Nikola Edelsztejn | The UvA’s city centre buildings complex is in a state of disrepair
Columnist Nikola Edelsztejn feels somewhat out of place in the UvA buildings in the city centre. “All year long, I’ve had the feeling that the P.C. Hoofthuis mainly functions as a transfer station between home and the rest of the day. Hanging around on campus, as is so tempting on Roeterseiland, is much less common there.”
When I transferred from the Faculty of Law to the Faculty of Humanities, not only did my academic profile change, but so did my learning environment. Whereas I previously spent four days a week wandering around the Roeterseiland Campus—the heart of the university—I now often find myself relatively alone in the buildings of the old city centre. Walking past the Oudemanhuispoort or the P.C. Hoofthuis, you are much less likely to feel as though you are passing through a university campus. Is this concentration of university life around Roeterseiland really such a good thing for the student experience?
Anonymity
There are two sides to this story. On the one hand, I enjoy the relative anonymity of being a “non-Roeters” student. The fifteen-minute walk from Central Station to the P.C. Hoofthuis is shared with groups of British tourists dressed in Prada and Burberry, searching for pre-rolled joints. In their eyes, I could be anyone: perhaps another tourist who simply knows the city a bit better, someone on their way to work, or just a bon vivant taking a stroll through the historic city centre before stopping somewhere for coffee.
On the other hand, I myself have no idea where the people around the UvA’s city-centre buildings are headed. All year long, I’ve had the feeling that the P.C. Hoofthuis mainly serves as a transfer station between home and the rest of the day. Lingering on campus, as is so tempting on Roeterseiland, is far less common here.
In a city like Amsterdam, logistical constraints are unavoidable. The mere fact that the Roeterseiland Campus exists is remarkable, given the scarcity of space in the city. By building vertically, keeping outdoor space limited, and respecting the neighbourhood’s street layout, the university has made the most of the site. Although it may not be the most beautiful building in Amsterdam from the outside, it fits well within the character of the Wibautstraat and Weesperstraat. From a distance, the complex does not stand out as something entirely different.
Social success
It is tempting to think that the social success of Roeterseiland is mainly due to the fact that more students from a wider variety of programmes pass through it every day. But I believe we should also look at the role the campus plays as the university’s flagship location.
With the new University Library, we have seen that the University of Amsterdam has entered an era of far-reaching centralisation. The institution seems to prefer keeping students and staff concentrated in a few large locations, in the interest of institutional uniformity, leaving the smaller faculty buildings behind.
The university also likes to make things easy for students in its more “prestigious” programmes: everything in one place—and preferably the best place. No twenty-minute walk through an overcrowded city centre only to end up in a poorly ventilated room among a collection of classrooms so badly in need of maintenance that some are no longer even used for teaching.
Crumbling buildings
In the coming years, however, the UvA faces a choice. There is clearly not enough room on the Roeterseiland Campus to accommodate all Humanities students, yet the collection of city-centre faculty buildings is in a state of decay. At some foreign universities, these crumbling buildings have a certain charm, attracting a mix of students who gather outside with a coffee and a cigarette. Here, however, they resemble abandoned office buildings—places that offer no invitation whatsoever to stay any longer than necessary.
The university administration must therefore ask itself a fundamental question: do we value the social dimension of university life enough to reconsider, at least partially, the current course of centralisation?
