Post-War City Planning Still Today's Homes, on a hot Dutch day
Cornelius Van Eesteren was a post-war architect and city planner in Amsterdam, largely involved in the western area of Amsterdam near Sloterplas (Sloter Park). This area is also refered to as the “Garden Cities” of Geuzenveld, Osdorp, Overtoomse Veld, and more. It was a mix of social housing, purchasable homes, with commercial spaces primarily slated to be elsewhere.
A bit on his methods:
“Cornelis van Eesteren rooted his work in the social context. His approach was to identify social (urban) issues that called for spatial solutions. He did not start from a preconceived formal idea but allow the form to grow out of a prior analysis. He always tried to get to the heart of the urban development problems. The 'functional city' concept he stood for was evident in the General Extension Plan for Amsterdam (1929), with which his name is invariably linked. The plan was based on statistical forecasts of population growth which were used to calculate the requirements for housing, leisure facilities, employment and traffic.” http://static.nai.nl/regie_e/manifestation/eesteren_e.html
Many of these “analyses” did not allow for change that comes with time. He planned numerous churches, but as the tour guide pointed out religion has lessoned in importance, and many of those spaces have been repurposed. The former school that originally held the museum is now a mixed-use space full of creatives. This theme of “analysis” and “statistical” information vs. experiential information is one that has come up often, and I hope to address more in future blogs.
A big theme in this housing was Light, Air, and Space. It immediately struck me as similar to the New York State Tenement Laws looking to provide fresh air, light, and water. Both areas were meant to serve more recent immigrants to the cities, although in the Dutch case, integrating populations in living neighborhoods was part of the goal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Tenement_House_Act
We took a walking tour of the neighborhood to see Van Eesteren’s ideas manifested. On the tour was a young student couple, with their parents. They wanted to know more about the history and planning behind their neighborhood. We talked about how the past concepts of VanEesteren and his peers worked today.
From the museum’s website
“Cornelis van Eesteren had already drawn in high-rise apartment buildings in his expansion plan, functioning as an aesthetic accent among the low-rise development in the other garden cities. In the sixties, high-rise construction met the continuous demand for housing. Torenwijck (the tower neigbourhood) is also called the ‘gold coast.’ This move towards high rise also brought in new designs. The apartment buildings on the Notweg were, at the time, a novelty. They had elevators, chutes and even a nifty rack to hide the laundry on the balcony.”
http://vaneesterenmuseum.nl/en/garden-cities/osdorp/
We also came across many examples of my architectural crush Aldo Van Eyck, as Van Eesteren and Van Eyck worked in the same post war era, and in this case, in the same neighborhood. The museum had information about his playgrounds, including a book that showed his observations as how the children of Amsterdam used public spaces; visual observations as far as I can tell, not statistical.
As much as I love his playgrounds, I was less a fan of his housing (which he did with Reitveld, the younger).
We were also able to enter a Van Eesteren house from 1952. From the museum's website:
"The Van Eesteren Museum House in Slotermeer was opened in October 2012, when the district existed exactly 60 years. The establishment of the Museum House represents an example of the new trend towards cooperation, recycling and sharing. Together with housing corporation ‘de Alliantie’ the residence has been refurbished to its original state. Its furnishings and interiors were donated by local residents and other interested people. They were all pleased to see that their precious belongings got a new destination in the Museum House. Volunteers helped to restore the goods, and to clean and decorate the house. The result is a museum house of and for us all.”
"Design and fashion of the fifties are currently ‘hot’. Also the cosiness of the times are celebrated and sought after. Playing a boardgame with the entire family in the living, or listening together to the radio. Of course, this romanticized image ignores some practical drawbacks: the coal stove only heated the living, which restricted family life to this room in wintertime. How life was lived in the Fifties can be experiences in the Van Eesteren Museum House.”
They are not kidding with the “coziness”. Rooms were quite small, to the point where more than one person in a room made it feel quite crowded. How such a tall people made such small spaces is beyond me*.
One example that stood out in the neighborhood were the buildings built using what the tour guide referred to as the “English system”. Post war, bricks and money were in short supply. The government in Den Haag created regulations which encouraged using cheaper, and quicker materials. The English system used primarily cement and rebar, but was not about light, air, and space. They were meant to be temporary, but today they are still being lived in, although seen as not desirable. The young couple said they were often a first home for new-comers** to the Netherlands, and moved from as soon as possible.
It reminds me on the necessity of the (seemingly) unnecessary human based design. Aesthetically it reminded me of an American jail (Dutch jails are not the same), dehumanizing, and institutional. It’s an aesthetic that happened when valuing the monetary and quick over the human and creative.
I believe creativity can take on constraints (in this era, time and money) and challenge these assumed restraints and aesthetics.
*Actually, it’s not. It has to do with taxes being based on the width of a house historically. https://www.holland.com/global/tourism/destinations/amsterdam/the-narrowest-house-in-amsterdam.htm But still, they are tall (as am I) , and the tiny stairs and bathrooms make no sense.
**”new-comers” is a term our social design field trip learned from the organization Boost, an organization that helps new-comers acclimate to the neighborhood, and the neighborhood acclimate to the new-comers. They referred to recent immigrants as "new-comers", to speak to an experience many have had, to avoid “othering” those who look for a safer home.
https://www.boostamsterdam.nl
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