The story and the evolution of the Dutch planning tells that, despite adjustments over the decades, it has always sought to find a balance between two extremes, two ‘fears’, so to speak: metropolitan concentration on the one hand and radical de-concentration on the other, between the idea of a centralised megalopolis and the sprawl. In the Second National Spatial Planning Report of 1966, through the use of diagrammatic schemes [fig.1], three possible urbanisation patterns were presented. The first two, like dystopias, clarified the fears above mentioned. In between lays the most famous planning-concept ever developed, at least in The Netherlands: the ‘concentrated de-concentration’ oxymoron. This concept became the leitmotif to promote the creation of green, mid-sized living environments: housing in moderately dense neighbourhoods, new towns and villages which are characteristic of large parts of the Netherlands (Wandl et al., 2014, 50–63), ultimately a segmented urban territory (Van Der Cammen et al., 2011, 365-368). The Tussengebied (Area-in-Between) in between Rotterdam, The Hague and the new town of Zoetemeer expresses like nowhere else in the Netherlands the results of this segmented urbanisation, in which the explosive post-war growth of urban and suburban areas has led to a singular blurring of the distinction between the city and the countryside: a peculiar territorial configuration where the urban borders are fading away, but where the differences and the contrasts between the different parts composing the territory are becoming stronger, hardly ascribable to a single unitary figure [fig.2]. According to Neutelings (2000, 80), “travelling through Holland after an absence of some months, one gets the feeling it's been touched by a magic wand. Out of the blue there’s a new wood here, a romantic district there, a gleaming business park down the road. Dutch urbanism occurs in fits and starts, and in large chunks: entire areas are transformed and fixed forever in one fell swoop.” Starting from the eighties, the Tussengebied became for many authors the playground to express radical visions and urban concepts fundamentally questioning the prevailing interpretations of the urban form coined in a dichotomy of ‘red’ and ‘green’ or ‘built’ and ‘open’ intrinsically related with the Randstad metaphor. A series of initiatives began to explore the potential of design at a regional scale, embracing international discussions and spatial concepts. Organizations such as ‘Architecture in Rotterdam’ (AIR), the ‘Eo Wijers Foundation’ or the ensemble of academics and professionals behind the ‘The Netherlands Now As Design’ project (NNAO) aimed at visualizing ideas and framing problems (Sutton & Kemp, 2006), by defining appropriate fields of action (Balz & Zonneveld, 2015; Neuman, 1998; Sieverts, 2008) and novel approaches for planning policy (Van Dijk, 2011). Within this context three authors interpreted the peculiar decentralised configuration of the Tussengebied, proposing a ‘new’ metropolis in the size of an entire region and in the form of a field: Willem Jan Neutelings with the ‘Patchwork Metropolis’ (1989), Frits Palmboom with the 'Urbanised Landscape' (1987) and OMA – Floris Alkemade with the 'Field Metropolis' (Deltametropool project, 2002) [fig.3]. Although their works greatly differ in terms of approach, methodology and purposes, the concepts they present are part of a continuous discourse – testified by some explicit common references and connections between the authors – that crosses many of the preeminent topics of the modernity: the figure of the fragment, the issue of the peripheral condition and the ‘horizontal’ layout of the contemporary city.

The segmented metropolis. The Tussengebied according to Neutelings, Palmboom and Alkemade / Carlo, Pisano. - In: MONU. - ISSN 1860-322X. - STAMPA. - 26:(2017), pp. 52-57.

The segmented metropolis. The Tussengebied according to Neutelings, Palmboom and Alkemade

PISANO, CARLO
2017

Abstract

The story and the evolution of the Dutch planning tells that, despite adjustments over the decades, it has always sought to find a balance between two extremes, two ‘fears’, so to speak: metropolitan concentration on the one hand and radical de-concentration on the other, between the idea of a centralised megalopolis and the sprawl. In the Second National Spatial Planning Report of 1966, through the use of diagrammatic schemes [fig.1], three possible urbanisation patterns were presented. The first two, like dystopias, clarified the fears above mentioned. In between lays the most famous planning-concept ever developed, at least in The Netherlands: the ‘concentrated de-concentration’ oxymoron. This concept became the leitmotif to promote the creation of green, mid-sized living environments: housing in moderately dense neighbourhoods, new towns and villages which are characteristic of large parts of the Netherlands (Wandl et al., 2014, 50–63), ultimately a segmented urban territory (Van Der Cammen et al., 2011, 365-368). The Tussengebied (Area-in-Between) in between Rotterdam, The Hague and the new town of Zoetemeer expresses like nowhere else in the Netherlands the results of this segmented urbanisation, in which the explosive post-war growth of urban and suburban areas has led to a singular blurring of the distinction between the city and the countryside: a peculiar territorial configuration where the urban borders are fading away, but where the differences and the contrasts between the different parts composing the territory are becoming stronger, hardly ascribable to a single unitary figure [fig.2]. According to Neutelings (2000, 80), “travelling through Holland after an absence of some months, one gets the feeling it's been touched by a magic wand. Out of the blue there’s a new wood here, a romantic district there, a gleaming business park down the road. Dutch urbanism occurs in fits and starts, and in large chunks: entire areas are transformed and fixed forever in one fell swoop.” Starting from the eighties, the Tussengebied became for many authors the playground to express radical visions and urban concepts fundamentally questioning the prevailing interpretations of the urban form coined in a dichotomy of ‘red’ and ‘green’ or ‘built’ and ‘open’ intrinsically related with the Randstad metaphor. A series of initiatives began to explore the potential of design at a regional scale, embracing international discussions and spatial concepts. Organizations such as ‘Architecture in Rotterdam’ (AIR), the ‘Eo Wijers Foundation’ or the ensemble of academics and professionals behind the ‘The Netherlands Now As Design’ project (NNAO) aimed at visualizing ideas and framing problems (Sutton & Kemp, 2006), by defining appropriate fields of action (Balz & Zonneveld, 2015; Neuman, 1998; Sieverts, 2008) and novel approaches for planning policy (Van Dijk, 2011). Within this context three authors interpreted the peculiar decentralised configuration of the Tussengebied, proposing a ‘new’ metropolis in the size of an entire region and in the form of a field: Willem Jan Neutelings with the ‘Patchwork Metropolis’ (1989), Frits Palmboom with the 'Urbanised Landscape' (1987) and OMA – Floris Alkemade with the 'Field Metropolis' (Deltametropool project, 2002) [fig.3]. Although their works greatly differ in terms of approach, methodology and purposes, the concepts they present are part of a continuous discourse – testified by some explicit common references and connections between the authors – that crosses many of the preeminent topics of the modernity: the figure of the fragment, the issue of the peripheral condition and the ‘horizontal’ layout of the contemporary city.
2017
26
52
57
Carlo, Pisano
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