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New Zuidas Guide to Announce Streets that are NOT Under Construction Zuidas is growing - you can tell because of all
Of course Zuidas needs construction,
weeks! We must flip them to the other side.
the ‘Detour’ signs. We wanted to offer a guide
and every detour means progress: faster
We have to be fair to both sides of the brick.’
to getting around the detours, but - let’s be
internet cables, better bike lanes, the biggest
honest - most of you just bike through them
underground bike parking garage. And each
And how perfect that this year’s ArtZuid
anyway. Instead, we offer a guide of gratitude
project is apparently planned so that - once
Sculpture Route gave prominent placement
- to all (well, some) of the streets that are
a street is finished for two weeks - it’s then
to a construction-themed exhibit. On the
NOT construction zones. Unfortunately,
ripped up again. Yes, we must accommodate
Apollolaan - just outside the Amsterdam
by the time of publication, many of these
traffic; but we must also accommodate
Hilton - was a sculpture depicting a dump-
streets will again be construction zones.
‘The Brick Flippers.’ The Brick Flippers are
truck container, completely buried in the
employed by the city to pull the bricks up from
gravel it was meant to contain. This is the
It’s hard not to encounter road construction
one side of the road and replace them on the
theme of construction in Zuidas. It may
in the Netherlands. Indeed, the Dutch term
other side. The code of the Brick Flippers:
seem like chaos, grown out of control.
for ‘Road Closed’ is ‘de straat is open,’
‘Some bricks have been face down for two
But actually, it’s a work of art.
literally ‘the street is open.’ It’s like a quote from Dutch football guru Johan Cruyff: ‘Only when a street is closed to traffic can it be truly open.’
Gregory Shapiro (b.1968) Comedian. American. Dutchman. And the voice of Trump in the ‘Netherlands Second’ video from ‘Zondag Met Lubach.’ Shapiro came to Amsterdam to work with Boom Chicago comedy theater and never left. Along the way he has hosted ‘Comedy Central News.’ He has written 2 books on Dutch culture, including How to Be Dutch: the Quiz. As host of ‘United States of Europe,’ Shapiro offers a ‘Daily Show’ for the EU. Making fun of Europe, the American way.
Photography Davien Hulsman