![]() ![]() The working hypothesis of this essay is of a similar nature: the problems of the Westelijke Tuinsteden can partly be linked to the lack of flexibility and social sensibility of its modernist planning.Īfter the Second World War, when a rationalized and more economical version of the Western Garden Cities plan was realized, the newly built area soon became the object of criticism. He argues that modernist “scientific” theories about the betterment of life often fail to take into account “the indispensable role of practical knowledge, informal processes, and improvisation in the face of unpredictability”. Scott revisits some of the world’s most well known modernist utopian projects, to find out why they have – almost by definition – failed to live up to the expectations of their founders. In Seeing Like A State, the anthropologist James C. But unlike Howard’s designs, in the planning of the Westelijke Tuinsteden ideas on how people use and appropriate space, were mostly absent. Some aspects of the Garden City were adopted, such as the sizeable amounts of green space. Expansion was to happen mainly in the West, the Westelijke Tuinsteden. In the 1930’s, Cornelis van Eesteren and Theo van Lohuizen developed the General Expansion Plan for Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, the Social Democrat Party was an enthusiastic supporter of Howard’s ideas, but the modernist planners that presided over the next wave of urban development resisted the anti-urban mentality of these ideas. The cooperative aspects of the original Garden City ideals were thus not only expressed in the community gardens and popular kitchens present in the designs, but also through the general mechanisms for inhabitants to appropriate space.Īs Peter Hall and Colin Ward have observed more recently, the closer the Garden City came to large-scale application through the New Towns programme, the further it became removed from its original ideals and designs. The progressive inclination of this movement was also to be found in Howard’s proposals: the Garden City model he proposed included a mechanism whereby gradually, ownership would transfer from the hands of the financiers to those of the inhabitants, with rents henceforth directed towards the maintenance of a local welfare state. Meant as a solution for the urban crisis that followed the agricultural depression in the late 19 th Century, it became the prime inspiration for the Garden City Movement. In it, he laid out a basic proposal for a utopian city that would combine qualities of urban and rural life. In 1898, Ebenezer Howard published his book, Garden Cities of To-Morrow. This essay traces the origins of the ideas behind the planning of the Western Garden Cities, to see whether some of these can be salvaged and put to use again in the 21st century. Ironically, some of the same mistakes of the modernists planners are now being repeated, most notably the fixation on form in stead of the social use of space. Though officially the renewal program is supposed to protect the Garden City qualities of the area, in reality the restructuring lacks any coherent vision of what that would mean. The architecture has generally been seen as intrinsic to these problems, leading to the present large-scale demolition. It’s image changed into that of a backward neighborhood, a ‘concentration area’ marked by segregation and social issues. Presented as an advanced, modern living environment for the new Man, the area’s reputation has long been in decline. The district called the Westelijke Tuinsteden (Western Garden Cities) has been built on the basis of the modernist General Expansion Plan of Cornelis van Eesteren. For almost fifteen years now, the area to the west of Amsterdam’s ring road has been subject to large-scale redevelopment, in what is considered to be Europe’s biggest urban renewal program. ![]()
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