Amsterdam's newest venue, De School, will open next month.
Located on Dr. Jan van Breemenstraat in Amsterdam's west, De School (which used to be a technical school) is much more than a nightclub: it's also equipped with a concert venue, a restaurant, a café, an exhibition space and a gym. It has a 24-hour license (which was granted by Amsterdam authorities back in May) and will remain open seven days a week.
The nightclub has a capacity of 500 and is located in the school's former bicycle storage area. Its DJ booth is placed among the crowd, and the room's visuals will be provided by Children Of The Light. For the most part the club's programming will focus on local DJs, who will be given the opportunity to play extended sets, but there will be international guests, too. The opening party is going down on Sunday, January 3rd, though the lineup has not been announced yet. The first two months of programming sees locals Tom Trago, Sandrien, Makam, Dekmantel Soundsystem, Job Jobse, Interstellar Funk, Robert Bergman and Young Marco joined by international guests like Seth Troxler, Shanti Celeste, Peter Van Hoesen, Barnt, Konstantin, Kornél Kovács and DJ Sotofett. (Check out the full listings here.)
The club says it won't be working with external promoters, with the programming taken care of in-house. In addition to the club, De School will also host concerts in a 200-capacity former workshop. Its secluded outdoor courtyard will be open all year round to members of the public, not just club-goers.
De School is owned and run by Post CS BV—the same crew that ran Amsterdam nightclubs Trouw and Club 11. Ernst Mertens and Jochem Doornbusch are the key co-owners. Olaf Boswijk, the driving force behind Trouw, is also a co-owner but will not actively be involved. Sarah de Jonge (business director), Kyara van Loenen (creative director) and Luc Mastenbroek (programmer) are also on the senior staff. We spoke with Mastenbroek to find out more about De School.Will you have resident DJs? If so, who will they be?
We don't have a fixed group of residents because we want to keep things open, so new things can happen. We do have the feeling though that there are many great DJs in Amsterdam at the moment—I can't think of a better place to be a programmer right now. We hope these DJs will feel at home at De School and that they'll share their ideas with us and each other, so they can give shape to the club. They mostly decide themselves who they want to play with, so there's always a connection between the DJs playing.
And what about the rest of the programming—can you give us some insight into the kind of DJs you will book?
In the first months it will mostly be one local DJ inviting one of their favourite DJs. It's the opposite of festival culture: instead of many DJs being put together to play short sets, they are in charge of their own nights and can play long sets.
How will you make the most of the 24-hour license?
We're gonna start off slowly, all nights will have an open end but they won't go on forever. Sometimes a night will end around 5 AM, on very good nights it might be 9 AM or 10 AM. We're striving for a culture where people can come for 24 hours to dance, eat good food in our restaurant, chill out in the garden and see cool exhibitions, but we'll have to build that up first.
Photo credit: Martijn Savenije