A few years ago, the Volkskrant (one of the countries biggest newspaper) moved office to a new location. Their old headquarter now houses hundreds of artists and musician; along with dance studios, a bar/club with panorama over the city, a dreadlock 'doctor', a Russian cultural centre, a cyberpunk gallery and my photo studio on the 4th floor. It was a conscious choice by the founders to create a total melting pot. In the basement for example, 3 doors away from our music studio, you will find some cheerful weed smoking hiphop producers from the Bijlmer (the 'ghetto' of Amsterdam); an ex-yougoslavian hardcore drummer with a full analogue recording studio and a ballet school run by an obese woman in her 70's. Ok, it might seem artificial, but it really is quite magical!

One of the best dinners you'll have in Amsterdam! The wine and ambiance are amazing - get the small rotisserie chicken, what they are known for!

My studio is situated on top of a Fifties concrete modernist apartment building in the Rivierenbuurt in the south of Amsterdam. The best thing is that my building is just one floor higher then the rest of the houses in the neighborhood so I get a good view of the city and the ever changing Dutch skies. What makes my view really special is the view from the balcony on an inaccessible inner garden. The garden is made on the roof of a parking garage of an office building and nobody can go there since there are no stairs or entrance. Once a year the gardeners come with a tall ladder. They are the only ones that enter the garden ever. The nice thing is that still there is a winding path in the middle of the garden for only your eye to trace it.

A few years ago I had a conversation with a staff member from Uytenhaak Architects about concealed texts in Amsterdam, relating to my own work ‘stoned forever’, which is integrated in brickwork in the Olympic Quarter. He said that there is a text in Morse code incorporated into the Droogbak (1989), a residential building by Uytenhaak: ‘Deze muur staat er niet’ (‘This wall isn’t here’). It is located close to the railway line. Rudy Uytenhaak later told me that this was his last opportunity to protest against the acoustic fence that had to be constructed for bureaucratic reasons.

Mussels, french fries and gin & tonics... need I say more?