Ideals behind Dutch urban planning

Abstract

The Netherlands urban planning has evolved until 1990 in coherence with the image of a harmonious, planable society, which has found its expression in, on the one side, the ideal of a fair social-economic distribution and, on the spatial side, which is the subject of this article, the ideal to create an aesthetically ordered environment. The National Reports on Spatial Planning indicate that since the 1960s these ideals have been envisaged in practice: the desire to keep urbanisation as compact as possible to spread a network of small cities, towns and villages throughout the country to prevent the growth of large metropolitan areas - together with the aim to protect open, green spaces from urbanisation and to restrain the growth of auto-mobility. Dutch planning ideals can be characterised by a strong regulation of the profile combined with clear, functional divisions in space. Since the end of the 1980s, Dutch urbanists and architects have criticised the monofunctionality and regulated aesthetics, and become interested in a more dynamic concept of urban planning, which accepts a degree of uncertainty and can produce a more differentiated space. However, the question is, whether this change of ideals implies a shift in paradigm, or whether changes have occurred within the same set of ideals.