SWEET & SALT Water and the Dutch

NAi Publishers Tracy Metz & Maartje van den Heuvel 5

Introduction 6

Water in Pictures 13 From Seascapes to VJ Art

Sweet, Salt and Saline 22

Conflict 44

Dikes and Polders 74

Concord 96

Big Water 122

Profit 144

Wet City 172

Pleasure 196

Catastrophe 224

Myth 246

Water and the Dutch 280

Bibliography 288 INLEIDING / 7 INTRODUCTION / 9

No element is as intrinsic to the Dutch cultural being given room (a friend). Polders are being identity as water. A look at maps of the Nether- allowed to flood, dams are being opened, resi- lands spread over the centuries is enough to dential developments are being built in and realize how defining water is for this delta. on the water, dikes and dunes are being slot- When a storm surge hits, the Dutch watch ted into each other, rivers are being widened. anxiously to see whether the rivers are going to Engineers and designers are learning each overflow their banks again. They handle water other’s language, and creativity in relation to ingeniously and with great know-how when water is getting a new impetus. they want to control, repel or guide it. They use For Tracy Metz, born in the USA and a resi- it for profit, at sea or in the port that is the link dent of the for over half her life, between the maritime world and the economy her travels around the ‘water world’ provided a in the hinterlands. They enjoy the beauty of fascinating look at the making, and the ‘make- water and can derive intense pleasure from ability’, of the Dutch landscape. She has been swimming, sailing or ice skating. writing for years on urban and spatial planning The know-how and technology with which issues, but the world of water was a major the Low Countries have dealt with water have revelation for her. During a year as a Loeb Fellow long been a source of wonder for the rest of at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, she the world. Now that the climate is changing noted the great interest of the international – whether or not this is temporary or systemic, community at this university in what they caused by man or part of a natural cycle – water call ‘environmental planning’. There is also is muscling in from all sides. It’s raining more wide-spread curiosity there about how the often and more intensely; rivers are swelling; Netherlands, with its long and strong planning sea levels are rising. All eyes turn once again to tradition, is formulating a response to climate the Dutch: how are they dealing with this? And change – a response the rest of the world hopes what can the rest of the world learn from them? to benefit from as well. For this reason, each In this book, journalist and author Tracy chapter in this book includes an illustration Metz goes in search of an answer. She describes from abroad, to show that the Netherlands the metamorphosis now underway in the Dutch is not alone in this. After her fellowship, Metz landscape as a new relationship with water is initiated a two-year collaboration between the being fashioned. The Dutch engineers (hydraulic Dutch government and Harvard, under the aus- and otherwise), hydrologists, dike wardens and pices of which students produced innovative all the other specialists quoted in her texts have plans for dealing with water in the Dutch cities experienced a veritable revolution in thinking in of and Dordrecht. Tracy Metz was recent years. At the national level, keeping out a member of the second Delta Commission, and curtailing the water (the enemy) is making not as an expert but as a representative of way for an outlook in which the water is in fact society at large. The knowledge and experience INTRODUCTION / 11

she acquired during her tenure on the Delta about landscape design, it is exciting to see Commission strengthened her conviction that the extent to which the visual arts and media there is a big, important and fascinating story culture can serve as inspiration. to tell about the ‘new water’ in the Netherlands. This book seeks to grant readers and view- The Netherlands as we know it was con- ers access to a world that concerns them quered by human hands from the sandy and directly and that is undergoing fundamental muddy river delta – and therefore it was an change. It sweeps them along in its authors’ expression of culture from the start. The admiration for the delight, ingenuity and crea- technology that keeps our feet dry is now tivity with which the Dutch deal with water – be joining forces with spatial planning, landscape it physically, with actual water in the landscape, design and nature conservancy. Designing a or mentally, with its representation in art. It is Netherlands that can withstand the vicissitudes also an invitation to planners, policymakers of the climate not only features a security and and designers to immerse themselves in the economic dimension, but also an aesthetic and multiple meanings we have ascribed to water cultural side. through the centuries, and to draw inspiration The contribution of art historian Maartje van for the management, preservation and con- den Heuvel fits in with the latter. For this book stantly changing use of the Dutch landscape. and for the exhibition of the same name at the Kunsthal in , she examined how the Tracy Metz connection with water has found expression in Maartje van den Heuvel the visual arts and media culture. This theme was the central focus of her exploration of visual traditions, not just found in works of art in museums but also recurring as ‘visual com- munication’ in today’s media. She previously curated the exhibition ‘Nature as Artifice’, on landscape in the visual arts, especially pho- tography and video, which toured internation- ally. Water has continued to intrigue her: aside from a landscape aspect, it has a symbolic significance at a deeper level. Throughout the ages artists have attempt to represent this fascinating side of the fluid element, whether they painted ships on canvas, waited endlessly at the water’s edge with a photo camera until the light reflected in it just right, or filmed water nymphs under the surface in videos for VJ art. Her explorations took her from museum storage depots, where she picked out naval battles and ship portraits for the exhibition by flashlight, to the studios of artists for whom water is a daily subject of artistic contemplation, like Jan Andriesse’s houseboat on the Amstel River. The varied selection presented here in five themes gives the viewer insight into the repre- sentation and conceptualization of the Dutch water landscape. These themes (‘Conflict’, ‘Profit’, ‘Concord’, ‘Pleasure’ and ‘Myth’) alternate in this book with the chapters by Tracy Metz (‘Sweet, Salt and Saline’, ‘Dikes and Polders’, ‘Big Water’, ‘Wet City’ and ‘Catastrophe’) on the new design challenge for the Netherlands. At a time when the cultural history dimension is becoming ever more significant in discussions 156 / ESSAY 157

Philip Sadée | Departed, 1873

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Water is coming back into the city. Sometimes graphs of situations a city administration would this is done for beautification, as in the restora- rather not see: a young girl ploughing her way tion of old docklands and canals; but often it is through the water in a flooded street on her born of necessity. As a result of climate change, bicycle; two people, sludge up to their knees, it rains more often and harder; sewers cannot bailing out their cellar – all to make Rotterdam handle the load and streets are flooded – even residents aware of the water in their city; its rivers swell and overflow the quays along their pleasing as well as its frustrating aspects. banks with increasing frequency. Cities are Five years ago, the department of urban plan- looking for new ways of either keeping the water ning and public housing still considered water out or collecting it temporarily. The ‘Wet City’ as ‘one of the seven Biblical plagues that makes a virtue out of necessity: canals, ponds, hinder construction’. Now it is regarded as an reservoirs and rainwater gardens are not only opportunity, says John Jacobs, senior consult- able to absorb downpours, but also to cool and ant at Rotterdam Climate Proof, part of the ornament the city. In many places, new residen- Rotterdam Climate Initiative. Yet this is an tial areas are being built in and alongside the opportunity born out of necessity, I point out, water, with landing stages on the rear façades and he agrees: and the tide sloshing under the houses. Some believe the city of the future will be on water, Rainfall is becoming more frequent and more with floating houses, parks and even power intense, and the pumps and sewers cannot stations. After the car, it is water that is now dispose of it fast enough. What do you do changing the face of the city. about that, as a city administration? Do you In 2000, Rotterdam drew up a Water Plan for build a hugely expensive infrastructure that the first time. It was issued in 20 copies, without you don’t need 90 per cent of the time? Build illustrations. It was, after all, meant only for some more of those costly storm-surge internal use by the city administration and the defences, like the Maeslant barrier in the water districts. Seven years later, the second Nieuwe Waterweg? You’re better off making Water Plan was published, this time in full col- sure you can collect the water in all kinds our with lots of pictures, in English as well as of places and use it to make the city more Siebe Swart Dutch and in a print run of 5,000. Rotterdam is appealing; and therefore economically turning its approach to water into an exercise stronger as well. The recreation area De Gouden Ham, part of the Maas River, with in ‘city marketing’, because water is a ‘hot topic’. ÀoatinJ homes alonJ the %ovendiMN These holida\ homes are part Naturally, the plan is full of atmospheric In the mid-nineteenth century, Rotterdam had a of a comple[ of second homes built outside the diNes, which will photos of hulking barges, jealousy-inducing major water problem. The surface water was an Àoat when the water level rises The homes are secured to moorinJ bodies on the temporary city beach along the open sewer; there were worms in the drinking posts in order to absorb variations in the water level Photo on p 173 Maas and a woman feeding swans from her water and thousands of city residents died of terrace landing stage. Yet there are also photo- cholera. City architect W. Rose came up with a 176 / WET CITY WET CITY / 177

Our city water walk ends on a terrace along the and Rotterdam can distinguish itself with this Maas, with a view of the Erasmus Bridge. Not floating housing.’ so long ago you could, at best, have sat here on a wet bench next to a rubbish bin; now we’re Water Plazas Rotterdam has many more lounging in very urban style. In many places, the cards up its sleeve besides a parking garage definite line between land and water is going to that doubles as a reservoir. Naturally, more fade, Jacobs expects. More amphibian buildings green roofs need to be installed, no less than – which stand on land but can float if necessary 800,000 m2 by 2025, which will retain the rain- – are in fact being built, as well as more build- water and make the city cooler and less dusty; ings that float permanently. ‘Here in Rotterdam, but beyond that a number of experiments are for example, we’re working on a plan for a float- underway to give water a new place in the city: ing Chinatown,’ he says. ‘The former Rotterdam š J^[stepped dike, for instance, which fea- Droogdok Maatschappij, a dry dock in the Stads- tures, instead of sloping embankments, steps havens, will house Aquadocks, an experimental – or terraces of a sort. The inventor is Joep van space for everything in the domain of floating Leeuwen of the city’s Public Works Department, construction: greenhouses, roads, utilities.’ And who was awarded his department’s innovation if the Dutch are awarded the 2028 Olympics, the prize in 2008 for it. ‘You gain space with this,’ plan, Jacob says, is to create a floating athletes’ he explains, ‘because every “terrace” is usable: village. for roads, buildings, car parks, vegetation or

Won’t this floating housing always remain recreation. The extra costs of construction are In the Museumpark, Rotterdam has a niche market? ‘Skyscrapers are a niche mar- balanced out by the space you gain with it.’ Van built a parking garage with space ket too, for just 1 or 2 per cent of your popula- Leeuwen points out, however, that this is still underneath it for 10 million litres of rainwater. During downpours, the tion,’ says Jacobs. ‘But they are iconic for this merely a conceptual approach. water is temporarily stored and then city, just as the inner ring of canals is for š J^[roof park, a combination of park, retail gradually drained into the sewers, to . I care about the city’s image, and dike. The Minister of Infrastructure and the SUHYHQWWKHODWWHUIURPRYHUÀRZLQJ

Joep van Leeuwen of Rotterdam’s new water system: 30 km of canals with locks leased, so as not to flood the sewers. During Public Works Department has come and pumping stations that constantly refreshed construction, however, costs rose so much that up with the stepped dike, a multifunc- the water. One side benefit was that the canals the public came to dub the project ‘the blunder tional city dike. ‘This dike consists of ÀDWEURDGVWHSVWKDWFDQEHXVHGIRU also provided a green and pleasant setting for pit’. ‘And yet’, Jacobs says admonishingly, ‘even all kinds of functions, such as roads, housing. with the cost overruns this was still cheaper greenery, buildings, parking and Jacobs and I walk along one of Rose’s feats than digging a separate water reservoir.’ water storage,’ says Van Leeuwen. of ingenuity: the Westersingel canal. Along the We climb a steep stairway to the Westzeedijk ‘The stepped dike costs more to build initially, but it saves a lot of space.’ water run not one but two quays – a high quay – not only a city thoroughfare but also a primary at street level and a low quay that is submerged water defence – and down a small staircase on occasionally. When the water level is unusually the other side. How often have I walked here high, in other words, the footbridge simply ends without stopping to notice where I was? Now I in the water. ‘Yes, on purpose,’ says Jacobs, ‘be- realize it: I’m standing outside the dike – the city cause that way you really experience it. Unlike in behind me lies inside the dike and quite a bit New Orleans, for example, we don’t want to hide lower down. No wonder many say you’re safer the water underground, but rather make it a outside the dike: when the water comes it can visible part of the streetscape.’ go away again, but inside the dike you’re stuck The issue of water may have become more there in that flooded bathtub. A pump in your pressing because of climate change, but in or- cellar won’t be much help then. The whole of the der to determine the whole of the city’s design, new city district of Kop van Zuid, on the south it has to piggyback on a commercial imperative, bank of the Maas, lies in fact outside the dike, like the construction of a residential neighbour- as do the old Rijnhaven, Maashaven, Waal- hood or a car park. One of Rotterdam’s clever haven, Eemhaven and Merwe-Vierhaven docks, ideas to deal with rising water levels is the new which are being redeveloped collectively under garage under the Museumpark. It sits atop a the name ‘Stadshavens’ (City docklands). This gigantic basin that can hold 10 million litres will be Rotterdam’s most important new urban of rain- and sewer water temporarily. Once the expansion, with 13,000 new dwellings, 5,000 of downpour is over, the water is gradually re- them floating. 178 / WET CITY WET CITY / 179

Environment gave the go-ahead for construc- š J^[climate plaza, Doepel Strijkers Archi- tion in September 2011. It involves building a tects proposal for the pond of the Netherlands roof over a former railroad shunting yard in Rot- Architecture Institute. The plan involves a shal- terdam. A shopping centre and a parking garage low pond as a paddling pool, a basin in which will be built on top of this, with a park on the the water is purified by reeds and a tiled swim- roof and a dike running alongside. ming pool 25 m long. ‘This is a didactic example š J^[City Water Lounge Rotterdam, a ‘recrea- of the way we can adapt an existing building in tion island’ formed by two linked tug-pushed the city centre to combat climate change,’ says barges, supporting a swimming pool, whirlpool Duzan Doepel. ‘It will become a plaza to be used and hospitality facilities in a floating park. ‘On rather than a plaza to be looked at.’ The three these barges we stack sea containers with room pools will collect rainwater, rather than let it inside for a café, restaurant and a DJ,’ says Roland drain into the sewers. Pouw, of the architecture practice IOU. ‘The deck š 7dZj^[dj^[h[Wh[j^[water plazas, which is a reference to the timber that used to be tran- became famous thanks to the Rotterdam water shipped at the Rijnhaven docks.’ The island is marketing machine before one had even been accessible via a floating landing stage and is kept completed. Simply put, a water plaza is an in place by posts about 100 m out from the quay. attractively designed delaying tactic: it must ensure that when heavy rain falls on the brick and stone city in a short period, it does not pour all at once into the sewers, which would over- flow. All those paved surfaces, the asphalt and the pavements and the roofs, mean the water immediately flows into the sewers instead of slowly seeping into the ground. The idea now is to hold on to the water for a little while, turn it into something beautiful and then let it gradu- ally drain away.

Along with fellow architect Marco Vermeulen, parts that hold back the water like dams and situated for water management, and the local De Urbanisten have designed the Florian Boer was invited to consider the future create a landscape of terraces in the city; great residents are keen to see it spruced up. ‘With Water Plaza, a sunken plaza that temporarily collects rainwater during of water in the city at the 2005 International water balloons that suddenly inflate out of the the money we are already spending on water downpours. The plaza is not connected Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam. With his ground during heavy rains; a long series of management, we can also create attractive to the sewers, so the water is clean. current partner Dirk van Peijpe and their prac- speed bumps in the interstices of which water public space at the same time,’ says Boer. After the rain has stopped, the water tice De Urbanisten, he produced a comic book is collected, like a huge bar code on the street seeps back into the ground and replen- ishes the water table. Left to right: the filled with ideas about water. They gave their – and the idea of the water plaza, now included Flood Stones It is an annual ritual in the city plaza in its dry state, with a little bit imaginations free rein: a series of small ram- as policy in the latest Water Plan. of Dordrecht: every third Wednesday of Septem- of water, with a lot of water and with He explains the principle: in dry weather, the ber there is a practice run with the flood bulk- LFH7KH¿UVW:DWHU3OD]DLVVHWWREH For the Rijnhaven docks in Rotterdam, completed in Rotterdam in 2012. the architecture practice IOU has water plaza is simply a sunken plaza in which heads. The water is never far off here; at least designed an island of barges support- you can sit or play. In light rain, a layer of water once a year it sloshes over the quays. The bulk- ing swimming pools and a park. There flows in, forming rivulets, gullies and small heads are meant to prevent the water – but is space in stacked sea containers for pools. Only in heavy rain does the water plaza then it has to be very high – from flowing from DFDIpDUHVWDXUDQWDGDQFHÀRRUDQG a spa. really fill up – and this happens only 5 to 10 per the side streets into the Voorstraat, which is the cent of the time, he says. Because the rainwater longest and oldest high street in the Nether- is diverted to the plaza, the streets around it lands as well as a sea dike. remain dry. Afterwards the water is released It’s a big operation, these bulkheads: cranes gradually, in a controlled process, back into the have to be deployed, along with men with hard ground or into the canals. In their ‘graphic water hats and safety vests. They close off the side novel’ Boer is pictured pointing with nerdish streets by stacking the bulkheads in grooves in glee at a bathtub, explaining: ‘The maximum the walls. Many front doors in Dordrecht’s city For the pond that encircles the Nether- lands Architecture Institute in Rot- this plaza can handle is about 1 million litres of centre are also elevated: they are reached by terdam, Doepel Strijkers Architects rainwater. That’s the equivalent of the contents several steps, and if the water comes, these are designed a ‘climate plaza’ featuring a of 5,000 bathtubs!’ lined with planks on the underside. This is pro- swimming pool, a paddling pool and In looking for a location of the first water tection against high water at its most basic – DSRQGLQZKLFKUHHGV¿OWHUWKHUDLQ- water and herbs are grown for use plaza, they ended up at the Benthemplein in simple and effective. They have been doing it in the NAI restaurant. Rotterdam-Noord. This square is favourably this way for centuries – the Voorstraat, after all, 180 / WET CITY WET CITY / 181

Every year Dordrecht carries out a SUDFWLFHUXQZLWKÀRRGEXONKHDGV Rotterdam – but between the island of Dordrecht Here, like unsettling growth notches, disaster is designed to keep the city centre dry and the hinterland, there is nothing. And you are stacked on top of inconvenience on top of when water levels rise. The exercise reminded that Dordrecht is an island, some- threat: 3 December 1936, 12 March 1906, 26 is part of the city’s campaign to make thing easily forgotten now that it is so efficiently November 1928, 13 January 1916, 23 December residents conscious of what can hap- pen in this area when the water rises. attached to the mainland by bridges and tunnels. 1954, 1 February 1953. In 1953 the water stood ‘Dordrecht has a love-hate relationship with the 3.73 m high; the city was saved only by a dike water,’ says Judit Bax, an urban planner for the breach somewhere else, which suddenly re- city. She points out a house where the water has duced the pressure on the Dordrecht dikes. risen halfway to the lower window. ‘The water is Don’t think you can tell, as a layperson, what unpredictable and dangerous, but it has also is inside or outside the dike here. Even the ma- given Dordrecht its wealth and now provides jor church, the Grote Kerk, the building of which is fully built up and it is therefore impossible to a unique living environment and quality of life.’ began in 1339, stands outside the dike. ‘At the raise this ‘dike’. It reminds me of Pamplona, From the Voorstraat and the Wijnstraat, the time this was considered safer than inside the where every year the bulls chase fools down the settlement expanded from around 1200 inside dikes,’ says Bax. ‘We have more faith in the dikes Estafeta Kalea, which is also transformed into the dikes and also into the river, on raised sand now, but the fact remains that Dordrecht is a a sort of chute using bulkheads. The difference banks. ‘This became a dockland outside the deep polder. If the dike were to break here, eve- is that there someone occasionally gets gored; dike, where all the boats had to offload their rything would be under water.’ here the most you risk is wet feet. cargo,’ says Bax. ‘It enabled the city to enjoy its Dordrecht is still leading the way when it Dordrecht holds a special place in the eter- own Golden Age in the fourteenth century, but comes to bold thinking about living outside the when water levels rise, they could provide an Dordrecht is leading the way in nal Dutch story of the relationship between land now these are also the relatively low quays dike. In 2005, the city took the initiative in the environment that was attractive and safe, yet ‘Urban Flood Management’, the integration of water safety and urban and water. This is where the rivers and the sea that are under water every year.’ The rear of Urban Flood Management programme, in which at the same time makes people more aware of planning. In the upper left of this meet and where the sea flows into the delta. On the houses is, by default, also a water defence. Hamburg and London took part as well, to look their connection with the water. Dordrecht is aerial photograph from the early the headland of the island, where the city first The city has turned it into a tourist attraction, into safe ways of building outside the dike. now a driving force behind MARE, Managing 1920s is the Stadswerven peninsula, began around 1200, you can see the three rivers in association with the Hollandse Delta water ‘When we brought this up, the response was Adaptive Responses to Changing Flood Risk, where ships were built for many years. It is situated outside the dike, come together, the Oude Maas, the Noord and district, in the form of a ‘High Water Walking “don’t be daft; building outside the dike is dan- a cooperative venture with Sheffield, Hannover, but is being redeveloped as a high-end the Beneden-Merwede. Even in calm weather Route’. gerous and we won’t be able to sell a single Bergen and Seattle, which aims to better inte- housing environment. The dwellings you can feel the power of the water that comes Throughout the western section of the city, house”,’ says Ellen Kelder, strategic advisor on grate water in urban areas located behind dikes. will be given water-proof plinths and rumbling down towards you from the whole of there are flood stones cemented into the façades. water policy for the city. But, she says, her team Dordrecht has decided to try out the new the public space will be allowed to be submerged when water levels rise. Europe’s hinterlands. This is one of the busiest Bax points out the most beautiful one to me, was convinced that with a combination of engi- policy on the Stadswerven (City docks), a penin- shipping hubs in Europe. Between Dordrecht which, hidden in a covered passage between neering innovations in construction, a smart sula right next to the city centre. It was once a and the sea stand two great protectors, the dam the street and a block of flats, would have been allocation of space and good communication sand bank between the Wantij and Beneden- in the Haringvliet and the Maeslant barrier at impossible to find without expert guidance. with residents about what needs to be done Merwede rivers and was gradually built up and

Hamburg, Urban Coast on the Elbe

A city centre in the river – that I’m sitting on the Water Plaza the Elbe’s high water level homes of 60,000 inhabitants is HafenCity, the new exten- and waiting for the water. You result in flooding. Those who and killed 315 people. No need sion of the German city of can tell the plaza, along with choose to live here really to worry: this will not happen Hamburg. HafenCity is being the buildings the quays and learn to live with daily tides, today. In the calm autumn constructed in the old harbour the old warehouses behind storm surges, spring tides weather, thousands are hap- area on the north bank of the them, can take a lot. The plaza, and perhaps rising sea levels. pily cycling, strolling, hurrying Elbe, where the tide goes up like a slipway attractively It has not scared people off: home from work or stopping and down by over 3 m twice a designed in light stone, slopes HafenCity, in part because of for drinks at the pub. For a day. With 126 hectares of land down to the water. This public the way it has been developed new city district, HafenCity is topped by housing and offices, hangout can simply be sub- over time, is a popular new city already remarkably urban, in museums, parks, plazas, a new merged – including the bench district. a relaxed, natural way. And yet metro line and a music venue, I’m sitting on – and then re- The new buildings along the everything in this brand-new Hamburg has expanded its city cen- HafenCity is not just one of emerge. This is where Hafen- raised quays stand on high urban setting is a response to tre with the new residential district the biggest urban expansion City’s nickname comes from: plinths, tough and battlement- the daily tides, storm surges, of HafenCity in the Elbe. The Water projects in Europe, but also a Hamburg’s urban coast on like. Hamburg learned its spring tides and now rising Plaza slopes towards the water and is allowed to be submerged when water ground-breaking example of the Elbe. Every few years, lesson in 1962, when flooding sea levels: preventive urban levels rise. building outside the dike. storm surges combined with along the Elbe devastated the design. 182 / WET CITY WET CITY / 183

‘The houses on this side will be absolutely safe the symbol of the city’s unique freebooter spirit. courier company that sails a package boat from the water,’ Van Son assures me: The relationship with the water is a product of around the canals. The boat is not called Hol- culture – in the 1960s, filling in the canals was lands Glorie for nothing. They will be given ‘flood fronts’ – water-proof considered modern. ‘Away with that old-fash- The young company DeltaSync, which spe- plinths. The bank facing the city, however, will ioned romantic nonsense – we need roads and cializes in ‘water-based urbanism’, has looked be kept low. This will be public space in the places to park!’ It is worth noting that the water- into how the water in eight historic city centres form of a plaza and a park where the water ways that were mainly functional when they could be used to make them more accessible. can enter; we are after all outside the dike. In were built are now being restored for entirely ‘Water was always the most important infra- some places we keep the water out; in others different reasons, namely aesthetic ones. And structure of the Dutch water cities, but this was we go in search of it. the aesthetics are driven by economics: a beau- abandoned when the railways and the automo- tiful city with pleasant terraces along the water bile came along,’ says Rutger de Graaf, co- Developers found this a difficult idea in the attracts more visitors. founder of DeltaSync. ‘Now that we are trying beginning, says Van Son, ‘But now they realise Bringing water back into the city is no sim- to make cities more environmentally friendly, that the link with the water is a boon for the ple task. Amsterdam may be famous for its in- reintroducing the use of water is a good way to quality of the housing.’ ner ring of canals, but the Dutch capital filled reduce the use of cars and to address parking in no fewer than 70 of its canals between 1850 problems in the city centres.’ DeltaSync con- The city is moving towards the water: expanded into a shipping wharf. From the old Water Back in the City Dordrecht is not and 1950. The city administration launched a cluded that there are significant opportunities timber decks add public space to new toll house and the stop for the water buses alone: many cities in the Netherlands have their plan to re-excavate either the Westerstraat or in these cities (Breda, Delft, Den Bosch, The construction along the Borneokade in (some of which travel to Rotterdam), I look out origins on the water. Often this connection with the Elandsgracht – but this project ultimately Hague, Dordrecht, Haarlem, Leiden and Rotter- Amsterdam. across the narrow Wantij River to this deserted the water is their reason for being: in the 1960s, succumbed to the resistance of the business dam), particularly for shoppers and tourists. scrap of land: the shipyards are closed and the produce from the province of was community. And the Friends of the Amsterdam They propose a whole range of solutions, such great hangars and offices stand empty. I cycle still being brought to the centre market hall, the City Centre association feels the city council as the establishment of new shipping routes behind urban designer Edwin van Son, past the wholesale food market in Amsterdam, on flat- missed the opportunity of the century when it (Breda), a ‘park&float’ transferium (Delft), Biesboschhal, which is meant to become a con- boats – an image we now tend to associate opted, as part of the construction of the North- a shipping thoroughfare from a commercial cert hall, hospitality venue and temporary mu- more with the floating markets of Vietnam or South metro line, for a plaza instead of reopen- estate all the way to the beach (), seum; past the megalomaniacal Noah’s Ark built Bangkok than with the Netherlands. ing the Amstel River all the way to the Dam. a floating parking garage with a city boulevard by a wealthy believer who has been allowed to With the advent of the car, water gave way Every tourist who visits the Netherlands is on top (Dordrecht), a car ferry that sails on a ring moor the boat here temporarily. A stuffed giraffe to asphalt; but now a sea change is taking place. surprised by how little the water is put to use. waterway (Rotterdam), as well as water buses keeps watch from the forecastle. Not only is there more space needed for water Why are there no vaporetti in the canals? Why and cargo boats to supply shops almost every- The plan is to build 1,450 dwellings here ‘in because of climate change, but the historic is there a little bus that rides up and down the where. ‘Yes we can,’ the report concludes: all the upper price class’. Thanks to a constantly image of the city is back in fashion. The Dutch streets lining the Prinsengracht, stopping any- eight city centres are easily accessible from the replenished layer of river sediment, the Stads- long for authenticity and the images that em- where passengers want to get on or off, but not water and they all have parking problems. The werven is already relatively high, 3 m above body it – and water is part and parcel of that, a boat in the canal itself? Why do lorries hold assumption is that with more transport over the Amsterdam Ordnance Datum, and on the preferably in the form of canals. The canals of up traffic in the narrow canal streets instead of water, there will be fewer cars in the city. Beneden-Merwede side it is to be raised to 4 m. Amsterdam are iconic, and the houseboats are making their deliveries by boat? DHL is the only In 2007, Breda reopened the old harbour that

Hamburg’s old city centre is along with Cologne’s ASTOC nothing in between it and the able to walk, he says, along the All new buildings in which on the outside we were able already wedged between two Architects and Planners, won sea. The first plan for the dis- water and not just look down people stay overnight have to bridge the gap with inclined rivers, so in order to grow the the competition for the Hafen- trict included the traditional on it from a height of 3 or 4 m. been made flood-proof by set- ramps, terraces and stairs, city had to expand towards City master plan in 2000. ‘The construction of a dike around This gave the new area more ting them on plinths 8 m high, turning them into attractive the Elbe, into the old harbour working docks were moved the new area of land, as well than 10 km in strolling routes. made of rubble and called public space.’ The roadways area. In the nineteenth cen- to the south bank of the Elbe as locks to close off the har- To these broad promenades Warften in German. Inside, in were also built on that raised tury, the free-trade zone of in the 1990s, freeing up this bour basins. But that would at water level, which are al- that gap between the quay level, so that traffic – and the Speicherstadt was established area.’ have required a gargantuan lowed to flood when the river below and the street above, emergency services – can get here, with its impressive rows This alluring tabula rasa, investment. ‘Instead, the site level rises, KCAP has added a is where the parking garages through even when the water of stalwart brick warehouses. however, lies in the river, where is being gradually raised as second (elevated) street level, are located. Hamburg knows is high. The only oppressive ef- ‘This entrepot area had its own there is a gap of several me- construction progresses,’ says which accommodates traffic about a week in advance when fect of this defensive measure borders and its own customs tres between high and low Christiaanse. ‘We were deter- and where the access to the the river level is set to rise comes from the fairly closed post; it was off-limits to out- tide – Hamburg is located mined to preserve the historic dwellings is located. Housing excessively, which gives resi- plinth courses, dotted here siders,’ explains Rotterdam- 100 km from the , quays – they are characteristic is now allowed only at 7.5 m dents time to move their cars, and there with entrances to based urban designer Kees and, unlike Rotterdam for in- of this place and therefore im- +NN (Normal Null, ‘Standard Christiaanse says. ‘These ga- places that can be evacuated, The old quays along the water on the Dalmannkai in HafenCity. These have now Christiaanse. His practice, stance, which is protected by portant for the identity of the Zero’, based on the Amsterdam rages spared us having to build like hospitality venues, offices been laid out as public space, adding 10 km of strolling routes to the new district. KCAP Architects & Planners, the Maeslant barrier, there is new city district.’ You should be Ordnance Datum) or higher. new ones at street level. And and the garages. 184 / WET CITY WET CITY / 185

had been filled-in in 1964, and not long after To resurrect the harbour and the river – at a cost aside for water. Project developers have mixed that a section of the small Mark River, which of 30 million euros – Breda obtained subsidies feelings about this: water makes a project more used to flow openly into the city centre until from the European Union. Along with the provin- attractive, but in their eyes these are square 1941. ‘In the 1980s, a rather large number of cial capital Den Bosch, the city took the initia- metres you could build on in order to make more older buildings were demolished in the city tive in founding the project ‘Water in Historic profit. Both civil servants and designers com- centre, which is not that extensive to begin City Centres’, joined by the Belgian cities of plain that in everyday practice the Water Test is with,’ says project manager Dirk Oudshoorn Ghent and Mechelen, the British city of Chester an obstacle to innovation in both thinking and in the journal De Water: and the Irish city of Limerick. In the thick volume planning. that crowned the WIHCC, Breda writes that this Every urban design office in the Netherlands We now realize we have to take a lot better ‘was a chance to get some practice with EU is working on projects like this. This produces care of our historical and cultural heritage. projects, with an eye towards the Spoorzone a great many plans featuring lakes, waterways, The harbour is crucial to this, because the (railway zone), which is to be redeveloped’. This ponds and canals – but comes at the expense of city owes its existence to it. Until the early approach bore fruit: unlike The Hague, for exam- the amount of land to build on. In order to make twentieth century, 3,000 cargo boats used ple, Breda is now connected to the high-speed compact construction possible, designers are to come here every year; every week a pas- rail network. also looking into ways of temporarily storing senger boat would sail to Amsterdam. water underground. Ballast Nedam has devel- Water Underground A plan for a new resi- oped a prototype for a residential development, The harbour was then still working water; in its dential development in the Netherlands that the WaterBalans Wijk or Water Balance District, new guise, it is mainly leisure water. would not feature the delights of water is incon- in which the water is not only kept in a central Excavating the harbour meant tearing down ceivable these days. In 2007, the Twenty-First pond, but also in reservoirs under and even the parking garage that was built when the Century Water Management Commission deter- inside the buildings. former was filled in. However, the city ensured mined that 60,000 hectares are needed for do- Frans van de Ven, an assistant professor there would be sufficient parking places to mestic water storage until 2015. Living along of water management at Delft University of Top: Excavation of the old harbour Top: Urban designer Henk Krouwel’s of Breda. design for the excavation and new replace it, and was able to persuade local busi- the waterside immediately conjures up dreamy Technology and who also works at Deltares, layout of the Breda harbour and the nesses that the reincarnated water would gen- associations, even when it’s really just ‘estate- rejects the idea that water takes up space and Bottom: The old harbour of Breda city river the Nieuwe Mark. erate an increase in turnover of 10 to 15 per agent water’ or ‘decorative water’. In the restruc- therefore costs money. ‘You can definitely build in its new splendour, with low cent as well as 300 jobs. The walls and floors of turing of post-Second World War residential on and in that water, for instance with floating promenade quays along the water Bottom: Traditional arrival of and terraces at street level. St Nicholas on the TMerN Hiddes in the demolished parking garage were reused in areas, water can offer an alternative in neigh- houses, in order to make efficient use of the the harbour of Breda in 1952. the new low quay. Inspired by the success of the bourhoods with an excess of poorly maintained space given over to water.’ He does note that our old harbour and with a remarkable display of greenery. attitude towards water, rainwater in particular, agreement between government and citizens, Such water collection, however, is also a is changing: the city subsequently decided to let the Mark, matter of necessity; in fact it is a legal require- over a length of 400 m, flow in the open air once ment. Since 2003, all construction plans must For many years, water out of the sky was more. be subjected to the Water Test. This prescribes equated with a nuisance, with waste. You that 10 per cent of a building site must be set had to get rid of it as soon as possible. When

If the water level is set to built, which can serve as es- dredging deeper and deeper This constant manipulation will no longer be possible to reach more than 5 m +NN, the cape routes during a flood and channels for bigger and big- of the waterways has conse- grow apples there. ‘This is why Katastrophendienst, the disas- provide access to the old city ger ships. This branch of the quences that are experienced you can see signs throughout ter-response agency, can close centre in normal conditions. Elbe used to be only 2 m deep; in the Netherlands as well: salt that area protesting dredg- off the area. Each building also ‘When the Speicherstadt now it’s 14. That means the water is moving in, affecting ing the shipping channel any has a Flutschutzbeauftragte, was built in the nineteenth link with the North Sea is also everything from agriculture to deeper.’ an evacuation deputy, respon- century, these big warehouses much bigger, so a lot more – in the Netherlands – drinking Hamburg has raised its sible for organizing annual were made to withstand high water flows in and out. It also water. ‘Every time the shipping dikes several times since the Aerial photo- high-water drills and for mak- water levels,’ says Antje Stok- flows a lot faster, because channel is re-excavated, the flooding of 1962. ‘Here, the graph of Hafen- ing sure everyone is safely man, professor of landscape the water is forced through salt water from the North Sea dikes are nothing more than a City, with the evacuated when flooding is architecture in Stuttgart and narrower channels. It’s now a moves closer to the city,’ says separation between the water Sandtorhafen docks in the fore- imminent. The landmark ware- co-owner of the Hamburg vicious circle: more sediment Stokman. ‘It has now comes as and the city behind them,’ says ground and the houses of the Speicherstadt practice Urbane Landschaften. is washed in than out, which close as 40 km from Hamburg.’ Stokman. ‘They have no other Elbphilharmonie are on a lower level, and must ‘But the difference between means the harbour has to be One of Europe’s largest apple- function for the city or the peo- music venue by therefore be protected by flood high and low tide has doubled dredged faster and faster, growing areas is located close ple who live here. And behind Herzog & de Meuron under doors as well; in between, el- in less than a century. We’ve which means even more sedi- to the harbour, she points out – the dikes, you have no sense construction. evated footbridges have been caused this ourselves by ment washes in.’ if the river water turns salt, it of what is happening with 186 / WET CITY WET CITY / 187

In Australia, it has long been mandatory to col- lect and use the water that falls on your roof, says Jasper Fiselier, land and water consultant with the engineering firm DHV. Municipalities issue their citizens rain barrels or containers for the rainwater garden. The Netherlands needs to do a great deal more in this area, he feels:

Here collecting rainwater is voluntary. We do have legislation that makes it possible to require citizens to do it. But in the Nether- lands this is difficult: we’re so used to the government taking care of everything here. Doesn’t the government want people to take more responsibility for the water in their immediate surroundings? This would be a In the early 1990s, cities throughout the West- Water plays a prominent role in new good start. You have to make it appealing to ern world began to transform their abandoned residential developments, like Water- rijk in Woerden with its broad water- people, including from a financial point of harbour areas into attractive waterfronts; water ways and sturdy bridges. view, to take care of their own water. is now increasingly intertwined with new con- struction. People like a view out over the water A rain barrel designed in the shape of a lounge (so this is good for property prices) and it fulfils sofa for the garden: he sees it in his mind’s eye. our yearning for identity; it gives us a connection to where we live. Indeed, more and more resi- In , Neutelings Riedijk Architects a new residential development was built, According to Van de Ven we can make much City in the Water The Netherlands has al- dential neighbourhoods are being built with GHVLJQHG'H6SKLQ[HQ¿YHUHVLGHQWLDO sewers were installed and the rainwater better use of this rainwater in and around the ways adapted the landscape to its needs – after water as a prominent feature, and where house blocks in the water of the Gooimeer naturally went into them as well. We had house, by collecting it in tanks or rain barrels. all, without dikes and pumps it would have been hunters with thick pocketbooks can live along or lake. made water invisible. Now we know better: It’s perfect for flushing toilets and watering the impossible to live there. As technological pos- even in the water. A few examples: this water is clean and valuable. We should garden. This is already happening in a number sibilities expanded, it became increasingly easy š ?dj^[ckd_Y_fWb_joe\>k_p[d"j^[WhY^_j[Y- not let it drain away into the sewers; we of office buildings in the Netherlands, such as for the Dutch to impose their will on the land- ture practice Neutelings Riedijk built five mas- should hold on to it where it falls and use it in the TNO and Deltares building in and scape. They built residential neighbourhoods, sive, expressive apartment blocks in the - to make the city more pleasant and cooler. the Amsterdam water company, Waternet, he commercial estates and farms where it was meer lake, with the name De Sphinxen (The The Netherlands is already suffering from says. ‘For the individual citizen, a stimulus most convenient, not where they suited the Sphinxes). They are always photographed from extremes, like heavy rains but also drought would help. The moment it’s to my advantage physical conditions of the setting. Water was the water, and in these pictures they seem to and heat. to use rainwater, the easier the transition to a quickly drained away if it was a nuisance and float above it. In reality they stand close to the different system will probably be.’ brought in by pipes from afar if needed. shore and are accessed by a sturdy footbridge.

the water.’ The river is used, for 45,000 people. On a land restaurants. Social networks finance this on their own. Hamburg-based architecture Did Hamburg not worry that conscious of what it means to just an inconvenience – it however, for public transport: spit in the west of the district, also developed very quickly These communally engaged critic Dirk Meyhöfer in a theme the new city district, which live with the water. ‘They see makes this city special.’ Hamburg has a waterbus that the architecture practice of in these neighbourhoods: the groups of residents are also issue of de Architect: ‘In Am- also has its own shopping it rising and falling and they makes frequent trips over the Herzog & de Meuron is trans- architecture firm that hires the the future for the Netherlands, sterdam the Eastern Harbour area, would suck the life out of know it can be dangerous,’ she To what degree is Hamburg Elbe and serves many stops. forming a 1960s cocoa ware- web designer two streets over, now that the big developers District was used to create the existing city centre? ‘In fact says. ‘When you move in, you a model for the Netherlands, On the bank along which the house into the Elbphilharmo- whose wife runs the day-care have less scope.’ quality, affordable housing for it has benefited,’ says Chris- get information about it; there where water levels are far existing city stands, architect nie music venue, including a centre, that sort of thing. Pro- When HafenCity is complet- young families. In the Dock- tiaanse. ‘Property values in the are blogs in the neighbourhood more stringently regulated? Zaha Hadid has designed a five-star hotel and 45 apart- ject development also takes ed around 2025, the city centre lands of London the emphasis old city across from HafenCity where people exchange ‘The number of comparable waterbus terminal that will be ments, by erecting a tent-like place on a smaller scale, often will be 40 per cent bigger, after was on office space in order to have risen.’ The flood-proof knowledge and experiences.’ locations is limited,’ writes integrated inside a super-dike, glass structure 110 m high on involving no more than 20, 30 an investment – primarily from strengthen the financial sector, construction increased build- The question of whether Jeroen Singelenberg of the with a 750-m promenade on top of it. dwellings. There are also many private parties – of 8 billion in Sydney on tourism and retail.’ ing costs by about 10 per cent, Hamburg should build a Experimental Public Hous- top and room for shops and ‘HafenCity is noticeably more housing collectives of euros; the public outlay of 2.4 Hamburg was able to learn but house sales are neverthe- storm-surge barrier will un- ing Steering Committee in a restaurants. more bustling than Kop van people who take on construc- billion euros is being financed from the mistakes of other less thriving. doubtedly come up again, she report of a visit to Hamburg in HafenCity is being devel- Zuid in Rotterdam or the tion themselves, who com- by selling the land. ‘Many cities cities, Meyhöfer says: ‘In hind- For Antje Stokman, one of thinks, but she is not in favour the journal Building Business. oped gradually from east to Docklands in London,’ says mission an architect to design have redeveloped their har- sight, many things were done the principal achievements of it. ‘Hamburg should in fact ‘We’re mainly talking about west over a 20-year period, Christiaanse: ‘In Germany you combinations of studios, lofts bour areas in order to address differently and in some ways of HafenCity is the fact that give the water more room. Rotterdam and Dordrecht. with 5,800 dwellings and jobs have more small shops and and home offices, and also housing shortages,’ writes better in Hamburg.’ the people who live there are This is a tidal city. That’s not What HafenCity demonstrates 188 / WET CITY WET CITY / 189

reportage for the journal Blauwe Kamer, Geuze is described as walking through the area when to his delight he sees a group of kids playing in the water. ‘Look, that’s what it’s all about,’ he says. ‘Here I see my childhood. Yet all this was planned! The grass, the steps to come out of the water, everything.’ In this ‘suggestion’ of water, the interviewers see ‘the layered nature of seventeenth-century Dutch interior paint- ings’. Evidently there are already set formulae in the urban design and the architecture of living on the water. In Woerden Waterrijk there is a new residents’ desire to live in the countryside, ground and then covered with a mound. For the 96 homes in Plan Tij in row of houses with their toes in the water, so to in the midst of the landscape. Because you can’t This will create more space in the residential Dordrecht, the dikes of the polder were excavated in order to let the water speak, and a landing stage along the rear build just anywhere in the countryside, we cre- areas for greenery and water. ÀRZLQRQFHPRUH7KHZDWHULVFRQ- façade, that looks exactly like a row of houses ated a landscape in which you can live,’ says nected with the Biesbosch nature park on the Scheepstimmermanstraat on Borneo Paul van Wijk of the Stijlgroep, which produced š ?dj^[Y_joe\=e[i"W\ehc[hZeYabWdZWdZ and the tide goes up and down by a Sporenburg in Amsterdam. the plan: industrial area on the northern edge of the city metre twice a day. The homes are built on concrete slabs resting on posts, and š Nesselande, on the eastern fringe of Rotter- is being excavated to make way for a water- the water moves under them. Water-based housing is evidently dam, designed by Palmboom & Van den Bout We levelled the dikes in the Jagerspolder and filled residential development of 1,900 dwell- becoming a typology, with the home with H+N+S Landschapsarchitecten, is situated the Windhondenpolder near the Biesbosch ings. The master plan is by West 8. Things are standing in the water with its own around the Zevenhuizerplas lake, with a shop- national park to let in the water. The homes, not progressing as was hoped, however: hardly landing stage along the rear façade. ping centre, a boulevard and even a beach. One as in the past, were built on the ridges, ex- any buyers can be found for the more expensive Top: the Scheepstimmermanstraat in Amsterdam; bottom: Waterrijk section is the water neighbourhood, with 120 cept now they stand on concrete slabs rest- homes. in Woerden. dwellings built as a ready-made project and ing on posts. Because this water is once š

Yet they qualify as one of the first icons of hous- their own homes. These are lined along narrow tide here again, and the water in the develop- under the name ‘H2O Wonen’ (H2O Housing). ing on the water. ‘residential dikes’ and can be reached by boat. ment rises and falls by 1 m twice a day. With Zeewolde is located in the province of , š Woerden Waterrijk was built according to a The plan also mentions legakkers (drying ridges) this plan we want to show that it is possible one of the great polders created in the IJssel- master plan drawn up in the 1990s by Adrian and dwarsvaarten (cross ditches), terms that to build in such a way that you don’t suppress meer after the Second World War. The winning Geuze’s West 8. It consists of two sections: a conjure up associations with the turf cutters in the landscape, but instead reconnect with it. plan, by the Defacto practice, is a swarm of little spaciously arranged Villa Park and four more the peat bogs of Holland’s past. interconnected lakes and ponds of varying densely built islands; a fifth floating island is š Plan Tij Dordrecht: This new residential de- The 96 households also collectively own their depths. Looking at the plan, it is evident that due to be added. Broad moats with solid bridges velopment of 96 homes in two hectares of ‘na- two hectares and are therefore responsible for water here is of far more importance than as- lead to a lake that extends deep into the resi- ture’ won the Water Wonen Ruimte journal’s its upkeep. This idea of collectivity sounds nice, phalt. Alongside and in all that water stand dential development on two sides. As part of a annual prize in 2011. ‘The plan is based on the I say, but how do you know, as a random property various kinds of dwellings: houseboats, floating buyer, precisely what you need to do? Van Wijk homes and ordinary traditional houses. This says the city also has a minor ownership stake planned landscape of land and water is remi- and steers the upkeep. The plan met with oppo- niscent of another area of the Netherlands, above all else is that building sition from nature conservancy organizations the Zak van Zuid-Beveland, in the province of outside the dike is safe and and the case went all the way to the Council of . There, using a shovel and a wheelbar- responsible.’. State. He is therefore very amused that a pair row, farmers would keep making small polders, of beavers have since built a lodge in Plan Tij. side by side like the scales of a fish. Now this š Edfeiji58[jj[hij_bb0c[]W#terps! In its mixture of land and water is being rolled out all report Hoogtij voor laag Nederland (High Tide for at once, like a carpet. the Lowlands) the Worldwide Fund for Nature calls for the return of the terp, or mound. Unlike The Netherlands has never had a shortage of dikes, which enclose everything and everyone, plans, and this is also true of this boom in new terps can each be given their own level of safety. residential developments centred on water. ‘In carefully selected places we can even let the A great many have not been implemented, and sea and the rivers back in again,’ says the report: the economic crisis means many will remain confined to paper and 3-D models. But the Artist’s impression of the Elbphilharmonie, a former cocoa In the built-up areas, we can collectively thinking process has been launched. What storage hangar with a glass structure 110 m high. It is being raise certain areas to accommodate parking these plans have in common is an attempt to redesigned by Herzorg & de Meuron into a music venue FRQWDLQLQJDSDUWPHQWVD¿YHVWDUKRWHODQGDSDUNLQJ garages and train and metro lines. This is connect with local conditions instead of sup- garage. cost-efficient, for they will be built above pressing them. The Netherlands will always be 190 / WET CITY WET CITY / 191

Besides floating holiday homes and the am- the city on the open water? ‘The client wanted phibian villas of Maasbommel, there are now this to become a real urban district, with a high dwellings that float permanently, in Amster- density of 100 housing units per hectare,’ she dam’s new residential district of IJburg – the says. ‘The city did not want IJburg to become first such project of any real size in the Nether- just another suburb.’ lands. Architect Marlies Rohmer designed a Rohmer spent eight years working on this, group of 75 homes ranging from expensive owner- yet she is the first to put its significance in per- occupied and private-sector rental properties to spective. ‘I mockingly call it the Tupperware publicly subsidized housing. They seem to have fleet. And to be honest, building on posts would landed like a flock of white swans along IJburg’s have been cheaper. But the client went for the main arterial street. The dwellings are light, airy, romanticism of floating.’ She is particularly modern boxes made of glass and something proud of the solution she found for parking, that looks like steel but is in fact low-mainte- always a problem for housing on the water. nance plastic. The occupants can expand their The parking facilities are located under a long homes using what Rohmer calls ‘click-ons’: con- block of flats on IJburg’s main street. servatories, verandas and terraces that can be Floating construction is hot in the Nether- purchased separately and added to the struc- lands. It is the subject of many discussions and ture. The homes are linked publications, drawings and designs. In practice by ‘streets’ of gleaming aluminium scaffolding. this is still a small market, but one that speaks

Rohmer and I take a seat on a little bench to the imagination. Often the focus is on hous- 7KH¿UVWÀRDWLQJUHVLGHQWLDODUHDRI on one of the ‘streets’ between the houses. The ing, but there are other examples. Under the any substantial size in the Nether- benches are inviting, and yet it feels a little as name ‘Floating Roses’ a steering committee lands, designed by Marlies Rohmer, in the IJburg expansion district in though you’re sitting right in front of someone’s that includes the developer Dura Vermeer, the Amsterdam. The dwelling is towed front door. Do you have to be crammed so close province of South Holland and the FloraHolland from its building site in to its together when the whole point is to live outside flower auction house is working on a floating mooring site in IJburg. (Left)

Zeewolde is located in Flevoland, an artificial, high-maintenance country to a flooded. A near-disaster really grips the imagi- a massive polder that was still water large extent, that much is clear – but within nation. before the Second World War. the strict parameters of safety, technology and A small group of people was even happy Zeewolde is now bringing water back into its new residential developments. profitability, a sea change is underway. A resi- about the high water levels: the occupants of The Defacto practice designed a plan dential neighbourhood where the tide goes up a row of 32 amphibian homes in Maasbommel, for the new Polderwijk that features and down, so that nature brings residents on the banks of the Maas in the province of KRXVHERDWVÀRDWLQJKRPHVDQG enjoyment rather than inconvenience? A high- . They had been living outside the waterways that form the develop- ment’s infrastructure. Top: the design; tech environment with a low-tech look – that dike for seven years, in houses on posts that bottom: an artist’s impression of is the new Netherlands par excellence. were supposed to float when the water rose. the future living situation. For years, this project by developer Dura Not just the canals, but also the house- City on the Water In the winter of 2010/2011 Vermeer, which is also working on floating boats that are moored along them, the water in the rivers rose to frightening levels. greenhouses, was the only potentially floating are an iconic feature of Amsterdam’s In the city of Nijmegen scores of people stood housing project in the Netherlands – photos ZDWHU¿OOHGFLW\FHQWUH,QWKHSDVWROG boats were converted into dwellings; transfixed by the spectacle of the quays being of the homes were published in domestic and now houseboats are being designed as almost submerged; in the city of Deventer the foreign media – without their having ever architecture, like this one by Ton van little street called the Welle was once again floated. But now they finally have. der Spruit Design & Architecture. 192 / WET CITY WET CITY / 193

greenhouse for roses measuring 45,000 m2. Floating pavilion for Rotterdam by DeltaSync and Public Domain Architecten. To date, this is the In early 2011, a two-storey office building (with ELJJHVWÀRDWLQJEXLOGLQJLQWKH1HWKHUODQGVLQDKDUERXUZKHUHWKHWLGHVWLOOFRPHVLQDQGJRHVRXW

7KLVÀRDWLQJFLW\IRUSHRSOHLQ a reed façade) was towed to its mooring berth in the IJmeer is a vision of the future by Amsterdam’s harbour for the Amsterdam water WKH\RXQJ¿UP'HOWD6\QF7KHÀRDWLQJ company, Waternet; employees commute to and city, which is able to rise with the sea from work by boat. And in the city of Zaandam, level, produces its own water and en- ergy and is connected to Amsterdam there is a floating prison. DQG$OPHUHE\DÀRDWLQJKLJKZD\ While housing along the water is becoming commonplace in the Netherlands, in part thanks to Dutch legislation and the Water Test, housing in the water, for now, is more dream than reality. ‘It’s a niche market for true-believers and it will remain so,’ says Roland Goetgeluk, a researcher at the ABP agency who specializes in the hous- ing market. ‘The market of people who want to live along the water is massive, but homes that float or rest on posts are more for water- sports fanatics or houseboat dwellers,’ he says. ‘It’s an article of faith, but the market is not responding.’ Water-based housing is still encountering 'HOWD6\QFGHVLJQHGDÀRDWLQJSDUN LQFOXGLQJDÀRDWLQJWKHDWUHDQG practical problems, because regulations have hospitality pavilion, for Rotterdam’s not yet been fully defined. Is a floating house Rijnhaven docks. ‘Not only can you movable or immovable property (that is, real put buildings on the water,’ says estate)? It’s not a boat, because it has no wheel, 3DUN )ORDWDÀRDWLQJSDUNLQJJDUDJH Rutger de Graaf of DeltaSync, by DeltaSync. ‘but also public spaces like parks helm or rudder, and no engine. So can you take and plazas.’ out a mortgage on it? Home insurance? 194 / WET CITY WET CITY / 195

According to the true-believers, that is where the Dutchman’s future lies: on the water. Has he not always domesticated water, by draining polders and rainbowing sand for new land? This will only increase – of that Rutger de Graaf of DeltaSync is certain. In 2006 the firm won the Royal Haskoning Award with a futuristic plan for a floating city of 20,000 people in the IJmeer, including a floating highway between Amster- dam and Almere. ‘Public space is also part of this, alongside housing on the water,’ he says. ‘This is why we designed a city park for the Rijnhaven in Rotterdam, using linked islands with different functions, like a theatre and an underwater restaurant.’ The young agency’s first completed project is a floating pavilion consisting of three linked pleted in 2013. In this most utilitarian of land- In the area of greenhouses west of spheres, on an unsinkable base made out of a scapes, of greenhouses and ditches, will rise the Rotterdam, Waterstudio.NL designed the project ‘Nieuw Water’, includ- kind of polystyrene. The pavilion, which serves ‘Citadel’, a floating complex of 60 apartments LQJWKHÀRDWLQJDSDUWPHQWFRPSOH[ as the information centre about Rotterdam’s with underwater parking. Elsewhere in the plan Citadel. plans involving water, is the biggest floating there are also floating islands, floating terraced building in a harbour where the tide still comes homes and houses built on posts – and even in and goes out. ‘We are now working on a houses on terps, another, older answer to the Floating Utilities Unit,’ De Graaf reveals. ‘A small relationship with the water. power station, you might say. At the moment, To Olthuis the necessity of building on water floating homes are still attached by an umbilical is obvious: cord to electricity and heating on the shore.’ If the energy supply also floated, then you would Around the world, 90 per cent of the cities really be able to have autonomy on the water, have been built on the coast or on a river. he explains. ‘Then we would be able to build a As more and more people migrate to the self-sufficient floating city.’ DeltaSync’s reason- cities, more and more room to build will be ing is as follows: the climate makes more water needed – and that room is on the water. storage necessary; floating construction makes this water storage profitable. In addition, float- The water city of the future, he says, consists of ing construction makes it possible to build flex- ‘city apps’ – self-contained and therefore mov- ibly outside the dike, because the built struc- able components like floating neighbourhoods, tures rise along with the water. roads, power stations, even agriculture: Koen Olthuis, founder of Waterstudio.NL, signs his e-mails with the exhortation ‘Protect Movable buildings are also more sustainable, our planet with scarless floating developments!’ because when they are no longer needed in This is a key word for construction on water: one place you can simply tow them to where $ÀRDWLQJPRVTXHIRU'XEDLE\ The premiums are twice or three times as high like India, Bangladesh and China. We just scarless. In 2007 Time Magazine called him one they are needed. In the Netherlands such Koen Olthuis of Waterstudio.NL, as for a regular home. And do you buy the water keep the water out. It’s nice as a housing of the 200 most influential people in the world. dual use is also self-evident: the water dis- with Dutch Docklands. under your home, or the land under the water? environment, but as far as adaptation goes, His range of operations stretches from Dubai to tricts want more water and the municipali- (Top: exterior; bottom left: interior) Does the fire department treat a floating neigh- in the Netherlands it’s definitely a pointless China and the Maldives, where he is working on ties want more housing. To architects of my Bottom right: Rising sea levels are bourhood, like the one at IJburg, as a cruise discussion. a floating golf course, hotels, a conference re- generation, water is the new domain. an immediate threat to the low-lying ship or as a residential area? sort, even a floating city of 20,000 houses. In islands of the Maldives. Architect Koen In an uncertain market, buyers are more Worth noting in this context is a project in the the Netherlands he has developed a plan for TM Olthuis of Waterstudio.NL, along with the company Dutch Docklands, has than ever concerned about the prospects of city of , where a ditch is being exca- the city of Westland, called ‘Het Nieuwe Water’ EXLOWYDULRXVÀRDWLQJIDFLOLWLHVIRUWKH reselling their house, and therefore are wary vated to form ‘a spacious semi-circular bowl’ (The new water), right in the middle of the zone Maldives: a hotel, a conference resort, of anything too unusual, Goetgeluk suspects: for eight floating homes – the predilection for of greenhouses west of Rotterdam. According to HYHQDÀRDWLQJJROIFRXUVHDFFHVVHG floating housing is evidently so powerful that the city’s development agency, this will be the by an underwater tunnel. Floating housing, economically speaking, water is being created just so homes can float first residential neighbourhood in an area where is far more interesting in countries where in it. Water is becoming as adaptable as land. impoldering has been reversed, and will contain the government invests less in protection, 1,200 dwellings, the first of which is to be com- 208 / ESSAY 209

< Emmy Andriesse | Camperduin, 1950-1952 Lucebert | The Bathers, 1981

This swimmer by Emmy Andriesse (1914-1953) has today become Lucebert (pseudonym of Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk, 1924-1994) a classic woman bather in Dutch visual culture. Andriesse played is primarily known as a poet and leading ¿gure of the group of a key role in Dutch photography, between pre-Second World War experimental Dutch poets established in 1949, the Vijftigers. But modernism and post-war documentary photography. She always from the 1960s, when he lived in Bergen, near the North Sea, he had an eye for beautiful, intense humanity. This shot, which she devoted himself to painting. He developed a form of expression- made of someone in her circle of friends in the period 1950-1952 ism that was inÀuenced by the artists of the CoBrA group, of which, in Camperduin, is an example of this. This bather is not depicted however, he was not a member himself. In this painting he links in a directed pose, not intended to shock or to seduce. Every bather a number of female bathers and a bather with a child in the back- recognizes in it the wonderful feeling of freedom one has on the ground together with the suggestion of striped and Àoral designs beach, the sense of getting away from it all, the warmth of the sun from the bathers’ attire and attributes, into one expressive whole. and the archetypal feeling of the sand and drying off after a swim. Emmy Andriesse has captured all of this with a disarming natural- Acrylic paint and oil on canvas, 114 x 146 cm, Cultural Heritage Agency of the ness. Netherlands, inv.no. AB18777

Gelatin silver print, 25.9 x 24 cm, Special Collections, Leiden University Library, inv.no. PK-F-EAB.2389 280 / ESSAY 281 Water and the Dutch

‘No element is as intrinsic to the Dutch cultural and later by institutions like the water board identity as water’ is how the introduction to this districts (which began as private initiatives) book begins. This is true, of course. Yet the fol- and the government. It is even stipulated in lowing is now equally true: for the majority of Article 21 of the Dutch Constitution that it is Dutch people, water has little impact on their ‘the concern of the authorities to keep the coun- everyday lives. They don’t think about it; at most try habitable and to protect and improve the they may encounter it in the form of blue patch- environment’. And should things still go wrong, es on their car navigation screens. In fact, ‘the there is always the National Disaster Fund. Netherlands and water’ has become a cliché, Yes, it’s a luxury – but luxury creates lazi- a marketing tool, like tulips, cheese and wooden ness. Any incentive to take responsibility for shoes. Folklore. Tulips and cheese are still a one’s own security, any awareness of what it part of everyday life, and clean water always means to live in a low-lying delta, has vanished. flows out of the tap, but beyond that water has The average Dutchman doesn’t even know disappeared from the public’s mental map. The whether, in the event of a flood, his house would Dutch only think about it (for a bit) when they’re be dry or submerged in 2 m of water. Estate inconvenienced by it. When the street is flooded, agents are not required to disclose this. Munici- or when extensive security and safety measures pal authorities issue risk maps, but they are put are suddenly overruled by nature and the dikes away in kitchen drawers and forgotten. In bliss- are on the point of being breached. ful ignorance the Dutch assume they’re safe, Until the water recedes again and a couple and they no longer accept any risk. of imperturbable calm souls say to the televi- In the wake of the 1953 North Sea Flood, sion camera: ‘See, no problem, I’m not going to the prevailing feeling was ‘never again’. It led to panic about it.’ Or as expressed by Jan Kant, a the brash decision to undertake the construc- farmer in the Noordwaard polder, through which tion of the , the national icon of the river will soon be allowed to flow: ‘We don’t the Dutch mastery over water. It was already really believe in that water.’ known that those dams and barriers would Let me state right off that it is a luxury and have an impact on the natural system of the a privilege to live in a country where you do not delta, but safety came first. And engineering have to live in constant fear of water. That is and technology guaranteed that. This tradition not the case in many places around the world: of a landscape created, managed and ruled by Bangladesh, for instance, or the city of Jakarta, man, in combination with our predilection for which is sinking several centimetres every year. optimization, particularly of the economy, has This luxury is the product of centuries of experi- made many Dutchmen complacent about the ence in defences against the water, first by indi- land on which they live. Thanks to engineering viduals – the first inhabitants who joined forces they can ignore the underlying water system. If to build terps and dikes in the marshy delta – they want to build a residential development at 282 / WATER AND THE DUTCH WATER AND THE DUTCH / 283

6.7 m below the Amsterdam Ordnance Datum, The more you have, the more you stand to lose. Water is being let in – carefully controlled! – in that is generating so much interest abroad is in the Zuidplaspolder, at the lowest point in This is why it is high time the Dutch acknowl- the great water expanses along the coast and still wishful thinking. The rather introverted the Netherlands, the answer is to simply pump edge what they have long known in their hearts: in the delta, in areas along the major rivers, and water world is used to representing an unques- water out faster. If farmers want a different there is no such thing as absolute security. even in residential areas, in what I have dubbed tioned national interest and unaccustomed to water table level for their polder, so that their ‘We have to let go of the idea that you can take in this book ‘the wet city’. This can produce a outside interference; to spatial planners more cows don’t stand in mud and their tractors don’t out an insurance policy to stay dry. After all, more beautiful, more natural landscape, along room for water is simply one of many claims get stuck, the Dutch authorities make it happen. you can’t take out a policy to live forever,’ notes with more awareness of the water, as well as on limited space. These are two professional If the Netherlands needs to pour more and more architect Lucas Verweij in Inez Flameling’s book reduce the risk of flooding. disciplines with different cultures and rules and fresh water into the ditches to flush out the salt Hoogwater. 50 jaar na de Watersnoodramp This is not just a physical change in our divergent objectives that are just beginning to water, it does so. Everything is possible. Or more (High water: 50 years after the North Sea Flood). dealings with water, but also a mental one. The learn each other’s language. And as is often the accurately, everything seemed possible. For water cannot be controlled completely. extent to which our ideas about our mastery case in the Netherlands, the barriers to coop- With their ingenious dams, barriers, sluices over nature have changed is demonstrated by eration are still greater than the rewards. Sea Change There is a sea change under and spillways, the engineers have tampered a quotation from Jac.P. Thijsse, known as the The Netherlands is in the interbellum of way in the relationship of the Netherlands with with the balance between sweet and salt. This father of nature conservation in the Netherlands. water. It is dependent on a system whose lim- water – that is what I wanted to examine in this has not been free of consequences. If you talk In 1927, he was able, without perceiving it as a its are now known, but which no one yet dares book. To begin with, the system is reaching its with shellfish farmer Co Prins in Yerseke, he’ll contradiction, to show himself a fervent propo- abandon for the new one. I doubt anyone would limits. The land is sinking and in some places tell you the mussel and oyster harvest in the nent of interventions in the landscape and wa- deny that the high-tech, high-maintenance the waterways tower metres above it – it is an Oosterschelde is declining. The tidal barrier has ter management. In his book Hollandse polders Dutch landscape will become more natural and odd and very Dutch experience to see boats been opened there, after a long struggle, but too Willem van der Ham quotes an article by Thijsse more attractive as a result. But how certain is floating by above your head, on water you can’t little salt and tidal movement is getting through. in the magazine De levende natuur (Living na- it that the new policy of multilayer security – see. The bathtub-in-reverse is steadily getting The fishermen and the nature conservationists ture): ‘Land reclamation, draining, impoldering a combination of prevention (dikes), intelligent deeper: the land is in the tub and the water is are suddenly allies, bien étonnés de se trouver – there was no finer work on earth.’ And writer construction behind the dikes and proper dis- sloshing against the rim. To keep that land dry, ensemble, in their campaign for the restoration A.H. van der Boon Mesch wrote about the impol- aster-response planning – will offer the same the Dutch are pumping themselves further and of a more natural dynamic in the Oosterschelde. dering of the Haarlemmermeer: ‘This process of level of security as a solid, trusty dike? further down, through subsidence and soil oxi- And the recreation sector in Zeeland is left with turning a lake into a polder encapsulates one of The Dutch are betting on two horses now, it dation. ‘In the long term, the Dutch system of empty hands and empty wallets when divers the pre-eminent chapters of the history of the seems, neither of which can win. Building with polder drainage for agriculture is literally a race declare the Grevelingen lake a dead hole and civilization of our fatherland.’ nature has been made into policy, but it is mak- to the bottom,’ says landscape architect Cees sailors avoid the Volkerak because of the cyano- The new approach to water, with its integra- ing slow progress; meanwhile, faith in classical van der Veeken of the LOLA agency. ‘We need bacteria. tion of housing, work, recreation, nature and dike engineering is on the wane. It is always said only wait for all those soft peat polders to turn On top of that comes climate change. The water, is the next incarnation of the strong plan- that the Netherlands is the safest delta in the into wet nature areas by themselves.’ water is becoming ever more difficult to man- ning tradition of the Netherlands. Except that world. Without a doubt, safety standards here The ‘makeability’ of the Netherlands relies age; on the contrary, it is muscling in. Sea levels now ecologists and landscape architects are are the highest in the world. On paper, therefore, to a significant extent on controlling its water: are rising and the salt water is forcing its way needed alongside engineers and water manag- everything is definitely in order, but in reality, bringing it where it is needed, keeping it out of further inland via the waterways and under the ers. Instead of dikes being raised higher and many dikes do not meet these high standards. where it is unwelcome. The result is an unbe- dunes, raising the salt content of both water higher, salt marshes and willow groves are sup- That was proven when an intense storm in Jan- lievably complex and refined system that was and soil. Rain is becoming more intense and posed to absorb the force of the water. Instead uary 2012 led to near-emergency situations in expected to provide ultimate security as well as more frequent, flooding streets and fields; a of rainbowing sand onto the beaches every year, the north of the country. ‘We have 14,000 km of serve the shipping and agricultural economy. few months later it can be so dry that there is they create a sand engine and let the sea dis- secondary water defences in the Netherlands. The system is so perfected, so micromanaged, a threat of a shortage of fresh water and an tribute the sand along the coastline. The dikes Until 2004 no standards for these existed at all; that it has lost all flexibility – and it is becom- excess of salt water. 2011 was a year of bizarre are no longer lonely, untouchable guardians, there was no societal pressure for them,’ chair- ing increasingly costly to please everyone. The contrasts: near-floods in January, extreme but broad super-dikes on which people can live, man Peter Glas of the Union of Water Districts Dutch are trapped in a control paradox, Jochem drought in May, a very wet summer, extreme work, drive and play. A dike can be concealed told the NRC Handelsblad newspaper shortly de Vries and Maarten Wolsink argue in their drought again in November, and in January 2012 inside a dune along with a parking garage. Wa- after that January storm. ‘Most provinces and article ‘Making Space for Water: Spatial Plan- dike breaches and evacuations after a strong terways cut through new-build developments in water board districts now have legal provisions ning and Water Management in the Nether- north-westerly storm. The climate is a strong which every home has a landing stage; houses for desired standards, but their implementation lands’: ‘Flood defence measures decrease the incentive to reconsider the relationship be- float or rest on posts under which the tide can will take us until 2020.’ A few months earlier, likelihood of a flooding event and then an area tween water management and the use of space. go up and down. junior infrastructure and environment minister subsequently becomes more attractive for de- It sounds idyllic, and maybe it will turn out Joop Atsma had informed the Dutch Parliament velopment. This development leads to more dis- Building with Nature The Netherlands is that way. But there is also tension. Many of the that a third of the dikes did not meet the stand- astrous consequences in the case of flooding.’ taking a new approach. Faith in engineering is plans – as the illustrations in this book show – ards, particularly in the river region. And yet The paradoxical result, say the authors, is that no longer boundless. For the last ten years or so are still plans on paper only. The wheels of water faith in the system is so deeply rooted that the ‘despite all the investments in the Netherlands the policy has been ‘building with nature, living management and spatial planning turn slowly, Netherlands still has no evacuation plans. There in flood defence, the overall risk has probably with water’. That means a less defensive at- especially when they have to turn in synch. are high-water refuges for animals, but not for increased in the last decades’. titude towards water, taking the pressure off it. Much of the so-called environmental planning people. 284 / WATER AND THE DUTCH WATER AND THE DUTCH / 285

I think of the foresight of Johan van Veen (1893- the cities, which had more canals than streets. The government stipulates the standards the National Quest The Dutch hydro-engineering 1959). He worked at the Ministry of Transport Furthermore every farmer had a boat; until sea defences have to meet; the design and of the late nineteenth, early twentieth century and Water Management and was an early recently, North Holland still had boat-farmers, implementation are up to the contractor, and exudes an undeniable heroism. The grand scale campaigner for a Delta Plan. In the book Wa- who moved their cows by boat from pasture to the environment ministry verifies the result. of the enterprise, for one thing: the draining terwolven (Water wolves), Cordula Rooijendijk pasture. ‘The boat is the requisite of “amphibi- We can do that too – but we have to master of the Haarlemmermeer lake, the quotes an interview with him in Elsevier maga- ous” behaviour,’ Van Dam writes, ‘moving safely the art of letting go. Works, the construction of the Delta Works. ‘As zine, a year before the North Sea Flood. ‘A new and easily back and forth between the wet and the bearer of the national identity, the Dutch St Elizabeth Flood could easily happen. Our dry sections of the landscape.’ Relatively few There is great interest abroad in restoring wet- landscape full of waterworks proved suitable dikes have so many vulnerable and dangerous people died in floods, she states, because they lands and making room for rivers. Vietnam, for for the justification of all sorts of political ide- spots that a very heavy storm surge will tear could easily move to higher ground. instance, has asked the Netherlands for a ‘Delta als,’ says Jan Kolen, professor of heritage of city huge breaches in them,’ Van Veen warned. ‘They Between the amphibious culture of a centu- Plan’, analogous to the recommendations of the and country at the VU University. He cites an consider me a Cassandra [daughter of the king ry ago and the present day, the Netherlands has second Delta Commission in its combination of address by priest, poet and politician H.J.A.M. of Troy who predicted the fall of the city but to achieved worldwide fame with technologically ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ security. Yet during my travels for Schaepman, who said in reference to the plans whom no one wanted to listen]. But it can happen. advanced water management that has also this book I often heard that ‘building with nature’ is for the in 1897: Tomorrow, even.’ Or a year later, as it turned out. proved a valuable export product. Will that also still marginal, that it’s icing on the cake, the opti- True, the dikes then were poorly maintained be the case for the ‘soft’ approach? How innova- mization of an existing system. In his essay ‘Delta From time to time a people must undertake a after years of neglect during the Second World tive is the new approach, actually? Blues’, Cornelis Disco of the University of Twente grand labour and not heed the costs. A grand War, but according to experts there is cause for Innovation lies not just in physical meas- argues that the new ‘soft’ approach is only pos- labour gives a people a new and powerful concern today as well. ‘The government places ures, says Arthur Gleijm of the organizational sible in the wake of the ‘hard’ insurance that the consciousness. That is fitting for the off- much stricter standards on business than on it- consultancy Rebel, but also in the distribution Netherlands established with its dikes long ago. spring of a race that has not only conquered self,’ says Marcel Stive, professor of coastal en- of responsibilities and the financing: Jasper Fiselier, strategic advisor with the the sea thanks to its admirals but also gineering at Delft University of Technology. He, internationally operating engineering firm DHV, thanks to its engineers. like myself, was a member of the second Delta The Netherlands could save a lot of money is particularly sceptical: Commission, which called for safety standards if projects like the repair of the weak links The great waterworks are now in danger of be- to be raised by a factor of ten. His colleague, in the were carried out by private I think we would get further if we took a bet- ing set aside as a form of mouldering patrimony, professor of hydraulic engineering Han Vrijling, parties. The water sector is mainly concerned ter look at everything going on outside the Jan Kolen says: says the dikes have to be brought up to par be- with engineering and technological solutions Netherlands. Rotterdam copied floodproof fore we indulge in what he sees as the trendy and not so much with the optimization of the construction in the urban environment, for Kinderdijk, Schokland, the Woudgemaal, the approach of the ‘new water builders’ with their execution. There is a lot of value in ‘life cycle’ the most part, from Hamburg; floating con- Beemster: 70 per cent of the heritage we’ve terps and the ‘romantic’ call for more room for thinking, when a company is responsible for struction in IJburg is partly copied from wa- nominated to UNESCO is about the battle the water. He draws an ominous comparison: ‘In everything from the design to the execution ter developments in Seattle and the super- against the water. But the moment it’s desig- the old zoo tigers were kept behind thick bars of and the maintenance. This can produce at- dike comes from Japan. Collecting and using nated as heritage it’s dead. We treasure what steel. In the new zoo children are allowed to play tractive spatial solutions that do not simply rainwater has long been the norm in drier we have. The heritage world thinks in terms with them.’ cost money but have earning capacity as countries. of icons and looks at the landscape from well. The Ruding Commission, which looked an aesthetic standpoint. Whereas Schaep- Amphibious Culture The thinking behind the into the added value of private financing for In countries with lower safety standards, ‘mul- man felt that the Netherlands in fact drew new policy of ‘adaptive water management’ is roads and railroads, concluded that this can tilayer security’ – prevention using dikes, intel- strength from making new things. that the Netherlands will be safer and more produce savings of 5 to 30 per cent. When ligent construction behind the dikes and a good liveable if water is given more space – to pre- you consider that in the great deltas of de- disaster-response plan – is common practice, I can only hazard a guess what Schaepman vent the water from taking that space by force veloping countries alone, 100 billion euros a says Fiselier. For example: a prohibition on one- would have thought of the new approach to – and if functions like housing, work, recrea- year is needed for climate adaptation, that is storey construction in areas where floodwaters water, for it is both an innovation and a return tion and water management are combined. a significant reduction. But apparently there can rise more than 2 m, no oil tanks in flood- to former landscapes and hydrological patterns. Back to the future: for centuries this was the is still a deep-rooted feeling that water and prone areas, hospitals and the like constructed Ecologists and landscape designers are now self-evident situation in the wet delta. Until water safety should be left to the govern- on higher ground. Fiselier: ‘We’re good at mar- joining his engineers. The Netherlands is once the late nineteenth, early twentieth century the ment. keting the water sector, but we would achieve again being reorganized in order to ‘live with wa- Netherlands had an ‘amphibious culture’, as more if we operated less from our ivory tower.’ ter’, but can salt marshes and willow groves and Petra van Dam, professor of water history at the That is primarily an emotional argument, Gleijm For artist Jeroen van Westen the new ap- widened river beds be called ‘a grand labour’? VU University, calls it. In her lecture ‘The Am- asserts. ‘The government will always set the proach to water has not gone far enough. The Are they heroic? That requires a new definition phibious Culture: A Case Study About Wetlands safety standards and the contractor has to fulfil Netherlands must ask itself whether it can keep of heroism – less macho, more compassionate. from the Netherlands, with Global Aspirations’ them.’ He cites as an example Pevensey Bay in all the land it has reclaimed from the sea indefi- The amphibious culture Petra van Dam she describes how until the twentieth century England, where in 2000 the British government nitely, he feels. ‘Building these dikes is carrying speaks of comes into the picture again. It started everything in the Netherlands, a land of lakes, delegated the protection of 9 km of coastline to water to the sea,’ he says. ‘We have to take ac- to disintegrate in the nineteenth century and canals and ditches, was about water. Goods private contractors for the first time: tion to remove the causes, not to fight the ef- vanished, she says, after the Second World War, transport, of course, but also everyday life in fects. That is a fundamental cultural change.’ but with the discussion about the new ‘adaptive’ 286 / WATER AND THE DUTCH

approach to water it is coming back, as some- thing simultaneously new and old. With the hot breath of climate change down their necks, the Dutch are discovering that it makes sense to behave according to the physi- cal patterns of this place. They’d sort of forgot- ten that water determines how and where peo- ple can live in the Netherlands; it defines what the land looks like and how it can be used. Is it a coincidence that this return to a culture of living with water is taking place at a time when there is a predilection for authenticity, nostalgia – for the past? It’s no accident, I suspect, that those new waterways are being labelled with old Dutch words like vaarten and tochten. Perhaps the increased interest in our altered relation- ship with water, of which this book is a manifes- tation, is part of the greater national quest for the specific identity of the Netherlands, spiced up by the globally shared necessity to find a response to climate change. If that is the case, the new approach to water will be buoyed by the zeitgeist. Because for the Netherlands, water is identity. TM The Netherlands and water: a story of confl ict and concord, calamity and prosperity. For centuries the Dutch have been masters at controlling the water. They have wrested land from the water and turned Dutch waterworks into a global export product. The knowledge and technology with which the Netherlands deals with water are an inspiration to many countries. Climate change is increasing the threat of both fl ooding and drought, and the consequences of a potential disaster are incalculable. It is no accident that dealing with water is one of the greatest global challenges of the twenty-fi rst century. In Sweet&Salt: Water and the Dutch, American-born journalist and author Tracy Metz describes the metamorphosis the landscape of the Netherlands is currently undergoing and how the Dutch are searching for new ways of living with the water. She also reports on various places around the world, such as New Orleans, Hamburg, New York, Vietnam and China, that are working with the Dutch on a new approach to the water landscape. As the most iconic element of the Netherlands, water has been represented in countless images over the centuries. In this publication, art historian Maartje van den Heuvel reveals, in more than 125 works of art, the rich diversity of meanings the Dutch have attached to water and their waterways. These works of art represent the Netherlands’ history with water in an evocative way and can serve to inspire the shaping of a changing world.

NAi Publishers Printed and bound in the Netherlands www.naipublishers.nl