‘The Second Quality Construction Company’
by Anne Marie Huibregtse
|
In 1972 a new activity was
initiated by Viktor and Ina, which they soon called
'The Second Quality Construction Company'. Starting in
a small way, it soon grew to wild proportions. Strange
constructions on rafts alongside the ship, with masts,
sheds, primitive cabins and waving flags were rising as
an enormous threedimensional collage of found
materials, showing letters, numbers and signs all over,
with texts like 'Unnecessary' or 'Who Needs The Pacific
Ocean?'.
Many of the materials Viktor
used were leftovers from the famous nearby
Waterlooplein flea market, where he went every day at
closing time. It was not because of a lack of money,
but inspired by Thoreau, that Viktor IV took pleasure
in collecting all sorts of discarded rubbish, that he
would recycle in his 'Second Quality Construction
Company'. Also the garbage containers were an
inexhaustible source of material. He thought they
were goldmines and felt (and acted) as if he were
robbing a bank.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rafts
As a foundation for the rafts
Viktor used tree-trunks, empty oil barrels and plastic
jerrycans (like the mayonnaise containers used by
cafeteria's). Instead of rope to tie it all together,
he used nylon stockings and men's neckties, also amply
on hand in the garbage containers of the daily
Waterlooplein flea market.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In the course of the seventies the
rafts grew in breadth rather than upwards. Luxuriantly
overgrown with grass, shrubs and water-plants, together
with a continually changing menagerie of cats, doves,
chickens, ducks and sometimes even swans, the rafts
gave the impression of an idyllic floating
garden.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ship's hold
Entering the log-cabin like interior of the boat, where
Viktor lived with his Danish wife Elisabeth Munck
(Viktor called her 'Ina'), the first thing one noticed
was straw on the floor and a smell of tar. The healthy
sound of hammer and saw, as Ina once described it, a
typewriter and an old sewing machine. Quiet doings, hot
soup, toasted bread, a burning stove and a note of
Schubert. As there was no running water, Ina would go
to the bathrooms of the nearest movie theatre to wash
her hair. The four 'Canal paintings', which currently
make part of the collection of the Amsterdam Historic
Museum, were bound together and officiated as a
partition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The rafts, assuming enormous
proportions, caused quite a sensation in Amsterdam
during the seventies and eighties. Intrigued
pedestrians would stop on the Blauwbrug, to watch the
green oasis down below. During those years 'The Second
Quality Construction Company' was the most photographed
attraction for tourists in the Amsterdam cruise-boats.
Every now and then the Amsterdam port authorities would
protest against the growing constructions on the water.
Viktor however, was always amenable to reason when a
conflict threatened.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He appreciated so much the
freedom he was granted, that at
the stern of his boat a Dutch flag,
bearing the words THANK YOU AMSTERDAM blew in the wind.
Today, many years after Viktor
died, the ship has been converted into a hostel for
students of the Danish Architect League. The same
flag is still flown from the stern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ref: Viktor IV. Ad Petersen
& Ina Munck. Ed. Meulenhoff/Landshoff & The
Second Quality Construction Company 1988
|