“Creating A Home”
GLUE’s Creative Citizens of Honour 2026
What does it take to create a home? This year, GLUE thematically investigates the concept of the home. We are living in a rapidly changing world, with a lot of uncertainty. Within these times, the home becomes a key factor. Therefore, we are delighted to introduce the Creative Citizens of Honour for 2026: Tracy Metz, Baptist Brayé, Martina Halsema and Rubiah Balsem. This year’s honorees were selected because they do not approach the home simply as a building with walls and a rooftop, but rather approach it as a feeling of belonging. Each of them contribute actively to making Amsterdam a home for all.
Whether you are an interior architect, a product designer, showroom manager, or furniture designer; you already know that the best work rarely happens in isolation. It happens in conversation with a client, with a fellow designer who sees things differently, or by investigating a discipline you hadn’t considered before. A home worth living in makes room for these connections to cultivate. In this way, a home is never solely a private matter, but is shaped by the city, and the people who open their doors to others.
Tracy Metz and Baptist Brayé
Literally opening their doors to others is what Tracy Metz and Baptist Brayé do best. They live in a beautiful UNESCO certified canal house, situated at the Golden Bend of the Herengracht. The iconic architecture of their home has presided over Amsterdam’s history for a long time. Built in 1686, and receiving a lavish makeover in 1870 by Willem Hendrick Warnsinck, the house with its painted ceilings and different salon rooms create a museal place.
If you live in such a beautiful house as we do, it is necessary that you share that with others.
A beautiful home, and therefore necessary to share with others. Being true supporters of GLUE since the start, Tracy and Baptist are the owners of ‘StadsSalon.’ This is a non-subsidised private initiative that transforms their home into a podium for people with “brilliant ideas but no budget to realise them.” For over twenty years, Tracy and Baptist have hosted exhibitions, performances, screenings, fashion shows, dinners and workshops. “If it fits the agenda, it happens.” Their house is fully equipped with everything you need to host an event. Revenue from commercial events feeds into their non-profit foundation. This funds the cultural programming and gives emerging creatives a stage they otherwise wouldn’t have access to.
Tracy and Baptist understand very well how stories shape a space and vice versa. Each week brings something different. Every visit teaches you something new about the city. By realising this, they are able to turn a monumental building - anchored in the idea of preservation - into a meeting ground for creative regeneration.
Martina Halsema
Creativity is the lifeline of a city.
“Creativity is the lifeline of a city.” States Martina Halsema while talking about creating a home, and she has spent her career on making sure that lifeline runs to as many hands as possible. As former director of Amsterdam Art, and member of the Supervisory Board of Het Salon Ateliers Amsterdam, she is consistently trying to ensure that creativity has space to flourish. Her answer to creating a home is enabling connection between people. In her personal life, that might mean hosting a dinner with a good conversation. Professionally, she does so by making space for different perspectives to be heard at the table, literally and figuratively.
Her belief is clear: a city is not built with pretty buildings and established institutes, but with creative ideas that are not set in stone. Martina points out that it is typical for a developing area to first base creatives there. “It is creativity that transforms a former industrial area into a place worth living in.” Creativity is the undercurrent of the home. It is essential, yet often invisible.
Amsterdam has always intrigued Martina because of its experimental character. It is shaped by migration, and by people who bring different perspectives of what a city can be. As former director of Amsterdam Art, she helped to cultivate connections between such different perspectives within the creative scene. Het Salon Ateliers Amsterdam is a good example of this on a smaller scale. This is a sanctuary with music studios, art ateliers, tattoo shops, and other creative disciplines. Cross pollination between these different practices inspire each other, and are essential to generate curiosity and creativity.
Rubiah Balsem
Genuine curiosity to one another strongly resonates with Rubiah Balsem. She is a ‘social architect’ and founder of Studio Balsem, through which she guides professionals in their creative leadership and cultural entrepreneurship, and does research into the design of future cultural institutions.
Her method into “creating a home” is one of redefinition. Rubiah never accepts concepts at a face value, but always investigates the structures, systems, and relations that lie underneath. The definition of ‘architecture’ does not escape her critical eye either. She does so by investigating the architecture of emotions and relationships, but also by investigating the architecture of stories, and how they take shape. With the question of what it means to create a home, Rubiah answers by stating that relationships determine the rhythm of where you feel at home.
It is essential to cultivate an empathetic repertoire, an understanding of each other, what it means to be you, and the relational aspect that comes with it. I can only feel at home somewhere if I know that others feel at home too.
Rubiah advocates for inclusive and diverse cultural ecosystems in which non-Westerns perspectives are equally valued. Next to Studio Balsem, Rubiah is on the Advisory Board of Buro Stedelijk, supervisory board of OSCAM.
Celebrating the Creative Citizens of Honour 2026
On Wednesday the 16th of September, on the opening night of GLUE’s design route, we celebrate the Creative Citizens of Honour, and their shared commitment into creating a home.
We are honoured to celebrate these four remarkable citizens, and invite you to carry their philosophy with you into everything you encounter during GLUE 2026.
The design-route GLUE amsterdam connected by design takes place from Thursday 17th until Saturday 19th of September 2026. GLUE is an initiative that connects the Amsterdam design community the whole year around.
‘We should celebrate and cherish Amsterdam’s creativity, diversity, and identity, because a rich and diverse cultural climate is a prerequisite for a healthy city in the future,’ say the founders of GLUE. GLUE is honouring three creative ‘honorary’ citizens with the title of Creative Citizen of Honour every year. These creatives are being spotlighted because they provide a podium for creativity in the city or encourage its development. They know how to reflect, convey, connect, and enrich the colourfulness, creativity, and diversity of the city of Amsterdam.
