly squatted from 1983 onward ...
on
Spuistraat
The Spuistraat in downtown Amsterdam connects the Hekelveld to the Spui. It runs roughly north to south, parallel to the Singel and the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal. At the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, the Spuistraat crosses the Raadhuisstraat and P ...
, the Valreep and Villa Friekens.
ADM was a former shipyard squatted for 21 years before its eventual eviction in 2019. Around 130 people lived there in buildings, boats and temporary structures.
De Vloek
De Vloek (, "The Curse") was a squatted, self-managed social centre in The Hague, the Netherlands, between 2002 and 2015. Located on Hellingweg 127 in Scheveningen, beside the North Sea, the squat hosted workplaces, living spaces, a venue, an ...
social centre in The Hague was evicted in September 2015 after long political struggle. There were seven arrests.
In Utrecht, the disused
Amsterdamsestraatweg Water Tower
The Amsterdamsestraatweg Water Tower is located in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The water tower was built at Amsterdamsestraatweg 380 in 1916, in the style of the Amsterdam School. It became derelict in 1986 and was repeatedly squatted before its red ...
was occupied repeatedly in protest at the criminalisation of squatting. In 2019, a resquat was unsuccessful.
Table of notable squats
See also
*
Squatting in Australia
Squatting in Australia usually refers to a person who is not the owner, taking possession of land or an empty house. In 19th century Australian history, a squatter was a settler who occupied a large tract of Aboriginal land in order to graze l ...
*
Squatting in England and Wales
In England and Wales, squatting—taking possession of land or an empty house the squatter does not own—occurs for a variety of reasons which include needing a home, protest,
poverty, and recreation. Many squats are residential; some are ...
*
Squatting in the United States
Squatting in the United States is the unauthorized use of real estate. Historically, squatting occurred during the California Gold Rush and when colonial European settlers established land rights. There was squatting during the Great Depression ...
References
Further reading
* ADILKNO (1994) ''Cracking The Movement'' Also availabl
online
* Bouwknecht et al. (2005) ''Witboek Kraken''
* Breek et al. (2001) ''Laat 1000 Vrijplaatsen Bloien – Onderzoek naar vrijplaatsen in Amsterdam''
* Buchholz, T. (2016
''Struggling for recognition and affordable housing in Amsterdam and Hamburg: resignation, resistance, relocation''PhD)
* Dee, E.T.C. (2015
Flowers shed petals: Squatted social centres in Amsterdam* Duivenvoorden, E. (2000) ''Een voet tussen de deur''
* Jenkins, David (2014
* Owens, L. (2016) ''Amsterdam Squatters on the Road: A Case Study in Territorial and Relational Urban Politics'' in (eds) Knud Andresen & Bart van der Steen ''A European Youth Revolt European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s''
* SPOK (1994) ''De heren zijn toch geen inbrekers?''
*Truijen, K. (2019) ''Architecture of Appropriation – On Squatting as Spatial Practice''
External links
Map of squatting in AmsterdamMap of squatting in RotterdamSquatting in LeidenSquatting in WageningenStaatsarchief(in Dutch)
{{Squatting
Squats in the Netherlands
Social centres in the Netherlands
Housing in the Netherlands
Anarcho-punk
DIY culture