There’s a great big house on the banks of the Nieuwe Mass river in Rotterdam’s Delshaven district, on the city’s east side. Where all about it has been bulldozed away, leaving fresh concrete piles behind wire fencing in its wake, this former East India Company maritime warehouse, later used as a soda factory and seconded for the last two years as headquarters of the aptly named Worm organisation, offers a new take on creative urban renewal.
Because, while inside the labyrinthine confines of Worm’s club/venue/bar/shop bounces with off-the-map late-night life oozing with boho underground cred, its mix of original red-brick and science fiction style fittings marks it out as the most environmentally friendly hang-out in town.
Kitted out with recycled fixtures and fittings designed so nary a nail need be hammered into a wall as it may be, none of this matters much to those in search of left-field Saturday night activity. DJs playing low-level sounds in the downstairs shop beside racks of vinyl, CDs and gloriously anachronistic cassettes by cutting edge international artists and Dutch improvisers. Upstairs in the mezzanine bar where beer is a mere Euro per glass and independently designed t-shirts are displayed, sounds are equally discrete.
It’s round the corner, though, in Worm’s main club room, where it’s all really kicking off. Shock & Awe is a messed up club night, where lap-top artists Eats Tapes are followed by American hip hop crew CX Kidtronix. Last week, former Henry Cow and Pere Ubu drummer Chris Cutler was playing. A few months ago American drummer Chris Corsano was scheduled. Lightning Bolt, Sunn ))), Deerhoof and veteran Dutch punks The Ex have all showed face at Worm. Next, it’s former Geraldine Fibbers singer Carla Bozulich’s turn.
Other nights at Worm feature film shows and art exhibitions. There’s a radio stations with an archive of gigs from the likes of English improviser AMM’s Keith Rowe. Facilities are on hand for recording, filming, editing, cutting, pasting, event producing and partying. Worm, then, is a very 21st century embodiment of a 1960s inspired counter-cultural arts lab writ large. But how did it get here?
Until moving to Delfshaven, Worm’s core group of artists, anarcho-entrepreneurs and creative organisers led what it describes as a “vagabond existence” after being forced to leave its previous home on the Rochussenstraat in 2003. After endless negotiations with the local council, and with the support of development agencies, Worm was finally awarded management of its current home, though only on a temporary basis.
Part of the agreement with the council was that in no way should any structural alterations take place either inside or outside of the building, and that, in keeping with its transitory status, all fixtures must be removable, and must comply with local health and safety regulations.
Where such bureaucracy might dissuade less hardy souls in search of autonomous spaces, Worm enlisted the services of architectural agency, 2012 Architecten. Under the auspices of Cesare Peeren, Jan Jongert and Jeroen Bergsma, the company decided to trash the building. Or rather, they decreed to recycle materials to help transform a building already steeped in history into an even more unique space that looks and feels like the gloriously wonky result of some mad professor’s futuresonic workshop.
Appropriated in this way, features are immediately recogniseable from their former use. Bicycle handlebars are used as door-handles. Car tyres become chairs. Second-hand double glazing is used as acoustic dampening material. The unisex toilets hold particular pride of place, as, set off just beside the venue’s front entrance, what look like industrial work-place shower cubicles are actually former liquid tanks acquired from the nearby docks.
A snake-like array of pipes is in full view, giving the feel of some underground Kafkaesque engine room that’s somehow been invaded by sanctuary-seeking freaks in flight from the nearby city centre’s ongoing fascination with urban regeneration that’s influencing cities in Europe and the UK to rip the individual heart out of the neighbourhood, all in the name of progress.
If Worm sounds like some self-serving hippie idyll, think again. For all its self-assembled mish-mash of bare wires, silver papier-mache style air-conditioning tunnels and a multitude of nooks, crannies and dark hidey holes beyond its TARDIS-like expanse, Worm is run on necessarily pragmatic lines. Even with a constituted board overseeing a core team of 16 who’ve acquired an honourable assembly of like-minded sponsors, Worm are still watching their back.
Word on the street is that, with the ongoing array of building sites surrounding them, the council want Worm to wriggle out of what’s now regarded as one of the most brilliant independent venues and art-spaces in Europe. Given the ease with which its interior could be taken down, this wouldn’t be too much of a physical hardship.
Spiritually, though, Worm’s removal would epitomise how commerce and property win out over culture. As the old site of Edinburgh’s Bongo Club on New Street was flattened to allow the regenerational sharks in to make a bundle, and as Edinburgh University Settlement prepare to close both The Forest Café and Octopus Diamond, Worm’s possible eviction is an all too familiar tale of cutting edge arts promotions being forced to lead a nomadic existence.
Worm is currently on a three week summer holiday. If this uber-cool umbrella for creative possibilities both in terms of events and its very structure is forced to close its secondhand doors for good, that really would be a waste.
Worm
Achterhaven 148, 3024, Rotterdam
Tel 010 476 7832
www.wormweb.nl
De Player, Rotterdam
Delistraat 30, Rotterdam
www.deplayer.nl
Sister space to Worm on Rotterdam’s south side, De Player is an artist-run set-up situated in a former nightclub. With an emphasis on performance and interventions, ‘For Your Avant-garde Feelin’’ De Player says. ‘Hang ‘Em All.’
Other Cutting-Edge Venues Off the Beaten Track
Scheld’apen vzw
D’Herbouvillekaai 36
2020 Antwerp
www.Scheldapen.be
www.myspace.com/scheldapen
Belgian venue for independently minded creatives who dig free noise, underground films and other off-radar pursuits. No major names, but that’s sort of the point, really. Isn’t it?
Islington Mill, Salford
James St, Salford, M3 5HW
www.islingtonmill.com
www.myspace.com/islingtonmill
Beyond the jet-set gloss of Manchester International Festival is an underbelly of red-brick activity. This former cotton mill turned discount clothes warehouse is now a privately owned network of artists studios, which also hosts gigs in a speakeasy squalor. Six Organs Of Admittance are due any minute, while
The List, July 2007
Because, while inside the labyrinthine confines of Worm’s club/venue/bar/shop bounces with off-the-map late-night life oozing with boho underground cred, its mix of original red-brick and science fiction style fittings marks it out as the most environmentally friendly hang-out in town.
Kitted out with recycled fixtures and fittings designed so nary a nail need be hammered into a wall as it may be, none of this matters much to those in search of left-field Saturday night activity. DJs playing low-level sounds in the downstairs shop beside racks of vinyl, CDs and gloriously anachronistic cassettes by cutting edge international artists and Dutch improvisers. Upstairs in the mezzanine bar where beer is a mere Euro per glass and independently designed t-shirts are displayed, sounds are equally discrete.
It’s round the corner, though, in Worm’s main club room, where it’s all really kicking off. Shock & Awe is a messed up club night, where lap-top artists Eats Tapes are followed by American hip hop crew CX Kidtronix. Last week, former Henry Cow and Pere Ubu drummer Chris Cutler was playing. A few months ago American drummer Chris Corsano was scheduled. Lightning Bolt, Sunn ))), Deerhoof and veteran Dutch punks The Ex have all showed face at Worm. Next, it’s former Geraldine Fibbers singer Carla Bozulich’s turn.
Other nights at Worm feature film shows and art exhibitions. There’s a radio stations with an archive of gigs from the likes of English improviser AMM’s Keith Rowe. Facilities are on hand for recording, filming, editing, cutting, pasting, event producing and partying. Worm, then, is a very 21st century embodiment of a 1960s inspired counter-cultural arts lab writ large. But how did it get here?
Until moving to Delfshaven, Worm’s core group of artists, anarcho-entrepreneurs and creative organisers led what it describes as a “vagabond existence” after being forced to leave its previous home on the Rochussenstraat in 2003. After endless negotiations with the local council, and with the support of development agencies, Worm was finally awarded management of its current home, though only on a temporary basis.
Part of the agreement with the council was that in no way should any structural alterations take place either inside or outside of the building, and that, in keeping with its transitory status, all fixtures must be removable, and must comply with local health and safety regulations.
Where such bureaucracy might dissuade less hardy souls in search of autonomous spaces, Worm enlisted the services of architectural agency, 2012 Architecten. Under the auspices of Cesare Peeren, Jan Jongert and Jeroen Bergsma, the company decided to trash the building. Or rather, they decreed to recycle materials to help transform a building already steeped in history into an even more unique space that looks and feels like the gloriously wonky result of some mad professor’s futuresonic workshop.
Appropriated in this way, features are immediately recogniseable from their former use. Bicycle handlebars are used as door-handles. Car tyres become chairs. Second-hand double glazing is used as acoustic dampening material. The unisex toilets hold particular pride of place, as, set off just beside the venue’s front entrance, what look like industrial work-place shower cubicles are actually former liquid tanks acquired from the nearby docks.
A snake-like array of pipes is in full view, giving the feel of some underground Kafkaesque engine room that’s somehow been invaded by sanctuary-seeking freaks in flight from the nearby city centre’s ongoing fascination with urban regeneration that’s influencing cities in Europe and the UK to rip the individual heart out of the neighbourhood, all in the name of progress.
If Worm sounds like some self-serving hippie idyll, think again. For all its self-assembled mish-mash of bare wires, silver papier-mache style air-conditioning tunnels and a multitude of nooks, crannies and dark hidey holes beyond its TARDIS-like expanse, Worm is run on necessarily pragmatic lines. Even with a constituted board overseeing a core team of 16 who’ve acquired an honourable assembly of like-minded sponsors, Worm are still watching their back.
Word on the street is that, with the ongoing array of building sites surrounding them, the council want Worm to wriggle out of what’s now regarded as one of the most brilliant independent venues and art-spaces in Europe. Given the ease with which its interior could be taken down, this wouldn’t be too much of a physical hardship.
Spiritually, though, Worm’s removal would epitomise how commerce and property win out over culture. As the old site of Edinburgh’s Bongo Club on New Street was flattened to allow the regenerational sharks in to make a bundle, and as Edinburgh University Settlement prepare to close both The Forest Café and Octopus Diamond, Worm’s possible eviction is an all too familiar tale of cutting edge arts promotions being forced to lead a nomadic existence.
Worm is currently on a three week summer holiday. If this uber-cool umbrella for creative possibilities both in terms of events and its very structure is forced to close its secondhand doors for good, that really would be a waste.
Worm
Achterhaven 148, 3024, Rotterdam
Tel 010 476 7832
www.wormweb.nl
De Player, Rotterdam
Delistraat 30, Rotterdam
www.deplayer.nl
Sister space to Worm on Rotterdam’s south side, De Player is an artist-run set-up situated in a former nightclub. With an emphasis on performance and interventions, ‘For Your Avant-garde Feelin’’ De Player says. ‘Hang ‘Em All.’
Other Cutting-Edge Venues Off the Beaten Track
Scheld’apen vzw
D’Herbouvillekaai 36
2020 Antwerp
www.Scheldapen.be
www.myspace.com/scheldapen
Belgian venue for independently minded creatives who dig free noise, underground films and other off-radar pursuits. No major names, but that’s sort of the point, really. Isn’t it?
Islington Mill, Salford
James St, Salford, M3 5HW
www.islingtonmill.com
www.myspace.com/islingtonmill
Beyond the jet-set gloss of Manchester International Festival is an underbelly of red-brick activity. This former cotton mill turned discount clothes warehouse is now a privately owned network of artists studios, which also hosts gigs in a speakeasy squalor. Six Organs Of Admittance are due any minute, while
The List, July 2007
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