We're on a 6+ month sabbatical to Amsterdam! Look through our eyeballs at Dutch art and design (contemporary to 700 years old). Topics include art, footwear, ecological sustainability, windmills, traditional handcraft, train travel and snack food discoveries. Though art is our interest, we are reporting on a wide range of things - our only rule is it must be FUN to write and FUN to read. xo, LeBrie and Bill
Dutch Treat: Huttendorp!
Hi there! We're Bill and LeBrie. You're receiving this email because you signed up for Dutch Treat, our twice-monthly newsletter of discoveries while we are living in Amsterdam. If you enjoy the newsletter, forward it to a friend. And if this email was forwarded to you, get your own. 📫
The Infrastructure of Play
Friends,
We were enjoying the Zuiderzee Museum, when beyond the museum walls we heard the most beguiling sound. It was so loud! And so joyful! Of course, we investigated. And what we discovered was: huttendorp!
Schoolkids all over the Netherlands spend a week of summer vacation at a day camp devoted to building wood forts. At the huttendorp ('hut village') kids are organized in groups of ten with two adult/teen helpers. They spend every day dragging wooden pallets from a giant pile and nailing them together with plywood. The sound that we heard was a symphony of swinging hammers and screams of joy.
We talked to a teen helper who proudly explained how it works. Some things we learned: kids are required to wear close-toed shoes, but no other safety gear. He admitted it was a little dangerous, but that danger is fun and important for children (!). At his childhood huttendorp, at the end of the week, they dragged all the hut materials into a pile and had a huge bonfire. This teen loved the experience so much as a kid that he became a volunteer as soon as he could.
There was also a craft tent, and a makeshift slip and slide that was a blue tarp with lots of plywood, and a homemade wading pool (more blue tarps and plywood).
A huttendorp is the good, hard work of childhood play. What could be more important than that?
Signing off, LeBrie + Bill
Related: Park Play Structures
Highlights: never plastic, sometimes tall, sometimes dangerous.
Final thought
From Russell Shorto's Amsterdam:
"Birth control is presented to teenagers as a matter of course; the famous "double Dutch" method---girls taking birth control pills and boys using condoms---has resulted in one of the world's lowest rates of teen pregnancy and one of the lowest rates of abortion.... sex is viewed as a matter not of secrecy but of health and normalcy. You see the same view reflected in the movies, where films that have R ratings in the United States for sexual content are open for all ages in Amsterdam. The flip side: a PG-13 film in the United States might be rated for adults only in the Netherlands, where movie violence that Americans think unexceptional is considered something to shield children from."
LeBrie + Bill - Dutch Treat
We're on a 6+ month sabbatical to Amsterdam! Look through our eyeballs at Dutch art and design (contemporary to 700 years old). Topics include art, footwear, ecological sustainability, windmills, traditional handcraft, train travel and snack food discoveries. Though art is our interest, we are reporting on a wide range of things - our only rule is it must be FUN to write and FUN to read. xo, LeBrie and Bill
Hi there! We're Bill and LeBrie. You're receiving this email because you signed up for Dutch Treat, our twice-monthly newsletter of discoveries while we are living in Amsterdam. If you enjoy the newsletter, forward it to a friend. And if this email was forwarded to you, get your own. 📫 A Collection of Hands During our last trip to Amsterdam in 2019 Bill began photographing details of hands in paintings. He's continued that as an ongoing project. These are from from the Rijksmuseum in...
Hi there! We're Bill and LeBrie. You're receiving this email because you signed up for Dutch Treat, our twice-monthly newsletter of discoveries while we are living in Amsterdam. If you enjoy the newsletter, forward it to a friend. And if this email was forwarded to you, get your own. 📫 This Dutch Treat is a rebroadcast of an email LeBrie wrote to her personal list. We both thought you would enjoy it. Now that our summer of adventure is slowing down, expect to see more frequent missives from...
Hi there! We're Bill and LeBrie. You're receiving this email because you signed up for Dutch Treat, our twice-monthly newsletter of discoveries while we are living in Amsterdam. If you enjoy the newsletter, forward it to a friend. And if this email was forwarded to you, get your own. 📫 The Bosch Parade There are accordion players inside the mouth. We have now lived in the Netherlands for about 7 weeks and we have already seen a lot of interesting and amusing things. Last Thursday we went to...