by: Murrye Bernard Assoc. AIA LEED AP
To mark the 400th anniversary of New Amsterdam’s founding, Amsterdam and New York architects swapped jobs for a week. Khoi Tran, co-founder of Urban Symbiose in Amsterdam, traded places with Joe Haberl, a designer at NY-based LEESERarchitecture. Sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior & Kingdom Relations — under the banner of NY 400 and in collaboration with the Henry Hudson Foundation — the JobSwap was designed to call attention to the Dutch contributions to the early history of the U.S. It will lay the groundwork for an ongoing grassroots cultural and academic exchange program to complement the from-the-top-down economic and political ties between the U.S. and the Netherlands. In addition to the architects, there are several other professions participating in the swaps, including bartenders, farmers, and midwives.