The World Fashion Center is much more than a fashionable building
The World Fashion Center (WFC) is said to be the largest fashion trade center in the world. But you can also go to the dentist, play sports, rent business spaces, and eat out. The UvA has been taking exams in this “city within a city” since 2013.
You could spend a lifetime there, in the World Fashion Centre (WFC). Think about it for a moment: You have housing and business spaces there, but also a dentist, mini-supermarket, gym, post office, restaurant, and coffee corner. Even a daycare center. What more do you need?
Agreed, after a while you’re bound to need a change of scenery. But on the other hand, of course, you never have to worry about a shortage of chic clothing stores. The WFC houses some 400 fashion showrooms, from Stone Island and DSquared2 to Prada and Balenciaga.
In short, the WFC in Amsterdam-West is “a gathering place,” which, moreover, is open 24 hours a day. Or as the site of the WFC itself describes it: a “city within a city.” And as befits a good city, it also thinks about students.
Exam rooms
Ever since October 2013, UvA and HvA students have been trickling in here at regular intervals to take exams. Almost every faculty has already taken exams there. Past the shop windows of clothing stores in the void, students walk to an escalator that takes them to the so-called East and West Halls of the WFC. About 500 students per hall can be accommodated there.
“It’s a fine location for examinations,” says Tubâ Ozcan, team leader of Examinations at the UvA and HvA. In front of the halls there is a large entrance hall with coffee makers, where lockers are available for students and proctors can gather, Ozcan said. “It’s quite large and spacious, and also easily accessible by public transport.”
The WFC installs the chairs and tables, and the UvA installs the laptops. Once in a while, the communication fails, which once resulted in over 1,000 freshmen seeing their microeconomics exam canceled upon arrival, for example. But normally everything goes smoothly, Ozcan says.
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The World Fashion Center is not the only place where the UvA holds exams. They are also held at the IWO in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost.
Johan Cruijff Arena
During corona, Ozcan had to look for new exam venues because the GGD had to use many halls as testing locations to conform to the one and a half meter rule. So she diverted to larger venues, such as the Johan Cruijf Arena and the Amsterdam Passenger Terminal.
Willem Endstra
Prince Bernhard opened the complex in 1968, after former Prime Minister Joop Den Uyl, Amsterdam’s Public Works alderman at the time, first broke ground five years earlier. Since then, the WFC has steadily grown in size, with a second and third tower built in 1978 and 1986, respectively.
The architect of the WFC building is Huig Maaskant, who has designed many well-known buildings in Rotterdam. These include the Groothandelsgebouw (1955)—reconstruction architecture at its best—and the iconic Euromast. But even more famous than the building’s architect, is one of its former owners. Real estate criminal Willem Endstra, aka “banker of the underworld,” owned the WFC from 2000 to 2003. A year later, he was murdered at the behest of Willem Holleeder.
That did not contribute to a sparkling image for the WFC, the newspaper Trouw wrote back in 2008. “We would rather look forward than back,” the then-WFC director responded to the newspaper at the time. All the new facilities and the construction of a tech hub in the building with 6,000 square meters for tech start-ups underscore that ambition. “The city within a city” looks ready for the future.
