Why Amsterdam is Building a New Red Light District

this is the design of Amsterdam's new erotic Center commissioned by the city government in 2020 it's a concept for a 5 000 square meter high-rise with hotel rooms offices bars entertainment facilities a store and a restaurant when it's finished it will be one of Europe's largest and most advanced brothels and as interesting as its design are the locations that it's being considered for locations on the outskirts of the city so why did Amsterdam's government commission the design of this new building Wyatt locations far from its historic redlit Center and why are people so angry back

in 2009 a labor politician waited the city was voting on a plan he had spearheaded a plan called project 1012 named after the zip code of the city's most notorious red light district it was designed to clean it up low quality buildings such as window brothels and coffee shops had to go but instead of making new regulations the lawmaker was praised for a unique approach his solution was spatial by a buildings associated with crime and push crime away the city government was convinced and his plan would pass little did they all know it would soon

collapse over the course of more than a decade it would lead to the closure of more than a hundred individual window brothels along with tens of individual coffee shops however when attempts were made to measure the impact of project 1012 not much could be found it had a marginal impact on crime and today the center's image as an adult theme park with Shady edges still remain strong but if there's one thing his plan did do was that it created a rift among hundreds of sex workers in the city government of Amsterdam one that persists even

as the newest mayor picks up the mantle again and tries to change the center even more in 2020 the city government banned organized tours of the red light district in May of 2023 bands on cannabis within the district entirely there's also been mandated bar closures bans on the sale and display of alcohol and even ad campaigns targeted towards young to middle-aged British men she in the executive body have even floated the idea of banning International tourists from buying marijuana in the city entirely she's also brought up the idea of introducing entrance gates to the red

light district this would create the first physically regulated neighborhood in a major European city not even Venice does that but our most controversial suggestions started soon after her nomination in 2019 when she brought attention towards changing the rooms in the red light district again [Music] Amsterdam there are actually three separate red light districts the most well known is in the center called davala which has 249 rooms but the other two and much less well-known are the single khobit and the rostolkata which if 63 and 40 rooms respectively in 2019 femca halsima the newest mayor of

Amsterdam presented four scenarios for the future of the Vala three of those scenarios targeted each of these districts in order to reduce over tourism her first scenario was to change window prostitution permanently Amsterdam closes all the curtains in the vola and single while the rooms stay open if a lot of the attraction to the red light district is simply to be able to walk around and look take away what people look at and you not only reduce potential tourists but push the tourists that do come to other parts of the city with increased digitization sex

workers can increasingly rely on getting clients via their phones rather than off the streets the assumption is that this would just speed up an inevitable transformation from physical Windows to digital ones in her second scenario Amsterdam would see the most radical change all the rooms in the vola and single are removed and shifted to other parts of the city the number of rooms does not change like it did in Project 1012 but their locations do however because closing all the rooms in Nevada is highly unrealistic the city government is going forward with hulsimus third and

most realistic scenario instead of all a chunk of the rooms in the vola and single are moved although it's more realistic the city government has not made it clear how large that chunk will actually be but different from Project 1012 alsama has made the commitment that when rooms get removed they have to come someplace new at the start the government considered two building types a single unit high-rise and the second a cluster of different multi-function buildings they also commissioned Research into building on a floating Pavilion the design is meant to anticipate for about a hundred

individual rooms for sex workers and also other entertainment facilities on the one hand the city wants to model Pasha when it comes to size Posh is the world's largest brothel however it's not a particularly welcoming or friendly looking building so on the other hand they also want to model the more modern less sketchy design of antwerp's largest brothel Villa Tinto but these brothels aside there's a few things that make Amsterdam's new erotic Center completely different the mayor of Amsterdam knows that a brothel is controversial this is why she hopes Amsterdam can make one with class

and distinction by mixing hotel rooms with painting courses art exhibitions in a debate Center the hope is that they can avoid designing an isolated sex Palace for an actual physical model they commissioned Moog a Dutch architecture Studio to come up with a design The Architects giannisito and Jurgen tenhuva designed a concept that attempts to convert the linear streets of the red light district into a circular form inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Sito when an architecture prize for making a design that repurposed two sugar silos into a cultural center with internal circular walkways the other

architect was nominated for the same prize in 2018 for his design of a collection of buildings modeled after a monastery it was a network of buildings superimposed in Notre Dame that attempts to give an option for pedestrians to leave the busyness of the city together both Architects produce an interesting combination you get a building that kind of looks like a parking garage with A continuous walkway that allows you to walk in the building as you would in the vola but circularly as opposed to linearly also instead of a floor of the same individual homogeneous hotel

rooms it also attempts to recreate the network of the buildings on the street on each individual floor as well to choose a location for the building the city government considered eight regions and as of today they've narrowed it down to two main locations and ASM in north and around the guy in zoud in North Amsterdam would have to deviate someone from the original Moog design and construct a floating brothel it's likely that it'll be a Bonton of around 100 by 20 meters with two thousand square meters of space for five total floors one basement One

Roof Terrace and with the remainder holding the rooms and other facilities the government also considered repurposing a cruise ship since it would already be readily equipped with rooms bars theaters and attractions like casinos however a cruise ship has a large number of constraints making it an unlikely option and asm's preferred location comes from the fact that it's a diverse culturally rich neighborhood there's plenty of room for additional buildings such as for any needed security or additional parking but it also hosts one of the largest flea markets in Europe has multiple popular restaurants and cultural attractions

and it also has a high density of mixed residential use areas nonetheless ndsm has a weakness its most immediate connection is via Ferry not only is that slower than other forms of public transport but a ferry can only withstand so many more people Amsterdam has considered Building Bridges to North but it's unclear how long that would take or if they'll ever be built at all so ndsm's main fault is its reachability but ndsm's biggest benefit is that it's considerably hipper than the other section of the city that's under consideration is the poshest and most entitled

area of Amsterdam and offers two plots the grunozone a 2 000 square meter triangular piece of land and then a second likely the preferred option a 21 500 square meter plot of land owned by the city government directly unlike the singular Ferry Connection in Nord zet has access to two Metro connections one that goes from north to south giving potential clients from the center and media access and it also has a Metro going from east to west granting direct access to Amsterdam's business district what it loses in being a hip and chill place to be

it gains inaccessibility it also has ample parking space however what both North and South still have in common is that there are nimbies homeowners have voiced concerns about noise criminality and impact on children in the area some sex workers have also voiced concerns about their own safety according to the city government the building will likely be a safer option than the status quo instead of sparse separated buildings in an overcrowded neighborhood a single building would have a centralized security system with a clear oversight over who enters and who leaves the erotic Center does what project

1012 couldn't it gets rid of rooms in the center but without pushing sex workers into an unregulated underground also unlike the vola which makes his tourists with potential clients the new building is meant to attract primarily the clients some sex workers have complained that over tourism has reduced their incomes because large crowds make actual potential clients too self-conscious to consume according to the city government a well-connected but more isolated building reduce the attraction of the red light district for tourists attract more clients than in the center increasing sex workers incomes but it would also be

quieter tourists are loud but clients are the type of people who want to be private and have as little attention drawn to them as possible however this is also where some more difficult problems emerge davola with all of its issues still has a unique Advantage there's a lot of eyes on the street in the same way that it may make some clients too self-conscious to consume it may do the same for more serious criminals and this is where you get the nimbies homeowners would like a building that's as invisible as possible this is why the

mayor has also promised a closed isolated building that brings very little attention however the more isolated and quiet the area the more concerns about sex workers safety also the city already has problems with the number of police and security since the vola isn't entirely removed by building a neurotic Center you end up producing a fourth red light district which potentially spreads an already thin police force even thinner so the mayor has had problems she's faced considerable backlash at town halls and she's had to postpone making decisions on the erotic Center however since 2021 hulsma has

had a majority in the government people can postpone and argue all they want but all three parties hunlings Des have agreed beat an isolated building cruise ship floating Pavilion North or in South some rooms in the vola must be removed and instead they must come somewhere new however a new erotic Center may not even be Amsterdam's most controversial plan the city government has also proposed replacing its historic famous public urinals with an advanced ai-powered urinal that comes out of the ground the story is fascinating and I've made an entirely different video on it that you

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