Negen Muzen Stadhuis Almere

Stadhuis Almere (Almere City Hall, 2026) by Berend Strik documents one of the Netherlands' most distinctive civic buildings — the futuristic City Hall of Almere, designed by Rem Koolhaas and completed in 2000.

Almere is a planned city in the new polders of Flevoland — a symbol of Dutch engineering ambition and modernist urban planning. Its city hall, designed by the legendary architect, embodies the utopian ambitions of the city itself.

Strik's documentation of this iconic structure through his stitched photography technique creates an interesting tension: the clean lines and futuristic ambition of the architecture, contrasted with the intimate, handmade quality of textile intervention. This interplay between the monumental and the personal is characteristic of Strik's approach to architectural subjects.

Strik's architectural subjects — from museums to music venues to city halls — reflect his interest in how civic and cultural spaces encode collective aspirations and identities. By transforming these images through his stitching practice, Strik adds layers of memory and meaning that the architectural photographs alone cannot contain.

Sources: Galerie Fons Welters