The transformation of Slotervaart, Amsterdam
Giancarlo de Carlo's criticism of non-participatory architecture is especially relevant for architects and policymakers today. His text reminded me of a book called Arrival City by Doug Saunders, a non-architect, that examines the great migration of people who are leaving rural villages to seek a better life in cities in all parts of the world. His book presents case studies of successful and failed arrival cities. The failure of some arrival cities is as much to blame on architecture and urban planning as it is on policy. For example, the Slotervaart neighborhood outside Amsterdam was a post-war CIAM-inspired garden city that followed the strict separation of residential and commercial uses. North-Africans immigrants came here with ideas of a better life and integration, but found themselves physically cut off from the city and from commerce. This is the neighborhood where Mohammed Bouyeri grew up. He later went on to kill Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who criticized the treatment of women in Islam. Mohammed Bouyeri found radical Islam, not in Morocco, but in a failed modernist arrival city in the Netherlands.
Fortunately, Amsterdam's policymakers realized that Slotervaart's plan of low-density housing, separated by green spaces and away from commercial zones were part of the problem. Slotervaart was transformed into a place were immigrants could thrive and integrate into Dutch society through participatory architecture and urban planning. The lower-density utopian housing blocks were replaced with more organic communities- residential mixed with commercial and industrial. Condominium developments, too expensive for newly arrived immigrants but cheap enough for middle-class Dutch families were built in the neighbor to better integrate the once alienated community. Today, Slotervaart seems more like any other Dutch neighborhood than an isolated immigrant enclave thanks in part to good policy and architecture with the user in mind.
Fortunately, Amsterdam's policymakers realized that Slotervaart's plan of low-density housing, separated by green spaces and away from commercial zones were part of the problem. Slotervaart was transformed into a place were immigrants could thrive and integrate into Dutch society through participatory architecture and urban planning. The lower-density utopian housing blocks were replaced with more organic communities- residential mixed with commercial and industrial. Condominium developments, too expensive for newly arrived immigrants but cheap enough for middle-class Dutch families were built in the neighbor to better integrate the once alienated community. Today, Slotervaart seems more like any other Dutch neighborhood than an isolated immigrant enclave thanks in part to good policy and architecture with the user in mind.
Corbusier's Plan Voisin for Paris
Renewed modernist housing block in Amsterdam
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