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).
Book review of Michelle Provoost’s ‘Hugh Maaskant – Architect
Tozindo Factory – Maaskant 1961
Book review of Michelle Provoost’s ‘Hugh Maaskant – Architect
Website Blueprint Magazine – review
Hugh Maaskant was a Dutch functionalist architect who evolved into a corporate modernist and fully reaped the benefits of the post-war transformation of Dutch society into a welfare state and consumer society. For a long time corporate modernist architects were somewhat dismissed, either because the quality of their work did not speak to the imagination, or because they were not avant-garde nor sufficiently ideologically motivated to be worthy of scrutiny. In the case of Maaskant both is true, in my mind. On the one hand there appears very little reflection on the part of Maaskant what the larger ideological goals are, which he served, – apart from the notion that one should follow the Zeitgeist and be as modern as possible -, and on the other hand there are very few of his buildings which are truly inspiring. The factory above and the Tomado House in Dordrecht are exceptions). His style is usually middling between modern formalism and overly muscular structural expression, and it rarely has the purity and elegance of someone like Rietveld.
Be that as it may, the reassessment of ‘corporate’ modernists is a welcome addition to the historiography of modernism, and it is laudable that Crimson have taken on Maaskant and are working on a publication of J.H. van den Broek. In the case of this book by Michelle Provoost I did have the sense that the pendulum swung too far, and that she tried to make Maaskant a more important figure than he really was. In this review I have made a distinction between historiography as a genealogical narrative versus the writing of critical history. Regrettably the book of Provoost fits too much in the first category; hagiography as myth making. For instance her claim that Maaskant has inspired the generation of SuperDutch architects is outright overstated. Naturally people at MVRDV, Neutelings Riedijk and so on freely admit that they like his work, but I do not recall that Maaskant was mentioned much by them in the early nineties. Closer to the truth is that Maaskant was just one inspiration amongst many.
I hope you’ll enjoy the piece.
How Social is Dutch Architecture?
First published on Archined.nl, December 6th 2013, translation March 9th 2014. This opinion piece is intended as a starting point to research solutions to the current laissez-faire direction of urban planning which the Dutch government has adopted…
A Vinex neighborhood, somewhere in the Netherlands. Photo: FaceMePLS
In the recently published ‘Double Dutch – Dutch Architecture after 1985′ Bernard Hulsman[1] characterizes recent architecture in the Netherlands as a belated victory march of postmodernism. By predominantly interpreting this period in a fashionable and stylistic sense, Hulsman distracts, according to Thomas Wensing, from the truly worrisome and problematic development which has occurred since 1985: the blind following of neo-liberal doctrine. National urban planning directives, the healthy architecture climate and exemplary government patronage have all disappeared. Wensing calls on architects to take position and to actively develop a more social vision for architecture in the Netherlands.
“I think it is absolutely essential, and I think it is incomprehensible that this has not happened yet in any way, that there will be an ideological response to the sudden disappearance of socialism, which has been in almost all cases the latent nourishment and justification of our modern architecture, whether we are honest about it or not.”[2] – Rem Koolhaas
In 1990 Rem Koolhaas organized a symposium at Delft University centered on the question ‘How modern is Dutch architecture?’ The lecture is intellectually rich, intense, and emotional in the best sense of the word; it is testament to an internal struggle which is rare in current architectural discourse. The lecture marked the beginning of a blooming period in Dutch architecture, an era which has for the time being, through the credit crunch and drastic cuts in government subsidies to the cultural sector, came to a close. In the text Koolhaas explicitly points to a crisis of confidence within himself, a crisis caused by the falling away of socialism and the rise of neo-liberalism.
“In the mid-eighties socialist ideology also started to fall away, which in the case of the IJ Plein project was symbolized by a series of successive developments. Firstly, Amsterdam was split up in boroughs, and one of the first boroughs to be formed was Amsterdam-Noord. At that moment the paradoxical phenomenon occurred that the borough council, which was purportedly dedicated to socialist principle, was the first to grouse about the socialist point of departure, namely social housing at the waterfront, which had been realized by the central city government, and for which we had been the instrument. This council made a few absolutely laughable, but at the same time maddening trips to America, decked out with video-cameras and other modern equipment to see how things could be different, and this council discovered, especially in Baltimore and San Francisco, the vision which with respect to the IJ-plein should have been discovered, and should have been realized.”[3]
Kasbah Housing, Hengelo, Piet Blom. Photo: Archangel12
In his typically confronting manner Koolhaas accused Dutch modern architecture of a series of negative characteristics and failings. One of the reasons for the shortcomings of Dutch modernism was that it had never completely surrendered to the maelstrom of modernity. The figure of Van Eesteren was cited by Koolhaas as the ultimate, and negative example of the Dutch modernist as a busybody. Not the intense fire of the avant-garde was the true essence of Dutch modernism, but the will to lay down rules, the need to qualify and quantify, the will to plan.
Koolhaas’ lecture solicited different responses at the time, but no one at the symposium delivered a critical reflection on the stealthy erosion of the welfare state, nor did anyone ask whether the concomitant dismantling of the planning apparatus of the central government was such a great idea. Apart from Koolhaas it was Kenneth Frampton who, at the beginning of the nineties, sharply pinpointed the developments in the Netherlands:
“If any European country has continued to maintain a reflective practice in architecture at both national and local levels it is certainly the Netherlands, and yet with exception of the Delft Structuralist School, a consistent culture of architecture and urbanism has also eluded Dutch practice since the 1970s, and private speculation and laissez-faire culture politics came to play much stronger roles in Dutch life as a whole.”[4]
Frampton acerbically added that the success of Koolhaas was due in large measure to these economic and political shifts and he expressed the hope that the state would again fulfill a more active role.
The neo-liberal dogma is here put forward as the reason for the loss of the Dutch planning and urbanist tradition, but it is not as if Frampton only points an accusing finger in the direction of government. The coinage of the term ‘reflective practice’ is meant to point towards the combination of enlightened patronage, quality education and exceptional architectural talent, which are all prerequisites for a healthy architectonic culture. This therefore implies political and critical consciousness across sectors.
ABKM, Maastricht (Wiel Arets). Foto JPMM
The neo-liberal trend continued, however, and it was Bart Lootsma who in 2000, in his book SuperDutch, borrowed the term “Second Modernity” from the sociologists Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens to underscore mainly the positive aspects of the confluence of globalization, an open society, economic growth and the development of new networks and communication technology.
“While the first phase of modernity was largely shaped by the industrial revolution and its consequences, the second phase is an outcome of the rise of electronics and communications technology. As a small trading nation and prosperous welfare state, the Netherlands is perhaps more susceptible to these developments than other countries and therefore forced to anticipate the developing situation, among other things at a political level. The unification of Europe has played an important part in this because of policies committed to developing open markets. The required process of deregulation has obliged the Dutch government to abolish, privatize or otherwise change countless public and semi-public agencies, subsidies and laws.”[5]
It follows from the quotations above that a field of tension undoubtedly exists between the foreign perception of Dutch social achievements and the appreciation in the Netherlands itself for what through centuries has been built up. Although Lootsma here and there drops a critical note, the contemporary reader does not get the impression that he was fully aware at the time of many of the negative aspects of globalization, privatization, or the opening up of markets. It is furthermore suggested that the Dutch state did not have any alternative options to the shedding of tasks and services and privatization . This is a gross misconception; it is not as if ‘Europe’ ever demanded of the Netherlands to decentralize urban planning. This was a political choice.
Railway station Zaanstad redevelopment (Sjoerd Soeters). Photo: Frits de Jong
By putting Van Eesteren forward Koolhaas aimed to emphasize a suffocating aspect of the Dutch planning compulsion; this is too short-sighted and too negative, however. A characteristic of the Dutch organizational obsession is that on the basis of a wide consensus a balance is sought between economic and social interests[6]. Our long social tradition has since the Dutch Golden Age been driven by both social consciousness and economic motives.
“That foreigners were regularly amazed by the attention, and resources, expended on creating an orderly, well-equipped, and smooth-functioning system of old-age and sick care, and poor relief, is undeniable. But charity and compassion, it should be noted, were not the sole motives which went into producing this result. In fact, the Dutch civic welfare system was a product of numerous social, economic, religious, and cultural goals and priorities and it is this broad background which made the Dutch system at once incomparable and inimitable.”[7]
The previously used anecdote of the socialist council member who visits America to get to know the ropes of neo-liberal urban planning is to me an apt illustration of the morbid Dutch passion to conform and to be a pet student[8]. Hulsman thus typifies in Double Dutch the period after 1985 as ‘the normalization of Dutch architecture[9], with which is not only inferred that the Netherlands are now finally in step with globalization, but also that postmodernism has become a fait accompli. With such a superficial and uncritical reading a new low has been reached in Dutch architectural discourse, and I would like, just as Koolhaas did years before to me, to make a call to architectural practice in the Netherlands to critically reflect on the golden years since 1985 and to formulate a vision on where to go from here.
With reflection I most certainly do not mean the superficial observation that postmodernism finally has arrived in the Netherlands, that we are finally free to build ‘modernism without dogma[10]’, or more nihilistic still, that now “anything goes”[11]. I think that we need to rise above these shallow stylistic qualifications and establish that the construction fever was fed by a self-destructive economic model. In addition, I pose that architecture is a reflection of values which a society holds and that, by extension, architects have a public responsibility to question the prevailing status quo.
The ‘Rotterdam’, Rotterdam, OMA. Photo Raban Haaijk
How can it be that leading economists such as Joseph Stiglitz convincingly argue that a well-functioning government is needed to stabilize ‘the market’[12], but that the Dutch government still eagerly relinquishes the means to exert any kind of control of the construction industry and housing production? I refer here naturally to the further weakening of social housing corporations with a ‘corporation tax’ of 1.7 billion Euros, the abolition of the ministry of urban planning and the environment (VROM), and the drastic cuts to education and cultural budgets. How can it be that meanwhile architects and critics lose themselves in fretting over ‘fusion’[13], neo-traditionalism and neo-modernism? Are there not more urgent matters which cry out for a solution?
To give but one example: the Netherlands have dropped from 31st to 49th place on the Climate Change Performance Index.[14] To put this in a larger context, this is slightly better than China (54) and a lot worse than Denmark (4) and Germany (8). It is therefore justified and hopeful that the Dutch state has recently been summoned in court by a class action lawsuit, because it falls short of combating climate change.[15]
In 1990 Koolhaas called for a ‘revision of the Dutch concept’, and I argue that such a revision could consist of a rediscovery of ideas which have since long been part of the make-up of Dutch identity, and which have unrightfully, or too early been relegated to the dustbin. This revision will undoubtedly be painful as it entails sustained fighting against vested interests and dysfunctional economic dogma. I am convinced that activism and engagement of citizens needs to increase. It is worth to embark upon this uncertain adventure, not in the least since so many odds are at stake.
Utopias are not the real fantasy, but our current reality of private property, waste and inconspicuous consumption is. The 21st century will have to bear witness to unrestrained experimentation to formulate and achieve a new balance between humans and nature. Architects, roll up your sleeves!; make a start by writing angry letters, organizing petitions or starting a conversation with the (leftist) representative in your borough.
[1] Bernard Hulsman is the architectural critic of NRC Handelsblad, NRC Next, a right of center daily in the Netherlands.
[2] Rem Koolhaas,’Hoe modern is de Nederlandse architectuur?’, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 1990, p.18-19, translation by author.
[3] Ibid., p.12
[4] Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture – A Critical History, Thames & Hudson, London, Third edition, 1992, reprinted 2002, p.330
[5] Bart Lootsma, Superdutch – New Architecture in the Netherlands, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, p.21
[6] This is usually referred to as the ‘polder model’.
[7] Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic – Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995, paperback with corrections, 1998, p.355
[8] I refer here to the post-war tendency in Dutch politics to rarely ever challenge US imperialism and, in the European context, to be one of the staunchest advocates of fiscal austerity.
[9] Bernard Hulsman, Double Dutch – Nederlandse architectuur na 1985, Nai010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 2013, p.188
[10] Modernism without dogma (Modernisme zonder dogma) refers to a book by Hans Ibelings, published in 1991 by Nai Publishers, in which the generation of emerging Dutch architects such as Mecanoo, MVRDV and Neutelings & Riedijk are typified as applying modernism without the ideological moral constraints of the heroic period.
[11] Bernard Hulsman, Double Dutch – Nederlandse architectuur na 1985, Nai010 Uitgevers, Rotterdam, 2013, p.188
[12] Joseph E. Stiglitz, Freefall – America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, London, 2010, p.201 “Economists have developed a short list of instances where markets fail – where social and private incentives are not well aligned – that account for a large fraction of the important failures.”
The creation of too many externalities, a word to describe the socialization of the costs of economic production and the privatization of its profits, is perceived by Stiglitz as a systemic failure of markets.
[13] Fusion is a term used by the Dutch architect Wilfried van Winden to avoid using the term postmodernism. The website of WAM architecten states (http://www.wam-architecten.nl/fusion/index.php, accessed March 09, 2014:
“FUSION is geen stijl maar een houding; een strategie van de open geest, die geen taboes aanvaardt”, aldus architect Wilfried van Winden. De toenemende diversiteit van culturen en subculturen in de moderne samenleving vraagt om een nieuwe architectonische strategie. FUSION staat voor een inventieve wijze van mengen en verbinden van heden en verleden, van Oost en West, van traditie en vernieuwing, van high en low culture.”
“FUSION is not a style, but an attitude; strategy of an open mind, which does not accept any taboos”, according to Wilfried van Winden. The increasing diversity of cultures and subcultures in modern society requires a new architectonic strategy. FUSION means to mix and connect of the present and the past, of East and West, of tradition and innovation, of high and low culture.”
[14] <germanwatch.org/en/download/7158.pdf> accessed December 2013.
[15] <http://www.urgenda.nl/actueel/nieuws/> accessed December 2013
Revolutionary Spangen Housing Restored
Revolutionary Spangen Housing Restored
Photo credit: Bas Kooij
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?
Raymond Neutra on the VDL Research House
Raymond Neutra – VDL Research House: Dutch connections
There is a long standing connection between Het Nieuwe Bouwen (New Objectivity architecture) in the Netherlands and modernism in the US. The influence of Frank Lloyd Wright on modernism in the Netherlands is well known; through Berlage, van ‘t Hoff, Jan Duiker, Jan Wils, W.M. Dudok, Gerrit Rietveld, and others the prairie style was adapted to Dutch domestic living. Soon after the pendulum swung and the experiments in Europe inspired architects in the United States. A very interesting connection exists between Richard Neutra and Cees van der Leeuw (the director of the Van Nelle Factory, see my book review on the monograph of the architects Brinkman & van der Vlugt, a book on the architects who designed the factory building).
Van der Leeuw had read “Wie baut Amerika?” and was eager to meet Neutra. When Neutra visited Europe to attend the CIAM conference in Brussels in 1930, van der Leeuw invited him to stay at his modernist house in Rotterdam.
There is the famous anecdote that Cees van der Leeuw, on a later visit to Neutra in Los Angeles, asked him why he did not build his own house, upon which Neutra replied that he did not have the money. Van der Leeuw drew his check book and asked “How much do you need?”. Modest Neutra did not accept the money as a gift, but took out an interest free loan of $3000.-, which was an adequate sum at the time. What is less well known, however, is that Neutra was deeply impressed by van der Leeuw’s house in Rotterdam (designed, again, by Brinkman & van der Vlugt in 1928) (pictured above) and hailed it as follows:
“It was the most modern house I had ever dreamed of […]. An assembly of technical novelties, from English sheet rubber to cover the floors and winding metal stairways to microphonic conversations at the entrance and from room to room, exhausts for cigarette smoke as soon as it left the mouth; organization down to a complicated dashboard of switches over our guest beds to activate all kinds of illumination, move the window drapes, electronically turn on hot and cold water in the bathroom.” (From Neutra, Life and Shape, pp. 252-57)
The connection eventually led to the building of the VDL (van der Leeuw) research house by Neutra, and in this lecture Raymond Neutra, the son of Richard, explains these connections in greater detail.
Neutra’s VDL Research House 1, Los Angeles 1932
In response to Raymond Neutra’s lecture three remarks:
1. The Theosophical Society building in Amsterdam, which was designed by Brinkman & van der Vlugt, in which Neutra recognises a Wrightian influence, in fact predates the Guggenheim Museum by 15 years. The architect who received the job first, (and whose name Neutra does not remember), is K.P.C. de Bazel. He was a contemporary to Berlage and designed ‘De Bazel’ a former bank building and now the city archive of Amsterdam. De Bazel died before the job started and Brinkman and Van der Vlugt were commissioned. The building is now a public library.
Theosophical Society Building Amsterdam, Brinkman & van der Vlugt Architects 1927
2. I don’t think Loos ever said “Ornament is Crime”. The title of the manifesto was “Ornament und Verbrechen”, Ornament and Crime, in typical Loosian fashion is ironic rather than explicit!
3. Cees van der Leeuw’s name is Cornelis (Cees) Hendrik van der Leeuw, not Cornelius. I have noticed a lot of misspellings out there! I also never heard before that he was from an aristocratic family, as Neutra claims. He was from a merchant’s family. In the Dutch context the prefix “van” or “van der” does not necessarily denote nobility. The word “van” can just mean “from”, i.e. that your family originally came from a place. The Dutch painter Kees van Dongen, for instance, most likely has family roots around the town of Dongen.
Enjoy.
thomaswensing 
