For the Platform for Urban Interventions, Open City - an initiative of curator Alice Smits in the old military Fort Vijfhuizen - Bik Van der Pol have made a bilboard piece with the text "Hurry Up Please, It's Time", an excerpt drawn from T.S. Eliotts famous poem The Wasteland (1922).
By introducing a reference to this poem within the context of this fortress, the piece stresses the importance of time and its relation the the surrounding landscape, which is a landscape of economic efficiency where no time nor land is to be wasted, bordering a military fortress, part of a historic defence system. Fort Vijfhuizen is part of the Stelling van Amsterdam, a UNESCO protected defence line constructed to safeguard the capital from eventual enemies by partly flooding the areas surrounding the city.
Extending 135 km around the city of Amsterdam, this defence line (built between 1883 and 1920) is the only example of a fortification based on the principle of controlling the waters. Since the 16th century, the people of the Netherlands have used their expert knowledge of hydraulic engineering for defence purposes. The centre of the country was protected by a network of 45 armed forts, acting in concert with temporary flooding from polders and an intricate system of canals and locks.
UNESCO decided to inscribe the nominated property considering that the site is an exceptional example of an extensive integrated defence system of the modern period which has survived intact and well conserved since it was created in the later 19th century. It is also notable for the unique way of how hydraulic engineering has been incorporated into the defences of the nation's capital city.
Although Elliott’s poem refers to the ruins of post-war Europe, here it emphasises the urgency of re-examining the land, both today and in the future, as the climate crisis compels us to think and act on a global scale whilst time is running out. Hurry Up Please, It's Time points to an apocalyptic realisation. Yet it is also a more everyday warning, for it is the call for the last round before the pub closes. On what scale is humanity prepared to think?
