Brinkmannpassage
location
Brinkmannpassage Haarlemcommissioned by
burgfonds
in collaboration with
municipality of haarlem
year/status
2008 in development
The new design for the Brinkmanpassage is still a question unanswered. The passage is well-known in The Netherlands, but lost its attraction because of a lack of occupancy and losing touch with time. The new design is a crucial step in the process of reviving this passage near the market. Changing the entrances and adjusting the interior could revive the building. A radical change in the shape of new housing development could give a new impulse to the center.
Three possible developments were listed: a cosmetic intervention, an intervention which strips the building and uses the existent support construction and, finally, demolition followed by new housing development.
The municipality and the Burgfonds (Burg foundation) are joint owners of the complex. The fact that the municipality will leave the complex in 2014 raises the issue of a possible re-development. The question is: which possibility is best, stripping the building or demolition and building new housing?
Awaiting the definitive use of the Brinkmanpassage, we can search for a temporary purpose of the area. The central issue is: how do we make optimal use of the existing building for the time being? (size, distribution of stores and office space, accessibility to the street). It could house a ‘retail academy’, a kind of breeding ground for new shop owners, or a cluster of organisations surrounding a certain theme.
