In Perspective #2: Centres for the arts: threatened and promising - urban facilities

My father had received a visit from Amsterdam. It was a gentleman from the Association for Creativity Development VCO. He came to advise on how to set up a creativity centre and how to apply for a subsidy from the municipality. Goldsmithing was my father's hobby - secretly that was the profession he had hoped for as a boy - and in our hometown, he lacked the opportunity to be taught it. And so he initiated a creativity centre in Zevenaar. That actually got off the ground.

The centre later merged with the music school and is now part of Kunstwerk!, the Zevenaar umbrella which, apart from the arts centre, also includes the museum, the theatre, the folk high school and the library. A combination like the one developing in more and more places. When my father enthusiastically told me about his visit from Amsterdam - it was in the 1960s - I could not have imagined that one day I too would have to deal with the world of music schools and creativity centres.

Now that I think back on it, it's actually kind of an absurdity: I both finished and built an arts centre. There was not much time between those two assignments (2005 and 2009), Both went with great haste. Both took place against the backdrop of financial woes and a searching, groping government. And they are typical cases for how governments struggle to find a good place for their music schools, creativity centres or combinations thereof. But they are also typical of the flexibilisation of the labour market from, say, 1990 onwards.

With thanks to Sjoerd Kooistra

In Amsterdam, there was Sjoerd Kooistra, the Groningen hospitality tycoon who bankrupted cafes by the conveyor belt, a process he made good money from, but which left many of his employees unemployed. At the time, Kunstweb Amsterdam found itself in the red and lost the alderman's trust. She pulled the subsidy plug. But the city council thought of Sjoerd Kooistra. Indeed, shortly before Christmas, some 80 employees lost their jobs at Kunstweb; they had already applied for WW. The municipality did not have to become a Kooistra, and so my order was: reinstate all employees immediately, draw up a social plan, find work for them elsewhere and take six months to a year for the winding down.

To be honest, I was surprised at the time that the City of Amsterdam did not seize this opportunity to develop a metropolitan centre for the arts. Kunstweb was doing well with many disciplines for immigrant youth groups and was very much at home in Zuid Oost. The music school was super decent, but had a reputation for being old-fashioned and elitist: more Amsterdam Zuid than Amsterdam Bijlmer. The city did not seize the opportunity for synergy between the two. However, a strict separation between the supply to the schools and mediation in arts education did emerge. In some municipalities - or should I say in some policy periods? - this is a sacrosanct principle. There is great fear of mixing functions and false competition. Seems cold to me! You can very well prevent unfair behaviour with clear rules of the game and open processes. And then you don't have to throw expertises apart, no unnecessary separation between the practically acting providers on the one hand and the mediators with their overview and educational knowledge. And you reduce the risk of bureaucracy.

Let many flowers bloom?

Many of the Kunstweb contributors landed on their feet. They started working individually or collectively as independent providers in education: the Taaldrukwerkplaats, the new initiative for primary education SEP, the centre for visual arts amateurs MK24, ClickF1 developing media and culture projects for young people and other diverse initiatives such as by museum experts. Meanwhile, the City of Amsterdam established Mocca as a mediator for schools and commissioned researchers from abroad to audit the quality of arts education.

In addition to the Music School Amsterdam, two more municipally subsidised music providers are now active: music centre Aslan and Het Leerorkest. Amsterdam has thus not targeted one combined institution, but rather more flowers have begun to bloom. In the other three largest cities: Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, institutions that for years were central players and served both schools and individuals (SKVR, Koorenhuis and UCK ) have disappeared from the scene. There, too, the municipality focuses on schools and social connections, not on individual students. In some other big cities, things are different. In Groningen, Vrijdag offers courses for amateurs as well as projects for schools. In Eindhoven, CKE Eindhoven does the same, but there there is also Cultuurstation Eindhoven as an independent mediator and advisor for schools.

How do you do this properly?

What is the best solution? That the municipality chooses its own layout, according to what suits the local situation. And a clear separation of different functions? One set of providers and advisers? Or rather a unified institution recognisable to all? In any case, I think you should mainly look at what consumers and schools need most and what they are best served by. And above all: how to most powerfully achieve the necessary diversity and inclusion. But let's look at the Heerenveen case study first and then come back to it.

Part two tomorrow.