co-working. ride-sharing. couch-surfing

it’s like everyday we’re coming up with new ways

to deal with the fact that living in a big city

it can be expensive, lonely, and at times even soul-sucking

and the latest thing in this is co-living

which takes sharing to a new extreme

I mean think about it, it’s one thing to share a ride

it’s quite another thing to live with a group of total strangers

in what is basically a dorm for millennials

but believe it or not, this is not a new idea

people have been living like this all over northern europe since the late sixties

trust me, I know this from personal experience

cause I spend my entire childhood in a communal house in amsterdam

and even though my house was quite different

from the co-living spaces popping up in new york now

the story of kollontai and — the eight women who chose to live there

it speaks to the promise and challenges of communal living today

here’s how it went down

in the early 1980s, amsterdam was suffering a massive housing shortage

apartments were really expensive and hard to find

and in response, the city government enacted a bunch of rules

including that one percent of all new apartments had to be communal

and if not for that little one-percent rule

I might have grown up in public housing on the outskirts of the city

luckily, my mom came across a more promising option

there was an ad in the groene amsterdammer which is, still is

a progressive weekly and it said "community" — "living community"

are looking for a parent with a 5 year old child

and I was a parent with a five year old child! so!

my mom was sold, and we moved in

but the thing to keep in mind about kollontai, is that it was all women

and it wasn’t by design but it wasn’t coincidental either

they were feminists and non-conformists, some were gay

and they were all rebelling against the traditional 1950s families they’d grown up in

one wrote at the time that she didn’t want to be

“some simple little housewife who comes home to a man in slippers.”

so it probably doesn’t come as a surprise

that they decided to name the house after alexandra kollontai

a russian revolutionary leader, feminist icon, and the first female soviet diplomat

alexandra kollontai was a russian feminist

who believed in free love in the time of lenin

and she was also a diplomat in scandinavia

and — but it was already named kollontai when I arrived here

I didn’t choose the name I didn’t even know

I didn’t even know who alexandra kollontai was before I came to live here. so

now, if you’re picturing a bunch of wide-eyed hippies

embarking on a utopian experiment

you’ve clearly never met a dutch leftist

lawyers and notaries were hired

meetings were held with city officials to iron out the house’s legal status

and once construction got underway

they drove the architect crazy with last-minute demands

the deal was that each tenant would pay her own rent and have her own private room

pretty much everything else was shared, including a kitchen

a communal/tv room, a garden — which they all had to tend

a washing machine, the rooftop and a couple of bathrooms

they agreed to have house meetings every month, and dinner every night

every

single

night

move-in day was july 18, 1984 and at first, kollontai flourished

the women hung out together, ate together, and even vacationed together

everything seemed possible

should we build a darkroom? sure

how about a guest bedroom? done, let’s do it!

so, really, everything was going great

even though for most, it was the first time they lived in a group

— yeah and I really wanted to live in a group

I don’t know why. I still do

coming from a large family, all nice and cozy together

and the social aspect of raising kids together

not in a claustrophobic little family of two people with children

but with more options

but the honeymoon phase was short lived

the problems started with the communal dinners

people who had kids wanted to eat earlier than people who didn’t have kids

vegetarians got offended when meat was served

work schedules didn’t allow some to help cook

and some who did cook were terrible at it

within a matter of months, the communal dinners stopped

the really sad realization, was that the women didn’t actually like each other enough

to have dinner together every night

— a couple of things did change over time

and I don’t remember us ever making a decision about that

it just happened naturally

eating together is very intimate, and you do that with friends

and if they don’t become your friends, it’s not interesting

and to keep doing it just to keep the household efficient, just doesn’t work

so it’s really quite simple

you end up eating together less and less, you start joining less

you start to think you might as well cook upstairs

and then gradually the dinners are no longer happening

besides the problems with the communal dinners

they also started arguing about every little thing

like where to set the thermostat

some would conveniently forget to pay their share of the bills

— once I went upstairs to cook, which was really something else

and tini completely lost her mind because she had seen me take her salt shaker

and felt that I had commandeered it!

and I thought to myself, well if this is how it’s going to be

I won’t be cooking here anymore, I don’t care

the final straw came in 1989

only five years after they all moved in

when one woman got so fed up with her floor mate

that she moved all her stuff into the communal room

the other women were pissed

it wasn’t her room, it was everyone’s room!

someone called the police

— what we always had to agree on, was the division of the spaces

if somebody would move out we had to agree on who would move into that space

and that ultimately was the only agenda item we ever really had

if someone was moving — oh, my god!

we have to decide again on what to do

and at some point that went wrong

there was a fight about a move in the house

and one of the residents squatted the communal room as leverage

squatting!

and then evacuating!

yes! the other residents decided to evacuate her and her stuff!

I still remember that, me standing there with all these people moving her stuff out

and thinking oh my god

and that, was pretty much the end of the communal phase

the women continued to live there

but more like neighbors in the conventional sense

so kollontai was a flop

a failed experiment

a cautionary tale

or was it?

well... not for me!

because while the adults were arguing and slamming doors

I was free to explore what was essentially a living, breathing wikipedia

on the fourth floor I discovered queen and the police

and made my first piece of graphic design, an ascii drawing of a skeleton

it was awesome!

my friends lived on the third floor

we used to have sleepovers and ride old mattresses down the staircases

so much fun

I used to go to the second floor to binge-watch fawlty towers and other british comedies

it’s also where I got my first lesson on middle eastern politics

we were watching the 8 o’clock news when I said

“hey, yassir arafat looks like a really sweet guy!”

and my mom looked at me like “what” and burst out laughing

and I haven’t even told you about my favorite floor yet

the first floor, the long abandoned common room

it was full of everyone’s garbage

the good kind

philosophy books, psychology books, clothes, old bikes, tools, paint

random furniture, disco records — and who knows what else

totally appropriate things for a 10 year old to be playing with

so if I think about it, it didn’t really feel like I was living in an apartment building

it actually felt like I was living in a little village

— well, that’s not an unhealthy environment to grow up in

I think a lot of villages have that

they have their own village idiot and they have their own artist

and they have someone who just kind of walks around

they have lots of different kinds of people

and for children that’s very interesting

it was really interesting

and I’ve never met anyone who grew up the way I did

whenever I tell my friends about kollontai I get a lot of confused looks

which is why I decided to do this project

co-living is taking off because people are wrestling with the same issues as my mom did 30 years ago

like affordable housing and feeling alone in a big city

and as we explore solutions, it’s important to know what we’ve tried before