How the Dutch created Holland

Canals are important ingredients in the Fine Dutch Tradition. (Photo Maarten Laupman)

It’s often said that God created the Earth, and the Dutch made Holland. Now a study has been published on how they did it: very pragmatically.

Dr Fransje Hooimeijer wrote a book that most people assumed already existed: ‘The Tradition of Making Polder Cities’. It describes how civil engineering and urbanism developed hand in hand by building cities on the weak, wet and flood-prone soils of the Netherlands ever since the time of first settlements.

“It’s mostly on making the soil construction ready,” says Hooimeijer. “But people never thought it useful to document what they did, because they assumed everyone knew it all. I’ve found only one book one the topic.”

Once you start thinking about it, making the soil construction ready has many different aspects, such as water, groundwater, bearing capacity, driving in piles, and permeability of the soil. Urban design on the other hand also has numerous aspects: public green, public functions, infrastructure and integrating conflicting interests. Now imagine putting these together into the Fine Dutch Tradition, the culture that created the famous Amsterdam ring of canals, which were simultaneously the underlying structure for the urban design as well as the new waterway system.

In her book, Hooimeijer primarily used Rotterdam as her area of study and described its emergence and expansion. She shows that, especially since the industrial revolution, the power to manipulate the landscape has grown enormously. This enabled city builders to develop bigger areas with less reference to the original landscape – they just covered it with loads of sand and created featureless districts.

In the 1970s there was a turning point, says Hooimeijer. The oil crisis, the Club of Rome report on limits to growth, and a few near-inundations prompted developers to refer more to the existing landscape and water systems. It’s often better to make use of what’s already there than to start from scratch – that’s the latest chapter in the Fine Dutch Tradition.

In the 21st century, Hooimeijer expects the Tradition to develop new solutions for water in the city. Extensive building into the surrounding polders will have to make a place for renewal within.

Link to article in Delta