Our Letter to the Mayor of Rotterdam.
The exhibition ‘Letters to the Mayor: Rotterdam’ is a result of a collaboration on the theme of ‘City Forces’ between Het Nieuwe Instituut and Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. As a part of this project, 66 architects and urbanists wrote 46 letters to the Mayor of Rotterdam. The letters were on show (together with their audio recordings) from 12 January to 11 February 2018.
Amateur Cities wrote one of the 46 letters expressing our concerns about changes in Rotterdam resulting in growing inequalities and lack of affordable housing. You can read the full letter here.
If Rotterdam is to be truly resilient and prepared for a future where human migration will only intensify, it has to make everyone, and not only the white upper middle class, feel welcome and at home. The history of the city, already provides an advantage compared to other Dutch cities and Rotterdam should grow together with its current and future inhabitants. The success of the city should be the natural consequence of the prosperity of its citizens.
During the exhibition opening, Mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb invited the letter writers to summarise the 46 letters in the 5 most pressing themes for the city of Rotterdam. These topics were presented to Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb and Alderman Said Kasmi of the Education, Culture, and Tourism on March 4, 2019, during a meeting at City Hall, in the form of the publication ‘Letters to the Mayor: Rotterdam’. Amateur Cities together with Negar Sanaan Bensi, Jere Kuzmanic, Ameneh Solati, Marta Roy Torrecilla, and Andrea Prins contributed to the theme focusing on housing titled ‘Housing a Human Right and a Monument to Diversity’.
