Our House: Museum for electronic music and culture

It’s the world’s first and only museum for electronic dance music. Therefore, it’s high time for an interview with the spiritual father of Our House. And just like a father who talks about his daughter or son with pride and love, Jeroen Jansen, former Creative Director of ID&T, talks about Our House. This immersive electronic music experience is located in the former location of the famous club iT, where in the late 80s/early 90s, just like in club RoXY, considerable pioneering was done in the dance field. It’s also where the state-of-the-art club AIR has been located since the beginning of this century.

“We wanted to do it in a place with a dance heritage,” says Jeroen. “The only place we know in Amsterdam where people still danced every weekend before Corona, is the old iT, now club AIR. Fortunately, they soon warmed to our idea. But then you also have to bring the municipality along, and in that regard this location was perfect. If you look at the clubs that matter in the world, they are usually located in expensive places in metropolises. So they pay a lot of rent there even though those locations are only used ten percent of the time, namely when the clubs are open. That can hardly be called sustainable.”

“But if you use the space for a museum during the day, you quickly have to sit down with the municipality. That turned out to be a good conversation, but the whole project remained a challenge. Because the question was: would it be possible? Two operations in the same building? The museum must be able to make way for the club that opens in an hour and a half. We solved that by renting the space next door. Add to this the fact that we have devised a system with hydraulic lifts that can transport the installations, after which they are folded. So that you can no longer see that there was a museum here as quickly possible.”

Working at ID&T teaches you that the impossible is possible. Jeroen has worked no less than 21 years for the company that crosses borders in the broadest sense of the word. “Just before the Adam Toren became a fact, as a creative director I had to make a pitch with my department for the interpretation of that tower. The concept behind Adam was that it had to become the epic centre of dance in the Netherlands. With offices of dance music companies, with clubs, with companies that sold electronic music equipment. And in our view, that also included an experience about dance. Then you have to pay tribute to that culture. They started calculating and then it was calculated that more money could be earned with hotels, etc., so the idea for an experience was shelved. When I left ID&T in 2017, I said to Duncan [Stutterheim, the big boss – MB]: “I will continue to develop that idea for a dance experience when I start my own company.”

The urgency of a museum about electronic dance music has everything to do with the fact that this music culture is here to stay. Jeroen explains: “You have rock, which has been around for 70/80 years now, and you have the overarching pop music. In addition, you have the relatively younger music cultures, with hip-hop on the one hand and dance on the other. If you look at dance in terms of cultural experience, we are talking about the late 1970s, with the rise of the drum computer. The question you then have to ask is: ‘When does something have cultural relevance?’ You in your sixties have now fully embraced dance, as have I, and my children are touched by it now and will be in the future. So, we are talking about three generations. Thus, the answer to the question of whether something has cultural relevance and deserves a museum is whether that movement transcends generations.”

Why is Amsterdam the first city in the world to have a dance museum? That is easy to answer. With a laugh, Jeroen says: “I was once asked by foreigners if we have some kind of special greenhouses where DJs grow. Or I got comments like: ‘What’s in your water?’ The fact that we have produced top international DJs for generations, from Tiesto to Martin Garrix, probably has to do with the fact that we are a small country that always had to look beyond our borders. Dance is in the DNA of the Netherlands. When there was no Corona yet, hundreds of dance festivals took place here in the summer months. That’s crazy, of course. When a foreigner thinks of the Netherlands, he or she thinks of clogs, cheese and dance. That is why it is perfectly legitimate, right and deserved that the world’s first dance museum is located in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. Just like the first real hip-hop museum in the Bronx, New York.”

Discover electronic dance music’s past, present and future through interactive installations, immersive shows and DJ-curated exhibits at the Our House Museum

If we look at the social values ​​of a museum, we have the economic value, the experiential value, the connecting value, the collection value, but also the educational value. Jeroen is well aware of this. “For example, we have set up our own Academy. With masterclasses and workshops, the Academy will offer a further deepening and will form an important part of the total Our House platform. The Netherlands not only has a lot of experience in this scene, but has also built up a lot of knowledge. And we want to share that knowledge with the world. We don’t want you to easily forget a visit to Our House. More and more people believe in the power of experiences, experiences that you will always carry with you – experiences like Our House.”