The Patchwork Metropolis: Between Patches, Fragments and Situations

In 1989 the young Dutch architect Willem Jan Neutelings, who had just left the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, was hired to develop a project for the area between Rotterdam and The Hague that was going to face, in the following years, a huge increase in population and activities. This part of the Dutch territory is located in between two urban areas but, at the same time, it is located in the middle of another construction known as the Randstad, in which the explosive growth of urban and suburban development has led to a singular blurring of the distinction between the city and the countryside. In this context Neutelings proposed his reinterpretation of the urban form called De Tapijtmetropool or ‘Patchwork Metropolis’. This essay will try to deconstruct Neutelings’ work and attempt to understand whether his “previsions” have actually had a real effect on the contemporary Randstad territorial configuration.