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Westergasfabriek

CREATIVE CONSUMPTION & PRODUCTION IN PUBLIC SPACE

STUDENT Stijn Out

STUDENT NUMBER 10082670

DOCUMENT Master thesis

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1 Introduction 3

1.1 Research questions 4

1.2 Thesis structure 4

2 Theory 6

2.1 Creative cities 6

2.2 Creative consumption and production 8

2.3 Public space 10

3 Design & methodology 13

3.1 Research design 13

3.2 Conceptual model 14

3.3 Positional reflection 14

3.4 Ethnographic observations 15

3.5 Qualitative interviews 17

3.5.1 Geographic scope of the research area 17

3.5.2 Interviewee selection 18

3.5.3 Execution of interviews 20

3.6 Process of analysis 20

4 Results 21

4.1 An ethnography of the Westergasfabriek 21

4.1.1 Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek 21

4.1.2 Special events at the Westergasfabriek 26

4.1.3 The Westergasfabriek’s environs 33

4.1.4 Overall impressions 34

4.2 Perception of creative consumption and production 35

4.2.1 Perception of creative production 35

4.2.2 Perception of creative consumption 36

4.3 Inclusiveness: perception and responses 41

4.3.1 Perception of inclusiveness 41

4.3.2 Coping with exclusiveness 45

4.4 Interpretation of results 47

4.4.1 Multi-scalar activity in a single space 48

4.4.2 Relation to gentrification 48

4.4.3 Cultural-creative events in public space 49

5 Conclusion 52

5.1 Limitations 52

5.2 Recommendations 53

5.3 Summary 54

Bibliography 56

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Figure 1: Conceptual model 14 Figure 2: GIS analysis of the service areas of Amsterdam’s large parks 17 Figure 3: Satellite image of the Westergasfabriek and the Westerpark 22

Figure 4: View of the Gashouder 25

Figure 5: Detailed view of the Gashouder 25

Figure 6: The manifestation area two days after the Rollende Keukens festival 29 Figure 7: Families using the pool near the manifestation area, which is fenced off for Pitch

Festival

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1 INTRODUCTION

The Westergasfabriek is a former a gas factory in the northwest of Amsterdam. Established in 1885, its main function was supplying gas to Amsterdam’s street lighting network (Westergas-fabriek, 2014d). After it was shut down in 1967, the factory plot saw a number of new uses. It initially served as storage facility for the municipal energy company, before the area became a destination for temporary creative and cultural activities beginning in 1992. In the succeeding years, the factory’s polluted soil was remediated, historic buildings were renovated, open spa-ces were transformed into an urban park, and cultural activities became the area’s distinctive feature. In the words of its operator: “The Westergasfabriek has once again become a source of light and energy” (Westergasfabriek, 2014d). In 2003, the opening of the renovated Westergas-fabriek was celebrated with an international conference titled “Creativity and the City”. Among the keynote speakers was Richard Florida (Pandolfi, 2015: 100), well known for his creative class theory (see Florida, 2002). While inviting a scholar like Florida to a conference on cre-ative cities is anything but peculiar, it is a little more odd in the context of inaugurating a park. Indeed, the Westergasfabriek is no ordinary field of green. Its reach extends far beyond its im-mediate surroundings, and its prestige as a thriving urban hotspot stems from its cultural rather than its scenic features. In popular media, the park has been lauded as an example of successful brownfield redevelopment; it is featured in travel sections of international newspa-pers as “an architectural Cinderella story” (Williams, 2006) and “a hive of creative activity” (Lanyado, 2007). Leveraging its neo-renaissance industrial heritage, the Westergas-fabriek is now home to a variety of creative businesses and cultural events that attract crowds from all over the world. The park’s renovated factory buildings host cafes, restaurants, a small cinema, clubs, tv studios, and office spaces for creative production. Furthermore, the Wester-gasfabriek is a regular scene for a multitude of indoor and outdoor events, ranging from music festivals and fun fairs to street food bonanzas and monthly markets. In an effort to brand this unique blend of creative consumption and production in public space, the site has been dubbed Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek.

The premise is thus that the Westergasfabriek is not a normal park, but a cultural park. When pondering this emphasis on culture in public space, a reasonable question to ask is whose cul-ture is represented, and what this means for those who might not identify with this culcul-ture. In other words: does the Westergasfabriek’s focus on culture make the space any less public? This question is especially relevant in the context of the Westergasfabriek as a supposed stimulus to Amsterdam as a creative city; what are the social costs of using public space as an instrument in the pursuit of economic vibrancy? It is this issue that lies at the heart of this thesis. By ob-serving the dynamics of cultural and creative activities taking place at the Westergasfabriek, I aim to uncover how its function as a prestigious cog in Amsterdam’s cultural-cognitive econ-omy influences the daily lives of those residing in its vicinity.

The case of the Westergasfabriek is particularly interesting from a geographic point of view, as a large part of these questions revolve around the concept of scale. One the one hand, the place has a regional (and occasionally national and international) appeal, attracting many people

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from outside its immediate surroundings who visit with a purpose of creative consumption. On the other hand, the Westergasfabriek is one of the biggest parks in Amsterdam, surround-ed by relatively few other large green spaces. Its local service area as a park is quite extensive, more or less bordered by the IJ in the north, the A10 ring road in the west, the Jan van Galen-straat in the south, and the city centre in the east. For people living and working within this area, the Westergasfabriek seems to be the most convenient place to go when they wish to visit a park. It is thus possible to identify two different scales at which the Westergasfabriek oper-ates: on the regional-national scale, it serves as a centre of creative consumption and produc-tion; on the local scale, it serves as the key public park for a large part of northwestern Ams-terdam. The main focus of this research is directed at the point where these two scales inter-sect: the Westergasfabriek as a cosmopolitan place of creative consumption and production that is simultaneously expected to maintain its function as a local, public space.

1.1

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The themes introduced above culminate into the following research question:

How do creative consumption and production at Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek influence adjacent neighbourhoods’ residents’ perception and use of the place as a public space?

In order to provide a comprehensive answer to this question, I have split it into four sub-questions that each address a different dimension of the main question. These four sub-questions serve as a guiding force throughout my research:

1. How are creative production and consumption visible in the Westergasfabriek’s physical environment?

2. How do residents of adjacent neighbourhoods narrate their perception of Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek’s productive amenities?

3. How do residents of adjacent neighbourhoods narrate their use and perception of Cultu-urpark Westergasfabriek’s consumptive amenities?

4. How do residents of adjacent neighbourhoods narrate their perception of inclusiveness of Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek as a public space?

1.2

THESIS STRUCTURE

The rest of this thesis is structured as follows:

Chapter 2 provides a theoretical framework that forms the backbone of this thesis. It will

dis-cuss relevant literature on creative cities, creative consumption and production, and public space. Chapter 3 introduces the research design, as well as the methodology used to execute this design. This includes a conceptual model that outlines the general relation between the central themes of this thesis. Chapter 4 forms the core of this thesis and delivers the results of

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my research, aiming to answer each of the subquestions introduced above. Additionally, the chapter will offer some interpretations of those results. Finally, Chapter 5 serves as a conclu-sion in which I will reiterate my most important findings, their implications, the limitations of this thesis, and some recommendations for further research. After these chapters, the reader will find a bibliography and an appendix containing a log of interview metadata.


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2 THEORY

In this chapter, I will discuss a selection of academic literature that relates to the key themes of this thesis. First, I will introduce the concept of creative cities, before moving on to creative consumption and production, and finally addressing theories of public space in the context of Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek.

2.1

CREATIVE CITIES

In an era of supposed urban renaissance, cities are touted as being the pinnacle of civilisation (see Glaeser, 2011). They are the engines of our economies, the catalysts of our cultures, and the sources of our societies; to be human is to be urban. However, to be urban no longer ap-pears to be sufficient. The adage of cities in the 21st century is that they need to be creative, innovative, and competitive (Bontje, Musterd & Pelzer, 2011: 1). In fact, these three elements are often considered sequential siblings: creativity spawns innovation, which in turn begets competitiveness. Competitiveness, finally, brings cities closer to the ultimate goal of the con-temporary capitalist system: growth.

The city of Amsterdam has not escaped this rat race. In a desperate effort to keep up with megacities like London, urban planners are calling for a doubling of Amsterdam’s population, as that would be “the size that is necessary to be able to compete internationally” (Obbink, 2015). While the debate on city size in relation to competitive capacity is an interesting one, there is an even more interesting assumption embedded deep within this statement: cities, ap-parently, must compete with one another. In a neoliberal climate in which market-driven thinking has even penetrated spheres like education (Parker & Jary, 1995), friendship (Sennett, 2013: 144), and love (Fromm, 2014: 13), these types of presumptions should come as no sur-prise. In theory, the argument for the inevitability of intercity competition seems sound. Over the past few decades, advancements in transport and telecommunications have given rise to a time-space compression (Harvey, 1990), which together with legislative developments in trade have caused previous barriers to movement of capital and labour to evaporate (Gordon, 1999). From a perspective of market logics, this increased mobility yields a single, global economic playing field on which contending urban regions have the ability to compete for the same, mo-bile resources. In today’s economy, “knowledge, it seems, has become magic” and is thus con-sidered the most valuable resource (Grabher, 2004). Consequently, the concept of creative cap-ital has emerged as a holy grail for policy makers wishing to elevate their city to economic prominence. Infatuated with visions of global city status (see Sassen, 2001) and high rankings on lists that are supposed to measure “quality of living”, city governments have focused their efforts on attracting a workforce that they believe will help them generate prosperity: the cre-ative class.

The creative class concept was popularised by Richard Florida (2002). He argues that for cities to remain economically relevant requires a specific class of workers from a wide assembly of

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professions, ranging from bohemian artists to financial service industry workers. In order to attract this creative class, policymakers should aim to transform their city into a place where members of this group would like to reside. This entails a focus on outfitting a city with appro-priate “soft conditions” (see Musterd & Murie, 2011) as, for instance, a tolerant atmosphere and the presence of particular cultural amenities. In their efforts to achieve this, city govern-ments have become practitioners of urban entrepreneurialism. This style of governance is characterised by its use of public funding as means of realising conditions that are thought to be conducive to economic growth, rather than as a means of providing services to the general public (Harvey, 1989). In practice, this strategy has manifested itself as a global whirlwind of urban regeneration projects with a focus on eye-catching museums and other iconic architec-ture that serves to attract the gaze of the world (Engelen et al., 2014; Harvey, 1989; Smith, 2002). According to creative class theory, this should make cities more attractive places to live, therefore increasing their odds of attracting a creative class. However, Florida’s theory has not gone without criticism. One of the objections often raised is the lack of empirical evidence supporting it. In a large-scale study of a dozen of European cities, Musterd and Murie (2011) address this by examining which factors are most crucial to transnational workers in deciding in which urban region to settle. The authors find that soft factors associated with Florida’s work turn out to be only mildly relevant in attracting the labor thought required for a compet-itive urban knowledge economy; much more important are people’s personal networks, “hard conditions” like job availability and proper infrastructure, and the potential offered by a city’s historical pathways. Others have condemned the consequences that the adoption of creative class theory can have for urban societies. In an extensive critique, Peck (2005) highlights how a “creative-cities script” (see also Gibson & Kong, 2005) functions as an extension of neoliberal urban models of development focused on gentrification and place-based competition. Particu-larly interesting in the context of Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek is Peck’s following observa-tion:

Both the script and the nascent practices of urban creativity are peculiarly well suited to entrepre-neurialized and neoliberalized urban landscapes. They provide a means to intensify and publicly subsidize urban consumption systems for a circulating class of gentrifiers, whose lack of commit-ment to place and whose weak community ties are perversely celebrated. In an echo of the Creative Class’s reportedly urgent need to ‘validate’ their identities and lifestyles, this amounts to a process of public validation for favored forms of consumption and for a privileged class of consumers. In fact, indulging selective forms of elite consumption and social interaction is elevated to the status of a public-policy objective in the creative-cities script.


— Peck, 2005: 764

The Westergasfabriek’s inception appears to have been a perfect execution of the creative-cities script: the regeneration of a formerly industrial — and thus marketable (Harvey, 1989: 9) — site with the aim of creating a consumption space able to attract an elite audience, all executed in public-private partnership. The Cultuurpark that resulted from this can indeed be consid-ered a “publicly subsidised urban consumption system aimed at a privileged class of con-sumers” (Peck, 2005: 764). Supporters of creative class theory would argue that public invest-ment in such projects is justified, because eventually, the entire urban economy will reap its

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benefits. However, Engelen et al. (2014) object to such a notion, stating that the economic as-sumption that is used to validate public sponsorship of cultural prestige projects is simply false: trickle down geography doesn’t work, and the majority of citizens never see the benefits of the public funds expended.

The controversial status of creative class theory and its underpinnings adds an extra dimension to the enquiry of Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek as a public space. Rather than looking into the place’s capacity of fulfilling its creative and economic promises, I am more interested in the potential social costs of the execution of the creative-cities script in a space that is relied on by many citizens on a daily basis. While as individual concepts, public space and creative cities have been thoroughly researched, there is relatively little work addressing the two in union. I therefore believe a case study of this particular location can be a useful addition to the existing academic literature.

2.2

CREATIVE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

If the Westergasfabriek is considered a product of the creative-cities script, then scrutinising the place’s daily operation is a way of detecting how the embodiment of this script might affect perception of public space. While many things happen at the Westergasfabriek, those activities relevant in the light of this thesis can be conceptually condensed to what I will call “creative consumption and production”. This category of activities is what connects the Westergasfab-riek as a conceptual space to the WestergasfabWestergasfab-riek as a physical place; creative consumption and production are the materialisation of the creative-cities script in urban reality. In order to fully prepare the concepts of creative consumption and production for further use in this the-sis, there are two questions that need to be answered: What do creative consumption and pro-duction entail? And why am I talking about “creative” rather than “cultural” consumption and production?

What do creative consumption and production entail?

There are many different ways of defining what should be considered as creative production and consumption. Gibson and King (2005) discuss four different methods of defining the ex-tent of the cultural economy: an approach based on sectors, the way labour and production are organised, a “creative index” akin to Florida (2002), or a corporate convergence of media for-mats embodied by digitisation. While their classification is useful for studying production, it is less fit to deal with consumption or a combination of the two. Instead of taking the circum-stances of production as a benchmark for whether or not a product is creative, I choose to con-sider particular characteristics that are embedded in products throughout their production and consumption cycles. As Western, capitalist economies have shifted from a Fordist (indus-trial) to a post-Fordist (post-indus(indus-trial) mode of production, the kinds of items that are being produced have changed as well (Scott, 2012). Pine and Gilmore (1998) argue that after economies of commodities, goods, and services, we have now reached a fourth stage: the expe-rience economy. This is what Scott (2012: 44) dubs the “consumer society mark II”. He ex-pands:

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The new capitalism is typified in general by the injection of ever-increasing amounts of symbolic content into consumer products of all kinds, a tendency that even extends far down into the more utilitarian reaches of the economy, where products like cars, office supplies, sports shoes, and kitchen utensils nowadays appeal to consumers not only on the basis of price but also on the basis of com-plex aesthetic and semiotic values that complement or enhance their performance and appearance. — Scott, 2012: 44

Elsewhere, Scott (2012: 41) refers to these kinds of products as “aestheticised consumer goods and services”. It is this focus on the aestheticised experience of highly symbolic products that I will use as the basis for my definition of creative production and consumption. On a continu-um ranging from “purely functional” on the left end to “purely symbolic” on the right end, this type of creative production and consumption would occupy the right half of this scale. This means that the definition I choose to employ includes the production and consumption of products (be they goods, services, or experiences) that are almost purely symbolic (e.g., art) as well as those that combine symbolic with functional value (e.g., highly aestheticised consumer products). From the perspective of the consumer, the benefit of consuming such products is that their level of symbolism allows for aesthetically reflexive identity-building and the accu-mulation of cultural capital (Lash & Urry, 1994).

While consumption and production are traditionally considered two separate phases in the lifecycle of products, their distinction becomes less clear-cut in a post-industrial economy that is moving towards more customised products, services, and events. This is most evident when the consumer is involved in these new forms of production; when consuming an experience, the consumer is essentially co-creating the product, because the experience relies on the inter-play between the product and its interpretation in the mind of the consumer (Pine & Gilmore, 1998). Such a process is clearly connected to the consumption of highly symbolic and aestheti-cised products, as this necessarily requires imaginative involvement of the consumer. Fur-thermore, the sale of experiences relies on the use of services as a “stage” and goods as “props” (ibid., 1998: 98). Following this line of reasoning, one could argue that the Westergas-fabriek generally functions as an aestheticised backdrop that actively integrates with the pro-duction and consumption happening there. Since, as a stage, the Westergasfabriek can be con-sidered part of the experience of consumption (and thus part of the product), this type of cre-ative consumption essentially involves the consumption of space. Space is thus embedded in the symbolic dimension of these products, thereby uniting creative production and consump-tion. In an exercise of logic, one could thus claim that creative production at the Westergasfab-riek contributes to the (re)production of the WestergasfabWestergasfab-riek as a space that is ultimately in-corporated as a key element of creative consumption.

Why am I talking about “creative” rather than “cultural” consumption and production?

As explicated earlier, the Westergasfabriek is branded as a Cultuurpark. Why then, am I talk-ing about “creative” rather than “cultural” consumption and production? The two terms are undeniably related and often used interchangeably. Nevertheless, they each carry distinct con-notations that make a choice for either require further elaboration and justification. Nicholas

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Garnham (2005) provides an excellent illustration of the politics and diverse interests at stake when dealing with the distinction between creative and cultural industries, and deciding which label to use. The seemingly odd choice to employ “creative” rather than “cultural” in the context of a cultural park thus necessitates an explanation; I have chosen to speak of “creative” rather than “cultural” because I believe “cultural” does not cover the full extent of the con-sumption and production taking place at the Westergasfabriek. Using the term “culture” gen-erally evokes an association with the arts, high-brow culture, and passive consumption of products with a value that is exclusively symbolic. Perhaps such connotations could be accu-rately typified as “Culture” rather than “culture”. Especially in a Dutch context, where use of the word cultuur is frequently accompanied by kunst, designating the Westergasfabriek as a place of “cultural” activity could obscure some of the activities that lie closer to the centre of the functionalism-symbolism scale.

There is another reason why I believe “creative” is a more accurate representation of the West-ergasfabriek. As previously discussed, the Westergasfabriek is clearly situated within the debate on creative cities and the creative class. In order to highlight the relevance of this case in dis-cussions on the impact of the creative-cities script and creative class lifestyles, “creative” is clearly a more appropriate label than “cultural”, even when some of these creative activities could indeed be accurately described as cultural.

The choice for one label over another is almost always arbitrary, but the preceding explana-tions should provide enough clarity to justify my use of this particular label. While I am in no way attempting to exempt myself from responsibility regarding discursive decisions like these, it is important to keep in mind that this label’s function in this thesis is limited to that of an inductive tool to designate particular economic activities that are occurring regardless of the exact label that is applied to them. This is not to say that labels have no effect on the function-ing and perception of creative or cultural industries, but the questions posed in this thesis ul-timately require the adoption of a single label that is used consistently, and I believe “creative” to be most appropriate.

2.3

PUBLIC SPACE

Given the societal, temporal, and spatial contingency of the term “public space” (Low & Smith, 2013), finding a universal definition for its meaning and scope is virtually impossible. Howev-er, it is feasible to sum up the key characteristics of what is contemporarily understood as pub-lic space, which will allow the term to be used in a context relevant to this thesis. Low and Smith provide a number of those characteristics; they talk of a heterogeneous arena of social locations with various dimensions and levels of publicness, deriving part of its meaning from a contrast to the private spaces so emblematic of contemporary capitalist societies (Low & Smith, 2013: 3-4). Furthermore, they discuss the meaning of public space in relation to con-cepts of the “public realm” and the “public sphere”. They define the public realm as consisting of the political concept of a public sphere, and the physical concept of public space (ibid.; see also Varna & Tiesdell, 2010). However, this does not imply that public space is always physical and never political (Varna & Tiesdell, 2010: 579). While the notion of public space can be

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ar-gued to encompass pseudo-physical spheres like the Internet and the media (Low & Smith, 2013: 3), I will limit my use of the term to its meaning in an urban context, thereby excluding its electronic and institutional dimensions. This yields a definition of public space that com-prises those parts of the physical urban environment that are freely accessible to all. Such a definition would include spaces like streets, squares, parks, and bodies of water that provide free public entry.

Varna and Tiesdell (2010) distinguish between a deductive and inductive approach to the pub-licness of public space. The approach that best suits my research is the deductive one, as it con-siders public space as part of a socially constructed reality, in which “‘publicness’ is in the eye of the beholder, requiring us to always ask ‘to whom’ a place might be more (or less) public” (Varna & Tiesdell, 2010: 578). This matches my intention of looking at people’s indi-vidual perception of publicness. In the same paper, Varna and Tiesdell discuss the existence of “multiple publics”, differentiated by ethnicity, socio-economic status, and gender. Consequent-ly, they argue that “the publicness of any place must thus necessarily be assessed in terms of it being ‘more public for more publics’” (Varna & Tiesdell, 2010: 578). This concept of publicness can be defined in different ways. The OMAI model uses four different dimensions: ownership, management, accessibility, and inclusiveness (Langstraat & Van Melik, 2013). Following this model, the Westergasfabriek qualifies as fairly public in the first three dimensions: while the Westergasfabriek’s buildings are privately owned, the park itself is property of the local gov-ernment; management of the outdoor areas is executed by the local govgov-ernment; and the park is publicly accessible at all times. In this context, the model’s fourth and final dimension, inclu-siveness, is the least clear, yet the most appropriate for addressing my research questions. Langstraat and Van Melik (2013: 435) define inclusiveness as “[being] about the degree a place meets the demands of different individuals and groups”, similar to Varna and Tiesdell’s (2010: 585) notion of “animation”, which “requires meeting human needs in public space”. Clearly, the human needs that need to be met for a place to be perceived as inclusive are diverse and sub-ject to individual values and preferences. Despite this, it is possible to make a distinction be-tween material and abstract dimensions of such publicness and inclusiveness. Needs in the material dimension would include the availability of particular categories of amenities (e.g., benches, toilets, food) and particular physical qualities (e.g., natural features, cleanliness). Needs in the abstract dimension include preferences that are harder to grasp or measure, like the presence of a particular ambience (e.g. “authentic”, safe, or inspiring), a feeling of harmony with one’s personal lifestyle (e.g., likeminded crowds, availability of organic food options), or simply whether one feels welcome and at ease in a particular place. Note that my use of the word “abstract” does not imply that these needs are somehow not real, but rather that these needs rely on interpretation in the mind of each individual. As the abstract dimension of pub-licness is an interpretation of (multiple) elements taken directly from the material dimension, the two are inherently related; theoretically separating them may thus prove difficult at times. Overall, my definition of the publicness of public space relies on an individual’s own percep-tion of whether or not they feel as if a space is hospitable to them. The opposite of public space in this context would thus not be private space or physically inaccessible space, but legally and physically accessible space that is perceived as exclusive.

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It’s important to realise that the majority of Amsterdam’s public space are not as well-known (or well-branded) as the Westergasfabriek, yielding the question of whether it wouldn’t be more relevant to consider what is happening in these less prominent public spaces. Langstraat and Van Melik (2013: 432) counter the argument that contemporary research on public spaces’ skew towards urban regeneration flagship projects is undesirable by stating that focusing on these spectacular spaces is the best way of revealing the effects of neoliberal urban entrepre-neurialism. When discussing the geography of the wider public sphere, Low and Smith (2013: 6) argue that “an understanding of public space is an imperative for understanding the public sphere”. If public space can be considered the spatial component of the public sphere (Varna & Tiesdell: 579), findings regarding the perception and use of the Westergasfabriek as a public space could provide insight into the role of socio-economic dynamics taking place in less physical parts of the public realm, as well as how this relates to neoliberal modes of place-mak-ing (Peck, 2005).


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3 DESIGN & METHODOLOGY

After first introducing this thesis’ research design, this chapter will proceed to outline the core concepts of this thesis and present them in conceptual model. Next, it will briefly linger on my position as a researcher, before carefully explaining the methodology involved in this research.

3.1

RESEARCH DESIGN

This study takes on the form of a case study. As a cultural park, the Westergasfabriek is a rare breed in the Dutch context. To my awareness, there are only two other spaces in the Nether-lands that present themselves as cultural parks: Roombeek Cultuurpark in Enschede, and Cul-tuurpark De Hout in Alkmaar. However, neither of these possess the Westergasfabriek’s scale, reach, nor metropolitan environment. As a publicly accessible refurbishment of industrial her-itage, though, the Westergasfabriek is certainly not unique. In Amsterdam, sites like the NDSM wharf, Roest, TrouwAmsterdam, and De Hallen can all be said to posses an industrial air simi-lar to that of the Westergasfabriek. Nor is the Westergasfabriek unique as a park that occasion-ally functions as an event space; Amsterdam hosts 350 music festivals a year, and these events take place in a wide range of public spaces (Van Geuns, 2015a). However, as a city centre park that combines creative consumption and production in public space, the Westergasfabriek is certainly distinct. Considering these circumstances, I would argue that the Westergasfabriek qualifies as a unique case, although with exemplifying features (as in Bryman, 2008: 56) in its respective dimensions as park, creative space, and industrial heritage site. While I will not hes-itate to point out any observations that may relate to other urban spaces that match the West-ergasfabriek in one of these dimensions, my main concern is treating the WestWest-ergasfabriek as a specific case with a clear significance to its direct surroundings; given its spatial prominence in the area, I believe this focused attention is warranted. As a result, the external validity (or transferability) of this study will be limited. Nevertheless, I do not rule out that my findings might be used as a basis for hypotheses in different yet similar case studies.


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3.2

CONCEPTUAL MODEL

Based on the research questions introduced in Chapter 1 and the supportive theory provided in Chapter 2, it is possible to draw up a schematic representation of the concepts key to this thesis. The resulting conceptual model is rendered in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Conceptual model

In the model, residents of neighbourhoods adjacent to Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek perceive a certain level of inclusiveness of that place as a public space. This perception is filtered through the lenses of creative production and consumption, although this does not imply that perception is certain to change as it passes through these lenses. Finally, the perceived inclu-siveness is shown to possess both a material and an abstract dimension.

3.3

POSITIONAL REFLECTION

Prior to any elaboration of the different methods used in this thesis, a brief reflection on my own position as a researcher is required. As any social scientist, I am embedded in (as well as a product of) the social reality that is the setting of my research (Reed, 2010). It thus only makes sense to shed some light on my own position within the social frameworks I use to investigate and explain the phenomena central to my research questions.

Being a white male with a university education and a middle class, Randstad background, I hold a privileged position in Dutch society. The neighbourhoods surrounding the Westergas-fabriek are originally working class areas to which I consider myself an outsider. Two impor-tant questions are whether respondents native to these neighbourhoods were able to identify me as middle class or non-local, and whether they changed their responses accordingly. Re-garding the first question: my accent communicates that I am a non-native to these areas, and I believe it is this factor that caused one of my respondents to explicitly state that I was “not

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from Amsterdam”, without me having previously disclosed any such information to him. I as-sume that other interviewees may have preas-sumed the same. The second question, regarding whether or not interviewees conditioned their responses to their perception of me, is more difficult to assess. While surely, as in any other social interaction, perception of (dis)similarity is likely to influence conversation dynamics, it is hard to say how and to what extent this hap-pened in the interviews I conducted. Nevertheless, I believe this is a relevant issue in the con-text of this thesis, as some of the things I wished to discuss with interviewees were the social dimensions of creative consumption; the Westergasfabriek is often said to be a place for yup-pies, and whether or not I was perceived as one could thus influence the outcomes of these conversations. While I am hesitant to identify as a yup, I would not consider it entirely unlike-ly for others to label me as such. Indeed, in a technical sense, my personal characteristics (age 24, located in Amsterdam, social scientist in training) would place me almost squarely inside the box of young urban professional; the only thing lacking is full employment. Although some interviewees seemed hesitant to discuss this particular social group, I cannot assess to what extent my own presence played a role in that.

Given the personal characteristics outlined above, I could also be considered a member of the creative class. In that regard, it makes sense to discuss my personal relation with creative con-sumption and production at the Westergasfabriek; after all, I believe I am part of the Wester-gasfabriek’s target consumption audience, and this could influence my own perception of the space. Prior to this research, I had visited the area only once, during a university field trip in the summer of 2013. On this trip, I was given a tour of the park by Mr. Evert Verhagen, who had been involved with the Westergasfabriek’s regeneration as a project manager. Although this event spawned in me a geographic interest in the area, it did not entice me to visit the space again until the start of this thesis project. As the park is quite inconveniently located in relation to my place of residence, the appeal of its consumptive amenities does not outweigh the effort required to get there. During my fieldwork, the only Westergasfabriek facility I fre-quented for non-research use was the Espressofabriek. While I never experienced a particular enthusiasm for any of the other facilities, I believe that if I were a local, I would probably utilise a wider range of the Westergasfabriek’s consumptive spectrum. Taken together, though, I have no reason to assume that my personal consumption patterns result in a biased percep-tion of the Westergasfabriek.

3.4

ETHNOGRAPHIC OBSERVATIONS

In order to answer the subquestion that asks how creative consumption and production are visible in the Westergasfabriek’s physical environment, I relied on a form of ethnography. On a number of different occasions and under a diverse range of circumstances, I carried out field observations in the Westergasfabriek area, its facilities, and its surroundings. In these observa-tions, I applied a focus on the park’s physical environment and the human activity within it, with the aim of being able to convey the setting in which the Westergasfabriek's creative con-sumption and production are situated.

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Following Gold's (1958) classification of participant observer roles, I chose to assume the posi-tion of "complete observer". In this type of observaposi-tion, there is no social interacposi-tion between the researcher and his subjects, who are thus unaware of their involvement in research. A covert style of ethnography may evoke ethical reservations, but I believe this method of data collection did not necessarily violate the privacy of park visitors. As I aimed to dissect the Westergasfabriek as a public space, I documented the context of collective behaviour and its relation to the physical environment rather than the content of individual communication. As such, visitors functioned as passing actors in whom I had little individual interest. Further-more, given the Westergasfabriek's function as a public space, visitors likely carried a general awareness that they may have been casually observed by others in that same space at any time, and I would assume they conditioned their behaviour accordingly. As such, I see no major eth-ical objections to this type of observation. Gold (ibid.) mentions the risk of ethnocentrism when relying on this detached form of ethnography; because there is no interaction between the observer and the observed, there is a chance that the researcher will misunderstand those he observes. However, as this type of observation aims to describe rather than to understand or explain, there is a reduced potential for interpretative errors concerning visitor behaviour. Nevertheless, descriptive observation still involves interpretation of a social reality, and is thus vulnerable to the (in)competence and positionality of the researcher. However, such limita-tions are inherent to ethnography, and with that in mind, I can only attempt to limit the effects of subjectivity by providing the utmost clarity in my methods and reasoning.

My observations were carried out during the majority of the research process, spanning a pe-riod of roughly four months. During this pepe-riod, I approached these observations in two dif-ferent ways. Initially, I relied on ‘formal’ observations that were relatively long and detailed. As time moved on, I shifted to a more ‘informal’ form of observation where I no longer recorded everything I observed, but only those things that appeared notable as they contradicted or ex-panded findings from earlier observations.

The formal approach consisted of finding a spot with good oversight of the site subject to ob-servation, where I would proceed to make note of anything that came to my attention and ap-peared relevant in the light of the considerations discussed previously. I composed all field notes on a smartphone, ensuring that my presence as an observer would be relatively candid. In these observations, I focused on the presence and activities of people, as well as their char-acteristics. I tried to estimate things like age, gender, ethnicity, and lifestyle group. More im-portantly, I tried to observe how these visitors related to, or engaged with, their physical envi-ronment. After each day of observation, I made an effort to write down my general impression of the observations, reflecting on how my experience of them could contribute to a better exe-cution of the remaining observations. The length of these observations varied, ranging from short 10-minute sessions to periods of an hour. This length predominantly depended on when I felt a sufficient level of observational saturation had been reached in each particular situa-tion. I made sure to sample many different areas of the Westergasfabriek, at different times, allowing for variation

The informal observations were frequently combined with my efforts of recruiting intervie-wees. As I approached most of my interviewees in and around the Westergasfabriek area, this

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allowed me to casually yet continually observe the space throughout the entire research process. The advantage of this frequent presence in the park was that it provided a wide range of impressions under various circumstances, thereby serving as a way to validate previous, ‘formal’ observations.

3.5

QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS

In order to answer the remaining three subquestion, I relied on semi-structured interviews with residents' of neighbourhoods surrounding the park. This section will address the scope of my research area, my criteria and methods of interviewee selection, and the practical execu-tion of these interviews.

3.5.1 GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH AREA

The main research questions introduces the Westergasfabriek’s “adjacent neighbourhoods’ res-idents” as the unit of analysis. Therefore, it is required to demarcate which areas of Amsterdam can be considered neighbourhoods adjacent to the Westergasfabriek. To do this, I relied on a simple GIS-analysis, which then served as the groundwork for deciding which neighbour-hoods to include in the research.

Figure 2: GIS analysis of the service areas of Amsterdam’s large parks Data source: OpenStreetMap. Analysis by the author.

The analysis is concerned with the service areas of each of Amsterdam’s large parks. Using the locations of these parks, it is possible to calculate the closest park from any geographical loca-tion in Amsterdam. The result of these calculaloca-tions is displayed in Figure 2. While interpreting this map, the reader should bear a few things in mind. Firstly, this analysis was carried out on

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the basis of linear distances, rather than actual road distance or travel time. While the latter would have been more accurate, the level of detail involved would have been superfluous to the ends of this analysis. Secondly, any analysis of this type is necessarily arbitrary in its in- and exclusion of spaces that count as parks. My main criteria for selecting these as Amster-dam’s main parks were a combination of size and reputation. One of my assumptions support-ing this choice is that large parks offer benefits to residents that smaller parks cannot; this is related to their ability to generate feelings of immersion through sound absorption and visual isolation from the city. For this reason, I have excluded smaller plantsoen areas from the analy-sis, instead choosing to focus only on designated parks that are likely to be known by the ma-jority of Amsterdam’s population. Thirdly, while one of the beauties of GIS is its ability to ren-der maps of meticulous geometric accuracy, that precision generally does not equate to a simi-larly accurate model of human behaviour. Especially towards the outer edges of these service areas, things become fuzzy; in addition to distance, there are many more factors that come into play when people decide which park to visit. Such decisions are contingent on personal preferences and abilities. With this in mind, it is reasonable to assume that the role of proximi-ty can be said to decrease towards the outer edges of these service areas. This is why the map in Figure 2 cannot serve as a representation of reality, but only as a conceptual tool. For this rea-son, I’ve treated the Westergasfabriek’s service area as rendered in this map as a guide rather than a rule in my selection of interviewees. Based on this analysis, I decided to focus my re-search on the Spaarndammerbuurt, the Staatsliedenbuurt, the Haarlemmerbuurt, the Frederik Hendrikbuurt, and the northern part of the Jordaan. The reader will notice that Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek’s service area also encompasses parts of the Canal Ring and the old city cen-tre. However, I decided not to include these in my research for reasons explicated above; as these neighbourhoods are situated on the edges of the service area, their residents are less like-ly to be reliant on the Westergasfabriek than their counterparts in neighbourhoods closer to the area.

Ultimately, more important than whether I considered people to live in the adjacency the Westergasfabriek was whether people considered themselves to live in the adjacency of the Westergasfabriek. After all, one is unlikely to be affected by the publicness of places one never visits as a result of a belief that they are outside of one’s radius of action.

3.5.2 INTERVIEWEE SELECTION

Rather than assembling a statistically representative sample of interviewees, my strategy was to rely on purposive sampling. More specifically, I planned to use theoretical sampling with the aim of covering the most common narratives and perceptions of the Westergasfabriek that neighbourhood residents display. I believed this to be appropriate as my thesis is not focused on comparative research between different groups of people, but rather looking into the differ-ent narratives and perceptions that are presdiffer-ent within a heterogeneous assembly of neighbour-hood residents. My sampling approach consisted of an iterative process that placed "a premi-um on theorizing rather than the statistical adequacy of a sample" (Bryman, 2008: 460), using the experiences and findings from each round of interviews in the sampling and execution of the next round of interviews. What this allowed me to do was to select those types of

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intervie-wees in the second half of the interview phase that had been underrepresented in the first half, in order to allow a diverse range of narratives and perceptions to make an appearance. I be-lieve that while the final sample of my interviewees may not be statistically representative, it is certainly diverse enough to cover the different genders, age groups, lifestyle groups, and eth-nicities present in the Westergasfabriek’s vicinity.

In order to secure these interviews, I chose to approach interview candidates in public space. In practice, I would walk around the Westergasfabriek and its surrounding neighbourhoods, looking for people who were in a sedentary position. If they were not engaged in other activi-ties (e.g., reading, listening to music, sleeping, in the company of others) and if they seemed approachable (i.e., sober), I would greet them and ask whether I could ask them a question. If they agreed, I would enquire whether they lived “around here”. In case they responded affirma-tively, I would proceed to briefly explain that I was doing a research project on the Westergas-fabriek and that I was looking for people living in its surroundings, as I was curious to find out how they experienced living near this park. I would then ask them whether they had time to answer some of my questions. Before explicitly requesting permission to record the conversa-tion, I informed interviewees that their participation was voluntary, that they were free to refuse to answer any question, and that they were allowed to withdraw from the interview at any moment (in accordance with guidelines provided in Bryman, 2008: 123). Furthermore, I emphasised that the recording would only be used for transcription, that any data that could identify the interviewee would be anonymised, and that there was a possibility that I would use their anonymised quotes in the final thesis. I believe this approach allowed them to agree to the interview with informed consent.

As was to be expected, responses to this method were varied. Some people rejected me as soon as I started talking, whereas others invited me to sit down next to them before I had even had the chance to explain what I was doing. In total, I approached 48 potential interviewees, of which 15 (or 31 percent) agreed to a recorded interview. Among the others, some were willing to talk to me about the Westergasfabriek, but not on record (15 percent). Others indicated they would have been willing, but did not live near the park (19 percent). The rest refused to coop-erate (35 percent). A handful of this final group did not speak Dutch or English, or indicated not to be able to sufficiently understand these languages to have a conversation. A more de-tailed overview of the final interviewee selection is presented in the appendix at the end of this thesis.

I realise that this particular style of approaching potential interviewees is sensitive to a sam-pling bias relating to my own (subconscious) decision-making processes on whom to ap-proach. However, I believe that the benefits of the ability to carry out a form of theoretical sampling and the relatively high response rate to face-to-face interview requests outweighed the risks of this approach. Furthermore, I believe this method has yielded a more diverse set of respondents than I would have gathered through snowball sampling.

There was one exception to this method of selection. Through I family member, I learned about someone who had indicated to have moved away from the Haarlemmerweg as a result of

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nuisances perceived from the Westergasfabriek. Thinking she would have useful information in relation to my research questions, I contacted her and did an interview over the phone.

3.5.3 EXECUTION OF INTERVIEWS

Based on the research questions introduced in chapter 1, I set up a number of themes that I wanted to discuss in the interviews. These themes then served as an inspiration for a set of key questions that guided the overall structure of my interviews. Depending on interviewees' replies to these questions, I would occasionally resort to more spontaneous queries if I sensed an interviewee had more relevant views to share on a particular topic.

During the initial interviews, I took a relatively open position in order to elicit respondents’ original narratives in relation to the Westergasfabriek (a strategy inspired by Josselson, 2013). I focused primarily on people’s everyday experience of the park without specifically referring towards specific events or circumstances. This yielded a wealth of information regarding peo-ple’s personal use of the space, but not a lot on their perception of specifically creative activi-ties. For this reason, I took a more focused approach during the later interviews, more actively presenting interviewees with particular situations that related to my research questions. These later interviews therefore provided responses that were generally more dense in terms of ex-planatory value. However, I still believe that the broad range of information I gathered during the initial interviews has been of use in the later stages, as it increased my awareness of people’s general experience of the area, which in turn allowed me to better anticipate and relate to re-spondents’ potential perceptions.

3.6

PROCESS OF ANALYSIS

After completing each interview, I made an effort to transcribe the recording as soon as possi-ble. I then imported these transcriptions into ATLAS.ti analysis software, where I proceeded to code the interviews. I started with a predefined set of codes based on the themes I followed throughout the interviews, while adding new codes where necessary during the coding process itself. Because I started coding during the interview phase, I was able to incorporate insights from the earlier interviews into the execution of later ones. This allowed me to query intervie-wees about particular themes in more detail, while leaving less relevant or less clear themes aside.

Based on my completed code database in ATLAS.ti, I was then able to match interview seg-ments to corresponding research questions, ultimately allowing me to find the relevant data to approach each of these questions. As my codes were more granular than merely the different themes discussed in the subquestion, they allowed me to draw out the most common types of perception and narratives amongst neighbourhood residents. This process resulted in the es-tablishment of the general structure of chapter 4.

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4 RESULTS

This chapter will first discuss the results of my ethnographic observations carried out in and around the Westergasfabriek area. It will then move on to resident’s perception of creative con-sumption and production, based on the data gathered in the qualitative interviews. Next, it will broaden the scope and consider how creative consumption and production influence resi-dents’ perception of publicness of the space. Finally, I will provide an interpretation of those perceptions.

4.1

AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE WESTERGASFABRIEK

Before looking at residents’ perception of Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek, it makes sense to sketch out the physical environments to which these perceptions are subject. With this in mind, this section will provide a largely descriptive account of the Westergasfabriek as a public space. Based on my observation field notes, the subsections below will explore the park’s dif-ferent segments from ethnographic, architectural, and economic perspectives. There will be special attention to the Westergasfabriek as an event space, as this theme will later prove prom-inent in residents’ overall perception of the place. This section will also briefly consider the Westergasfabriek’s role in its direct urban environment. The synthesis resulting from this en-tire section will provide an answer to the first subquestion, concerning the visibility of creative consumption and production at the Westergasfabriek.

4.1.1 CULTUURPARK WESTERGASFABRIEK

Despite being presented as a single cultuurpark, it is possible to identify two distinct areas that, together, form what I have thus far been referring to as the Westergasfabriek. The complex has a western part that is more “creative”, and an eastern part that is more park-like. For clarity, I will from here onwards refer to the creative area as “Westergasfabriek”, and to the park area as “Westerpark”. The contrast between these two areas is clearly visible in the satellite image pre-sented in Figure 3.


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Figure 3: Satellite image of the Westergasfabriek and the Westerpark Data source: Bing Maps. Labels and graphics added by the author.

The Westerpark, on the eastern side of the plot, is a traditional landscape park that has long preceded the Westergasfabriek in its current form as a centre of creative activity. In style and atmosphere, this area feels like a smaller version of Amsterdam’s Vondelpark. Amongst abun-dant greenery, the park features a pond, a dedicated barbecue site, and a children’s playground. It is skirted by an asphalted thoroughfare carrying pedestrians, joggers, and cyclists from the Nassauplein towards the Westergasfabriek and further west. Because this path runs alongside the park rather than straight through it, the pedestrian flow within the Westerpark itself is usually limited to that of its own visitors. This would make the park a relatively quiet place, if it weren’t for the somewhat noisy Haarlemmerweg directly south of the it. When talking to visi-tors in this area, I would often ask them why they had chosen to sit down in the Westerpark rather than in the Westergasfabriek area. Most cited the park’s natural atmosphere as their main reason. Physically, the differences between the Westerpark and the Westergasfabriek are indeed quite pronounced; even though the Westerpark is clearly manmade, it appears much more “natural” than the Westergasfabriek, which is characterised by brick, pavement, and rela-tively little foliage. In the majority of my interviews, respondents clearly differentiated between the two areas, showing that Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek’s bisection is as pronounced in resi-dent’s perception as it is in the satellite image above.

The frontier between the Westerpark and the Westergasfabriek consists of a set of monumental buildings that originally functioned as offices and residences to the gas factory’s management. They later housed the Westerpark city ward office, before adopting their current role as home to a number of private companies in the creative business services industry: IJsfontein (interac-tive media consultancy), THNK (“the Amsterdam School of Crea(interac-tive Leadership”), Pand020 (flexible working spaces for freelancers), and Impact Hub Amsterdam (flexible working spaces for freelancers). In addition to offering places to work, the latter company claims to provide “a community of impact entrepreneurs, pioneers, and changemakers” (Impact Hub, 2015); with-out a doubt, these kinds of people are the supposed protagonists of the creative-cities script as discussed by Peck (2005). Furthermore, these buildings host some editorial departments of TV broadcasting company VARA, whose studios are situated elsewhere at the Westergasfabriek.

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Taken together, these ventures smoothly map onto the previously established definition of cre-ative production. With the first research question in mind, a relevant query is to what extent this creative production is noticeable to visitors of the area. During my observations, I noticed that when standing in front of these buildings, the activities happening inside are barely visi-ble; the only perceptible traces of creative production are company name plates attached to walls and small groups of freelancers occasionally taking breaks in front of their offices. There was more than one occasion where I happened to overhear such a conversation being carried out in posh English, although I am hesitant to infer anything from this. From the Westerpark area, east of these buildings, it is possible to glance through the ground floor windows at the back. However, while attempting this, I was not able to discern much of what was going on inside. While it is possible to see people sitting behind computers, that observation alone does not appear particularly creative. I’m inclined to believe that the relative invisibility of creative production in these buildings is especially likely to hold true for people who have no prior knowledge of the companies housed in these buildings; the residents I spoke to would usually refer to these buildings as the former city ward office or (incorrectly) as the former city hall, and never indicated any awareness of the presence of creative production. This observation will receive more detailed consideration in section 4.2.1, where I discuss residents’ perception of creative production.

Though the Westergasfabriek has access points on each side of its perimeter, the main entrance is situated on its southern edge. There, it is flanked by the Haarlemmertrekvaart, a tow-canal dating back to the early 17th century. A 1950s drawbridge serves as an entrance gate to the area. Despite being of more recent construction than most other structures at the Westergas-fabriek, the bridge’s frame in dark green iron and steel evokes an industrial air that is congru-ent with that of the rest of the complex’ character. After crossing the bridge, one congru-enters a large square, paved with big slabs of concrete. In a display of historical consciousness, one of my interviewees indicated that while she didn’t find this use of concrete particularly appealing, she believed it to be part of the space’s industrial heritage. West of this square, one finds the heart of the Westergasfabriek area. Along both sides of the Pazzanistraat, a number of iconic build-ings arise. The north side of this street presents four small properties that house the Ketelhuis cinema, ice cream shop IJscuypje, and INFACT, a store selling clothing produced from organic cotton. The Pazzanistraat’s southern flank boasts a chain of colossal buildings that define the ambience of the area. These former gas purifying plants now serve a variety of new uses, among which are television studios, restaurants, a bicycle shop, a jazz bar, and cafes. In fashion of true creative consumption, a specialty beer brewery is currently under construction (Van Geuns, 2015b). The southern side of the same building complex predominantly houses firms in creative production, most of which do not engage with park visitors or the street outside, turning this part of the Polonceaukade into a generally lacklustre stretch. This is exacerbated by the quay’s relatively concealed entry points.

While the Westergasfabriek’s Pazzanistraat provides a wide range of consumptive amenities, it is redundant to discuss all of them in detail. Instead, I will describe two facilities that I believe are representative of the Westergasfabriek’s overall atmosphere as a space of consumption.

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The most prominent building near the Westergasfabriek's main entrance is the Bakkerswinkel. Situated next to the drawbridge, this cafe is lodged in the former regulateurshuis, characterised by decorative brickwork in the neo-renaissance style that is used throughout the complex. Be-cause of its wooden canopy and a circular clock mounted on the side of the building, it is somewhat reminiscent of early Dutch train stations. The cafe offers breakfast, lunch, and high tea, using predominantly local and organic products (Westergasfabriek, 2014a). Prices are rela-tively high, and the menu has a quirky design that emphasises a handmade aesthetic. The inte-rior, constructed by renowned Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek, has a heavy focus on wood, and can be described as rustic. The high-ceiled space is dominated by a long table with an eclectic range of wooden chairs and benches.

Further west along the Pazzanistraat, one finds the Espressofabriek. Translating to “espresso factory”, this cafe’s moniker is a clear industrial reference. The place’s aesthetic matches this image: the inside of the building’s facade is a white painted brick wall covered in pipes that extend throughout the rest of the space. The concrete floor looks rough and sleek at the same time. Bouquets of bare lightbulbs dangle from the ceiling to provide lighting over the large wooden table that is accompanied by a collection of vintage chairs. To counter (or comple-ment) these raw, retro elements, the cafe’s bar stools are unquestionably modern in both their shape and material. Large photographic prints adorn the walls, and the corner of the ground floor hosts a table with myriad specialty coffee equipment for sale. In the same open space, right above the cafe is an attic-like floor that is used to roast coffee beans. Unlike more conven-tional coffee shops, the Espressofabriek does not have a menu on the wall behind the counter. Instead, a list of available products is attached to a clipboard somewhere on the outer edge of the bar; this could imply that most customers are expected to know what is on offer here, and that price is generally not expected be a decisive factor in one’s order.

Both Espressofabriek and De Bakkerswinkel heavily rely on a visual identity in the presentation of their brand, and in both cases, the Westergasfabriek’s interior and exterior architecture ap-pears to be an essential part of it. As such, these two amenities are good examples of aestheti-cised and symbolic consumption typical of the experience economy. Products are not only dif-ferentiated by quality, origin, or authenticity (e.g. coffee beans from Kenya, or artisanal bread with local cheeses), but their consumptive environment is made part of the product — or rather, the experience.

The middle of the Westergasfabriek area features a big, open, convex field of grass, roughly 20 thousand square meters in size, dubbed the “manifestation area”. The park’s website states that the field was constructed in order to allow the hosting of large events, while emphasising that the field’s primary purpose is a “neighbourhood function” (Westergasfabriek, 2014b). On normal days, the field is used for a wide variety of activities that could indeed be said to fulfil a neighbourhood function. People can be seen picnicking, sunbathing, playing sports, or just relaxing in the grass. Especially on weekends and Wednesday afternoons, the field is a hotspot for families. On other days, the field is host to special events, some examples of which I will further explicate in section 4.2. On the north, the field is bordered by a pond. Beyond this pond, the terrain slopes upwards, forming a physical barrier between the Westergasfabriek and the adjacent railway tracks. From up on this hill, or “amphitheatre” (ibid.), one can sit down to

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observe the entire field, which visitors often do on sunny days. The eastern part of the field sports a number of picnic tables, with some trees offering shade. On this end, the pond has been made suitable for children to play in, making it into a family-oriented area. This site fre-quently sports a charming little ice cream truck. During my observations, I witnessed several birthday parties being hosted around these picnic spots; people would decorate trees with fes-toons and bring their own food and drinks to the park.

The Gashouder, or gas holder, is an imposing and somewhat mysterious edifice on the west side of the Westergasfabriek area (see Figures 4 and 5). A container for gas in a previous life-time, the building is now utilised as an event space with a capacity of 3500 visitors (Westergas-fabriek, 2014c). Sporting a diameter of roughly 50 meters, a 15 meter height, and a completely open interior, the Gashouder is suitable for a wide range of activities, including conferences, exhibitions, trade fairs, and dance events. The building is undeniably industrial, and this is central to how the space is marketed by its owners:

“The Gashouder is the most characteristic building of the Westergasfabriek. The round interior without pillars and the cast iron ceiling construction are unique. Those who visit an event here will never forget it. (…) The Gashouder is a place of extremes. Those who think big, those who dare, they are ready for the Gashouder.”


— Westergasfabriek, 2014c. Translated by the author.

From the outside, there is no opportunity to peek inside the property, adding to the enigmatic appeal of this colossal structure. This is exacerbated by the fact that most events taking place inside the building are not publicly accessible. For most of the park’s visitors, the Gashouder will thus mainly serve as a monumental ornament supporting the Westergasfabriek’s industrial aesthetic, rather than fulfilling a key recreative function. In fact, during the interviews, I

no-Figure 4: View of the Gashouder Figure 5: Detailed view of the Gashouder Photographs by the author.

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ticed that some people use the term “Westergasfabriek” exclusively (and somewhat erroneous-ly) for this building, instead of for the entire complex of buildings.

Across from the Gashouder, one finds a another set of old industrial buildings. These now host a cafe-restaurant (Westergasterras), a night club (WesterUnie), and event locations available for rent (WesterLiefde, Transformatorhuis). Like the Gashouder, these establishments, too, use their industrial heritage in their marketing efforts. South of these buildings, across the Wester-gasfabriek’s west-east axis, the fundaments of two former gas holders have been converted into ponds (see Figure 4 for a partial view of one of them). This heritage still shows in their perfect-ly circular construction, although I doubt most people would make the connection with gas holders without having heard the history first. Each of these ponds is lined with a crescent-shaped ledge that invites people to sit down by the water. Their two entrances are relatively well-concealed by the surrounding greenery and the ponds’ placement outside of the Wester-gasfabriek’s main sight lines. Metal rims extending upwards along the circumference of the ponds add another layer of privacy. As a result, this area is usually relatively quiet in compari-son to the rest of the Westergasfabriek. During my observations, I was surprised to find that even on days with large-scale events elsewhere in the park, the ledges along the ponds would often be completely deserted.

Even further west is an area named Cité des Arts, although that title seems hardly appropriate at this point in time; the area is relatively empty, feels incomplete, and certainly doesn’t have the air of an art district. A restaurant (Raïnaraï) serving Algerian food is the only real source of activity here. Next to this restaurant are two intriguing buildings that are part of a project titled KunstENhuis. This name can mean both house of arts, as well as art and house. From out-side the buildings, it’s hard to decipher their exact function, but an online search reveals that they serve as a cultural studio for local artists and as a residence for an artist-in-residence (Andriesse, 2008).

4.1.2 SPECIAL EVENTS AT THE WESTERGASFABRIEK

Aside from permanent forms of production and consumption situated at the Westergasfabriek, creative consumption is also present in a more transient manner. Throughout the year, the Cultuurpark hosts a large number of monthly, seasonal, annual and one-off events. These hap-penings include public markets and festivals celebrating food, music, and other forms of cul-ture, as well as private events that are not publicly accessible without a ticket or invitation. Sev-eral such events took place during the timeframe of my research. As these events relate to the research questions and often formed an important reference point for interviewed neighbour-hood residents, I will describe a selection of exemplifying events below.

4.1.2.1 Rollende Keukens

One of the most prominent events (both in scale and renown) to occur during the research timeframe was an annual food festival titled Het Weekend van de Rollende Keukens, or The Weekend of the Rolling Kitchens. Rather than lasting for a weekend, as the festival’s title would

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