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Amersfoort creative city
A New Creative Heart for Amersfoort
The art academy has been dissolved, but plenty of artists remain. Together with craftsmen, cultural entrepreneurs and consultancies like Twijnstra Gudde, they form the active creative scene of Amersfoort (50 km from Amsterdam). Numerous initiatives are in preparation for the coming years that will bring these design and consultancy strength more into focus, and more attractive for companies in Amersfoort.
Amersfoort Creative City (Amersfoort Creatieve Stad) is the engine behind this development. This network organisation encourages stimulating and connective activities for and by the creative sector, in order to profile Amersfoort as a creative city. So, the city council has released the deserted former industrial area of the Oliemolenkwartier for creative use for a period of 15 years. Thirty creative entrepreneurs from the network have made plans for new temporary buidlings in the area, including Discover!, a place where creatives can work and events will take place, and an unusual shared business space called Mediafusion.
In this facility, education and media will meet to improve the connections between training and work. It will be an incubator, in which starting entrepreneurs can establish themselves under the guidance of existing companies. But the Oliemolenkwartier won’t only be a work and meeting place for creative entrepreneurs: the area will also have a clearly defined, broad public function. The buildings will offer space for exhibitions and events that have achieved success abroad or in the Netherlands, and which will surprise, amuse and inform visitors. The Oliemolenkwartier will form the heart of the creative economy in Amersfoort, and in this way attract the attention of potential clients.
Currently, creative entrepreneurs still meet each other at the networking meetings of Amersfoort Creative City, where new collaborations are often initiated. One of these recently involved ImproVive, a strategic consultancy, and DBRM, an advertising company. Together they are working on a new product: DBRM is bringing the branding skills, ImproVive the strategic ones. Here are just a few of the enthusiastic comments following the meeting: “It was a creative and interactive meeting again. Very inspired by the talks and new insights. Well done!” and:“I found it a very interesting meeting with a large group of enthusiastic creatives from Amersfoort. See you at the next one!”