Typology of the Lowlands Saskia de Wit Riet Moens 2005-10-04 Introduction 5 Topos and locus 6 The Villa Urbana and the Villa Rustica 6 THE FORMAL LAYERING OF THE LANDSCAPE 7 The Dutch Lowlands 9 The stratification of the landscape 11 The natural landscape: sea, rivers and marshlands 12 The cultural landscape: reclamation of the delta 13 Peat reclamations 13 Peat digging 15 Coastal land reclamation 17 Reclamation of the lakes 18 The urban landscape 19 The architectonic landscape: the Dutch villa 21 The coastal landscape 25 Mounds and marshes: the northern coast 26 The Dutch Shallows 27 The mound landscape 29 Reclamation of land from the sea 30 The beach ridges: the central coast 33 The beach ridges 33 Sea arms 37 Estuaries and islands: the southern coast 41 The Zuiderzeepolders 46 Recent transformations in the coastal landscape 49 The river landscape 51 The central river landscape 60 The peat landscape 65 The peat 66 The “droogmakerijen”. 72 Peat digging 81 Recent transformations in the Peat landscape 83 Typologies 86 Coastal typology 86 River typology 86 Polder typology 87 1 Used literature 88 2 3 4 Introduction 5 The landscape Star and the other parallel to the sun's path. This The term 'landscape' has been interpreted in ritual stamped the city as a holy place, which various ways throughout the ages, depending on represented nature's order. In Paris such an axis the cultural, scientific and social context of a given stretches across the River Seine where it intersects time. Hidden behind this lies the development of the strategic north to south route. The junction the understanding of nature, time and space. creates a town plan facing in a westerly direction along the Seine, and includes the Louvre, the .1 Topos and locus Tuileries and the Champs-Elysees, respectively. The Italian poet Petrarch wrote that his villetta in The city grew rapidly; its boundaries were France had two gardens, one dedicated to Apollo, continually being extended, which prompted the who exemplified control and reason, and the other question of how it should be kept under control. At dedicated to Bacchus, who symbolized sensuality the behest of the Sun King the landscape architect and instinct. This duality is fundamental to Le Notre assembled the various urban fragments landscape architecture and can be related to various along the Seine into a geometric spatial axis ideas on time and place. measuring some kilometres long. Its positioning The origins of the word topos are rooted in Greek was such that the axis eliminated the route along mythology and refer to the natural landscape as the the banks of the Seine and took over its function as dwelling place of the gods. Topos is therefore a a main formal component of the urban morphology. magical, or mythological, concept defined in the mythical landscape. It is labyrinthian and without .2 The Villa Urbana and the Villa scale: it has no geometric determinates. The Greek Rustica temple is the oldest, best-known architectonic form In his Quattro libri Palladio drew perfectly organized in which the topos, or site in the natural landscape, agricultural villas which were to function is linked to the ieros odos, or holy route. The simultaneously as ideal dwellings. They were used concept of rational space represented an entirely as working farms in the fertile Po Plains and were new modality that left the labyrinthian concept still strategically sited at the junctions of roads and intact. What is more, the one presupposed the flowing, water. This was practical, since during the other. In the villa design, labyrinthian space was reclamation of the Veneto in the r6th century the consciously positioned next to the rational space. At land was completely parcelled out, creating many Villa Lante, from around 1560, the bosco and the such junctions. Positioned; in the centre of the ceremonial garden were roughly the same size and farmlands, the villa was easily accessible to the were of equal importance. In the 17th century the landowner, enabling efficient management of his labyrinth was elbowed out of the garden by the estate. Nevertheless, capital investment was really Baroque explosion in the main bilateral axis, but; only transferred from Venice to the countryside lived on in the magical tradition of the hydraulics because of the cultural and architectonic dimension and the playful games of the surrounding plantings. Palladio was able to contribute to the process of The early 18th-century English landscape garden reclamation. revived the labyrinthian space and the topos. The In keeping with the flatness of the terrain and the origin of the term locus is rooted in the templum, Roman parcelling out of land, Palladio advised the mythical cross of the founding of a town and the laying out the villa roads according to military road- design matrix of Roman cultivation. The locus is building principles -broad, paved and straight so geometrically determined: it is the point in the that it was possible to survey great distances. He rationally ordered agricultural landscape from which also advised lining the roads with trees and building distance is measured and to which time is related. them slightly higher than the fields to allow for a When the Romans founded a new city, a priest was view. The importance Palladio attached to having present to mark out the terrain. He drew two unrestricted views is largely evident in the way he orthogonal lines with his staff, one towards the Pole sited the agricultural villas on the intersection of 6 these straight avenues. The avenue formed the axis form can be explained in terms of three imaginary of symmetry of the estate with the raised villa at layers: the 'natural' landscape, the 'agricultural' the centre and the administrative offices and landscape and the 'architectonic' landscape, servants' quarters in the basement and side wings. respectively. While the avenue was a formal expression of the This stratification is not harmonious. The agricultural landscape, Palladio used the flight of 'substructure' is not endlessly mirrored in the steps, loggia, arcade and tympanum to present the surface nor is the substratum always reflected in villa rustica as also a villa urbana. He extracted the form; Instead it is linked to a change in the classical architectonic elements from their military nature of the formal transformation. Generally, a and sacramental context and placed them in a new distinction can be made between direct adaption of environment. In this way a formal composition was the natural topography, architectonic trans- fashioned, using selected functional elements of the formations and visual references. Topographical farmland. By employing a Roman scheme, Palladio adaption is of a technical nature and, was able to lend a theatrical expression to the in a landscape architectonic sense, is one or two agricultural programme. dimensional, while architectonic, transformations assume a three-dimensional, .3 THE FORMAL LAYERING OF THE architectonically controlled form. i Visual references LANDSCAPE are associative and they relate to the age or the history of the site It is possible to analyze the landscape as a 'build- up" of various systems or types of cultivation, the one laid out over the other and interacting with each other over time, as the result of a series of functional and morphological transformations. Agricultural landscape is a result of alitivation processes carried out on the natural landscape. Likewise, the urban landscape is a result of civil engineering processes on both the natural and farming landscape. The historical layering and the merging of nature's (geo)morphogenic system, agrialiture's farming techniques and a city's civil engineering system comprise the Structure of the urban landscape. Besides this structure, upon closer examination the landscape reveals layering in its form, which is shaped by the endemic flora and fauna; alitivation, water supplies, road networks, land enclosure, buildings and garden architecture. The form of the natural landscape reflects its geological history but does not have any formal determination. The form of the agricultural landscape is the result of colonizing the natural landscape via a cultivation grid. That layer, in which the form has been most consciously determined, can be termed the architectonic landscape. This is evident in the implied formal components of the alitivation grid or is made specific as an architectonic definition of lines, points and surfaces within this. The landscape 7 8 2 The Dutch Lowlands 9 10 2.1 The stratification of the layers (the “genius loci”) makes the landscape as an landscape independent entity legible and transparent. This stratification is not harmonious. The ‘substructure’ is not endlessly mirrored in the surface nor is the substratum always reflected in the form. Instead it is linked to a change in the nature of the formal transformation. Generally, a distinction can be made between direct adaptation of the natural topography, architectonic In an analytical sense the landscape can be seen as transformations and visual references. a stratification of various systems or types of Topographical adaptation is of a technical nature adaptations, interacting with each other over time, and, in a landscape architectonic sense, is one or as the result of a succession of functional and two dimensional, while architectonic morphological transformations. The starting point transformations assume a three-dimensional, was the natural landscape. The forces caused by architecturally controlled form. Visual references are the elements earth, water and wind determine the associative and “four-dimensional”; they relate to appearance of the landscape. The cultural landscape time or the history of the site. was formed by a series of cultivation processes carried out on the natural landscape. The urban landscape in its turn is the result of civil technical adaptations of the natural and the cultural landscape.