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In the academic year 2017-2018, nearly eighty trainee architects at Delft University of Technology’s Faculty of Architecture produced a picture of Amsterdam in the year 2050. Divided into eight teams, the AMS Mid-City – imagining Amsterdam in 2050 studio, supervised by Kees Kaan, professor of ‘complex projects’, focused on specific parts of the city and its surroundings: central Amsterdam, Overamstel, south-east Amsterdam, the Schiphol corridor, Sloterdijk, Zaanstad, the Stadseilanden and Oud-Zuid (the ‘Old South’, which despite its name includes the newly emerging ‘South Axis’ and South Amsterdam railway station). Besides the team productions, including readily comparable, clear scale models, all the participants completed projects of their own. In support of the research-by-design, an accompanying City Innovation Seminar was organized in partnership with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS).
In the academic year 2017-2018, nearly eighty trainee architects at Delft University of Technology’s Faculty of Architecture produced a picture of Amsterdam in the year 2050. Divided into eight teams, the AMS Mid-City – imagining Amsterdam in 2050 studio, supervised by Kees Kaan, professor of ‘complex projects’, focused on specific parts of the city and its surroundings: central Amsterdam, Overamstel, south-east Amsterdam, the Schiphol corridor, Sloterdijk, Zaanstad, the Stadseilanden and Oud-Zuid (the ‘Old South’, which despite its name includes the newly emerging ‘South Axis’ and South Amsterdam railway station). Besides the team productions, including readily comparable, clear scale models, all the participants completed projects of their own. In support of the research-by-design, an accompanying City Innovation Seminar was organized in partnership with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS).
In the academic year 2017-2018, nearly eighty trainee architects at Delft University of Technology’s Faculty of Architecture produced a picture of Amsterdam in the year 2050. Divided into eight teams, the AMS Mid-City – imagining Amsterdam in 2050 studio, supervised by Kees Kaan,...
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In contemporary mobile society, stations are becoming much more than just a place to get on and off trains or other modes of transport. Stations are places to work, do business, meet, shop and relax. They not only link different modes of transport at several levels (local, regional, national and international) but are also ‘urban’ connectors within the city and its surrounding region, as well as catalysts of urban transformation. A development or redevelopment project for a station can therefore also be used to promote high-quality architecture and the revitalization of city districts. The main goals are on the one hand finding an optimum mix of transport modalities for every situation and making the whole station complex as seamless as possible for the users, and on the other to address the need to rethink the ‘intermodal station’ as an urban place, as an attractive and liveable area with room for ‘innovative’ design solutions as well as development and redevelopment projects and densification. This means that a higher degree of flexibility must be incorporated, finding ways to deal with the often complicated governance structure inside and outside the station building and its surroundings.
In contemporary mobile society, stations are becoming much more than just a place to get on and off trains or other modes of transport. Stations are places to work, do business, meet, shop and relax. They not only link different modes of transport at several levels (local, regional, national and international) but are also ‘urban’ connectors within the city and its surrounding region, as well as catalysts of urban transformation. A development or redevelopment project for a station can therefore also be used to promote high-quality architecture and the revitalization of city districts. The main goals are on the one hand finding an optimum mix of transport modalities for every situation and making the whole station complex as seamless as possible for the users, and on the other to address the need to rethink the ‘intermodal station’ as an urban place, as an attractive and liveable area with room for ‘innovative’ design solutions as well as development and redevelopment...
In contemporary mobile society, stations are becoming much more than just a place to get on and off trains or other modes of transport. Stations are places to work, do business, meet, shop and relax. They not only link different modes of transport at several levels (local, regional, national...
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Since 2016 the city of Amsterdam, which is famed for its expansion plans, has been focusing on densification. As part of the council’s vision of a city with high quality of life (a circular economy, health, etc.), its Koers 2025: ruimte voor de stad (Target 2025: room for the city) programme includes densification involving at least 50,000 new dwellings. Most of these will be built in the form of tower blocks in the ‘Ring Zone’: the area between the prewar and postwar city along the A10 motorway, the circular railway line and the banks of the River IJ. In the next few years this area is to become a linking element between the centre and the districts beyond the ring, as well as a gateway to the city from the surrounding region. This will give a remarkable twist to a trend that was launched much earlier. ‘Today the existing city is not a marginal phenomenon within an endless mass of new urban development; on the contrary, new urban expansion lies in the margin of the existing city,’ wrote Erik Pasveer in 1991. The age of major urban expansion was truly over, and with it architects’ and urban planners’ focus on ‘tomorrow’s city’. The Bijlmer development, now known as South-East Amsterdam, was in that sense the last example of it. Yet Koers 2025 appears to be reviving the notion of ‘tomorrow’s city’ in a new form.
Since 2016 the city of Amsterdam, which is famed for its expansion plans, has been focusing on densification. As part of the council’s vision of a city with high quality of life (a circular economy, health, etc.), its Koers 2025: ruimte voor de stad (Target 2025: room for the city) programme includes densification involving at least 50,000 new dwellings. Most of these will be built in the form of tower blocks in the ‘Ring Zone’: the area between the prewar and postwar city along the A10 motorway, the circular railway line and the banks of the River IJ. In the next few years this area is to become a linking element between the centre and the districts beyond the ring, as well as a gateway to the city from the surrounding region. This will give a remarkable twist to a trend that was launched much earlier. ‘Today the existing city is not a marginal phenomenon within an endless mass of new urban development; on the contrary, new urban expansion lies in the margin of...
Since 2016 the city of Amsterdam, which is famed for its expansion plans, has been focusing on densification. As part of the council’s vision of a city with high quality of life (a circular economy, health, etc.), its Koers 2025: ruimte voor de stad (Target 2025: room for the city)...
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Around 1850, Amsterdam was surrounded by water, on a tongue of land between the River IJ to the north, the Zuiderzee (then still an inlet of the North Sea) to the east and the Haarlemmermeer lake to the south-west. The Singelgracht canal, dug in the seventeenth century, still marked the boundary between the city and the countryside. Although the fortifications no longer served any military purpose, landward access to the city was still controlled via the city gates, so that municipal excise taxes could be levied. The western and eastern port islands were also protected by docks, and the River Amstel could be sealed off near the Damrak canal. Besides the port and work areas located inside the city boundaries (marked in grey) there was a large unbroken work area to the west of the city between the Singelgracht and Kostverloren Vaart canals, with large numbers of industrial mills.
In the previous decades major infrastructural works were commissioned by the government in order to strengthen Amsterdam’s position as a trading centre. The construction of the Rijksentrepotdok (‘National Warehouse Dock’) on the edge of the eastern port area in 1827 gave the city a tax-free transhipment centre. The north-south water route was enhanced by the construction of the North Holland Canal in 1824 and improvements to the navigability of the River Amstel in 1825. The advent of the railways ended the centuries-long domination of water transport. The first line, between Amsterdam and Haarlem, opened in 1839, to be followed in 1843 by the Amsterdam-Utrecht line. Both lines ended at terminus stations just outside the Singelgracht canal.
The main public institutions were mostly located in the mediaeval part of the city. A new exchange building, the Zocher Exchange, had recently been built. In 1808 the city hall on the Dam square was turned into a palace by King Louis Bonaparte, and the exchange bank, the courthouse and the city council had to move to new premises. The city council was housed in Prinsenhof, in the former monastery and convent district, and in 1836 the Amsterdam courthouse moved from there to the Palace of Justice on the Prinsengracht canal.
The main social welfare institutions, such as the Burgerweeshuis orphanage and the Binnengasthuis hospital, had been built back in the seventeenth century on the former sites of monasteries and convents in the south of the mediaeval part of the city.
The only large green area, the Plantage, was located on the eastern side of the city, inside the Singelgracht. This contained the botanical gardens (created in 1683) and the zoo (1835), in between allotment gardens, timber yards, tea gardens and open-air theatres. Permanent construction was not yet officially allowed there. Large institutions such as the Orange-Nassau barracks and the prison with cells were built here and there on the former sites of bastions.
Around 1850, Amsterdam was surrounded by water, on a tongue of land between the River IJ to the north, the Zuiderzee (then still an inlet of the North Sea) to the east and the Haarlemmermeer lake to the south-west. The Singelgracht canal, dug in the seventeenth century, still marked the boundary between the city and the countryside. Although the fortifications no longer served any military purpose, landward access to the city was still controlled via the city gates, so that municipal excise taxes could be levied. The western and eastern port islands were also protected by docks, and the River Amstel could be sealed off near the Damrak canal. Besides the port and work areas located inside the city boundaries (marked in grey) there was a large unbroken work area to the west of the city between the Singelgracht and Kostverloren Vaart canals, with large numbers of industrial mills.
In the previous decades major infrastructural...
Around 1850, Amsterdam was surrounded by water, on a tongue of land between the River IJ to the north, the Zuiderzee (then still an inlet of the North Sea) to the east and the Haarlemmermeer lake to the south-west. The Singelgracht canal, dug in the seventeenth century, still marked the...
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From 10 to 18 November 1945, an exhibition was held in the Arti et Amicitiae artists’ society in Amsterdam that lasted only a week but received a great deal of attention in various newspapers. The subject was ‘Bouwen van woning tot stad’ (Building from house to city), ‘a study of housing development plans which were produced in the years 1943-1945 by the architects A. Boeken, J.H.L. Giesen, A. Komter, A. Staal, K.L. Sijmons Dzn., S. van Woerden and P. Zanstra for a book to be published’ on behalf of a group of ten building contractors. The designs were held together by an alternative expansion plan to replace the General Expansion Plan (AUP), approved by the municipal council in 1935. ‘The new plan suggests such healthy and fresh ideas that de Volkskrant [newspaper] – despite all the current criticism – believes it should be brought to the attention of the public. Above all, however, because we are of the opinion that factors of prestige and power should not be decisive for the question of what the capital of the Netherlands will look like in the year 2000.’ Arthur Staal, one of the architects, had spoken to the press, saying, ‘Our plans may seem unacceptable to many, but who dares to say that the 1935 plan is the only solution for Amsterdam? Adding new districts has nothing to do with urban planning. [...] There is still relatively little building activity, but the 1935 plan is pursued. Amsterdam is being nailed to it almost unnoticed, until it becomes a fact. We will then be carrying Amsterdam to its grave – sacrificing its architectural image on the altar of scientific figures.’ The municipality had responded to the invitation for the opening of the exhibition with a message saying it would not be attending.
From 10 to 18 November 1945, an exhibition was held in the Arti et Amicitiae artists’ society in Amsterdam that lasted only a week but received a great deal of attention in various newspapers. The subject was ‘Bouwen van woning tot stad’ (Building from house to city), ‘a study of housing development plans which were produced in the years 1943-1945 by the architects A. Boeken, J.H.L. Giesen, A. Komter, A. Staal, K.L. Sijmons Dzn., S. van Woerden and P. Zanstra for a book to be published’ on behalf of a group of ten building contractors. The designs were held together by an alternative expansion plan to replace the General Expansion Plan (AUP), approved by the municipal council in 1935. ‘The new plan suggests such healthy and fresh ideas that de Volkskrant [newspaper] – despite all the current criticism – believes it should be brought to the attention of the public. Above all, however, because we are of the opinion that factors of prestige and power should...
From 10 to 18 November 1945, an exhibition was held in the Arti et Amicitiae artists’ society in Amsterdam that lasted only a week but received a great deal of attention in various newspapers. The subject was ‘Bouwen van woning tot stad’ (Building from house to city), ‘a study of...
Polemen
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For years the bulk of housing in the Netherlands was produced through large-scale development of entire areas in public/private partnerships (PPPs) between local governments, housing corporations and major market players. This way of working largely ceased after 2008. PPPs were dismantled, building and development firms had to drastically revise their business models, and housing corporations became subject to strict controls.
In the wake of the building crisis, a new practice gradually emerged. Projects became smaller, to reduce risk, and initiators became more diverse. Not only major market players but also small investors, local building firms and individuals (or groups of them) sought to invest in cities by developing and building small-scale housing projects. Local authorities looked favourably on this broadening of initiative, for it enabled at least some housing production.
Now that the building and property market has moved from depression into a manic phase, the fledgling practice based on diverse, small-scale projects seems to be getting smothered by the rhetoric of large-scale production. The motto is ‘back to normal’. Yet the city would do well to continue encouraging small-scale development as well as major projects.
For years the bulk of housing in the Netherlands was produced through large-scale development of entire areas in public/private partnerships (PPPs) between local governments, housing corporations and major market players. This way of working largely ceased after 2008. PPPs were dismantled, building and development firms had to drastically revise their business models, and housing corporations became subject to strict controls.
In the wake of the building crisis, a new practice gradually emerged. Projects became smaller, to reduce risk, and initiators became more diverse. Not only major market players but also small investors, local building firms and individuals (or groups of them) sought to invest in cities by developing and building small-scale housing projects. Local authorities looked favourably on this broadening of initiative, for it enabled at least some housing production.
Now that the building and...
For years the bulk of housing in the Netherlands was produced through large-scale development of entire areas in public/private partnerships (PPPs) between local governments, housing corporations and major market players. This way of working largely ceased after 2008. PPPs were dismantled,...
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What do collective dwellings contribute – or could they contribute – to the city? To answer this question we will start with the 2006 publication The intermediate size: a handbook for collective dwellings, and compare the assumptions in this study and that of the Hooidrift construction project in Rotterdam, which was completed in 2017. The subject in each case was the fine grain in the city, with an ‘intermediate size’ in between those of the individual house and the urban block. At first sight the two projects do not seem to have much in common. From the theoretical angle of The intermediate size, collective dwellings are described as a typology that mediates between architecture and urban planning, whereas Hooidrift, a project commissioned by a collective, consists of a terrace of houses – so typologically these are not collective dwellings. Yet it is worthwhile comparing the two projects and asking how a collective agenda can be translated into architecture, and how this relates to the city. Which architectural resources are used, and what is the architect’s role?
What do collective dwellings contribute – or could they contribute – to the city? To answer this question we will start with the 2006 publication The intermediate size: a handbook for collective dwellings, and compare the assumptions in this study and that of the Hooidrift construction project in Rotterdam, which was completed in 2017. The subject in each case was the fine grain in the city, with an ‘intermediate size’ in between those of the individual house and the urban block. At first sight the two projects do not seem to have much in common. From the theoretical angle of The intermediate size, collective dwellings are described as a typology that mediates between architecture and urban planning, whereas Hooidrift, a project commissioned by a collective, consists of a terrace of houses – so typologically these are not collective dwellings. Yet it is worthwhile comparing the two projects and asking how a collective agenda can be translated into...
What do collective dwellings contribute – or could they contribute – to the city? To answer this question we will start with the 2006 publication The intermediate size: a handbook for collective dwellings, and compare the assumptions in this study and that of the Hooidrift...
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The ‘Learning by Models’ exhibition held in the Faculty of Architecture of TU Delft in the spring of 2018 comprised a number of models representing various works by the architect Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950). The models were made in three architecture schools, namely the Maastricht Academy of Architecture , the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio and the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment in Delft, and the clear differences between these models showed the various ways that Tessenow’s work is addressed in architectural education today. The exhibition’s closing event was a symposium that brought together teachers, architectural historians and practising architects to share their views and ideas about Tessenow and his relevance to contemporary architecture. This text was one of the contributions.
The ‘Learning by Models’ exhibition held in the Faculty of Architecture of TU Delft in the spring of 2018 comprised a number of models representing various works by the architect Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950). The models were made in three architecture schools, namely the Maastricht Academy of Architecture , the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio and the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment in Delft, and the clear differences between these models showed the various ways that Tessenow’s work is addressed in architectural education today. The exhibition’s closing event was a symposium that brought together teachers, architectural historians and practising architects to share their views and ideas about Tessenow and his relevance to contemporary architecture. This text was one of the contributions.
The ‘Learning by Models’ exhibition held in the Faculty of Architecture of TU Delft in the spring of 2018 comprised a number of models representing various works by the architect Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950). The models were made in three architecture schools, namely the Maastricht...