Dense country or suburban region?

The Netherlands are internationally renowned for strong top-down spatial planning and compact city policy. However, when we see the results of 40 years of planning attempts in the Dutch metropolitan area, known as Randstad, one wonders what the hell happened in practice.


Amsterdam-Almere region: building a new town

The PBL institute recently launched a publication on New Towns and Suburban Development in The Netherlands, with a set of incredible urban growth maps.

At the end of the 1950’s, national politicians came to the conclusion that the cities Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht were about to form a ring shaped metropolis, hence the name Randstad. Afraid of becoming a metropolis, like Paris (at the time apparently this was something awful), it was decided that the so-called ‘green heart’ would remain rural. To accomodate the demand for new housing in the 1970’s, a series of new towns were built along train connections near the major cities.


Amsterdam-Haarlem region: city expansion and the rise of Hoofddorp

Policies to use large locations near urban ring roads and highways for urbanization (Vinex, late 1980’s to early 2000’s) and the following ‘concentrated deconcentration’ – something almost inexplicable meaning as much as medium-density sprawl, did the rest. The result in the Randstad area over 40 years time, is an inversion of land use patterns. From a series of seperate cities in an agricultural setting, it became a suburban landscape, with islands of agriculture and recreational spaces. Does this mean The Netherlands as a whole are turning into a giant suburb? No, two thirds of the country still have agricultural use and especially the periphery of the country is not likely to experience strong urban growth.

Haaglanden region: from separate towns to continuous urban field

Rooftops Rotterdam

Last weekend, during the Motel Mozaïque festival, Archi-guides gave tours over the rooftops of Rotterdam. Three groups started their tours simultaneously from Schouwburgplein. Our guide took us to the roof of a partially empty office building at Kruiskade, a rooftop kindergarden in the main shopping area and the top of the Kruisplein dwellings. At night, the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam organized a rooftop screening at Delftseplein.

Kruiskade

View over stripped office tower at the Coolsingel

View over the Lijnbaan shopping area and apartment blocks – a modernist monument, designed in the 1950’s by Van den Broek and Bakema

View over the Kop van Zuid – an port reuse project. Under construction, the Rotterdam Building, designed by OMA.

View over the old West of Rotterdam, with at the horizon the Erasmus medical center and Euromast.

Eye contact with another group of rooftop visitors

Calypso Rotterdam

Who hasn’t been to the Calypso site, in central Rotterdam, in the last 4 years, is in for a change. The modern dance palace and restaurant from the 50’s was demolished, together with the neighboring Paulus Church. In it’s place, the new Calypso has arisen, a massive block, fit for Rotterdam in scale, but with a somewhat strange facade, designed by the office of Will Alsop. The transformation of Calypso was part of the Rotterdam Central Station project.


In earlier days, the spot was well known for the restaurant Calypso & Felice, the jazz sessions and the Roller Disco. The building next door, the Paulus church, has also been demolished and rebuilt. It continues to organize indoor sleeping facilities for the homeless.

Utrecht central station – journey through time

The station of Utrecht in the 19th century was the first Dutch train station where two railways met – the Rhijnspoorlijn to Amsterdam and the railway to Rotterdam – so people could transfer from one line to the other. Stations, at that time, were mainly logistic hubs just outside the city limits, connecting one city to another.

About 70 years later, the city had grown beyond the railway. The location of the central station, the most accessible point in the whole country, was not well used as a place. In 1962, the municipality asked construction company Bredero to draw up a plan to densify the areas adjacent to the infrastructure, and turn Utrecht CS into a centrality, including a shopping mall (Hoog Catharijne), a theatre, concert hall and national event venue (Jaarbeurs).

At this time, car use was increasing rapidly, changing the way people used amenities and moved through the city, and hereby changing the way city’s were planned. The historic canal Catharijnesingel, parallel to the rail tracks, was filled in the 1970’s and turned into an artery road for automobiles.

A dense patchwork of buildings arose near the station, mainly offices. Despite the modernity, unequal to the rest of the country, relatively soon the complex became outdated. Hoog Catharijne is often criticized for being a monofunctional complex, with poor public space and street access, and poor spatial quality. Another 70 years later, the project CU2030 foresees the transformation of the entire station area until the year 2030. The new transport terminal, designed by Benthem Crouwel, will be ready by 2015. Meanwhile, the Catharijnesingel is being dug out again, to become a canal with, eventually, a large tree canopy.

In 2030, the station area will not purely be a logistic hub, not a densely built up place, but rather a multifunctional part of the city, where mobility is optimally connected to urban functions by pleasant public space.