City Icons Kick Off with Talk by Linda Vlassenrood

• Jakoba Mulder in the office. Photo: Amsterdam City Archives.
• Light, air and space in New-West. No romantic neighborhoods, but strict rational and modern urban planning. Source: Amsterdam.nl.
• Jakoba Mulder at a press conference in Amsterdam where the General Expansion Plan (AUP) was presented. Photo National Archives.
• The AUP from 1935. The plan has largely been implemented. Source: Amsterdam.nl.
• Jakoba Mulder at her retirement in 1965. Photo: National Archives.

• Jakoba Mulder in the office. Photo: Amsterdam City Archives.
• Light, air and space in New-West. No romantic neighborhoods, but strict rational and modern urban planning. Source: Amsterdam.nl.
• Jakoba Mulder at a press conference in Amsterdam where the General Expansion Plan (AUP) was presented. Photo National Archives.
• The AUP from 1935. The plan has largely been implemented. Source: Amsterdam.nl.
• Jakoba Mulder at her retirement in 1965. Photo: National Archives.

Linda Vlassenrood is a curator, programme manager, author, speaker, advisor specializing in complex urban issues and the founder of Studio Linda Vlassenrood. At IH City Icons: Amsterdam, she explains how city planning has shaped – and is still shaping – the homes built in the city.

What’s the focus of your talk Coming Home to Amsterdam: A Century of City Planning for IH City Icons on May 24th?
Amsterdam grew enormously in the 20th century, more than doubling in size – all thanks to ambitious urban planning. Primarily this meant creating new residential areas. In 1915, Berlage’s Plan Zuid created a new southern district in the city. Post-war, the AUP (General Expansion Plan) resulted in an unprecedented 50,000 homes, for all levels of society, being built in just 10 years. The Bijlmermeer added a new – perhaps misplaced – optimism in 1968 and then by the end of the century you had the transformation of the old docklands. I will focus on Jakoba Mulder, a woman who played a hugely influential role in Amsterdam urban planning from 1930 to 1972 – not as a solo designer, but as a team player and coordinator.

How did these grand plans influence individual city homes?
Each plan put its own stamp on the city. With Plan Zuid, you see the use of closed residential blocks and long elongated street walls – as in the Amsterdamse School social housing we will visit with the tours. With the AUP, this changes to open, Modernist buildings, in green spaces, as you can see when we visit the Van Eesteren house museum. Then the Bijlmermeer takes a new high-rise approach – which Jakoba Mulder, interestingly and correctly, saw issues with, although she couldn’t stop it. The docklands’ transformation in the 1990s provided housing in a much higher density and with limited green public space, since the proximity of water was considered a major asset.

What kick-started this massive urban planning effort in Amsterdam?
The Dutch Woningwet (Housing Act) of 1901 – which was the first national housing law and quite unique at the time – ensured that local governments had the means and the power to improve the housing of the lower social classes in the cities, which was then of very poor quality. It gave, very early on, through financial support to housing corporations, new urban extensions, building regulations and utilities, a huge boost to the quality of social housing, such as was never seen before.

How far were Amsterdam’s planning initiatives part of an international movement?
In case of the AUP, Van Eesteren was chair of CIAM, so the Amsterdam plan got lots of attention and was part of this big international Modernist movement around the Functional City – which was the theme of the famous fourth CIAM congress. This took place in summer 1933 and was led by Le Corbusier, Cornelis van Eesteren, and the art historian Sigfried Giedion. Conference attendees analysed 34 cities, including Amsterdam, using specially prepared maps. The results were later shown at the exhibition De Functionele Stad (The Functional City) at the Stedelijk Museum in 1935. It is widely regarded as a defining period in Modernist urban planning.

Jakoba Mulder features in your talk. How important is it to recognize her and other women active in her time?
It’s very important – women like Margaret Staal-Kropholler, who worked on the De Wolkenkrabber (the garbage chutes and easy-clean pivoting windows are her design), and Lotte Stam-Beese, who worked on the Drive-In homes, had a big influence. But the main point is to acknowledge that city making is a collaborative effort – not just the work of one or two architects, but also civil servants, engineers, and so on. We should acknowledge that different types of authorship are possible – and necessary. Today of course, this should extend to residents too – something that was missing in the past.

How do you see Amsterdam’s future development?
Amsterdam – like many other places in the Netherlands – is currently dealing with an enormous housing shortage. Future ‘expansion’ will be all about transforming existing areas and property as there is no way to expand territorially without losing much-needed greenery and nature. We see this with the current major development Haven-Stad, which is transforming a former industrial area. Today the city faces multiple challenges to its development, including climate change, lack of biodiversity, giving shape to the energy transition, circular economy and water resilience, and how to be a more accessible, affordable and just city.

Can the past be an inspiration in this?
In some ways, although our situation now is much more complex. Jakoba Mulder for example was busy on all scale levels, from whole neighbourhoods to individual playgrounds. She was also a team player who collaborated with many different departments and people. This kind of collaboration is what we need today, especially in times of great transitions and uncertainty, but we have perhaps forgotten how to do it well.

Do you have a favourite house in Amsterdam?
Not a house as such but the Louise Wenthuis designed by Staal-Kropholler springs to mind because it was a medium high-rise with 170 units built for single women in 1963. It was an extraordinary project at the time, since single women had hardly any opportunities to live alone in an independent home.

Posted March 21, 2024