The Happier the Hotelier, The Happier the Guest
Sometimes you have to sit behind your computer screen and read a Blog post of someone far away in a foreign language (0300VD) to become a little bit proud of your own city where with a lot of difficulty a piece of the infrastructure has been knitted together and now attracts attention because of its architectonic value 🙂
Because almost all van den Elshouts living in The Hague are distant relatives, Bruno van den Elshout is likely to be one of my distant relatives. He is 30 years younger than I am – happy him – and he lives around the corner.
I had spotted his PhotoLogix Photo Blog already some time ago. Now it appears he is spreading out with his work and gradually his Blog is becoming a real Travel Photo Blog. Therefor this plug.
College Hotel Amsterdam redesigned by FG Stijl
FG Stijl – the F comes from Finegan and the G from Glintmeijer – is a Dutch firm of architects and designers.
Colin Finnegan (1968), a British native with a British degree in interior design, lives and works in Amsterdam for over 16 years and formed a partnership with Gerard Glintmeijer in 1995.
Gerard Glintmeijer (1968), a Dutch native, started his career in the field of the hospitality. He studied at a Dutch hotel school, textile and management and finished his study as a concept designer and interior stylist.
FG Stijl Architecture and Interior design are located on one of Amsterdam’s islands where Design related companies are cozily clustering together.
A selection of their past Projects:
Note: The Restaurant Parkheuvel has changed ownership and has now only one Michelin star for 2006/2007.
No he is not bubbling gum. On the photo (thanks to AD) Barney kissses the PDC Trophee.
Yesterday Raymond van Barneveld, with nickname Barney won the final of the PDC Darts Championship against Phil Taylor who defended the title and had won it already 11 times. The PDC stands for Professional Darts Corporation, sometimes also known as “Phil’s Dart Club”.
Barney’s site was temporary down, due to the enormous interest and is now clearly up again on an emergency server.
The final was one of the best dart parties I have ever seen on TV. It was a bone chilling shoot out.
The Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Pieter Balkenende officially congratulated him with the championship.
Today Barney will get an official City of Den Haag reception. Yes, he lives in Den Haag and to my view he is a better ambassador for the city than the new City Marketing Logo ever will be.
Indeed it was a spectacular ceremony:
The storm had passed. The rain had ceased. It remained cold and the air was full of stormy clouds. The moon showed up in 3/4 th mode. A podium was built over the pond in front of the The Hague City Museum. The scaffold had survived the Beaufort 10 force storm and not as many people as originally expected attended the ceremony.
Last edited by GJE on December 3, 2011 at 11:38 pm
There was a rap group. There was a pop group. There were several Aldermen explaining specific features of The Hague. There was a stand up comedian who complimented The Hague as the city of International Justice, and, being from New Zealand, the Dutch as the people who discovered New Zealand.
The Mayor explained that the logo was intended for marketing purposes only and not for the city board. He hinted that the logo referred to the Victory Boogie Woogie, the famous painting of Piet Mondriaan that is in the The Hague City Museum where the ceremony took place.
Then Anton, shy, but far from inhibited, explained that he had lived in the UK for 27 years before he choose The Hague as his favorite city to live in. He continued that he was not allowed to use the stork and that no foreigner ever would connect a stork with The Hague. In his view the logo had to be colorful and easily reproducible by a child. He added that indeed the line represents the dunes. The kite is there, even as the rudimentary spermatozoa.
Here is the logo: not the same as the version leaked to the press, but not so much different:
Okay, from now on one should refer to The Hague only as Den Haag, even if one doesn’t know how to pronounce it.
I am very afraid they missed the boat (or is it beat?…Den Haag used to The Beat City back in the 60ies). Why not take advantage of the fact that Anton is a famous photographer of Rock stars? How to connect Den Haag with this? Why not hint to the very effective slogan “The Hague, Royal City” or “The Hague, Royal City by the sea”?
(All photos gje)