Resumen de Cultural Industries in the Netherlands ¿ Path-Dependent Patterns and Institutional Contexts: The Case of Architecture in Rotterdam
Eva Stegmeijer, Robert Kloosterman
Dutch architecture matters in international perspective. Cultural industries ¿ economic activities where the aesthetic component of the products constitute the distinguishing characteristic ¿ are now emerging as a promising source of wealth and employment in post-industrial cities. Firms in the cultural industries tend to be relatively small and dependent on highly skilled and specialized labour and we find them in most cases strongly concentrated in spatial clusters. This spatial clustering enables a better functioning of the labour market, the spill-over of tacit knowledge and, moreover, the development of dedicated institutions (educational, informational, infrastruc-tural and socio-cultural) that contribute to sustained innovation. ¿ In the Dutch context, Amsterdam clearly dominates the cultural scene in number of firms and jobs. This has been the case for centuries and it goes to show the weight of history of path dependence. There is, however, one clear exception: architectural services, where Rotterdam is very prominent. In this article, we show how this particular cultural industry could evolve outside the cultural capital of the Netherlands. We are, we argue, witnessing a case of path creation of a cultural industry in Rotterdam. We show how this evolution is grounded in a complex interplay between institutional developments and the role of an individual genius, namely Rem Koolhaas.
