A Bed, a Chair and a Table is a publication about the Poortgebouw, a former squat and vibrant living community located in the South of Rotterdam. In this book, oral histories from inside and outside the Poortgebouw are interlaced with material from various institutional and personal archives. By bringing together these tales of resilience, political struggle, frustration and friendship with historical documents, this book brings forward new perspectives about the Poortgebouw's unique history and its importance in the contemporary city. The starting point of the book was the Autonomous Archive, a local archiving machine built from parts of different computers by the inhabitants of the Poortgebouw and a group of students from XPUB.

This publication is brought to you by Delphine Bedel, Natasha Berting, André Castro, Elisa Chaudet, Angeliki Diakrousi, Max Franklin, Giulia de Giovanelli, Francisco González, Joca van der Horst, Aymeric Mansoux, Michael Murtaugh, Alexander Roidl, Steve Rushton, Alice Strete, Zalán Szakács and the Autonomous Archive. XPUB is a two-year Media Design Master course that prepares students to critically engage with societal issues within the fast changing field of art, design and cultural production. The project was developed in the context of Architecture of Appropriation, a research project at Het Nieuwe Instituut, that examines how squatters have appropriated urban spaces using radical improvisation techniques, and how this has influenced the way we think about the contemporary city.