Poché is the term for the black lines in an architectural drawing that indicate the thickness of the floors and walls. Or on a city plan: the black that indicates buildings in contrast to the white that designates public space 1. But there is also open space hidden in the black. It is the space that for whatever reason is obscured: technical space, cavity space, cellars and attics. It is the space that we don’t want to see, but that we also can’t erase. The more closely built the Baroque city was, the more difficult it was to eliminate the residual spaces. This also applied to Modernism where there was no room for dust collectors like attics and cellars. Nor for the ugly back sides and silted-up inner courtyards. Because these came to light with the opening of the closed blocks, they were set up as viewing and ornamental gardens.

Nowadays courtyards in cities are set up as closed patios, belonging to a cafe or restaurant or to an art institution, and often accessible only through the institution. And suddenly the ugly back sides of the surrounding buildings turn out to be an extra attraction. We see this in Arnhem in an area that—typical for the poché—doesn’t have a name (yet), and that I just call the bartok space 2. From trash space to terrace space: it seems like a big step but on closer inspection that is not the case.

Certainly, the bartok space is changing from a residual space surrounded by back sides to a square with front sides. The back side of an old theatre building has been transformed into a glassed front side with a homely pointed roof. But the transformation is not complete. Behind the glass facade the full extent of the stairwell is clearly visible. The staircase has been promoted from residual space to theatre of movement. The white and black of the city plan have become grey. It is characteristic of the present time that what had always remained hidden now insists on coming into the light. This development is encouraged by the Internet that ensures that the private and the public are increasingly intertwined. The contemporary poché develops into pure virtuality, in the words of Frans Sturkenboom: the underground and the background building that insists on actualization.

We see this not only in the buildings but also on the ground surface. The Theatre and the Arthouse next door create small patios and stage performances among gravelly sand, mugwort and pigweed. This process of going from poché to square is interesting. Because now you see that bringing things to light produces a new black along with greyness.

First the grey. I once explored the farmyard of my youth looking for the intimate relationship between the yard and its inhabitants, including the chickens and the pigs. But I overlooked one of the residents, the pigweed, which had spread flat over the yard. A case of plant blindness. Pigweed is an ugly ‘tredplant’, which, because of its name, I thought grew only in farmyards. Now it strikes my eye in the city spaces halfway between poché and square, where it forms ornamental stars in the sand. And where I fear it will one day end up as mosaic tile on a square.

Now we turn to the black. The messy back sides of the building appear to consist of two houses that are equally enigmatic in their differences. The shape of the tile roofs, the placement of the windows: it seems as if the back sides without intervention of a designer are transformed into front sides. Spooky and poignant. I do not know where their front door is and I also don’t need to know. They are inspiration for the dreamer, like Dostoevsky, who on his wanderings through Saint Petersburg saw in that one house with the ‘shutters closed in broad daylight’ immediately an adventure.