The Rotterdam Allotment Gardens Striving for Improvement were suddenly confronted with a plan by the municipality to clear and demolish 1/3 of the complex, approximately 60 gardens, to build an artificial grass football field for the football club Steeds Hoger, which is also growing. With joint efforts, the allotment gardeners managed to prevent this. How did they manage to stop the demolition plans? How did they succeed in what, for example, the residential areas Tweebos and de Wielewaal failed to do: convince the city of their right to exist? Perhaps we can learn something from the approach of the gardeners. FGA asks Renee Turner and Cesare Davolio. They speak in a mix of English and Dutch.
Striving for Improvement has existed since 1938. The site borders Diergaarde Blijdorp, the Roel Langerakpark, train tracks and the highway, but you feel like you are in a forest: between the large tall trees, houses and gardens of all shapes and sizes.
The association VTV-SNV is alive and kicking, there are 243 gardens, as can be read on the website, and the allotment gardeners manage and maintain not only their own garden but also the shared paths, lanes, lawns, verges, ditches, and the parking lot. Together they give about 2870 hours per year voluntarily to 'general work' and 38.880 hours to development and maintenance of their gardens.
Renee Turner and Cesare Davolio were involved in the actions that prevented demolition, together with many other allotment gardeners on the site. They have a beautiful garden-with-a-house on the complex. Renee is an artist, teacher and writer. In her PhD research, their small garden is central as a hub of countless stories and histories that come together in complex interweaving. Cesare is a designer and animator and teaches at the Willem de Kooning Academy.
