How social is Dutch architecture?
How social is Dutch architecture?
The English translation of my article ‘How social is Dutch architecture?’ has been published online by Archined.
Enjoy. (if you haven’t already).
Revolutionary Spangen Housing Restored
Revolutionary Spangen Housing Restored
A recent article from me for the Architectural Record on the renovation of the Spangen social housing complex in Rotterdam, Netherlands by Molenaar & Co and Hebly Theunissen Architects. Unfortunately this kind of high-end renovation of social housing will probably be something of the past.
To give you some further background information:
In December 2013 the Dutch government approved a 1.7 billion Euro tax to be levied until 2017 on the housing corporations. This money is diverted from social tenants to cover the government’s budget deficit. It is of course ironic that the rise of the deficit has in large part been caused by bailing out the banks in 2008 (Fortis and ABN Amro to the amount of 16.8 billion Euros, total cost of this aid eventually ballooned to 30 billion Euros. ING received 10 billion Euros and transferred 21.6 billion Euros of U.S. mortgage assets to the Dutch state (data from Bloomberg).These are the same banks which were part of the real estate bubble and took on inordinate amounts of risk.
To add insult to injury, it was again Labour (PvdA) who was part of this disastrous vote. A similar policy was of course followed in the UK when Thatcher sold off the council housing with the ‘Right to buy’ policy. From then on the rent of corporations largely went to servicing the deficit, creating a downward spiral of neglect of the estates. James Meek’s article in the London Review of Books of January 8 clearly describes the disastrous consequences of these failed policies.
It remains to be seen if the Netherlands will continue to follow a similar path and one would hope the tax gets lifted after 2017. As these things go, however, I am not too optimistic. This renovation was partly financed by selling off some of the apartments. The corporation Woonstad built a mere 450 new socially rented units in 2012, against the sale of 716 units in the same year. According to their own admission, they have had to let go of 80 people and will pass on a rent increase to their tenants to be able to pay the new tax.
The last sentence of the article, before editing read:
Furthermore, in December 2013 a law was passed which levies a tax of 1.7 billion Euros on the assets of the housing corporations until 2017. This tax will be reflected in higher rents for social tenants and is likely to bring building of social housing to a close, a new reality that makes a mockery of the spirit of responsible governance and collectivity in which Spangen was originally conceived.
Postscript: A day after writing this post I came across an interesting quote in the book “Hugh Maaskant – Architect of Progress” by Michelle Provoost. Hugh Maaskant was a modernist architect, and mainly active during the reconstruction period immediately after WWII. In the book attention is given to the socio-political context of that era:
“The industrialization project began in 1949, when the first Marshall Plan funds were received from the United States. The first ‘Memorandum Concerning the Industrialization of the Netherlands’ was issued that same year, to be followed by eight further industrialization memoranda. This policy reflected the characteristics of the Roman Catholic-social democrat government coalition of the reconstruction period: a policy of planned wages and prices coupled with a social housing policy predicated on low rents, in order to keep labour costs low for business.”
What is interesting in this description is that the government, in spite of the austerity of the post war years, was quite keen to strike a balance between economic and social interests, and opted for a model which now reads as a planned economy. Socially rented accommodation was seen as an effective way to keep wage demands down and the subsidies towards housing were thus understood as a subsidy which would create a favorable business climate. In other words, subsidizing housing helps the population and helps business.
If we now fast forward to the 1.7 billion Euro housing corporation tax, and the fact that this tax can be tied to the bank bail-outs and the economic crisis which followed, we see the application of an austerity doctrine which will only lead to a further contraction of the economy and will lead to additional social costs (externalities) which will again have to be picked up by the taxpayer. Firstly, the bank bail-outs will have the effect of the continuation of a model which is based on rising debt and an unrealistic rise of house prices. The real estate crash has brought the building of new stock to a standstill, which means that demand will continue to outweigh supply. Secondly, the taxpayer subsidy towards the banks will do nothing towards real economic growth. As we have seen, the banks have hoarded the money to balance their books, and have done little to pump the money back into the real economy. Finally, the tax will have to be paid by people who have already had to endure a large drop in their real wages over a few decades of sustained neo-liberal policies. (they are in no position to deal with a year-on-year rent increase of 4%). Sooner or later this will translate in wage demands from people who hold jobs or, – worse still -, increased pressure on social services, which will lead to an increase in – you guessed it -, the government deficit.
Would it not be better to return to a model in which social housing subsidies are used to construct more affordable stock, aid the ailing construction industry, and kick start economic recovery, as opposed to cause a further increase in income inequality and continued support for the financial industry which has created this situation to begin with?
How social is Dutch architecture?
Hoe sociaal is de Nederlandse architectuur?
How social is Dutch architecture? is a question I recently asked on the Dutch website Archined. I intend to publish an English translation shortly, but I wanted to offer a quick preview nevertheless.
Architecture and Capitalism at the Storefront for Art and Architecture
Architecture and Capitalism at the Storefront for Art and Architecture
A review of the book launch of Architecture and Capitalism, through the eyes of Ross Wolfe.
Note the mysterious Dutch heckler in the audience halfway through the text.
Interview with McKenzie Wark
The Spectacle of Disintegration is Ken McKenzie Wark’s latest book, the follow-up to the Beach Beneath the Street. In this interview for Blueprint I ask him how he got so interested in the French Situationists and how the creative production of the group can be meaningful for us today. McKenzie Wark asserts that it is important to direct our material production towards hope in order to overcome our culture of waste.
Book Review: A New Kind of Bleak by Owen Hatherley
Owen Hatherley is on his way to become a force in architectural criticism in the United Kingdom. I prefer his shorter pieces on his blog and in magazines to his books, as he has the tendency to become repetitive in the books. I found that when he assesses European modernism this is done through a particularly British lens, perhaps in the same way as I look at British modernism with incredulity at times. This review was intended to encourage Hatherley to ground his thesis better, to do deeper and more original research and, perhaps most of all, that the narrative and argument will follow an arc throughout his future books.
I say this from a position of modesty, however, as I have yet to write my first book myself.
On a funny note, there is a soundtrack to accompany the reading of the book, by the collective GOLAU GLAU ->
On a final note, to underscore that Hatherley does address the right issues, read this article in the Guardian.
Related articles
UK: Stop demolishing your Brutalist architecture: Preston Bus Station
Petition to prevent demolition of Preston Bus Station
The Preston Bus Station is the last in a long line of Brutalist buildings which the UK government has prevented from listing and is subsequently threatened with demolition. In spite of architects and architectural critics voicing their concern, again and again this kind of architecture is treated as sitting ducks in the UK. A factor which may explain this willful neglect, of course, is that this architecture often had a specific social agenda and reflected the belief that society could be changed for the better through architectural intervention. With the deliberate and ongoing deconstruction of the welfare state and budget cuts left and right it is now easy to argue that you can no longer afford a ghost of the past and to duck responsibility for not maintaining the building properly in the first place.
The building was designed by the Building Design Partnership (BDP), was built to last, and was intended as a social hub, with shops, ample waiting areas, parking etc. Testament to its social success is the fact that it was voted the most popular building of Preston.
The case for demolition does not stack up from a financial as well as an environmental point of view. Shockingly, however, the Lancashire County Council is adamant to continue with demolition in spite of the offer of a local millionaire to invest!
The question has therefore rightfully been asked by the architectural critic Owen Hatherley as to what the motives of the Lancashire County Council really are.
If you want to keep up to date follow this blog.
Please help to save Preston bus Station by signing the petition.
Book Review: The Beach Beneath the Street – the Situationists
This picture is of Constant Nieuwenhuys’s New Babylon project. Constant was a Dutch painter and artist who spent many years designing the utopian city of New Babylon. New Babylon is a raised megastructure, built over existing cities and landscapes. Mechanization would mean that people would have enough to eat and would move from being a Homo Faber (the working man, creative man) to being a Homo Ludens, (playing man), an existence devoted to play and spiritual growth. I have always been fascinated by the beautiful, slightly sinister models and drawings he made for this project.
Constant was associated with the Situationists, a group of left-wing writers and radicals loosely organized around the philosopher Guy Debord. (Who wrote “The Society of the Spectacle”).
The photo links through to a book review on a book on the Situationist International written by McKenzie Wark called “The Beach Beneath the Street”. The title refers to a protest slogan of Paris 1968, “Sous les pavés, la plage”. Enjoy.