The Post CS building is the former headquarters of the Dutch post office located close by Amsterdam’s central station and prior to our story had not been used for approximately 10 years.
In 2003 the need for a contemporary location for the The  Stedelijk Museum of Contemporary was apparent due tot its complete refurbishment on its original location on the Museumplein.
One bright young soul at the project development agency at Amsterdam’s city council project management bureau, thought the Post CS building was the place to go… this was to be the beginning of the post cs story.

Presentation New cultural management Bilbao feb. 2006

The media is the message? Spaces and contents

The Post CS building is the former headquarters of the Dutch post office located close by Amsterdam’s central station and prior to our story had not been used for approximately 10 years.
In 2003 the need for a contemporary location for the The  Stedelijk Museum of Contemporary was apparent due tot its complete refurbishment on its original location on the Museumplein.

One bright young soul at the project development agency at Amsterdam’s city council project management bureau, thought the Post CS building was the place to go… this was to be the beginning of the post cs story

Introduction to the Post CS building

The Post CS building consists of a very unusual mix of established, pre-established and other cultural and commercial organizations.

In the basement there is W139. They are an experimental community of contemporary artists.

The ground-floor hosts Mediamatic, a foundation that experiments on the frontier of art and multimedia, combining salon’s , workshops and exhibitions.

BG, Dutch abbreviation ground floor, is a joint venture by 11 and Bruut. Its mission is to provide temporary and inexpensive exposition space for young creative people and companies.
The exploitation combines cultural events with commercial leases.

The second and third floor house the stedelijk museum CS. Stedelijk museum is obviously the biggest party in Post CS and is recognized as being the most important modern art institutions in the Netherlands.

Floors 4 until 9 are home to about 90 smaller companies that largely operate within the commercial-cultural sector. Architects, photographers, fashion designers, advertising, multi media studio’s, web designers etc etc

The 9th and 10th floor are used by Post Amsterdam, an interior design company and showroom hosting several quality design companies like Moroso.

11, on the top floor with a magnificent view, is the dynamic heart of the building. Visitors naturally start or end their visit here.

The largely cultural identity of the building has proved to be a commercial success. In the first two years more than 600.000 people visited the Post CS building. Because of the great cultural variety of the building many people tend to visit more than one company. W139, the stedelijk and 11 seem to be a popular combination.
This cultural variety also ensures a very mixed group of visitors, which in turn adds to the uniqueness of the building.   
The combination of high and low culture, avant garde and mainstream makes the Post CS building truly unique. There simply is not any other centre in Amsterdam that is remotely like it.
The Post CS building literally supplies inspiration on many levels which makes every visit worth its while. And getting there is a unique experience by itself
Its success also became apparent by the extremely positive response from visitors and press alike.

The initial development of Post CS and its difficulties

The development of Post CS was extremely difficult and characterized by the relentless spirit of all parties involved to make it work at all costs.
Limited time, sparse budget, legal matters, and asbestos contamination to name a few…

When the first idea arose to temporarily use the Post CS building, the building was actually scheduled to be completely stripped and redeveloped as part of the Oosterdokseiland project by 2007.
The oosterdokseiland project is one of the most prestigious real estate developments in Amsterdam today, it’s ambition being to create a new block of centrally located high-rise buildings for commercial and cultural purposes right in the heart of Amsterdam, A mini Manhattan so to speak. Clearly large investments are involved on the part of project developer MAB.

The building had been largely sealed of, sealed of to absolutely anyone that is, because of the possible presence of asbestos.

In October 2003 talks about a temporary lease for the former post headquarters started between the Stedelijk Museum of contemporary art, 11, the city council and the building owners M.A.B.
Initially M.A.B. was not thrilled about the prospect. They felt there were many risks involved that could threaten their priority, being the oosterdokseiland development as a whole.
Also temporary exploitation looked to be meager at best and never really profitable.

After lengthy negotiations and firm pressure from the council to MAB to comply, we finally received a lease proposal in February 2004.

By this time the stedelijk had closed its doors on the Museumplein and was due to re-open in Post CS in May 2004. Everyone by now was very nervous about the timeline, building should have started by January 1st, it was now early February and we had yet to begin drawing…

The partially broke down Post CS building was in a terrible condition after years of neglect. On top of that the 11th floor had been closed for asbestos sanitation because of the possible health risks involved.

During to this asbestos sanitation the floor was hermetically sealed off all through the development.
We were permitted a visit to our new premises only once!
In specially developed astronaut-like suits that protected us from any possible asbestos contamination we had a half hour look around on which we had to base our entire concept and building plans!
All plans, sketches and concepts were based upon this 30-minute visit.

Building for post Amsterdam got underway quickly for post Amsterdam and stedelijk in February.
11 however had to await its turn until the last week of march-6 weeks prior to opening.
This is a short time to totally refurbish a 1900 m2 multipurpose restaurant, bar and club. But as we discovered several times during this period was that the limited time base can bring out the best in people. Somehow all parties drew together in communal spirit and we managed to open our doors for public on the 13th of May 2004.

11’s role as a catalyst

During development 11 , post Amsterdam and stedelijk discussed their relationship and what function and ambience the restaurant should have.
The founding fathers of 11 had previously made a name for themselves with several temporary projects ranging from dinner and dance clubs like ‘west pacific’ , to Europe’s first city beach ‘Amsterdam plage’ and even a ‘secret society’ type illegal traveling restaurant called ‘interdit’.
Post Amsterdam and Stedelijk were therefore quick to call us for this new temporary function, but also very cautious about whether our concepts would live up to their quality standards.

As you have learnt already, concept development and realization of 1900 m2 of cultural space eventually took place in little more than 3 months.

This time frame meant that there was little room for trial and error or lengthy discussion. Most big decisions were based on gut feeling and pioneering spirit.
Because of this lack of time, which also was an opportunity, stedelijk, well-known for its conservative policies and lousy restaurant facilities at Museumplein, was suddenly confronted with a hospitable facility that had no intention of playing small to the stedelijk and had a style and ambition all of its own.

The stedelijk had expected facilitated catering, restaurant business generated solely around their visitors and wishes.

11 however, had different ideas…
There would no longer be any buffet tray’s and grey food. Instead a fashionable venue would appear catering to its own crowd that included a nightclub audience as well.
There was to be a bold and brave new restaurant, serving exciting new gastronomy for fair prices, the restaurant would be an open unit with a contemporary nightclub boasting the best sound and video facilities anywhere. And above all, 11 was to be a place where creativity and art could be democratized for a large audience, a place where there was always something creative happening. New and fresh, catering to the stedelijk in it’s own unique style and generating it’s own audience on the way.

This was a big shock for the stedelijk. A nightclub above the stedelijk was absolutely unheard of at the time. And why would there be any point of having an evening restaurant? Who would come?

It took some discussion and time for the stedelijk to get accustomed to this idea, but finally they embraced the idea of a trendy contemporary club and restaurant above their art.

In the end however, 11 turned out to be the lucky charm that was vital tot the buildings success;

After opening the stedelijk there was an unprecedented spectacular club night that was hailed by the press as “courageous and new”. 11 had piggybacked stedelijk into the new world and
after several years of negative publicity the stedelijk was finally receiving some positive news!

For the first time in years visitor numbers for stedelijk started to rise instead of fall. We firmly believe that the added value of an exciting meeting place-11- in combination with good art –stedelijk- is the combination that is making the difference to the public.
Embrace the youth and you shall have a future.

Also, initially there were only 4 mayor tenants in Post CS. After its introduction as a cultural hotspot with 11 as its central meeting place the building became popular.
11 as a contemporary nightlife location quickly attracted early adaptors and creative entrepreneurs.
This was a public that had long avoided the stedelijk and generally boring cultural initiatives. Through 11 they made acquaintance with the post cs building and it’s cultural partners.
People soon realized the potential and cultural spirit of the building , and the demand for offices traveled trough 11 to the building management, quickly the remaining floors were filled with smaller creative tenants.

Our conclusion is therefore that 11,  which provides contemporary nightlife and gastronomy, in other words a social meeting place fused with contemporary culture, can actually speed up the creative und cultural development and its synergy in the entire Post CS building. Not only by providing a meeting space, but also by actively contributing to cultural endeavors.

Temporary projects

One of the most interesting aspects of temporary projects is its peaking character and the excitement that goes hand in hand with it.
Amsterdam has witnessed several temporary projects over the past years and they all seem to have similar characteristics. Unlike permanent projects, they are exciting and surprising. Here today gone tomorrow.
This excitement seems to be shared by organizers and visitors. There is a very physical sense about running out of time.
Downsides of temporary projects are the uncertainties of turnout, turnover and impact. This is not appealing to our run of the mill visitor and business entrepreneur.
The pioneering entrepreneur and pioneering visitor however are attracted to temporary projects. The pioneering entrepreneur mostly because they can be part of a thing that potentially can create a lot of goodwill and positive thoughts amongst early adaptors, which is the best PR you can wish and therefore is profitable.
But of course also because these projects often have lower rents and investments can be kept to a minimal as most visitors don’t expect much comfort anyway, this gives the entrepreneur more leeway to experiment and improvise. Pressure is low so there is room left between financial commitments to venture into new, maybe not yet profitable experiments, without fear of instant bankruptcy
Pioneering visitors (usually early adaptors) are drawn towards temporary projects because they wish to be in touch with the frontiers of contemporary culture and its inherent community.

This combination of factors creates an interesting environment. Pioneering entrepreneurs now can be part of a relatively inexpensive way of new cultural business enterprises that can offer new and fresh experiences to the pioneering (daring) visitor. A very fertile ground for creative development before it reaches the mainstream.

Rein jansma, the architect responsible for the renovation of post cs was quoted saying;
‘ Being here for a limited time is a good thing. The Post CS building attracts people who are not heading for a secure path but choose to invest in new ways of working instead of luxury interiors’.

The role of cultural centers in the dynamics of Amsterdam

There have been more examples of temporary cultural centers in Amsterdam albeit very different.
The uniqueness of post cs is the combination of major art institutes like the stedelijk combined with young guns like w139 and 11.

Cultural centers are crucial to Amsterdam’s livelihood and development of the creative industries. It is at these places that new ways of working are found, wherefrom new endeavors start and people meet and inspire
These cultural centers have always attracted a young and very creative target group, the future for a city based around creative industries

Examples are;

Westergasfabriek
Old gas factory in the west of town, unused for years and slowly inhabited by artistic people from neighboring communities.
Lot’s of theatre, event space and a restaurant and club ‘west pacific’

The westergasfabriek eventually claimed a permanent use as culture area and has recently been renovated. It will take some years however before it will reach its former creative splendor

Smart space project
A disused mental hospital, filled with temporary ateliers for young artists
And on the ground floor a restaurant/club with gallery spaces

Ndsm
The old ship wharfs in north have always been a haven for artists and counterculture where there are less regulations and more freedom
They are now being redeveloped and regulated, albeit that they will retain their function for artists. Companies like ID&T and MTV Europe will be located there

Silodam/vrieshuis amerika/pakhuis afrika
Up to the mid 90\s there used to be many squats in Amsterdam, large warehouses full of creative anarchistic counterculture. Al these centers have now been turned into luxury apartments and offices.
Obviously, creative Amsterdam suffered dearly.
The city council has tried to provide alternatives by creating regulated breeding places. Buildings with low rents for which artists can apply.
It is unclear whether these will be a success and there is lot of different opinions about the matter.

The benefits of fusing contemporary nightlife & gastronomy with contemporary culture

In Amsterdam,  a city with an immensely diverse supply of culture and art, like most metropoles, the majority of people have become somewhat uninspired or spoilt.
Consumerism and entertainment seems to have gained more importance than inspiration and culture.
Between busy careers, studies, kids and social life there seems to be little time left for inspiring the soul.
In these busy lives, the not instantly productive activities are skipped, and there are few who still manage to create the time to wander through galleries and museum’s simply taking in some soulfood and not actually doing anything.

There is a massive offering of cultural events and an even larger marketing bombardment to promote these events, what are you to choose? The effect is paralyzing and contrary to the art itself, very impersonal.

In presenting a selection of art within the public space of a restaurant like 11, we are offering our public a cross-cultural creative experience that they would otherwise have had to visit several spaces for.

We also believe that nightlife, electronic dance music, video and vj-ing, streetart and gastronomy is a big countermovement very much at the forefront of contemporary culture.
Life for them doesn’t take place in a white box, there is an entire generation out there doing there own thing on the street that isn’t making it into galleries or museum’s.

11 offers a platform to these young creatives, who indeed have no ambition to be part of the institutional world, but do deserve an audience.
 The close physical proximity of stedelijk, mediamatic, BG, W139 and 11 implies that the visitor, often traveling to several of these places, experiences a crossover of cultures.
Thus introducing each others public to new experiences.

11

Not even the five founding fathers of 11 can explain what 11 is. That is, not exactly. And that’s exactly what we had in mind when we started our plans for the 11th floor of this former mail distribution centre.

11 will exist for no more than 2,5 years. After that, the building will probably be torn down. As 11 is here for a very short period of time, the interior designer used all existing means and a rela-tively low budget to create a new flexible space that can easily be turned into basically anything.
Before 11 was 11, the space functioned as a cafeteria and gym for the employees of the mail distribution centre. Now our chefs pre-pare their funky fresh cuisine meals in the old cafeteria kitchen. Look down while you’re on the dance floor: it’s the old gym floor.

getting to 11 is an experience in itself and takes some courage, you have to travel through backward and badly lit streets, your imagination is stimulated to thinking that you must be on the wrong way, more likely to be robbed here than to find a museum and trendy bar.
 Then even if you’ve eventually found the building there is long corridors and freight elevators to deal with…

 this journey is one of the elements that makes 11 special because;

it takes an adventurous spirit to get this far, you have to give before you get

you literally ascend into another reality by traveling the strange elevators and corridors

As a result 11 is no longer simply a restaurant with a view, but a memorable experience

Vision

11 sees today’s society as being increasingly dull, grey over commercialized masses

11 believes that there is also a counterculture to all this dullness and that this culture needs a platform to flourish

11 believes that we need to cultivate humans not consumers and to stimulate creativity and participation in each individual

11 believes in trial and error or ‘unfinnishedness’ and organic growth

mission

experiment! Why follow a fixed concept if you have the opportunity to try something new everyday?

To provide a positive counterweight to today’s over commercialized mc Donald’s society

To make creativity easily available to a large group of people

To provide ‘fair ware for a fair price’

Activities

Restaurant

Club

Video

Cultural events & multi media expo

Commercial catering

BG

Restaurant

Fair food for a fair price
Seasonal
Honest, not pretentious and friendly
Available to anyone

11 is open for lunch and dinner.
In the day we offer a simple lunch menu. It consists of salads, soup, several sandwiches and some sweet baked goods.
In the evening we offer a 4 course menu for € 33. Our menu has Mediterranean and North African influences and it changes on a daily basis. We choose to work with the freshest seasonal ingredients.
Our Mediterranean antipasti and the second course, a vegetarian soup, are set. As a main course you can choose between meat, fish or vegetarian and for dessert you have the choice out of a selection of cheeses or a sweet dessert.
In the summer season you can enjoy our roof terrace on the 12th floor. It’s fully supplied with bean bags, hot tubs, bar, shower, swim suits (him and her), changing room, music and barbecue chef.

Club

A platform for new electronic music
A platform for the growing visual artists as VJ’s
A good night out

Visually and auditively 11 experiments freely in a contemporary context. Expect to hear modern cutting edge electronic music expressed in various styles such as electro, minimal, acid, punk-funk, experimental hip hop, new wave, trashy rock and many other electronic hybrids.
Expect to see the unexpected, because with our 12 large video screens both in the restaurant area and in the club area, 11 is the ultimate VJ-shrine and hosts the cream of the crop of visionary talents.

Video
stichting postivisme
Because the video screens are such an integral part of 11’s architecture, we have chosen to use them as an installation, which interacts with the public space and its visitors.
The many works of unknown and renowned video artists are also shown during restaurant hours.
These video installations are intended to inspire and stimulate thought.
To facilitate the video program 11 initiated ‘Stichting Postivisme ‘, a separate non-profit organization joined up with curators from Stedelijk and W139 to develop groundbreaking video art for 11.
The challenge we as 11 set to artists using the screens
‘To incorporate visual art into an environment. I.e. not to put the art in a clear white space, standing alone from the world around it. But to have the art being a conjunction between the visual, the space and the people involved in using the space at that moment, possibly forever changing each day as the people who witness or rather participate change?’

Cultural events & multi media expo

smcs op 11
stedelijk museum weekly lecture/presentation/performance on the 11th floor

mediamatic salon’s
Mediamatic hosts a monthly performance salon at 11

Cultural lectures and presentations
fashion shows by Rietveld academy, collectie arnhem, Amsterdam international fashion week and elle

stedelijk museum art symposia
Photo academy graduates expo
Red bull music academy

BG
A joint venture between 11 and Bruut to provide a dynamic and multipurpose expo/event space to cater to young artists and creative incentives but also commercial events less suitable for 11.

11 initiated BG to facilitate the countless requests for expo’s and events that could not be combined in 11’s own busy schedule. This extra space generates income through catering, publicity through extra events, extra public and above all it is an opportunity to experiment in cultural endeavors.

Selected Events so far at BG;
Kunstmarokkanen

Artbeat
A streetart/multimedia/music/diy event for red bull during the Dutch museum night ( once of nightlife version of Dutch musea)

Kersvers
Young artist expo

Facts about 11

350.000 visitors yearly (stedelijk museum averages 200.000 at post cs)
from 1 to 100 years old!

140 staff

Lease expires July 2006, strong possibility of an extra year.

11’s future

Obviously there is plenty of speculation about where we will end up physically after the post building disappears, personally I believe that 11’s existence as a physical venue is firmly linked to this building and time span, and that a copy is not possible.
11 is a very up to date and upfront example of how things are culturally in Amsterdam right now.
In this respect we hold a leading position in this race over other cultural endeavors, but if you keep running long enough eventually you will grow old and end up last….

The short existence of more or less 3 years makes the sense of running out of time very physical for everyone, we also see it clearly as the oosterdokseiland flats slowly rise higher and higher taking away our individuality from the world.
This time limit however results in one long peak experience.
One thing is sure; as 11 develops and experiments through its lifespan it won’t be finished until the last day- reaching its ultimate peak before dying.

So what then?
A holiday!
Above all 11 has turned out to be meeting place for creative people and companies, so this is where our future will go.

We are now developing IT solutions so that we can become a creative community online, also we are starting other projects in Amsterdam from the same philosophy, 11 however functioning as a network to provide the right people for the right projects.

And who knows maybe in some other form, with other partners we transform into 12 …

Imperfection and experience in 11 as opposed to consumerism

As we described earlier the journey to 11 is an integral part of the experience, the symbolism being that you have to invest energy in 11 before to get the maximum out of it.

This means the relation between 11 and its guests transforms from static, or one sided, i.e. solely receiving on the part of the guest to an actual interaction between the two.
This is very important because this means our service has transformed from being a product, to an experience!
Memorable Experiences last as long as the person remembers them and in case of positive memories and a long life…., products last only as long as the lifespan of the product itself-in the case of food this is not so long.

We actively stimulate this process through;

Menu books;
Instead of just a menu, we provide you with a whole book, 3 pages for the menu, 11 pages for our vision on things and 200 for you as a guest!

11 ben je zelf
11 stimulates people to say ‘ 11 ben je zelf’ , roughly translated ‘you are / I am 11 ‘
So this means we give you part of the credit for our success…
We have ’11 ben je zelf’ member passes on recycled phone cards. This pass gives you reductions and other service benefits like exclusive events.
But above all it enables you to introduce others into 11 at the same servicelevel, making you an ambassador. our favorite customers are also our most important marketers

To create a fantastic night, you need more than just fantastic food and people, half the work is the energy of the crowd. So we can think we know it all and boast about impressive concepts but in the end, the people themselves will make or break the party- so it’s only fair to give them that credit; 11 ben je zelf!

Video screens
11 ‘s video screens are use as a creative platform for young artists, we stimulate people to submit work that we then also promote.

Imperfection
11’s interior is very raw and simple, and thus easy to constantly develop. If you visit 11 regularly you will see the interior constantly changing; seasonal touches, corridors and lifts are assigned to new artists each quarter, changing exhibits etc.

We also accept the fact that we make mistakes; imperfection. Imperfection leaves room for growth, development and participation by the visitor. You experience a new 11 everytime you come.
This is closely related to our constant drive for developing further, why follow a fixed concept if you have the opportunity to try something new everyday?

www.ilove11.nl