This text in Chapter 2 of the book «Intermittent Fevers» plants its roots in present-day Amsterdam, in 2023, and immediately starts dialling back the clock — first fifty years, then another fifty years. In 2023, the site at Wittenkade 48 is just another pleasant residential building overlooking a canal. But exactly half a century earlier, the area stood there empty, waiting to be repurposed. If we rewind until we undo a whole century, we find here the Cinchona Bureau at its peak marketing activity. Amsterdam was the control room of quinine trade worldwide.
an excerpt
By
Javier Ruiz & Federico Pozuelo
A community newspaper in Amsterdam ponders the future of the Quinine factory:
1973.
A community newspaper
in Amsterdam ponders the future of
the Quinine factory:
The building, only recently demolished, had become the carcass of a marine monster, washed ashore as changing currents put a stop to its free range of gluttony at sea.
"KININE-FABRIEK GESLOOPT"
"WAAR BLIJFT HET BEJAARDENHOF?"
Neighbours of de Wittenkade are
unhappy.
The site at number 48 has been
"lying fallow for some time."
When will the space be repurposed? When will this ruin become something useful, as promised?
The pharmacological industry outgrew quinine.
Synthetic drugs and processes of independence
in Indonesia
become unexpected conspirators against the colonial cartel.
The creature was to be urbanized into something palatable for the residential taste of Amsterdammers.
1923.
The place appears to be at peak activity.
A new Agreement is ratified.
The city
maintains its prime position.
De Wittenkade 48 is the address for all things important:
the processing of substances, the planning of marketing campaigns,
the production of scientific
(and not-so-scientific) works at
the service of the enterprise...
all of these, arms of a creature that curls up at home
after a profitable hunting session.
It is a good year.
Great even.
Perhaps the best ever.
Just listen to the founder and director
of the Quinine Factory:
"IN 1923 WE WERE THE RULING PARTY."
…but the waters are changing already.
This essay was first published in Intermittent Fevers (2023), a project and book by Stichting Prom Run. Republished with permission of the authors.
The pharmacological industry outgrew quinine.
