Strijp S in transition
DIY houses at Philips
Zelfbouw bij Philips, door Polygoon-Profilti (producent) / Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid (beheerder), is gelicenseerd onder Creative Commons - Naamsvermelding-Gelijk delen.
Philips’ slow retreat from Eindhoven was visible in the city’s landscape. Strijp S, the Philips factory district built in the 1920s, was seen as the symbol of Eindhoven the company town. The district marks now marks the transition to a new era.
With an area of 25 ha, about one kilometer from the city center, Strijp S was filled to capacity with factories, offices, and warehouses, with little municipal influence. Philips, which was often called ‘a state in a city’, had its own schools, sports clubs, and cultural institutions in Eindhoven.
Following the decline of the tobacco and textile factories, only the DAF truck company could attempt to keep pace with Philips. With the help of the American PACCAR, DAF became a strong player in the competitive international truck market. VDL, which bought the Philips machine factory, ASML, and other technology firms – often Philips offshoots ¬– came up and took its place alongside DAF.
Philips’ changing position in the 1980s gradually helped the ‘forbidden city’ of Strijp S evolve from a noisy industrial complex into a quiet center for product research and administration. Around 2000, the city council and Philips signed a covenant to transfer the district in fifteen years to the municipality in order to enable new life in that part of town.
Strijp S will become a symbol of the ‘new Eindhoven’, a center of creativity and home to small technology and design firms. The former factory district serves as a laboratory for new developments, a sort of small Silicon Valley for aspiring inventors.
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How to cite this page
Hans Schippers, 'Strijp S in transition', Inventing Europe, http://www.inventingeurope.eu/story/strijp-s-in-transition
Sources
- Otten, Ad. “Histories.” In Complex Strijp S/T/R, edited by Norbert van Onna, 129 –165. Eindhoven, 2002.
- Metze, Marcel. Ze zullen weten wie ze voor zich hebben. Anton Philips 1874-1951. Amsterdam, 2004.
- Schippers, Hans. “Strijp S als symbool van company town Eindhoven.” In Transformatie Strijp S: herinnering, verbeelding, toekomst, edited by Kees Doevendans en Loes Veldpaus, 17-27. Eindhoven, 2007.
- http://www.strijps.nl
