Light, Air & Space

Light, Air & Space.

Research Report

09‐02‐2016 Maarten Kist 1543032 Tutors: L. Spoormans W. Quist Preface

Not that long ago I wasn’t interested in post‐war architecture that much. I thought the architecture wasn’t that great and the post‐war neighbourhoods boring. The last couple of years this is changing little by little. The horrible living standards the people had not even 100 years ago. The and history behind the CIAM, Modern Movement, het Nieuwe Bouwen, and the story of those who wanted to improve life for others by breaking with the traditional ways of building a city, it interests me more and more. This is also the reason why I chose this studio for my graduation project. This was a perfect choice for me because I now can combine my three passions into one project: Architecture, urbanism, and history. I enjoyed doing research on the topic of Light, Air and Space very much.

This research report attempts to give you, and myself of course, a lot of knowledge about the ideas behind Light, Air and Space in Modernistic urbanism. With this knowledge I want to make a new design for the Airey‐strip blocks on the Burgemeester van der Vlugtlaan in the fromer Western Garden Cities of Amsterdam, no a day’s known as Nieuw‐West.

Table of contents

Introduction P.3.

Chapter 1. Light. P. 5.  Introduction. P. 5.  Better standard of living. P. 6.  Standardisation of the housing project P. 6.  Wisselbeuk P. 7.  The Airey‐strip blocks P. 9.  The system P. 10  The architecture P. 13  The dwellings P. 15  Goed Wonen P. 17.  The Airey blocks and the green P. 18.  Cultural value P. 19.

Chapter 2. Fresh Air. P. 20.  Landscape design as a craft P. 20.  The design of a courtyard P. 21.  Radial city P. 24.  The green structure of the Western Garden cities P. 25.  Amsterdam Nieuw‐West’s landscape P. 27.  The green corridor/park strips P. 28.  City parks P. 29.  Neighbourhood parks P. 30.  Recreation P. 31.  Cultural value P. 32.

Chapter 3. Open Space. P. 33.  Controlling the growth of a city. P. 33.  Designing from scratch P. 35.  The Framework of the Western Garden Cities. P. 36.  The original design of the public space. P. 37.  Dividing the borough into districts and neighbourhoods P. 38  Development of the open building block P. 39.  The parcelling boom! P. 45.  Present day typology in Nieuw‐West P. 47.  Present day typology in Slotermeer P. 48.  Functions P. 49.  The architecture P. 50.  High‐rise low‐rise P. 51.  Rhythm P. 52.  Building heights in Slotermeer P. 53.  • Cultural Value. P. 54.

Chapter 4. Conclusions P. 55.

Reverences.

Introduction.

The ideals of the Modern Movement. The Western Garden cities were designed in a time of great uncertainties, a time of the Great Wars, the Great Depression and the great scarcity of about anything. The city of Amsterdam had grown enormously during the end of the 19th century as a result of the industrial revolution. The people of Amsterdam were living in a city which looked more like a slum than the UNESCO World Heritage side it is today. One thing was for sure, Amsterdam needed to have a new extension plan of an enormous scale. The enormous scale caused things, that always had been done a certain way, had to go differently. There was a need for more light, more fresh air, and more space.

All rooms in the modern home should have a large entry of light, the network of parks and other public spaces should provide enough fresh air and the positioning of the housing blocks formed one big continuous open space. The neighbourhood should not be a stone desert, the greenery of the surrounding polder landscape should be led to the immediate vicinity of the house, and an opportunity should be there for active outdoor recreation, both for young and elderly people. School children required safe routes that didn’t cross busy roads, childcare should be present in residential neighbourhood.

These programmatic requirements should lead to a systematic construction of open building blocks, arranged in different compositions, where the insolation of the buildings was central. The neighbourhood was a composition which is built up of a group of housing units which consist of a series of row houses positioned in the same direction. The series of row houses are interspersed with green areas where recreation facilities and public buildings are positioned carefully.

Cornelis van Eesteren started to design the extension plan in the 1920’s and it was finished in the end of the 1930’s. The plan was based on the ideals of Light, Air and Space of the Modern Movement, and has become one of the key examples on Modernist Ubanism in the world. The plan was more a kind of structure plan than an urban design but it set the rules for other urbanist ideals up to today. The rules applied for a levels of scale, from the level of the dwelling up until the level of the urban region. Everything was a linked and connected together in a network of private and public spaces, of streets, parks and waterways.

Research Question. Now a days the cityscape of the borough Nieuw‐West is being threatened. There have been a lot of changes over time in the neighbourhood, especially in the last two decades. Since 2001, the borough has been subject to extensive urban renewal projects. Under the Richting Parkstad 2015 plan, 4.000 existing homes were demolished and replaced by 8.500 new developments. The municipality is planning to build another 13.500 new homes in the area and demolish 8.000 more houses by the year 2030 (Demografische en ruimtelijke analyse Nieuw West, 2012).

With the renewal projects, the original garden city ideas have partially been abandoned. The structure of green parks and open spaces are under an increasing high pressure. The parcelling principles of the Modern Movement which gives the borough its character can already in some areas, especially in the district of Slotervaart, not be found anymore. The district of Slotermeer is the most authentic neighbourhood in the borough of Nieuw West. Here there have been hardly no buildings demolished or built since the construction neighbourhood was completed in 1954. It therefore is awarded to be protected city scape by the municipality of Amsterdam which makes it even harder to make some changes in the neigourhood. In order to preserve this and still allow changes in the borough as the municipality of Amsterdam wants we need to understand the unique values of the borough very well.

The unique relationship between the housing blocks and its surrounding greenery, summarized as the Light, Air and Space ideals, is under pressure from densification and redesign of the public space. This leads me to the following research question:

“How to densify Nieuw‐West and stay within the ideals of the Modern Movement: light, air and space?”

The structure of the report. First we need to ask ourselves, what are the light, air and space ideals and what is the special relationship between dwelling, housing block and the surrounding green elements? I tried to find this out in this report.

The report, containing the literature research and analysis, is built up in four parts. The first part focusses on the dwellings of the Airey‐strip. I first start with a short history on the development of the standardized floorplan and then continue with the floorplans of the Airey‐blocks. I then continue the research to the green space around the Airey‐ blocks.

The second part I zoom out on the green structure of the borough of Nieuw‐West. First by researching the history and design of the courtyard made by Mien Ruys. And second by researching the greater green structure of Amsterdam’s Western Garden Cities.

The third part consists out of the research on open space structure of the Western Garden Cities. I will elaborate on the different road networks, parcelling structures, functions in the neighbourhoods and the architecture in the borough. In this report I’ll constantly make use of the different levels of scale, Dwelling, Courtyard, Neighbourhood and District, to explain the ideas behind Light, Air and Space.

And finally the fourth part consists out of the conclusion and the future design and research proposals. Im.1 Different levels of scale (own image)

Chapter 1. Light. Introduction. Since the 1920’s urban planning is becoming more important at the expense of the architecture. The Amsterdamse School is the last architectural movement that wants to express itself in architecture. The Plan South of Berlage is the last major project which is designed with the Amsterdamse School. Fellow urbanist of H.P. Berlage criticize the monotone blocks of Plan Zuid and call them ‘a string of street walls’. The criticizers of the Modern Movement become noisier and noisier until 1928, when the Department of Public Works had founded a new department called ‘Stadsontwikkeling’ or city development (Woud, van der, A., 1983).

By that time, in 1928, the research had started on a new expansion plan, the General Expansion Plan of Amsterdam (AUP). One of the researches was Cornelis van Eesteren, a profound member of the Modern Movement. In an early stage of the research, it became clear that the plan needed a revolutionary large amount of new dwellings in order to meet the huge demand that arose in the years before. The city of Amsterdam had grown from around 250.000 inhabitants in 1865 to staggering amount of 750.000 people in 1920. An increase of around 500.000 people in 35 years within the same city borders, the city was overcrowded (Somer, K. 2007). The City development department didn’t want to continue with the ‘old fashioned’ closed city blocks like in the Berlage Plan. Cornelis Van Eesteren saw many drawbacks in the original closed building blocks. A lot of buildings built this way didn’t had the right orientation relatively to the sun, and furthermore people of the Modern Movement considered the inner side of the building block as well as the streets to be of inferior quality, so a new type of housing was needed (Rossum van, V., 2001).

At the same time the expansion plan of H.P. Berlage wasn’t finished. The head of the city development department states, that the Plan South should be finished in the same style as it was designed but there was room for some small scale experiments on new types of housing. Here and there, new, semi‐ open housing blocks of sober, down to earth architecture, have been built. Years later, in the end of the 1930’s the experiments continue in the neighbourhood of Bos en Lommer. This time open building blocks were built and immediately problems occurred. Van Eesteren wasn’t satisfied because the street profiles were too narrow, the housing blocks were positioned to close to each other. Also the floorplans did not work the way van Eesteren wanted. For example in the traditional closed city block, the balconies were positioned at the backside of the building, hidden to the rest of the world. In the open building block there was no backside anymore whereby the balconies, were the laundry was drying, were exposed to anyone who wanted to see it. A solution was needed for these kind of problems before it could be implemented on a big scale in the new expansion plan (Rossum van, V., 2001).

In 1939 van Eesteren and his colleagues went on a field trip to cities in Germany and Denmark in order to find a solution for the problems. The field trip provided some very interesting information concerning the relationship between the greenery and the building blocks. Van Eesteren wasn’t really satisfied on what he saw. Some of the neighbourhoods were still under construction and the others were just finished wherefore the greenery wasn’t fully grown yet, but one thing was clear, the plan only succeeds when the public space is designed well. Van Eesteren went back to Denmark in 1951 to see the neighbourhood’s greenery in full maturity. It became clear that the modern functional city actually exists out of two complementary elements: The open parcelling and the open, green structure. Everything that went wrong in the early experiment of Bos en Lommer did succeed here in Denmark. The houses, although pretty small, were fitted with large balconies, well equipped bathrooms and kitchens and common bicycle sheds. Besides this, children’s playgrounds could be found every 100 meters in the green neighbourhood. It was an articulation of a public space which gets slowly more private. To speak with van Eesteren’s words. When you have a good and well thought green public space, the Light, Air and Space philosophy will come by itself (Rossum van, V., 2001).

Better standard of living After the end of World War II there was a huge shortage of housing in Netherlands. Of the 2.1 million homes that existed before the war, 86.000 were destroyed during the war. Another 300.000 homes were damaged. In addition, the housing shortage was strengthened by the huge population growth in the years after the war. The priority of the reconstruction period was therefore to build sufficient affordable houses. The Ministry of Reconstruction and Housing had the task to quickly satisfy this great need of homes. Because of this enormous scale of the project they took different organizations in the arm to them advise on the issue of public housing. The construction of new dwellings and the repair of damaged ones were complicated by two factors: there was a shortage of building materials, and also of qualified building construction workers since training institutes were closed during the war. It was not possible to achieve a sufficiently high building volume by using only traditional building methods, since these traditional methods were all very labour intensive and a lot of bricks were required.

After the war the government and its advisory bodies, has laid great emphasis on making the country liveable again, which is reflected in the post‐war housing. One of these advisory bodies was the ‘Studiegroep Woningarchitectuur’, the so‐called ‘core‐group’. The group was founded in 1943 by the Institute of Dutch Architects (BNA) and dealt with the consequences of the expected massive housing problems. They investigated what role of the architects could be in the resolution of the housing shortage, what the influence of a certain degree of standardisation (series production) would have and they examined the minimum dimensions which houses had to comply with a different family composition.

The group set up a list of requirements (Stroink, R., 1981). ‐ Living room and kitchen: Enough attractive spaces were the family can be together and enjoy their meals and spent the leisure time. There has to room for studying, reading, music practice and to host visitors. ‐ The bedrooms: Separate bedrooms for the parents and for boys and girls of ten years and older. There has to be enough space to place a personal bed for each member of the family. A children’s bedroom were the kids can play. And there has to be sufficient closet space ‐ Sanitary facilities: Separate toilet and a separate room for a bath‐ or shower. ‐ Storage, work and playrooms: Sufficient opportunity in attics, in sheds or basements for coarser household work, to play and for crafting, for storage of furniture, bicycles etc. ‐ Home equipment: Opportunity for directly or in the long term application of labour and time saving features like sinks, refrigerator, bathtub. The heating of multiple rooms has to be organized from a central spot. There need to be hot water and an efficient laundry drying place per house, block or neighbourhood.

Standardization of the housing projects. These requirements were taken over by the government apply to both ground bounded single‐family‐ homes and apartments. The objective of the government was to drastically improve the living quality of the build environment and were guaranteed by this list of requirements. All this had to fit in small sized dwellings of roughly 70 square meters. But still there was a huge shortage in material and workers which made it impossible to build this amount of good quality buildings in such a short time. Therefore, the government was seeking for new solutions in order to solve the quantity problem. In the years afterwards several studies have been made. The result was the duplex‐dwelling which was introduced by PvdA minister J. in ´t Veld in 1948. The duplex‐dwelling was, on the one hand based on ‘old‐ fashioned’ floorplans from the 19th century that were adapted for multifamily housing and, on the

6 other hand based on the list of requirements, mentioned above. Also the studies that have been done on the producibility on a mass scale was important for the development of the floorplan. The role of the architect changed drastically after the introduction of this new dwelling type. With the production of the huge scale housing projects the architects, if they were involved in the first place, were in some cases only allowed to design parts the facades (Stroink, 1981). During the years of the housing shortage the dwellings could be split in order to house more people. There are several guidance drawings made by the studiegroep to explain how this could be done (image 1). The duplex principle, splitting a single family house into two temporarily houses was considered as a sustainable solution in the long run. A ground bounded dwelling could be split either horizontally or vertically. The apartment dwellings could be split as well, the first type is called the ‘rug‐ aan‐rug’ type (image 3). In this type two large apartments could be split to create from two houses temporarily four. The splitting of the apartments is organized inside the building whereby a lot of space would be lost due to corridors. Another type based on two large apartments was the ‘arm‐in‐arm‐type’ (Image 2). Here the splitting of the apartments is organized on the outside of the building which needed additional of long platforms to connect the apartments on the sides.

Im. 1.1. Splitting diagram of apartment Im. 1.2. Splitting diagram of apartment dwellings, arm‐in‐arm. (Stroink, R. 1981) dwellings, rug‐aan‐rug (Stroink, R. 1981)

These splitting capabilities could become important right now as well since we are facing a new period of housing shortage in the Netherlands and especially in Amsterdam. In order to house for example refugees, the floorplans of the Airey‐strip could be adjusted very easily for a short period of time until we have found and created better solutions than housing them in tents.

Wisselbeuk Willem van Teijen and J.H. van den broek, who were part of the ‘Studiegroep Woningarchitectuur’, had developed the ‘wisselbeuk’ floorplan (Image 3). The wisselbeuk floorplan is a floorplan where two dwellings are accessible from one platform in the staircase. The room behind the staircase could be part of one of the two dwellings, depending on the preference of the architect or residents. In case if it is better for the insolation, the staircase could be positioned on the other side of the building by mirroring it with the room behind the staircase. This room could, in the floorplan of the apartment, be either a kitchen (small dwelling) or an extra bedroom (bigger dwelling). In all typologies the orientation towards the sun was highly important, this meant that the living room should be orientated towards the south and the bedrooms towards the north. The balcony or garden was the extension of the living room and was also placed on the sunny side. Im. 1.3. Diagram of splitting possibilities ground bounded dwelling. (Stroink, R. 1981)

Im. 1.4. Overview of standard floorplans made by J.H. van den Broek. (Stroink, R. 1981)

The Airey‐strip blocks. The thirteen Airey‐blocks comprise three storeys of 6 to 7 apartments per floor under a flat roof. The Airey‐dwellings were built between 1952 and 1953 in the neighbourhood of Slotermeer and was designed by the architecture firm of J.F.Berghoef in 1951. The Airey‐strip is located at the north‐side of the Burgemeester van der Vlugtlaan and consist out of thirteen housing blocks and six separate stores/houses. The blocks are placed around green courtyards which are orientated towards the south. On the northern side of the Airey‐strip, at the Tourton Bruynstraat, are the parking lots located. The orientation of the buildings themselves is towards the green courtyards. Not all the blocks are placed perpendicular to the B.v.d. Vlugtlaan, the buildings east of every green courtyard is rotated 15 degrees in order to get a better orientation towards the sun and create more variation in the parcelling of the buildings.

Im. 1.5. The Airey blocks (Google Earth)

As mentioned before, the increasing shortages on the housing market caused new techniques and typologies to arise in the construction of housing projects. With new systems and materials like concrete and steel standardized dwellings were realised. Due to efficient construction methods and industrial production processes the construction speed and numbers were increased dramatically.

One of the first new prefab construction systems that has been introduced in the Netherlands was the Nemavo‐Airey‐system. The original English Airey‐ system was developed by Sir Edwin Airey (1879‐1955) in the UK. The Airey system was adjusted to Dutch standards on the initiative of H. van Saane the Im. 1.6. Airey‐block (beeldbank.amsterdam.nl) director of the Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Volkshuisvesting (NEMAVO), and the architect J.F. Berghoef.

The Airey‐ system is only one of the many systems which have been developed after the World War in order to meet the huge housing demands of that time. In the Netherlands almost 10.000 houses have been built with the Nemavo‐Airey‐System of which almost 5.000 in Amsterdam (BouwhulpGroep, 2013)

Im. 1.7. Airey‐block (beeldbank.amsterdam.nl)

The system. The Airey‐ system consists of manageable concrete blocks and a consistently applied system of a concrete and steel framework which determine measurement for all other building components. The loadbearing façades are the most characteristic elements of the NeMaVo‐Airey‐system. The façade is composed out of light concrete columns which are reinforced with steel tubes.

Im. 1.8. Concrete culumns (own image) Im. 1.9. additional structure (own image)

The columns are placed in a grid of 625 mm apart. This used to be 450 mm in the original English design of the Airey strip. The three meter tall concrete columns are connected to a U‐shaped steel beam which connects the different stories to one and other and connect the structure of the facade to that of the floors. A separate construction which runs through the middle of the building (image 1.9) forms an additional support system that carries the floors and the roof. The columns of this structure are placed in an irregular distance from each other which ranges from about 3500mm and 4500 mm. Because of this additional supporting structure the floor beams and the concrete columns in the facades could be constructed thinner and lighter. The façade structure and the additional loadbearing structure together make the composition of the individual dwellings very flexible because there are hardly no loadbearing walls.

Im. 1.10. Detail concrete column (Hooyschuur) Im. 1.11. Dwelling dividing walls (own image)

Although the interior walls of the Airey blocks, as seen in image 1.11, do not have any loadbearing capabilities, they do contribute to the stability of the building and are also important for the fire safety in the building. The walls are made up of cinter concrete blocks which have been laid in a broken bond brickwork and divide the individual dwellings and storage spaces from each other.

The construction of floors are made up of a steel girders structure which are supported by the concrete columns and therefore are placed at the same distance from each other, 625 mm. The span of the floors is perpendicular to the long sides of the facades. As mentioned before the steel girders are supported by an additional structure in the middle of the building. The supporting system of first and second floor are different from that of the roof structure. Here the span direction of the floor beams is rotated 90 degrees in order to create an opening and to support the tops of the staircases.

Im. 1.12. Roof structure (own image) Im. 1.13. floor structure (own image)

Im. 1.14. Floor detail (hooyschuur) Im. 1.15. Steel girders structure (Bakker, 2002)

The ground floor of the Airey blocks is made out of prefab concrete elements. In this way it wasn’t necessary to construct a formwork in order to cast the concrete floors. This saved a lot of time and scars materials. The finishing of the first and second floors is made out of timber elements. On top of the supporting steel girders a timber battening or in Dutch ‘regelwerk’ is placed whereupon timber floorboards are mounted as the screed. Underneath the steel girders battening is placed on which the steel stucco ceiling is mounted. The roof itself is covered by bitumen (Bakker, 2002).

A major disadvantage when using this floor system for apartments is the strong noise nuisance. The floors are very thin and light and therefore very noisy for the inhabitants of the apartment building. This is also characterizing for most early postwar‐housing projects. The housing projects needed to be constructed as economical and efficient as possible due to the shortage of building materials, budget and the labor force. As a result of this al the materials and construction elements that have been used in the Airey‐blocks do not weigh more than 25 kg. This made it easy to transport the materials and for the workers to put the individual elements together (Messchaert, 2004).

The façade exist out of three components. On the interior side of the façade Rhenish brick blocks have been placed in a stretcher‐bond brickwork. Rhenish brick is a light volcanic stone with larger pores and, for the 1950’s time, good insulating capabilities. These walls are finished by a layer of mortar. The concrete columns, as described earlier, form together with the interior wall a cavity wall and at the same time the complete insulating layer for the building. It is therefore not surprising that the dwellings have a building physics. The energetic quality is, in spite of the changes in the course of time, often not higher than label D / E. The original Rc‐value of the exterior walls is 0.44. (battum, 2002) Against the concrete columns 40 mm thick concrete panels are mounted with screw bolts. These panels form the outer protective layer. The measurements of the panels are 625 mm in width and 375 mm high.

Im. 1.16. Insulating layer (own image) Im. 1.17. The concrete panel layer (own image)

The architecture. The rigid grid of the concrete panels forms the most characterizing element of the buildings. The façade shows the used NeMaVo‐Airey‐ construction system. The system is an example of post‐war construction with its new challenges and difficulties. The rigorous grid of 615 x 375 mm makes the buildings, despite of the plain architecture, very recognizable and gives the Slotermeer neighbourhood its modernistic character.

Im. 1.18. the 615 x 375 grid (own image)

Within this grid façade openings like the window frames and balconies are placed which seems to fit perfectly. The window frames and rafters are made of steel and the simple decorative cornice roof boards are made of wood. A good example of this are the windows located in the staircases (courtyard façade, 1.19). Here you see the window frames located in between two floors while all the others are located on the same height. This is for me a clear example of the functionalist architecture of that time. On the other side of the building (parking lot façade, 1.19) are a series of doors placed which don’t follow the sturdy grid. These are the doors for the storage spaces as well as the entrances for the dwellings in the buildings.

Im. 1.19. Façade openings (own image).

The recognizable grid and minimalistic detailing of the Airey‐blocks fits in the widely supported opinion of postwar architecture being boring (Motivaction). Also in the time of construction of the buildings the opinions weren’t as positive as the architect would have wanted. Residents of other Airey‐ dwellings elsewhere in Amsterdam thought their buildings looked uncompleted as if somethings were missing. Not only they didn’t like it, also the municipality of Amsterdam had their doubts on this kind of architecture. Especially the color wasn’t satisfactory. Even J.F. Berghoef agreed on this point and suggested to paint the buildings. Every courtyard should get its own color and therefore distinguishes each courtyard. The corporations on the other hand didn’t liked this idea because it would cost too much in the upkeep of the buildings. Only the doors on the ground floor as well as the balconies were painted in different colors (Teijmant & Sorgedrager, 2012).

The six shopping blocks, on the north‐side of the Airey‐blocks on the Tourton Bruynsstraat are also made out of the Airey construction system. The blocks consists out of a store part and a dwelling part, together underneath a gable roof. The store part is the most transparent part of the block and the dwelling has, like the Airey‐blocks, a more closed façade. Im. 1.20. Shoppingblock (beeldbank.amsterdam.nl)

The only part of the building that reminds on past architecture is the roof edge or eaves. The eaves form the ‘crown’ of the building and is made from wood. The wooden roof edge links the concrete façade bearing columns together. This is shown by the extended timber rafters in the eaves which are placed with the same spacing as the columns. Between the rafters are small vents located which allow fresh air to ventilate the roof and facades.

Im. 1.21 Detail of roof edge (Hooyschuur) Im. 1.22 The Airey Block (beeldbank.amsterdam.nl)

The dwellings Behind the facades are six to seven dwellings located per floor located. Every dwelling has acces to its own balcony or garden. This can be seen in the courtyard and makes it, in combination with the ‘lowered’ windows of the staticases, easy to recognize the organization of the blocks. The façade on the parking lot side is less open as the previous façade. Here the view on the façade is charaterized by the abundance of doors for the entrances and storage spaces.

Im. 1.23. The dwellings (own image)

The dwelling dividing walls are made up from the light ‘B2‐Blokken’, cinter concrete blocks with specific elements for pluming and other shafts. Like all the other interior walls the dwelling dividing walls do not have a load bearing function, only insulating and fire protection. This gives the Airey blocks as a whole as well as each individual dwelling a hug freedom for future developments.

Each ground floor contains six to seven dwellings and 18 to 21 storage rooms in between the dwellings (Image 1.23.). Every apartment has its own storage room on the ground floor, ranging from 4.5m² to 5.5m², which are accessible from the outside, facing the parking lot, through three separate gray doors. The red doors provide access to the individual dwellings in the Airey‐blocks. On the other side of the building, the side of the public garden, balconies are made which forms the extension between the living room and the public space outside. In total there are 255 apartments in the Airey‐blocks of roughly 14.000 m² usable surface. There are roughly four original types of floorplans to be distinguish in the Airey‐blocks, leaving aside the ones that have been renovated and transformed over the years.

The current ground floor dwellings contain one to two bedrooms of about six to eleven square meters on the parking lot side of the Airey blocks. The first and second floor apartments have three bedrooms of eight to eleven square meters. The living room is located on the courtyard side and has a large entry of light. The kitchen is also located on the courtyard side and is accessible through the hall. From kitchen the bathroom and balcony/garden are accessible. The toilet and meter are located in the hall.

Ground floor.  78 Two‐room apartments, approximately 41 m² usable surface.  7 Three‐room apartment, approximately 45 m² usable surface.

Im. 1.24. Ground floor apartments (Hooyschuur)

First and second floor.  14 Four‐room apartments, approximately 65 m² usable surface.  156 Four‐room apartments, approximately 62 m² usable surface.

Im. 1.25. First and second floor apartments (Hooyschuur)

Goed wonen. The dwellings were considered to be huge in the 1950’s. The step from the housing situation in Amsterdam early 20th century compared to that of the 1950’s/1960’s was enormous. The slum‐like appearance of the inner city of Amsterdam in the 1920’s was far away from that of the new modern suburbs. Large dwellings with a large entry of light entry of light and room to sit and live for everyone. And with these new dwellings new furniture was needed, a new way of living, a new lifestyle!

This lifestyle was promoted by means of model homes and a magazine by the ‘stichting Goed Wonen’, founded in 1946. The Stichting Goed Wonen was related to the Modern Movement and like them, Goed Wonen sought for light interiors and without non‐functional decorations. With light furniture and a good and efficient layout, residents could get the most out of their houses and themselves. Like the idealistic architects of the Modern Movement, the founding members of Goed Wonen also wanted to improve life; better housing situation for everyone contributes to a better society, they thought. Im. 1.26. Goed Wonen magazine (static.digischool.nl)

The daily household should be an easy job so that the housewives had more time to take care for the children, enjoy life, to get education and jobs. This could be achieved with new furniture. No more thick tablecloths and heavy oak cabinets, but multifunctional light furniture which was easy to move and clean. Like the Airey‐blocks and most other postwar architecture, the designs of the furniture promoted by Goed Wonen, were driven by the time of crisis. Materials were scares and so was the available space. A lot of furniture was made of steel and also of rattan (rotan). The best furniture came from designers like Willem Gispen, Kho Liang Le, Johan Niegeman and Mart Stam. Also the use of electrical equipment easy to clean surfaces helped by achieving the goal of the new lifestyle.

Im. 1.27. A modern house, approved by Goed Wonen (static.digischool.nl)

The Airey block and the green. The time the residents saved from cleaning all day could be spend outside, in the fresh air of the abundance of green in the neighbourhoods. The greenery of the Airey‐strip consist out of, on the one side a public garden between the private gardens of the housing blocks, and on the other side a combination of border green and a parking lot near the entrances of the building blocks. The Im. 1.28 Semi open courtyard. (Google streetview) hedges and fences of the private gardens were only allowed to be max. 80 centimetres high in order to maintain the open green structure and smooth transition from the public space of the inner garden towards the increasingly more private space of the dwelling.

The public gardens are orientated towards the Burgemeester van der Vlugtlaan. The quality of the garden design varies per block. The public Im. 1.29. Open courtyard. (Google streetview) gardens were intended to be decorative greenery, in Dutch ‘Kijkgroen’, for the surrounding apartments. Some of the privategardens are closed off from the street by low fences which give them a semi private character. Other courtyard gardens are completely accessible from the Burgemeester van der Vlugtlaan but have been overgrown with plants and shrubs so that it lost its green open character. In some cases the residents put up high fences as shown in the picture to the right (Image1.11). This is against the beliefs of the Modern Movement who wanted to keep the public space as ‘open’ as possible.

Im. 1.30. Transition between public and private space in an Airey‐block, and from block to neighbourhood (own images)

Cultural value Although the individual Airey‐housing blocks aren’t very special (there have been built almost 10.000 of them in the Netherlands of which 5.000 in Amsterdam alone) is the Airey‐strip very recognizable because of its angled position relative to the Burgemeerster van der Vlugtlaan. The Airey‐strip is a good example to illustrate the approach to the housing crisis in the post‐war period. The complex also symbolizes the enormous social and economic developments after the Second World War, for the ideas of a healthy living environment with space, air and light and the neighbourhood concept in urban planning. Also the sturdy grid in the façade which shapes the window frames and balconies are a characteristic element if the blocks. The balconies and private gardens facing the public garden between the housing blocks are an important feature of the ‘Nieuwe Bouwen’ ideals and therefore have to be preserved. Although the kitchen is very small, its position on the public garden side is a big asset to the layout of the floorplan. The location of the bathroom on the other hand is a major downside to this layout and has undoubtedly to be changed.

Im. 1.31. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Airey blocks (own image)

Elements I want to keep/enhance:  Restore/ improve transition between private and public gardens.  Flexible floorplans  Balconies, living room and kitchen facing the public garden.  Sturdy grid of the façade.  Angled position of the Airey‐block

Elements I want to improve:  Make the façade more diverse while stay within the grid.  The layout of the floorplans. Bring the kitchen and bathroom up to date.  Investigated how to combine or split different dwellings together in order to make the building more attractive for a wider target group.

Chapter 2. Fresh Air.

Landscape design as a craft. The implementation of the green structure required a high level of collaboration between the urban designers and the landscape‐ and garden architects. But in the early stage of the design and implementation process of the general expansion plan the role of the landscape architect was minor. Before the war there even were hardly no landscape or garden architects. It was not until after the war that a landscape design school was founded in Wageningen.

The first professor of the school pleaded for a bigger role of the landscape architects and after numerous discussions between different parties finally succeeded. Now the urban architect was supposed to collaborate with the garden/landscape designers in an early stage of the design process. This gave them both an equal role in the process. The garden architect was involved in both the design of the greenery and in the implementation of it on different levels in the neighbourhood (image 2.1). Starting on the level of the dwelling, the landscape designers were involved in making plans for the private gardens. From the locations of possible sheds to the height of the hedges of the garden. Second level was the level of the courtyard and its transition from private to the public gardens. Third level is the Neighbourhood level (buurt) where the courtyards continues in green structures of the park strip. On the fourth level, the level of the district (wijk), the park strips ‘flow’ towards the bigger central parks. Im. 2.1 The green structure in 4 levels. (own image).

It was expected that they had a great knowledge of trees and plants, how they would grow, and how this could work together with the design of the houses. To respond to this new development a new design department was established in the early fifties. For all parks and green elements separate plans detailing on the planting of trees and shrubs had been made. The garden/landscape architects worked on the roadside greenery, sports facilities, parks, cemeteries and allotments.

Before the war Willem van Teijen gave lectures on housing and its environment and especially on its organizational and technical problems: how to make a good floorplan. The environment of the house concerned the direct vicinity of the house, the garden and the public space beyond that. Jaap Bakema would call this years later: “the greater meaning of the doorstep”. This proved to be vital for the later design of the Nieuw‐West borough. The transition from private to public space is naturally directed by greenery and a multitude of different applications such as solitary or grouped trees, greenbelts and hedges. Shrubs and hedges function as property boundaries but may never be higher than 80 centimetres in order to keep the transition smooth and the open space, the open space.

The design of the courtyard In Amsterdam Nieuw‐West leading landscape designers of the Modern Movement were appointed as supervisor of the green structure. Among them were Jan Bijhouwer (responsible for Slotermeer and Geuzenveld), Mien Ruys (Slotervaart) and Wim Boer (Osdorp). Their common conception of the design of the green public spaces was that it had to represent nature. This was done not by copying natural shapes of the spatial design but by implementing indigenous plant species. The formal language was geometrical but not symmetrical and supported in this way the composition of the parcelling patterns of the building blocks (Chapter 4.).

Mien Ruys (Image 2.2) was one of the most influential garden architects that was involved in the design process of Nieuw‐West. She criticized her urbanist colleagues who talked about ‘green’ in the urban context instead of ‘plantings’. It may seem a bit silly to bother about one word but for her this derogated the content of her work. Ruys said: “the ‘green’ consists out of grass, trees, shrubbery and flowers and needs to be well taken care of”. This was something the urbanist tended to forget. Ruys continued by saying that the planting is a living, ever changing thing and cannot make bad architecture good, as was the usual conception among architects and urbanists of that time She thought the green public spaces were extraordinarily attractive elements in the urban landscape. She wanted to emphasize the contrasts between the plain architecture and the whimsical shapes of the planting in the urban spaces. In several community gardens of the Western Garden Cities Ruys tried to do this by bringing back some of the natural beauty in the direct vicinity of the housing.

She did this by choosing plants with a high level of ‘naturalness’, trees with wide treetops, and spatial lawns. The architecture of the footpaths and playgrounds were designed as straight lines and clean forms. She had faded out the boundaries with the architecture again through the use of natural vegetation. The nature, as perennials, trees and shrubs brought the sequence of seasons into the city.

Im. 2.2. Mien Ruys (mienruys.nl) Im. 2.3. the North‐West corner of a Jeruzalem courtyard. (Blom, A., 2004)

Case study Jeruzalem. A good example of this way of designing is the neighbourhood Jeruzalem in Watergraafsmeer, Amsterdam East (image 2.3 + 2.4). The general idea for the design of the public space was, contrary to the open and transparent character of the urban plan, to create comfortable and secluded hideaways near the houses. The landscape architects therefore designed gradual transitions between the public road and the communal gardens of the courtyard by carfully chosen positioning of groups of trees and hedges. By doing this series of public lawns along the streets and more sheltered or enclosed spaces with playgrounds were created near the houses (Feddes, Y., 2012).

The communal gardens were in fact a place to meet your neighbours. That’s why Mien Ruys was searching for a design wherein the theme’s ‘Play’, ‘Enjoy’, ‘Insolation’, ‘Structure of green’, and the connection to the private gardens were very important. To prevent every common garden from becoming the same, a few variants were introduced. The basic principle of the design of the communal gardens consists out of diagonal lines and paths, a big open space and a small sheltered place. The playgrounds in the courtyards had a simple design, made by Aldo van Eyck, and were often provided with one or more benches. The playgrounds were mostly positioned in the North‐East corner of the courtyard where it had a good orientation towards the sun (Feddes, Y., 2012). Mien Ruys and Wim Boer plead for a better accessibility of the common gardens from apartment dwellings like the Airey‐ strip. If connections like a backdoor in the common hallway weren’t there, the mothers had to walk around the building through the streets in order to get to the communal garden. Ruys and Boer also wanted to have a sufficient amount of the courtyard to be covered with pavement in order make it a more attractive place to stay and to improve the accessibility.

Sadly this was one of the first elements of the design which was cancelled because of the high costs. In most cases, like in the Airey‐strip this had been replaced by grass lawns (Feddes, Y., 2012). Although, as said, there was only a small budget the garden architects choose in addition to lawns, trees and shrubs also for flowering perennials and there were lots of roses applied. Especially Mien Ruys was an advocate of the use of a variety of flowering plants in order to increase the distinction between the different types of green spaces. The neighbourhood of Jeruzalem was set to be to be the model for all the neighbourhoods of the AUP Extension plan. Unfortunately because of budget cuts most of the courtyards in the Nieuw‐West borough have been built with a scanty design which are less attractive to use as Ruys’ design.

Im. 2.4. The neighbourhood Jeruzalem. (Kaderplan openbare ruimte Jeruzalem, 2011)

In the design model of Jeruzalem the transition of the courtyards and the surrounding greenery is marked by pavement and different kinds of planting. On the edge of the courtyard, between the courtyard and the street a Maple tree (Esdoorn) was usually placed. Within the courtyard, usually the South‐East corner, three or four birches (Berken) were placed.

On the other side of the street rows of Maple trees were placed in order to accentuate the length of the street. At the same time this row of trees forms a ‘screen’ which blocks the view of the cross streets the cross streets. This creates optical separate but linked spaces. The transitions between different public spaces creates never continues views but are always in steps. Only the main road network and the park strips provides long view lines on neighbourhood and district level.

Also the detailing of planting show signs of a stepped structure. For example lawn  perennial border  hedge  private garden. Or lawn with trees  hedge  shrubbery  private garden. In order to close off or divide public spaces, like playgrounds or sports facilities, block‐shaped shrubbery was used. Im. 2.5. Linked spaces form smooth transitions (own image)

Im. 2.6. Plant and trees used in the landscape design (Kaderplan openbare ruimte Jeruzalem, 2011)

Although the different areas were optically separate by trees and shrubs, they were still linked to each other into one big continues open public space. De transitions were marked by pavement and different kinds of plants. This subtle transition from public to private was and still is very important for the success of the urban design. The experience of space, both in the courtyards and between the courtyards is very characteristic and effective. At strategic points are trees placed that make the connection to the next ‘room’.

Radial City. The Western Garden Cities are situated between the old inner city and the surrounding polder landscape and both landscapes are of a great importance for the borough. The road network connects the garden cities with the old city centre and green structure of public gardens, strip parks, canals and city parks form a network which connects the borough with the surrounding landscape. The surrounding landscape was very important for the development of the ideals of the Modern Movement.

Due to the industrial revolution came a period of rapid population growth and the transformation from an agriculture society towards an industrial society. This caused an enormous growth of cities because more and more people moved from the countryside to the city at the end of the 19th century. Because the cities were growing rapidly the people in the cities and the surrounding landscape got separated, they became disconnected from each other. In the same period, around 1900, there was increasing appreciation of the countryside, the rediscovery of the polder landscape. In the 1910’s the harmony between city and landscape was threatened because of the formation of huge agglomerations. The surrounding landscape became a scattered patchwork landscape between cities and villages.

Im 2.7. Berlin during beginning of 20th century Im. 2.8. Traditional cite expansion Im. 2.9. Concept of a radial city (van Rossum, 1993) (van Rossum, 1993) (van Rossum, 1993)

Distinct and separate living, working, recreation areas. This was the starting point for the approximation in urban planning for the next generation urban planners. This distinction and separation of function were lessons learned from the urban exhibition in response to the extension plans for Berlin in 1910. It was the first time in history that this kind of exhibition was held. Here the proposal was to extent the city in a radial shape instead of the traditional concentric shape. Between these radials ‘fingers’ of green landscape would run into the heart of the city.

In this way citizens and countryside would be in touch more easily. This radial city that was coming into being, was part of the C.I.A.M ideology. During the first two C.I.A.M‐congresses in 1929 and 1930, it was made clear that the changing architectural demands on public housing would have its effects on city planning. In the third congress it was stated that the development of the rational allotment pattern was pointless if the city would grow organically. The theme of the fourth congress pointed out in what direction the development of the allotment pattern should be. The direct surroundings of the city were essential for the neighbourhoods of functional cities to function properly. The idea of the functional city did not just concern the city and its urban spaces. Just the bigger urban unity of the whole region was an essential framework for the future city. The aim was to make the, in the 19th century grown, contrasts disappear.

The surroundings had to be mapped in order to determine where the recreation possibilities were and how to reach them. Also the time that it would take to get there was important so was the use of the recreation area itself. “The natural and scenic beauty in the surroundings of the city was considered to be a spatial extension of the neighbourhood. It was an indispensable part for recreation possibilities in the immediate vicinity of the houses.” It was this opinion, shared by the Modern Movement, which formed the link between future public housing and the pursuit of nature and landscape conservation. Im. 2.10. Map of the surroundings of Amsterdam. (Somer, K. 2007)

The importance of mapping these recreation areas was definite by Cornelis Van Eesteren a letter to a friend who lived in indo‐China: “You’re hunting for elephant, we are hunting for fresh air… Every Sunday or Saturday we make a long walk around Amsterdam, you can’t imagine how divers those walks are”. This mapping of the surroundings of Amsterdam pointed out that, as van Eesteren said, the landscape around Amsterdam used to be surprisingly diverse. The landscape around Amsterdam is a historic landscape that is characterized by the balance of natural‐ and cultural historic elements. South of Amsterdam, around the Amstel river, the small scale polders were in the same condition as when they rediscovered by the painters mentioned before. West of Amsterdam there was the vast polder landscapes of the 19th century IJ‐polders and Haarlemmermeerpolder. The differences in scale were really tangible. The size and coarse grid of the land division were characteristic for 19th century steam powered land reclamation. The mapping resulted in a set of rules that needed to ensure that these areas weren’t used for future expansion plans.

Im. 2.11. Map of Amsterdam with the radial structure. (own image)

The green structure of the Western Garden cities. The green surroundings of the Airey‐strip and other all the other courtyards are part of a bigger and more complex network of different kind of green structures. The purpose of this network was to connect the different neighbourhoods of the Western Garden cities with each other. The smooth transition between public and private green spaces and between the build and natural environment is very important in the design of the public spaces in the Western Garden cities. The AUP distinguishes different types of green areas. Sea, forest, water, hiking and cycling paths are seen as natural beauty for recreation. The Amsterdamsche Bos and the Sloterpark are also part of this network. In fact these two parks are the two most influential elements in terms of the design of the Western, and Southern part of the Extension Plan.

Im. 2.12. Birdseye view drawing of the western garden cities seen from the South‐West, 1934. (Meuer, H., 2006)

Besides the two major lakes, the spatial essence of the design of the public space is determined by three network systems: the road network, parks structure and the canal network. The importance of these networks is stressed in the birds‐eye‐view drawing of Nieuw‐West from 1934 (image 2.4.). The main structure was painted in beautiful perspectives which were presented during a press conference to inform and seduce the public. In contrast to the undetermined residential blocks the road and park structures are clearly detailed. The shape and appearance of the residential neighbourhoods is left open and could be determined in the future. Cornelis van Eesteren said: “it is the task of the present day urban planner to design a plan in a way in which it can be adjusted over time according to the needs of the people without changing the overall idea and structure of the areas masterplan” (Meyer, H., 2006). So in fact the AUP was an urban plan that fixes the public space in the expansion neighbourhoods. The rest was left open for future developments and needs of the modern times.

Amsterdam Nieuw‐West’s landscape. When you look closely to the drawing of 1934 and compare it with the green structure now a days (image 2.5), then you see that there have been hardly no changes in the past 70 years. The success of the design depended on the location of the expansion plan. The polders to the West of Amsterdam were mostly ‘empty’ end had hardly no settlement history. Especially the 19th century polders to the North‐West of Amsterdam were perfectly suited for the next big extension plan. The possibilities seemed unlimited because of the young age of these polders. Especially in the IJ‐polders, which were reclaimed by the end of the 19th century, there were hardly no traces of residential history. The valuation of this landscape had affected the future structure of the polder greatly. Also the water management elements in the area were important parts of the landscape. The area consists out of several polders and each of them have different elevations of between two and five meters below sea level.

More to the north there is a lake now a days which wasn’t there when the first plans for the Nieuw‐ West borough were made. This is the Slotermeer which was part of the land reclamation of the Haarlemmermeerpolder. Back then the Slotemeer was called the Slotermeerpolder which was a low laying polder that was difficult to keep the polder dry. Therefor it has been excavated and the sand has been used to raise the level of the surrounding polders.

Im. 2.13. The green structure with its different functions of Amsterdam Nieuw‐West. (own image)

The green corridor/park strips. The Western Garden Cities are crisscrossed by a system of canals and it’s here, along these canals, that the park strips can be found. The canals and its green surroundings form a green‐blue framework which gives the garden city its identity. The framework consists out of the Polder landscape, the big city parks (Sloterpark, Rembrandtpark and the north side of the Amsterdamse Bos), the neighbourhood parks (Eendrachtspark, Gerbrandypark) and the park strips.

The most important element in the green framework of Amsterdam’s Western Garden cities are the park strips, in Dutch ‘strookparken’. The park strips divide the borough in different districts and frames them. The public green lawns run past the different housing block‐ courtyards in the neighbourhoods and the and forms a link with the park strips which are, in turns, connected with the other parks, in this framework (images 2.6 & 2.7). In this way the residents have the green at their fingertips. The main routes through the borough follow the framework and connect the districts and neighbourhoods with each other and with the surrounding polder and city landscape. These are routes for recreation, shopping, school and sports, and cycling routes for commuting.

Im. 2.14……………….. In the structure of the western suburbs park strips that are interconnected with the parks and the surrounding countryside outside the city were widely implemented. Trees, mainly Grey poplars, and bushes have been planted along straight watercourses and canals. These straight lines with trees on both sides were a reference to the old polder structures. In the long, wide landscaped lawns that can be found in every neighbourhood, are the recreational facilities. These lawns and canals form a network of green which lead as green lanes towards the large parks in the Borough.

The spacious green design reflected the essence of the new, post‐war life with the construction of the garden cities. The generous outdoor space guaranteed light, air and space. The ability to link the green spaces in the urban area (from the home through the park strip towards the city park and the countryside) was a thoughtful part of the General Expansion Plan. Im. 2.15………………………..

"Er bestaat behoefte aan uitgestrekte natuurruimten, om de bevolking de zozeer nodige ontspanningsmogelijkheden te bieden en haar met plant en dier in nauwere aanraking te brengen." (From the inaugural speech of van Eesteren, 1948)

The city parks. The most important and the largest parks, the Sloterpark, Rembrandtpark and the North side of the Amsterdamse Bos determine the outlines of the green structure. In the middle of the Western Garden city lies the Sloterpark (Image 2.8). This park forms the blue heart of the borough where all the green avenues of trees and canals come together. The park was destined to become a recreation area, and during hot summer days, as it was intended by van Eesteren and his colleagues, all the residents of the Nieuw‐West borough would flock together to enjoy the nice weather at the Sloterplas‐lake. The Im. 2.16. The Sloterplas (Nieuwwestexpress.nl) The Sloterplas Lake arose out of a sand mining project for raising the surrounding polders, is the most central and largest park in the western suburbs.

The Rembrandtpark was planned as a recreational area for the neighbourhoods of West and the Kinkerbuurt on former borders of the city of Amsterdam. The park forms a bufferzone between the old city with its closed city blocks (Oud‐West) and the new suburb in the west with its open city block structure (Slotervaart). On the Eastside of the park, the side of the city centre, the park is borderd by traditional city blocks of 4 storeys tall. West of the Park the buildings are much more modern and of 17 storeys tall. These buildings are located within the park and form a gateway to the new borough. The park was designed in the neo English landscape style. That is clearly visible in the winding paths and water features, the rolling lawns and the surprising landscapes in the park borders. Im. 2.17. The parks of Amsterdam nieuw west (own image)

The Amsterdamse Bos is, like the Sloterpark, part of the bigger green structure of Amsterdam’s Radial city which I’ll describe later on in this chapter. Because of the financial crisis the Amsterdam Bos was in the thirties already laid out in the context of the provision of work. The city planners assumed that existing polder landscape by the average resident wasn’t estimated on value and that therefore it was necessary to create a recreational forests on the edges of the garden city of Amstelveen. (Feddes, Y. 2012)

Im. 2.18. Birdseye view over the Nieuwe Meer towards Amsterdam. (Amsterdam.nl)

The neighbourhood parks (Buurtparken). Unlike the organic design of the English landscape style of the city parks like the Rembrandtpark, the ‘buurtparken’ Gebrandypark and Eendrachtspark have been designed in a totally different style. The linear cycle and footpaths, playgrounds for the children, the rectangular open playing fields the enclosure of dense plantings is typical of the western suburbs and were conducted in other parts of the city in the following years. In the Gerbrandypark and Eendrachtspark, playgrounds with a wading pool, tennis courts, football fields and a kiosk can be found. It is allowed to barbeque in some indicated locations in this park.

As mentioned before, the western suburbs were based on the concept of the connection zones between the green heart of the western suburbs, the Sloterplas, and polder landscape. In early plans of the AUP the Gerbrandypark was orientated in a North South direction, connecting the Sloterplas with the landscape north of the Haarlemmertrekvaart. In a revision of the AUP the importance of this green connecter to the north was considered to be less than a recreational and commuting bike connection from East to West. This caused the Gerbrandypark to be turned a quarter and now has an east‐west orientation instead of a north‐south orientation. The park was connected to the Burgemeester van Tienhovengracht. This change caused the Gerbrandypark to have poorly useful narrow and elongated dimensions in terms for sports and playgrounds. As a green connection for biking the park still of a very good use. Also the use of the water on the west side of the Gerbrandypark has changed. Originally the designers imagined a marina west of the Gebrandypark. A remembrance of this is that still one of the quays is carried out in luxuriously basalt. Later, the end of the canal, where the marina was planned, ended up as a turning point for the garbage boats… (koevoet, M., 2008)

Im. 2.19. Gerbrandypark (Siebe Swart) Im. 2.20 Playground in the Eendrachtspark (nieuwwestexpress.nl)

Recreation Sport facilities. There are a lot of sport facilities to be found in Amsterdam Nieuw‐West. Most of the bigger sport complexes are situated on the outskirts of the borough and near the city parks. The sport facilities are mostly connected by the green corridor and therefore very well accessible for the residents of the Western Garden Cities. The implementation of the sport facilities fits perfectly in the ideology of Light, Air and Space. The aim of the facilities was to make the population healthier, happier and more energetic. They had to leave the ‘dark times’ behind and go outside! (van Rossum, 1993)

Im. 2.21. The outdoor sport facilities. (own image) Allotment garden (volkstuintjes). During the development of the general expansion plan, in the 1920’s, the population of Amsterdam, and the Netherlands in general grew enormously. The First World War had just ended and there was a shortage of food. The people didn’t had much to spend and an own garden meant that they could partly provide their own food. In the early days it was only allowed to grow vegetables and potatoes. Besides practical use of the gardens it was also a place to come to rest, to flee from the busy city life and get some fresh air. The volkstuintjes were intended for the working class people who lived in an apartment dwelling without a garden and are still now a day’s very populair with waiting lists of five to six years. (van Rossum, 1993)

Im. 2.22. The Volkstuintjes (own image)

The Polder landscape. The Polder landscape that borders the Western Gardens cities are part of a bigger network of green ‘fingers’ that penetrates the city on several sports. As you can see in the previous two images the recreational areas are located close to the polder landscape. This was done because van Eesteren thought that the common people wouldn’t appreciate the surrounding polder landscape as much as he and his colleagues did. In order to make this landscape more attractive, a large part of the sport facilities and ‘volkstuintjes’ were placed close to the edges of the borough.

Im. 2.23. The polder landscape (own image)

Cultural value. When you walk through the different neighbourhoods of Amsterdam Nieuw‐West you notice immediately that there is an abundance of green in the area. Also the large number of playgrounds in the neighbourhood which resembles the ideals of ‘het Nieuwe Bouwen’ and the Modern Movement and should be kept and improved. Around the Airey strip we can see that there is a lot of green and also the parks strips are frequently present although it did not succeed everywhere, because the main routes are interrupted. Another downside of the large quantities of green open space is, partly because of lower population densities than foreseen (Feddes, Y., 2012), that it isn’t used very much. Another reason for this is that the public gardens or courtyards aren’t accessible from the apartment blocks, as is the case for the Airey‐blocks. Also the pleasant, secluded hideaways that landscape architects envisioned weren’t realised because of budget cuts and are too open and remained empty. So for new plans and developments for the courtyards in Nieuw‐West it’s wise to look at the plans made by Mies Ruys and let yourself inspire by her ideas.

Im. 2.24. The green structure around the Airey‐strip. (Own image)

In short, the differentiation referred to in the green structure is not well expressed. The many thousands of botanical roses from Mien Ruys’ plans, which should make for a rich and colourful image in the collective gardens, are now a days only found sporadically. The greenery of gardens, green areas and parks are too uniform. This blurs the distinction between the monumental solid lines that connect the neighbourhood with the rest of the world, and the residence places where you can feel at home.

Chapter 3. Open Space.

Controlling the growth of a city. Like the green structure in the Western Garden cities is the road structure also very much determined by the possibilities that were given by the minor historical references of the polders were the Western Garden Cities were built. The other parts of the General Extension Plan were very much bothered by the neighbouring municipalities that wanted to profit from Amsterdam’s growth. In the years between 1869 and 1926 the population in the Netherlands grew with 100 percent. The population growth in the region, we now a days call the Randstad, was more significant. The population in this area increased with 175% from 900.000 people in 1869 to 2.500.000 people in 1926. Also Amsterdam and the surrounding area grew rapidly from 370.000 people to 980.000 in 1926. In 1924 a commission was founded by the provincial government to prevent the unique landscape between Amsterdam and these places from becoming one huge agglomeration. This commission, called the ‘Vaste Commissie’ had the task to help the different municipalities in making one overall urban expansion plan for the entire region. The most urgent problems were found along the new borders of Amsterdam set in 1921 (Image 3.1). In the years before Amsterdam encountered a fast population growth and its neighbouring municipalities made expansion plans near the border of Amsterdam to cash in on the growth of Amsterdam.

Im. 3.1. New borders of Amsterdam over the course of years. (Rossum van, V., 1993)

The biggest problem was that, on the one hand, Amsterdam wanted to create a general plan based for the whole city on the radial city mentioned before. On the other hand were the plans made by the neighbouring villages which were more traditional. They wanted to build every available piece of the expensive land close to the municipality border with Amsterdam in order to make the highest profit possible. All the plans of the adjacent municipalities together created a chaotic fringe along the city borders of Amsterdam (image 20) (Rossum van, V., 1993).

Im. 3.2. Urban expansion plans of Amsterdam and surrounding neighbourhoods (Rossum van, V., 1993)

To prevent these time consuming and money wasting city planning from happening again the Vaste Commissie ordered to make one structure plan for the entire region. With this structure plan, municipalities could easily see what was expected from them. In the structure plan was stated were to build new neighbourhoods and were not, what kind of infrastructure was needed and so on. The expansion plan of Amstelveen, south of Amsterdam, was made in 1935 according to this structure vision. The plan was considered to be part of the ambitions of Amsterdam to become a radial city. Here the Nieuwe Meer and its surroundings, to the west of Amstelveen, and the area around the Amstel River to the east would be preserved and function as a recreation‐zone. This was considered important because these two areas were seen as characteristic fragments in an extensive polder landscape just as it was before the industrial revolution.

Designing from scratch. The western polders were, as mentioned before, considered the ideal location for the next and biggest part of the extension plan. The Polders to the West of Amsterdam were practically empty, apart from some farms that were scattered here and there. This made it possible for van Eesteren and his colleagues to design, for the first time in history on such a big scale, a modernistic and functionalistic city borough, according to the ideals of the modern movement. One of the first sketches of the new road structure of the borough can be seen in image 3.3.. The use of several different colours indicates the hierarchy in the roads system.

Rudolf Eberstadt was in 1893 the first who made a clear distinction between streets designated purely for traffic and residential streets. (Rossum, van, 1993) This clear distinction would eventually lead to the functional city ideas we saw a couple of decades later. The traffic‐streets enclosed individual neighbourhoods which formed self‐contained parts of the district. This should led to a more balanced relationship between the main transport networks, the neighbourhood itself and the parks. “The shapes of the residential quarters and parks change and adapt to the shape of the main transport network. The latter is influenced by the opportunities that are being given by the changed shapes of the building plots in order to establish expedient, esthetical satisfying and hygienically as good as possible situated residential streets”. (van Lohuizen 1929) Im. 3.3. First sketch of the new roads structure. (Rossum van, V. 1993)

When the general extension plan was further developed and got closer to the final stage (image 3.4) van Eesteren said about it:

“Het plan is in hoofdzaak opgebouwd op een zoo eenvoudig mogelijk gehouden stramien van verkeersaderen en groenstroken. Hierdoor hebben de woongebieden zeer eenvoudige rechthoekige hoofdvormen gekregen, die praktisch volgens elke gewenschte verkavelingsmethode ingedeeld kunnen worden” (Blom, A., 2004) Im. 3.4. Sketch from 1934 of the main structure. (Meuer, H., 2006)

The Framework of the Western Garden Cities. There are no development proposals stated in the AUP. That decision to build in an open parcelling structure was made a couple of years after the final design was made. The structure of New West is determined by a network of roads, greenery and larger specified areas with different functions: areas for living, working, recreation, shopping, sports, etc. The transport network consists out of primary roads (city roads/stadsautowegen), secondary roads (neighbourhood roads/ wijkstraten) and ‘court streets’ (buurtstraten), a part of the metro network (stadsspoor) and two train stations (Lelylaan and Sloterdijk). The city roads which formed the largest traffic unit, run radially from the city centre of Amsterdam towards the outskirts of the city. The borough of Nieuw‐West is connected with the city inside the A10 ring way by eight highway passing’s and by three freeway ramps to the A10 itself.

Im. 3.5. The present day road structure. (own image)

The two main road networks had standard widths. The primary had a width of 54 meters and the secondary road network had a width of 34 meters. In the first phase the main roads didn’t had to be paved in a conventional width, and were provided with temporary public gardens. Increase in traffic would later make the final pavement necessary. In the dimensions of the primary and secondary road networks was, if needed, a future tramline taken into account. The Hague and Berlin served as examples in for the road network. The type of road network, primary or secondary, was independent of the height of the adjacent buildings, which could vary. (Koevoet, M., 2008)

The original design of public spaces Almost all of the streets, from big to small, have been given the characteristic asymmetric street profile of the garden city, where on one side the houses face the street, and on the other side a lawn with trees and/or shrubs which are connected to the test of the green structure in the neighbourhood.

At the level of the neighbourhood the green structure articulates the continuous open space by a typological classification of roads, parks and courtyards. The courtyard is the most private space with the least dynamic infrastructure, and it serves as a quiet place to stay and to come to rest.

The centre of the district is accessible through ‘court streets’. The district is connected with the rest of the borough through the secondary roads, and the borough is tin turns connected to the rest of the city by the primary road network.

As a street becomes more dynamic it gets a broader profile and it is flanked by avenues of trees and green areas. Only the larger transit roads are provided with symmetrical double rows of trees. Within the districts and neighbourhoods the street profiles are not symmetrical, here trees are planted on one side of the street and rarely in a continuous row. Im. 3.6…………..

The materialization of the streets and sidewalks in the Western Garden Cities, like in other post‐war suburbs, is very simple. The Department of Public Works never made a budget for the design of public space. The urban expansion of the scale was too big and the implementation period too long. Much attention was paid to the design of bridges, quays, bastions and so on. The materialization of streets, sidewalks and parks really did went that far. The original materials used for the streets was red backed bricks. The sidebands were made out of natural stone with a width of 13 or 15 centimetres. The material used for the sidewalk was concrete tiles of 30 x 30 centimetres which are still used in most post‐war neighbourhoods. The 30 x 30 tiles have already been developed before the Second World War by the Department of Public Works. Sadly there is hardly any original pavement left in the borough. This is due to the raising of the borough by using the sand from the Sloterplas sand mining activities. Normally the sand needs 5 years to settle but in this case there was no time. The consequence was that the borough started to sink and therefore the pavement needed to be redone several times. (Koevoet, M., 2008)

Im. 3.7+3.8. 30x30 concrete tiles and red brick street pavement (own pictures)

Dividing the borough into districts and neighbourhoods. The green and road structure together form a framework which divides the borough in six districts: Bos en Lommer (1930’s‐1950’s), Slotermeer (1951‐1954), Geuzenveld (1953‐1958), Slotervaart (1954‐ 1960), Overtoomse veld (1958‐1963), Osdorp (1956‐1962). These district form together with the districts of De Aker and Nieuw‐Sloten the borough of Nieuw‐West after the municipal reorganization of 2010. The residential areas are situated within this framework of straight roads and green spaces. The residential areas of the Western Garden Cities are in most cases bordered on all sides by either the green or the road system. Which district is making contact with the system of continuous green zones, which provide connection between the different areas within the area, with the countryside and the city beyond.

Im. 3.9.+3.10. Green structure + road structure divides the borough in districts. (own image)

As been said before was the General Extension plan more a structure plan which gave the outlines of the new suburbs than a urban design. The structure plan specified network of roads, greenery and larger specified areas with different functions: areas for living, working, recreation, shopping, sports, etc.. The specified areas themselves were designed later on in the process.

The development of the open building block. It all started with the issue of the type building block in the years before the Second World War. Cornelis Van Eesteren saw many drawbacks in the original closed building blocks. A lot of buildings built this way don’t have the right orientation relative to the sun, and furthermore people of the Modern Movement considered the inner side of the building block as well as the streets to be of an inferior quality. The alternative that was shown at the exhibition of 1932, organized by the CIAM, was that of the North South orientated open building block, or row housing (image 3.11). The individual strips were segregated by green, water and roads. Endry van Velzen described the model of open building blocks in his book De naoorlogse stad (2001) as follows:

‘Bij strokenbouw zijn de woningrijen zo goed mogelijk op de zon georiënteerd. De woningen worden aan de noordkant ontsloten door woonpaden haaks op de doorgaande wegen, aan de zuidkant liggen tuinen. Deze opzet zet de traditionele verbanden op losse schroeven. De bebouwing komt los te staan van de straat.’

This means that the building blocks did not necessarily use the traditional (residential) street to access the house anymore. The positioning of the housing blocks in informal collective green spaces was developed parallel to the development of alternative access models for the housing blocks. This alternative was part of a previously initiated search for a liveable urban environment (chapter 1.). The footpaths made the free placement of blocks possible and at the same time provided access to the common courtyards. The main critic on this type of building blocks was the possible endless repetition of houses. In the 1930’s there was a lot of resistance to this way of building, in the Netherlands as well. Im. 3.11. A concept design of a neighbourhood with open building blocks (Rossum van, V. 2001)

At the same time the construction of the expansion plan of H.P.Berlage, Plan Zuid, wasn’t completed yet. The head of the city development department states, that the Plan South should be finished in the same style as it was designed but there was room for some small scale experiments on new types of housing. Here and there, new, semi‐open housing blocks of sober, down to earth architecture, have been built. Years later, in the end of the 30th the experiments continued in the neighbourhood of Bos en Lommer. This time open building blocks were built and immediately problems occurred. Van Eesteren wasn’t satisfied because the street profiles were too narrow, the housing blocks were positioned to close to each other. Also the floorplans did not work the way van Eesteren wanted. For example in the traditional closed city block, the balconies were positioned at the backside of the building, hidden to the rest of the world. In the open building block there was no backside anymore whereby the balconies, were the laundry was drying, were exposed to anyone who wanted to see it. A solution was needed for these kind of problems before it could be implemented on a big scale in the new expansion plan. Despite of the widespread criticism the municipality of Amsterdam decided to push through with the plans. The housing shortage was one of the main arguments for this. (Van Rossum, V., 2001)

Im. 3.12. Sketch plan of Slotermeer from 1936. (Rossum, van, V., 2001)

The provisional sketch from 1936 (image 3.12) shows that they were looking for more diversity in the North‐South orientated housing rows in comparison with the sketch shown earlier. The purely rational clarity of urban space has been abandoned. It was decided to go for a more village‐like solution by smaller allotment and more variety. They tried to achieve this by varying in the direction of the houses. Therefore a number of low rise building blocks are rotated ninety degrees in later designs. The rotation of some of the low rise building blocks didn’t provide major problems on the insolation. The long close ranks building blocks have been replaced by shorter blocks which were partly orientated in the east‐ west and partly in the north‐south direction.

The people from the municipality weren’t fully convinced yet. They feared that, however they appreciated the concentration of green areas, this would have led to residential areas which would get a too monotonous appearance. Van Eesteren and his teams response to this critic was that the green would get different functions like several children’s playgrounds per district. They also said that the ‘buildings of a special nature’ must provide the necessary variety in the neighbourhood. To convince the municipal board van Eesteren and his colleagues took the board for an excursion to garden cities in Denmark, England and Sweden. They were very much impressed by what he saw. The place was very neat and well maintained. Only a few places, where the poorest of them all were living, were neglected. The general impression was very positive and since the city planners didn’t expect this group of people to be housed in the Western suburbs, Van Eesteren and his team decided to carry on with the open building block designs.

On July 15th, 1936 this important decision was made and shortly after this the first sketch parcelling methods were presented. According to this method two North‐South orientated strips were positioned approximately 52 meters from each other. Perpendicular to these two strips, in the East‐West direction, several blocks containing five to six narrow houses were positioned between the strips. (Image 3.13) The houses were accessible via footpaths which ran from East to West and led to a North‐ South orientated street. In case of more than six dwellings, a second North‐South street was needed in order to keep the houses accessible. When five East‐West dwellings were built, the garden sheds were positioned inside the houses in order to keep the green around the building as open and clear as possible. In case of six dwellings, the houses would become too small to contain a garden shed inside. The garden sheds were positioned in pairs of two in the back garden, again to keep the space as clear as possible. The method of six dwellings was the applied the most in Amsterdam Nieuw‐West. In order to obtain more variation in the neighbourhood design the stamps could be rotated 90 degrees. This parcelling is clearly visible in the first sketch design of Amsterdam Nieuw‐West from 1936. (Image 3.12)

Im. 3.13. Diagram of concept design of parcelling. (own image)

The parcelling North of the Airey‐strip is a result of the first plan for the parcelling, but here there are 8 dwellings in the East‐West orientated row. The distance between the two North‐South blocks is still 52 meters. The loss of green space is probably a result of the housing shortage after the war.

Im. 3.14. Carried out parcelling north of Airey‐strip (google earth).

In the next year a few changes has been made in the urban expansion plan and they were very subtle. The parcelling of the row houses wasn’t changed for the largest part but the sketch (Image 3.15.) made a totally different impression. This was mainly due to the distinction of different functions of the land. By using different colours the main network of roads, streets and waterways was made clearer. In this way the urban landscape of the ‘sea of low‐rise houses’ decomposes into smaller neighbourhood units between the greenery and the major traffic roads. This shows that the arrangement of the public spaces is vital when designing an urban plan with open building blocks. According to van Eesteren the street profiles and the surrounding greenery were essential for the appearance of the neighbourhood with open building blocks. He said: “alignment of the buildings is not primary, but the surface on which the city stands is”. What this meant was that the separation between architectural and urban design was gone. The means of expression of the urban plan were determined not only by the buildings and its variation, but equally by the surrounding green. The main critic of this way of urban designing was that the design of the city looked like a model, there was little room for changes. For example it wasn’t possible for somebody to extend the house by building a conservatory behind it, or making fence between the gardens for some more privacy.

Im. 3.15 Sketch plan of 1937. (van Rossum, V., 2001)

What strikes me the most in this sketch was that the importance of the green wasn’t made clear. The greenery is still coloured in black and white and only the parcelling and major traffic roads were coloured in. This changed when the final plan was presented and approved by the municipality in 1939 (image 3.16). The plan only changed in small details, but the major change was the designation of different functions of the green. The layout of the parcelling of the buildings itself didn’t change much; along the major traffic roads four floor buildings and in the remainder of the neighbourhood primarily low‐rise buildings of one or two floors and buildings of a special nature like schools and churches. (Van Rossum, 2001)

Im. 3.16. Sketch plan of 1939. (Rossum, van, V., 2001)

After the war there had been some major changes in the plan. The green, water and transport structures stayed the same. Only the ‘van Tienhovengracht’, south of the Airey‐strip hasn’t been connected to the ‘Haarlemmervaart’ because this proved to be impossible due to the difference in height of the polders. Concerning the parcelling there do have been changes.

Im. 3.17 Final plan of 1950. (Rossum, van, V., 2001)

The parcelling boom! During the War the search for an ideal parcelling type which was less static then the North‐South orientated strip, wherein the number of homes per hectare was still favourable. This led to a different type of parcelling namely the courtyard, or ‘hof’ in Dutch. The courtyard consists out of two L‐shaped housing blocks and have been implemented for the first time in the neighbourhood of Jeruzalem (chapter 2.). The courtyards have been implemented to give a more varied image to the neighbourhood. Van Eesteren wrote in 1952 to about the courtyards:

“De woningen zijn het grondmateriaal, de materie, welke moet worden samengevoegd tot stedebouw‐ kundige vormen. De gerichte strook is de eerste primitieve samenvoeging. Herhaling van stroken kan worden gerhythmiseerd door geleding, welke ontstaat door na een aantal herhalingen een afstand tussen twee stroken groter te maken dan de vorige. Stroken kunnen worden samengevoegd tot een grondvorm, b.v. een L. Twee grondvormen kunnen een motief vormen, welk motief, groter van formaat zijnde dan de strook, minder malen behoeft te worden herhaald bij een gelijk blijvend aantal woningen en dus minder snel tot monotonie leidt.”

Im. 3.18. New types of parcelling which have been developed in the years after the war. (own image)

In Amsterdam this parcelling‐form has been widely used, but also in the rest of the country the motif was widely implemented. Around 1955 the resistance to the new types of parcelling disappeared and the Dutch towns and villages were flooded with an explosion of new models (images 3.18+3.19). The best known type of parcelling is the repeatable unit: a fixed composition of building blocks, often made up of buildings with different building heights, which through repetition (identical or mirrored) formed the basis of the urban fabric. The seemingly unlimited repetition had two sides. On the one hand it was the basis of a spatial rhythm, on the other hand the foundation of monotony. The repeatable unit was given the nickname 'stamp' when it evolved into a standard variant.

The reason for this lay in the fact that the urban development since 1960 became in the grip of the construction economy. Concepts such as a dramatically increase in scale in combination with cheaper ways of constructing, and new construction techniques were causing changes in the design of the city. The housing units were tested for construction efficiency and their adapted to the ideal path of the crane and the drying time of the poured concrete. This is also the time when the traditional relationship between house and street was completely abandoned by the most progressive designers and "traffic" developed into an independent discipline with great influence on urban design. (Blom, A., 2004)

“De auto had de stedenbouw in zijn greep gekregen. (...) Parkeerstroken bij laagbouw, parkeerhoven bij etagebouw, parkeervlaktes bij winkelcentra. De woonstraat verloor nu geheel zijn sociale functie als ontmoetingsruimte, rijdende en geparkeerde auto’s bepaalden de sfeer. De stedenbouwkundige stratenplannen werden autostratenplannen.” (Blom, A., 2004)

The freely placed compositions were made up in most cases, series of strips, but developed gradually into large, self‐urban forms such as the honeycomb and the wing. The latter category is also referred to as 'super block'. The larger compositions also led to separation of traffic. In this way, children could safely go to school because they have no roads have to stabbing over. Through this model could open up a large residential area made car‐free. The separation of living and traffic was in the sixties by the overcrowding of motor traffic increasingly important. This eventually led to the residential areas, where the car was subordinate to the slow traffic.

Im. 3.19. The 36 different types of parcelling used in Nieuw‐West. (Meyer, H., 2006)

Present day typology in Nieuw‐West The variation of the present day typologies of the building blocks in Nieuw‐West is large. The highest density of ‘original’ typologies that have been developed in the 1930’s can be found in the Slotermeer district, in the North‐East of the borough. That’s no coincidence because that is also the oldest district in the Borough of Nieuw‐West. Built from 1951 to 1954, this neighbourhood is roughly eight years older than the district of Osdorp, built between 1956 and 1962, South‐West of the borough. The difference in age is not that big, however the difference in typology is clearly visible. In the Slotermeer the district the parcelling mainly consists out of strips while the number of different typologies types increase when you move down to the bottom left corner of the map (image 3.20). This is consistent with the increase of scale and development of building methods mentioned before.

In the South‐East of the borough near the Overtoomse Veld and around the A10 ring way the clear structure of the different type of typologies decreases. This is due to the new developments that have been taken place in the last couple of decades as part of the urban renewal.

Im. 3.20. The present day typology of Amsterdam Nieuw‐West. (own image).

Districts Built between:  Slotermeer (1951‐1954)  Geuzenveld (1953‐1958)  Slotervaart (1954‐1960)  Overtoomse veld (1958‐1963)  Osdorp (1956‐1962)

Present day typology in Slotermeer Slotermeer can be regarded as one of the districts of the Western Garden cities which is seen as the most representable as elaboration of the ideas of van Eesteren and the Modern Movement. Hence the title of protected cityscape which has been given by the municipality of Amsterdam in order to ‘preserve’ this neighbourhood from city renewal projects which takes place all around the borough. In the middle of the protected cityscape area is the Airey‐strip located. In terms of typology it can be considered as a ‘misfit’ in the area but this is what makes the Airey‐strip typology extra special. In an attempt to break the overly rigid straight placement of open parcelling an alternate was chosen between straight and angled placement of the Airey blocks. This placement was in the early fifties, very innovative and can therefore be considered to be the catalyst for the later developed courtyard typology found more to the North and South of the Airey‐strip. Basically, the typology of the Airey blocks can be considered to be a hook + strip stamp because of the added shops on the north side of the blocks. There are hardly no new developments to be seen in the Slotermeer district. The most new developments have been taken place around the hospital in the South‐East, and near the Sloterplas in the South‐West.

Im. 3.21. Present day parcelling of Slotermeer‐East. (own image)

Functions. A typology which stands out is that of the buildings with special functions like churches, schools and shopping centres. Churches and schools were functions which should serve the neighbourhood. These functions were decentralized spread in such a way that every neighbourhood had its own churches and schools. The buildings were linked to the green network and also accessible by car through the neighbourhood streets.

Im. 3.22. Functions in Slotermeer. (own image)

The Airey blocks consist out of two functions, residential and commercial. The commercial spaces are located on the North side of the Airey strip in separate blocks (image 3.23). A closed street front with commercial spaces is located on the other side of the Burgemeester van de Vlugtlaan. This is one of the few closed street fronts in the borough (image 3.24.).

Im. 3.23. Commercial functions in and around the Airey‐strip. (own image)

The architecture. The closed off street front of the Burgemeester van der Vlugtlaan was one of the few exceptions made in the urban design of repeating parcelling stamps. The architect Aldo van Eyck criticized this immediately because according to him the choice for a busy traffic street in combination with a ‘traditional’ shopping street made the design concept unclear. Suggested to make a shopping street like the Lijnbaan in Rotterdam instead. Im. 3.24. Shopping street Burgemeester van der Vlugtlaan. (geheugenvanwest.nl)

At the time of the design stage of the urban plan, in the late thirties, there was little reason to have high expectations with regard to the architecture of the future. The construction of houses was then for the largest part carried out by private builders, and they had little interest in architecture. They built preferably a catalogue housing type that was too big for working class families. After the war the national government took over the role as constructor.

Im. 3.25. Sober architecture in Nieuw‐West. (Rossum, van, V., 2001) Van Eesteren considered this to be a major advantage in order to fulfil his vision on the borough. He pointed out that the quality in technical and architectural aspects of the housing was insufficient. Van Eesteren referred to cities in Germany and Denmark where the government worked closely together with professional builders. This collaboration resulted in a sober and restrained style of architecture of good which van Eesteren had in mind for the Nieuw‐West borough.

Im. 3.26. Church in Nieuw‐West. (Rossum, van, V., 2001 The sober and restrained style wasn’t a result of a lag of money, it was the key characteristic of ideals of post‐war architecture. The detailing should be clean and sober, and only a few small decorations were allowed (image3.27). So now that the national government was involved in the construction process, the required quantity and quality of the housing could finally be met. Of course there were critics. Architects were complaining that there wasn’t enough freedom for them to make own plans. Also the many rules and regulations from the national government forced them to be extremely economical in designing the floorplans. Im. 3.27. School in Nieuw‐West (own image)

Another important element was the goal of the housing department to build as many single‐family homes as possible. With this list of requirements an urban plan was made that breaks radically with the traditional appearance of the city. The street walls have disappeared and the traditional street space had to make way for an urban space that is practically nowhere dominated by compelling sight lines. Only clusters of shops were situated in proper streets. With regard to housing, there was no reason to anticipate on interesting architecture. With the building regulations, in mind the architecture could only give an image which is as neutral as possible with a maximum of tranquillity and order. A certain degree of repetition was not considered to be negative. Only the church and school buildings could form vivid architecture against this background of mass housing.

High‐rise and low‐rise Striking characteristics of the Nieuw‐West borough is the low building density, the abundance of green and the ‘organic character’ of the neighbourhood. With only 11.000 houses for 40.000 people the neighbourhood felt like a self‐containing borough, like an endless city with little distinction from other neighbourhoods in the borough. This distinction should be provided by the green elements in the area. The designers strived to make the neighbourhood as open as possible and create more distinction by vary in building heights.

Im. 3.28. An aerial photo of Geuzenveld and Slotermeer, seen from the west. (vaneesterenmuseum.nl)

This sea of low‐rise buildings, which was considered to be the ideal cityscape for the Modern Movement, was also one of the biggest drawbacks of this plan. The main critic on this was the possible endless repetition of houses. Van Eesteren himself said that 60 dwellings per hectare is actually a too high density for low‐rise buildings. He continues: With more than 40 dwellings per hectare residential buildings with four storeys provide a much more powerful mean of expression. But this appeared to be impossible because at this low density the urban plan would become too expensive.

Rhythm The Rembrandtpark was a necessary addition to the Sloten expansion plan but it also formed a gateway to the new and unknown borough on the other side of the ring road. To emphasize this van Eesteren designed two totally different street fronts. On the eastside of the park he planned a traditional housing block which seamlessly connects to the existing city scape. On the west side of the park he planned a series of high‐rise buildings located in the green, which emphasized the radial paths running through the park.

Im. 3.29. High‐rise buildings used to create a transition from the old city towards the new one (aerophotostock.com)

These buildings together with the paths formed the gateway towards the new neighbourhood. Another reason for planning high‐rise buildings on this location was to make the dimensions of the park and the large scale of the modern city visible. He wanted to emphasize the contrast between the old‐fashioned closed housing blocks, the open space of the park and the new spacious towers of the Modern Movement. It was a harmonious transition between 2 phases of urban planning history.

High‐rise was also used signify certain important places for the urban design, like the Sloterplas. This was needed to break with the uniform appearance of the neighbourhoods and for people to find their way between the series of repeating stamps. As an example applies the intended high‐rise buildings in Slotervaart at the east bank of the Sloterplas. The high‐rise buildings were for some reason never constructed and this disappointed Cornelis van Eesteren very much, he said: “Now the neigbourhood isn’t connected with the water. The houses are separated by a green zone, the people have to search for the water”. A reason why most of the high‐rise plans, ‘vertical components’ as van Eesteren would call it, were never executed were the endless discussion about the topic. High‐rise was both for the architect as the municipal urban planners a controversial theme. High‐rise for families for example was considered to be a no go area, and it didn’t save that much of precious land compared to ground bound family dwellings, and therefore not suitable for workers class dwellings either.

Im. 3.30. Diagram on how different levels in height were used to give rhythm and to form landmarks in the neighbourhoods. (own image)

Building heights in Slotermeer. The first known map of Slotermeer is dated from June 1936 and is called provisional sketch with a schematic housing distribution. The different types of houses are scattered in clusters across the planning area. The medium‐rise buildings of up four floors (five if the slanted roof is included) were located on the main roads, at the head of the Sloterplas was a series of 10 residential buildings with eight floors projected, partly for workers. At the Haarlemmerweg another three residential buildings with eight floors for workers' are included. These were located at some distance from each other, surrounded by low‐rise, clearly intended to give rhythm to the buildings along the Haarlemmerweg. For the rest, the district consists basically just a sea of low‐rise buildings, where there has been some variation in different variants of parcelling.

Im. 3.31. Present day building heights of Slotermeer‐East. (own image)

The Airey‐strip is located on the Burgemeester van der Vlugtlaan and consists out of 3 storeys where four were ‘allowed’. On the other side of the street are buildings located which have four floors + a slanted roof. Near the shopping centre to the West of the Airey strip are more high‐rise buildings located. This was in line with the intended distribution of vertical components to indicate important places. In this case a shopping centre, hotel and library.

Cultural value Frequently heard criticisms of today are that the garden cities are boring, just like the architecture of the relative small dwellings. I don’t think the parcelling of the garden cities can be called boring because of all the different types of parcelling that were developed during the 1950’s and 60’s. For instance the angled positioning of the Airey‐ blocks is also very special because it is one of the first attempts to make more variation in the parcelling of the building blocks. In order to understand this way of building we have to look at the bigger picture instead of the individual block. The combinations of different types of parcelling that have been used form one big continuous open space which gives the Western garden cities its special character.

The open space begins with the first step when you leave your house. From your own courtyard to the central Sloterpark is, in fact, one big pedestrian area. That this can be found so close to the city centre is a very unique selling point of this area and should therefore be preserved before the city renewal program has taken over the borough and made it into a ‘normal’ suburb.

Also the fact that this borough was one the first proper expansion plan which is designed according to the ideals of the Modern Movement makes it special. It was the first expansion plan which could use the landscape as a blank sheet and therefore wasn’t bothered by historical references from the past. This is still visible in the straight and rigid road network that’s been used.

What should be kept? The openness, views and unity in material used. The public space in the western suburbs is typified by long lines and vegetation that serves as links between parks, public and private gardens, the polder landscape, and other recreational areas. The openness also relates to the skies, through the spacious layout of the city is the sky clearly present. And finally, by variation in height of the building blocks and the lack of closed building blocks the facade surfaces are shifting beautiful relative to each other during movement through the neighbourhoods.

Chapter 4. Conclusions.

From historical and urban planning point of view is the post‐War period very important for the history of the Netherlands, and with this the AUP. It was a time of scarcity and optimism, a period between the economic crisis of the thirties and the beginning of the war on the one hand and the democratization and emancipation wave of the late sixties on the other. And a time when Amsterdam had grown enormously. From around 250.000 people in 1865 to 750.000 in 1925 without the city to expand with this massif increase in population numbers. The city was simply overcrowded. During this time the profession of urban planning reached its pinnacle. It was a time of enlightenment of the city. Architecture and urban planning were given a different appearances in structure, the ideas about spatial planning and housing made culture historically a major change. Despite the optimism and forward thinking of the post‐war period, there was considerable financial and material scarcity. Yet even these shortages led to an unprecedented modernization, technological development and professionalization of the construction industry. Scarcity promoted a simple but careful design. Van den Broek said, during a CIAM‐congress, this:

“Wij scheppen weinig monumenten maar wel gebouwen voor mens en gemeenschap. Wij kunnen ze nochtans beschouwen als een expressie ener cultuur wanneer wij bedenken, dat de verschijning onzer cultuur minder bepaald wordt door de hoge toppen der groten dan door de levensstijl der velen.”

The ideas of the creatable society were guiding in the design of the urban plan. It was thought not only about the physical improvement of the city, but also about the social and cultural importance of the city and its inhabitants. Housing, architecture and ideas about living after the war had a strong focus on improving the living of the common man "or the ‘average family’. The appreciation of the residents for the new houses and neighbourhoods was high, especially compared to former living conditions in the inner cities and older neighbourhoods. As building blocks of tranquillity, regularity and harmony we distinguish composed grand views with lots of greenery and water, the dynamics of the changing perspective, repetition and sobriety. In the case of West, one can say: everything depends on everything else on the basis of the green structure. The public space in the western suburbs is characterized by its abundance of greenery. Carefully positioned types of different vegetation throughout the neighbourhoods serve as a link between courtyards, gardens, footpaths, and roads with wide sidewalks. The new Western garden cities were, and mostly still are, spacious, open and green. The spatial planning is often hierarchically ordered according to the living, working and amenities, recreation and traffic. Most characteristic of the then new urban layout is the relationship between the various scales: from house to housing complex, from walkway to road, from neighbourhood park to landscape or, as Bakema said: “the greater meaning of the doorstep”. It is this openness, combined with the green structure on all levels of scale that reflects the progressive optimism of the time. The relationship between different physical levels of scales and the socio‐ political ambitions of the architects and urban planners is what makes this heritage so special.

However, the special structure and living qualities in the Western Garden Cities of Amsterdam are more and more lost because of demolishment and new developments. The unique relationship between the housing blocks and its surrounding greenery is under pressure from densification and redesign of the public space. This is already clearly visible when you look at the typology map of image 3.20.. Large areas in Overtoomse Veld and Slotervaart have been redeveloped and here the unique qualities of the open spaces and the fresh air of the green structure have become obscured.

Im. 4.1. Physical model of renewal area in Osdorp. (bdp.com)

Like in the early 20th century the city of Amsterdam is bursting at the seams. In the next fifteen years over 13.500 dwellings have to be built and another 8.000 or so have to be demolished (2011). Densification is a fact, but can only be done very focused in my view. Basically, when redeveloping the residential areas the AUP should be followed. Appearance and layout of blocks can be changed, however I think this needs to be done within the parcelling indications provided by the AUP. In the image (4.1) above you see how project developers mostly do their job. Reintroducing the ‘traditional’ closed city block and ignoring the green structures, because those pieces of ‘no‐mans‐land’ are valuable pieces of real estate. Besides this they abandon the rhythm in height which provides the Western Garden Cities for their tranquil and calm character. By doing so the ideals of the Modern Movement will be discarded like has happened in the district of Geuzenveld (image 4.2). Here the parcelling type of the hook has been ‘exchanged’ for the closed city block. The smooth transition from private to public, the continuous open spaces, the abundance of green, it’s all gone.

Im. 4.2. Threats, new developments are not in line with parcelling ideals. (2004‐2015) (google Earth)

I don’t think this is necessary when renewing the borough of Nieuw‐West. Most neighbourhoods can stay the same as it was. Of course the dwellings need to be improved and made bigger. Most of the dwellings that have been built in Nieuw‐West have standardized floorplans (chapter 1.). These floorplans have been designed in a way that they are easily adjustable and can be subdivided in order to make more dwellings. The same can be done but than the other way around, making the dwellings bigger instead of smaller, but still staying within the framework of the Nieuw‐Bouwen movement.

It is a double sustainability: do not throw away what you already have (affordable housing) and preserve the urban ideals that were once cherished and still be of value. An example of this is a redevelopment area in the Overtoomse Veld (image 4.3). Here most of the dwellings have been renovated and upgraded to the new standard requirements and the area has been densified by constructing new blocks more or less in the framework of the AUP.

Im. 4.3 New developments in the Overtoomse Veld which follows more or less the ideals of the AUP (2004‐2015) (google Earth)

But also here the openness and green are partly gone. This proves that it is very difficult to deal with this problem of densifying in an ‘urban monument’. What should be avoided, although I think it is a global phenomenon, is the rise of fences and walls. The public space should not be recaptured by placing a fence around it so that it serves only for the individual, but it should be well designed, without fear of vandalism and neglect.

This brings me to the, maybe, second biggest threat for the Western Garden cities: the neglect of the public spaces and green. The abundant green public spaces form the main asset of the Western Garden Cities and it is the most important element which gives the borough its special character. However it forms also its biggest ‘disadvantage’. The maintenance of the public space forms a huge expense on the budget of Nieuw‐West and often it’s unclear who is responsible for the maintenance. Is it the housing company, the municipality or the residents themselves? As long as this isn’t clear people won’t feel responsible and leave the public space as a mess.

Other courtyard gardens have completely been overgrown with plants and shrubs so that it lost its green open character. In some cases the residents put up high fences. This is against the beliefs of the Modern Movement who wanted to keep the public space as ‘open’ as possible.

Im. 4.4. Threats, the responsibility of the public green. (google earth)

The problem of the public green is the reason for an increasing number of Dutch municipalities that is selling its redundant public green spaces, after many complains about maintains costs and requests of civilians to purchase some of it. For a onetime special price per square meter, residents can use the municipal offer to buy public parks. According to the vendor, the green areas have lost their public function. The public lawns are only used as dog walking place and the shrubs and trees are typical of the park green. Unfortunately, many residential districts from the period after 1945 are dealing with similar developments which threaten the unity of a residential area. After the purchase of a piece of greenery people tend to put down a cheap fence, which ruins the green and open structure.

“Enschede doet meer dan 100.000 vierkante meter in de verkoop” http://www.tubantia.nl ‐ June 3rd, 2015

“Ruzie in Bunnikse buurt over verkoop snippergroen” http://www.rtvutrecht.nl ‐ June 10th, 2015

“Dit is nu mijn tuin: rijkaard zet hek om publiek park” http://www.rtvnh.nl ‐ July 29th, 2015

Design and research directions. In order to prevent this I set up a couple of further research and design directions. First of all I want to restore and improve the smooth transition between public and private spaces. I want to achieve this by creating more diverse types of comfortable layouts of the floorplan by staying within the splitting properties of the standardized floorplans which van Teijen had in mind. Next to this I want to create a better access from the Airey blocks towards the courtyard gardens and create a durable design for the courtyard gardens.

Secondly I want to create a better link from the courtyards with the surrounding green spaces like the park strips with the design Mien Ruys made for Frankendael/Jeruzalem in mind. I want to find a way how to emphasize the park strips, how to make them more attractive to be in and how to make them more visible.

Thirdly I want to densify the Airey‐strip with a yet to be determined number of new dwellings. I want to do this without causing van Eesteren ‘to turn in his grave’ as we say in Dutch. So by staying within the different typologies and maintaining the continuous open spaces in the area.

And last but not least I want to make the busy shopping street a more attractive place to stay and connect it to (some of) the courtyards. I want to achieve this my expanding the shopping street to the other side of the street.

Im. 4.5. Design and research proposals. (Google Earth + own creativity)

References.  Bakker, P.L.C.M. (2002) “Geluid in het Airey‐systeem” Dienst Wonen, Gemeente Amsterdam.

 Battum, M.T. (2002). “Enige (on) mogelijkheden van protieketagewoningen bij herstructurering van vroeg naoorlogse wijken”, Faculteit bouwkunde, Afdeling volkshuisvesting en stadsvernieuwing, Delft

 Bosma, K., Wagenaar, C., (1995) “Een geruisloze doorbraak : de geschiedenis van architectuur en stedebouw tijdens de bezetting en de wederopbouw van Nederland” NAI uitgevers Rotterdam.

 BouwhulpGroup. (2013) “Documentatie systeemwoningen ’50‐‘75”. Eindhoven.

 Blom, A., et al., (2004) “De typology van vroeg‐naoorlogse woonwijken”. Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg

 Feddes, Y., (2012) “Het groene kapitaal van de tuinsteden”. Uit: “Agora, magazine voor sociaalruimtelijke vraagstukken”. Jaargang 28, nummer 2, 2012.

 Koevoet, M., et al. (2008) “waar het water geen naam heeft, een studie Een studie naar de inrichting van de openbare ruimte van de Westelijke Tuinsteden te Amsterdam”. Leerstoel Landschapsarchitectuur TU Delft.

 Messchaert, Z. et al, (2004). “Pracht in prefab, Het nemavo‐aireysysteem in Amsterdam, Zuidam en Uithof, Utrecht.” Amsterdam: Amsterdamse Raad voor de Monumentenzorg

 Meyer, H., (2006) “het ontwerp van de openbare ruimte, de kern van de stedebouw in het perspectief van de 21e eeuw.” SUN

 Rossum, van, V,. (1993) “Het algemeen uitbreidingsplan van Amsterdam, Geschiedenis en Ontwerp”.

 Rossum, van, V., (2001) “De organische woonwijk in open bebouwing”. Jaarboek Cuypersgenootschap.

 Somer, K., (2007) “The functional city, The CIAM and Cornelis van Eesteren, 1928‐1960.” NAI publishers.

 Stroink, R., et. al (1981) “Ir J.H van den Broek, projekten uit de periode 1928 – 1948” Delftse Universitaire Pers

 Woekom, van, D., (1982) “het nieuwe bouwen, een voorgeschiedenis.” Delftse Universitaire Pers.

 Woud, van der, A., (1983) “CIAM, Het Nieuwe Bouwen, Volkshuisvesting Stedebouw”. Delft University Press.

 Zuithof, Y., (2006) “Duplexwonignen, heden, verleden of toekomst?” Architectuurgeschiedenis en Monumentenzorg

Structuurvisies  (2001) “Richting Parkstad 2015, ontwikkelingsplan van de vernieuwing.” Bureau Parkstad.  Jansen, J., et. al (2010) “Demografische en Ruimtelijke analyse Amsterdam Nieuw‐West.” Gemeente Amsterm.  (2011) “Structuurvisie Amsterdam 2040, Economisch sterk en duurzaam.” Gemeente Amsterdam.  (2011) “Kaderplan Openbare Ruimte Jeruzalem” Dagelijks bestuur stadsdeel Oost.