The ‘Sluisdeurenloods’ (lock gate shed) is the place where all of Amsterdam’s lock doors were built and maintained. It was originally built in 1881 on an artificial island next to the former lock gates of the Oosterdok. The site was operating as a wharf with sheds and service houses for port- and railroad personnel. In 1957 the island, together with all its buildings, was dismantled to make space for the construction of the IJtunnel. The beams and trusses of round timber that characterized the shed were recycled and used for a reconstruction of the original building, 125 meters eastwards.
In 2022, the wooden building was listed as a monument and recognized as an exceptional utility building as part of the 19th-century harbour heritage of the Oosterdok. But what does this late recognition entail in an increasingly uncertain future? And for whom does the building need to be preserved and with what intention? Deep Time Agency’s project IJ-Palace critically questions this recently acquired protective status by looking at the risks that undermine the monument’s existence, such as the immediate risk of urban redevelopment and the ultimate threat of a rising sea level. With these future uncertainties in mind, the project envisions an alternative scenario, in which the building is relocated to a safer location underwater.
The project takes its idea from prevailing methods of preservation used within underwater archaeology, in which found objects such as wooden shipwrecks are stored underwater rather than above the water where the brittle, mostly wooden structures would decay more quickly in contact with oxygen. Here, the water serves as a storage place for the monument that at the same time can enhance biodiversity as an artificial reef. The work functions as a test case, speculating how the world of tomorrow might look like and how adaptive architecture might play a role in the future.
In anticipation of the ambitious but also rather impossible plan to sink the actual shed, DTA plans to build a faithful replica of the wooden skeleton of the shed. The idea is to build this replica in the exhibition space, in the same location where the lock doors were produced. In line with the original production process, the structure will be ceremoniously loaded onto a work raft (pontoon) via the rails next to Mediamatic. The floating structure will serve as a temporary stage for a public program before the construction is submerged. During a series of meetings on the pontoon and in the shed, DTA will engage in conversation with various historians, city planners, and hydraulic engineers who can elaborate on the history and future of the Oosterdok, Amsterdam's port, and the various waterways around Amsterdam in general. The conversations on the 'IJ stage' are open to visitors of Mediamatic and will be documented.
Upon completion of the public program, the dialogues will be written out and used for a script that will be based on the story of De Ystroom by Joannes Antonides van der Goes from 1671, a so-called “stream poem” from the 17th century. The poem tells of a walk along the IJ-river in Amsterdam and describes life around the river in all its facets in four different books. The third book takes place underwater in which the narrator, after falling into the IJ, is taken on a journey to the underwater palace of Oceanus where he witnesses a gathering of the river gods. As a prominent guest, the god of the IJ is introduced to the other river gods, such as the Danube, Seine, Rhine, and Thames. The emphasis in De Ystroom is on Amsterdam's dominance, especially in trade. The story shows a colonial conceit that is very poignant from a current post-colonial point of view, but at the same time it still shows a certain modesty towards natural entities, such as the rivers that, through their anthropomorphic appearances, evoke a reverence that can be traced back to the time of polytheistic nature gods. The mythological references used by van der Goes were already somewhat out of fashion by the 17th century and were even considered pagan and blasphemous by some critics. But it's exactly this tension between the power of men on the one hand and the supernatural on the other, that makes it an interesting story within the contemporary context.
DTA uses the poem as a guide for a new story about the IJ, in which the river gods will be replaced by engineers and statesmen responsible for the modern-day industrialization of the IJ River. After completion, the script will be recited during the official launch of the structure and used as a voiceover for a video work that documents how the IJ-palace responds to its new, aquatic environment. All the different phases of the project are meant to support the ultimate aim of the project, the actual relocation of the real shed to its future location underwater.
