The Utrecht Centre for Performing Arts (UCK) is hosting many of the parallel sessions during the Conference. The UCK is located opposite of Utrecht University Hall, at Dom Square (Domplein) 4. It is Utrecht’s municipal centre of art education, offering the citizens of Utrecht many opportunities to develop their artistic skills by means of art lessons, courses, (school) projects, and numerous other indoor and outdoor activities. The aim of the UCK is to enlarge the creative power of Utrecht’s citizens, as creative power contributes to a resilient, healthy community as well as to the societal development and possibilities of individual citizens: creative power brings people together by connecting people from different societal, economical, and cultural backgrounds, making them inventive and flexible and enlarging their imagination.
The UCK is located in a former Protestant school, built in 1926 by architect D.F. Slothouwer, and recently renovated (2015): originally the left part (no. 5) was the boys’ school, at no. 4 was the entrance of the girls’ school; this previous use is still visible from the sculptures above both entrances, made by the Utrecht sculptress Thérèse van Hall. In this area, (parts of) older houses were often incorporated within the new building. The UCK-building is no exception to this: in the Marnixzaal you can still observe parts of a former 13th-century building that once was the property of one of the canons (kannuniken) of the Church of Oudmunster, that was also located on the Dom Square (the location of that church has been indicated in the pavement of the Dom Square). Next to its function as centre of performing arts, the building is also known to the public as the entrance to the underground exhibition DOMunder, showing the remains of the Roman castellum as well as other hidden parts of Utrecht’s historical centre.
