We started 24 Oranges in February 2007 and in late January 2022 it will become a column over at DutchNews.nl, also called 24 Oranges. After 4,100 posts under our belts, we might feel the need to post here every once in a while in the future, but have no current plans to continue. As two self-employed people, we’ve had to make sure we had enough work and energy to keep going, and honestly we just don’t these days. Before we sign off indefinitely, let’s look back at a few of the stories that we still talk about in no particular order. 1. A beautifully preserved Jewish home in Amsterdam We didn ..read more

This 12 minute short film follows a young woman called Sintel as she tries to track down the creature that abducted her pet dragon, Scales. The indie was produced in 2011 in order to showcase the possibilities of free and open source software Blender, and was funded using financial support from the Netherlands Film Fund and from hundreds of private sponsors. The film was directed by Colin Levy after a screen play by Esther Wouda, in turn inspired by a concept by Martin Lodewijk. The characters of Sintel and the shaman were voiced by Halina Reijn and Thom Hoffman respectively and the music was ..read more

Orangemaster and I came across this sticker on a window overlooking the back alley of taco bar Mr. Haz in the Jordaan neighbourhood of Amsterdam. It shows a drawing of a revolver pointed straight at the viewer and a text that reads “Beveiligd door” (“Secured by”), followed by a company name and phone number. I had to chuckle. Security guards in the Netherlands are not allowed to carry arms, making this is a crude joke or an announcement that the security company staff are worse than the people they are supposed to stop. It strikes me as variant of the sticker that contains a picture of a dog a ..read more

It’s only getting tougher to find a house to buy in The Netherlands. There’s a lack of affordable houses, often bought up at hundreds of thousands of euro above the asking price (according to Dutch news show Nieuwsuur on 31 May 2021), more often than not by investors who will subdivided the houses into small and make tons off renting them. By the way, this practice should be heavily restricted in 2022 if all goes as planned. Nathalie, 40, lives alone with her daughter, a dog and a bunny in 46 square metres and pays €950 in rent before utilities. She pays more than most, and less than some. Ho ..read more

On April 30, a retired Dutch couple from Amsterdam have become Europe’s first tenants of a fully 3D printed house in Eindhoven, Noord-Brabant, a cream coloured modern house with a bunker-like feel. Thanks to extra thick insulation and a connection to the heating network, the house is very comfortable and energy efficient. Printed layer by layer at a factory in Eindhoven, the parts were transported by truck to the construction site and placed on a foundation. The house was then equipped with a roof and window frames, and its finishings. One of the advantages of 3D printing is that the concrete ..read more

Dutch design brand Moooi has partnered with Argentinian 3D artist Andrés Reisinger to mass-produce his Hortensia chair, also known as “the chair that could not be made”. Back in 2018, Reisinger designed the chair as a ‘digital’ piece of furniture, but it has now been made into a physical chair covered in 30,000 fabric petals, available in the original pink as well as grey. This chair is said to be the first time that a product designed for the digital world has gone into mass production. The updated version being released by Moooi features a steel frame, rather than wood, covered in injection ..read more

Dutch King Willem Alexander and his family live in the royal palace Huis ten Bosch in The Hague, and greeting guests is often done in the DNA Salon. Dutch-British artist Jacob van der Beugel built the salon with part of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima’s genetic code, turned into 60.000 handmade bricks. Nothing medical is included in the design, as Van der Beugel was assisted by geneticist Hans Clevers to make sure the King’s and Queen’s privacy was protected. It took the artist almost three years to make all of the little bricks and a few weeks to install them. The flatness and horizon ..read more

On this day in 1945, Léo Major, the French Canadian soldier who single-handedly freed freed Zwolle, Overijssel, will have a 3.5 kilometre large section of motorway 371 in Québec named after him, starting at the entrance of the Valcartier military base Northwest of Québec City, Québec, Canada. Léo Major was given his first medal, the Distinguished Conduct Medal of the British Army, the only Canadian and one of only three soldiers in the British Commonwealth to ever receive the Distinguished Conduct Medal twice in separate wars. Major went on to pull some more great moves in the Korean War. His ..read more

In Utrecht, fish and other swimming creatures have been given their own doorbell to alert humans that they are trying to get to their spawning grounds. Each spring thousands of fish make the journey upstream in the Vecht river, but have to wait at the gates of the Weerdsluis lock because it doesn’t open often enough to their liking. The Weerdsluis lock was built in the Middle Ages around 1300 to maintain the water level in the canals and has been a national monument since 1992. To unclog the fish traffic, Utrecht local council and local water authorities have installed a camera that live stre ..read more

Like countless others, twentysomethings Amsterdam residents Max and James really miss going to the cafe (pub/bar) and having a beer. So much so that they built their own Amsterdam-style cafe in their flat on the third floor. It’s in a corner with the washing machine, and it’s 2.5 x 2.5 metres. The DIY brown café includes Amstel beer (brewed by Heineken), brown laminate planks, heavy curtains and ‘prullaria’ (knick-knacks). Cafe Van Dissel, named after Jaap van Dissel, Director of the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (aka RIVM), also has rules: not too much ..read more