Pink Building

The eastside of the Grote Markt (Great Market Square) in Groningen will be renewed. For the purpose of the building of the Groninger Forum one side has been demolished and partly rebuild already. Apart from one building.. Grote Markt 33. The building on the crossing of the Grote Markt, Oosterstraat and Poelestraat.

This building lost it’s purpose and will be demolished in 2017. We, together with 212 Farenheit, have been approached to create buzz around the public online survey where people can vote for a new destination for this spot.

Pink buzz….

To achieve the buzz, we placed the building in the spotlights by changing the entire building to just one color. On a beautiful sunday morning we and 20 other volunteers met on the Grote Markt. In just one day the entire building was painted pink. On the front we hung a banner with the tekst: ‘Did you ever stand still? The city never stands still. I won’t remain standing either.’

In the following days there was indeed a lot of buzz around the pink building. Next to the negative reactions (ugly color, tax money) there were many positive reactions too! Both negative and positive reactions were good, because it means engagement with ‘our’ city. Meanwhile the three plans for the new building in the corner were made public and the city could vote. This was not unheard of;).

We have been able to enjoy the Casa Rosa (as people named it) until …,