Okay, I’ve stayed in motels in Amsterdam earlier than. However by no means like this. Once I wandered into the foyer at Volkshotel Amsterdam one October morning, it did not actually really feel like a resort. This was one thing else solely.
The bottom ground is much less like a reception space and extra like somebody’s extraordinarily cool lounge, the place a number of attention-grabbing conversations had been occurring without delay. Folks hunched over laptops. Somebody sketching. Background music that did not make me wish to instantly go away. And in every single place, individuals who appeared genuinely comfy being there, not simply passing via.
“It must really feel at house,” Tijs Bullock, the resort’s inventive idea coordinator and PR supervisor, informed me later. “It is a free place for individuals to only expertise the place and work there or examine there. An open house not just for vacationers, not just for the enterprise individuals, but additionally for the individuals of Amsterdam.”
And this, it seems, is the entire level.
From newspaper workplace to inventive ecosystem
Volkshotel’s story is a type of heartwarming city salvage jobs. The constructing was initially house to the key Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (‘The Folks’s Paper’) for 42 years. After they moved out, the constructing was in such tough form that demolition appeared inevitable. However an organisation known as City Resort Basis stepped in and remodeled it into what’s now one of many largest inventive co-working areas within the Netherlands.
Volkshotel (‘Folks’s Lodge’) advanced from there into one thing much more attention-grabbing. The entrance part turned a resort with rooms starting from budget-friendly to spacious. However critically, the again wing remained devoted to inventive studios. Immediately, over 80 studios home over 200 inventive professionals, together with 25 music studios that includes greater than 100 musicians, DJs and producers.
It is a full inventive ecosystem underneath one roof, and the genius bit is how seamlessly all of it connects. As an example, when Volkshotel wants design work—and apparently they want fairly a bit, from illustrated cleaning soap bottles to customized metropolis maps—they do not farm it out to some company company. They knock on the door down the corridor. “Volkshotel likes to illustrate,” Tijs defined. “Our web site, our cleaning soap bottles, our cups, our room keys, our metropolis map—every thing the place we are able to illustrate, we ask an illustrator for.”
This is not simply good PR. It is an actual, functioning financial system inside the constructing. The resort supplies reasonably priced studio house to creatives who may in any other case be priced out of the town. In return, they get common work, publicity to resort visitors from all over the world, and the prospect to be a part of one thing larger than their particular person practices.
I hung out assembly a few of these creatives, and what struck me wasn’t simply their expertise but additionally the genuinely collaborative atmosphere. Illustrators Jasmijn de Nood and Anouschka Boswijk have been there for years. “It truly looks like a second house,” Anouschka informed me. “We name one another ‘roommates’ as a result of we see one another so usually.”
Jasmijn added: “We’ve in our studio quite a lot of illustrators. So for us it is so good that we are able to be taught from one another and still have the odd rant at one another. However I really feel like within the hallway we additionally actually type of turned associates.”
In one other studio, costume designer Evita Rigert was engaged on items for a puppet opera. She does not identical to working at Volkshotel for the house and environment, but additionally for the networking alternatives. “I simply knocked on all of the doorways and irritated the individuals very a lot,” she laughed once I requested how she’d related with collaborators. “Folks actually make it easier to and help you, and that’s the largest plus right here.”
And this does not solely apply to Dutch individuals. In 2026, the Volkshotel will launch an open name for its Artist in Residence venture, making a number of of its studios accessible to creatives from all over the world to work in Amsterdam for a few months. Keep tuned to Artistic Growth, and we’ll share particulars as they emerge.
Why this mannequin issues
Let’s discuss concerning the actuality of being a inventive in 2025. If you happen to’re freelance, you are in all probability working from house, presumably from a nook of your bed room. You might not see different people in particular person for days at a time. Collaboration occurs over Zoom calls the place everybody’s digital camera is off. It is isolating, is what I am saying.
Generic co-working areas, although, usually really feel soulless. Studio buildings could be equally nameless. And genuinely reasonably priced workspace in main cities? Overlook about it.
What Volkshotel gives is completely different. It is a workspace, sure, nevertheless it’s additionally a resort, a bar, a rooftop restaurant, a membership, a sauna, and a continuing stream of attention-grabbing individuals from everywhere in the world. “We attempt to create that micro society inside this constructing,” Tijs mentioned. “In case you are a morning particular person, you’ll be able to have your croissant and go as much as the rooftop spa. However you may also be the evening owl and go to mattress at 6am while you’re performed dancing in certainly one of our golf equipment.”
This combine issues as a result of inventive work does not occur in a vacuum. It occurs while you overhear an attention-grabbing dialog or see another person’s work and take into consideration collaborating. Once you meet somebody who is aware of somebody who’s searching for precisely what you do. Serendipity requires proximity.
Amsterdam and the inventive spirit
The reference Tijs made to clubbing, by the best way, was no coincidence. I used to be in Amsterdam for Amsterdam Dance Occasion, the annual music trade gathering that takes over the town for 5 days each October. Throughout these 4 days, I cycled via rain to catch talks, randomly stumbled right into a session with Armin van Buuren, and danced in tiny bars. I employed a motorbike from Volkshotel and bombed across the streets making an attempt to not crash into trams.
One evening, I met DJ Carista, who was about to play a 12-hour set. Once I requested about Amsterdam’s inventive neighborhood, she was clear: “It is tight-knit as a result of everyone is aware of what’s up. However should you ask questions or simply present up repeatedly, individuals like, ‘Okay, what is that this particular person doing right here?’ Persons are having an curiosity in sure stuff.”
That openness—that willingness to let individuals in in the event that they’re genuinely —felt emblematic of the town. And it is precisely the vitality that Volkshotel has bottled.
At one level, I spontaneously burst into Thonik Studio, a design company throughout the road from the resort, after somebody from there reached out on Instagram. They welcomed me in like I used to be an previous pal, confirmed me round, and talked concerning the poster work they had been doing for Dutch Design Week. It was that type of place, that type of metropolis, that type of vitality.
One other morning, Jaap van Oirschot from Mr Fox Company confirmed me round Amsterdam within the pouring rain. We visited the Skinny Bridge, stopped for croquettes at Van Dobben, and finally wound up on the Stedelijk Museum for an Erwin Olaf exhibition. “Creativity holds no limitations for the climate,” Jaap mentioned cheerfully as we set off within the downpour.
The economics of creativity
I do not need you to assume Amsterdam is all fairies and unicorns, in fact. Once I requested the illustrators concerning the inventive financial system, Anouschka acknowledged the challenges. “Funding clearly is dropping fairly a bit. In order that’s tougher. However I nonetheless assume it is going fairly properly, truly. We nonetheless have sufficient assignments, sufficient to do.”
All this makes areas like Volkshotel much more essential. When institutional funding dries up, creatives want various fashions. They want reasonably priced workspace and communities that may generate work laterally, from designer to designer, and from illustrator to DJ. They want areas the place collaboration occurs organically since you share a hall with attention-grabbing individuals.
The resort mannequin provides one other dimension: publicity. Each visitor is a possible shopper or collaborator. The partitions are lined in work by resident artists. It is a perpetual exhibition house that additionally occurs to be a functioning enterprise.
However in contrast to the tech-bro co-working areas that dominated the 2010s, this is not about hustle tradition. It is merely about creating situations the place inventive work can occur sustainably.
Might this be the longer term?
The query that saved nagging at me was: why is not in every single place like this? Clearly, there are sensible limitations. Not each metropolis has a disused newspaper constructing ready to be transformed. Not each developer needs to maintain house reasonably priced once they might cost market charge. And never each resort group is prepared to embrace the attractive chaos of getting musicians and illustrators as everlasting residents.
However the mannequin itself—mixing inventive workspace with public-facing hospitality—feels genuinely radical. It solves a number of issues without delay: isolation, affordability, publicity, neighborhood, and the easy human must really feel a part of one thing bigger.
What struck me most was how unprecious all of it felt. There was no gatekeeping, no sense that you simply needed to be the proper of inventive. “If you happen to step into this constructing, your standing disappears,” Tijs mentioned. “That is a little bit of the philosophy of this place.”
On my closing morning, exhausted from strolling 33,000 steps the day before today, I mirrored on how completely different this expertise had been from a typical work journey. I might met fascinating individuals. I might found components of Amsterdam I might by no means have discovered in any other case. I might labored a bit, danced lots, and customarily felt like I used to be collaborating in one thing.
I do not know if Volkshotel’s mannequin will catch on elsewhere. I hope it does. As a result of if that is what the way forward for inventive workspace seems like—collaborative, reasonably priced, built-in into metropolis life, unpretentious and genuinely welcoming—then that is a future value constructing.
And if it comes with entry to croquettes and Paul van Dyk units, properly, that is simply good planning.
