The demolition of the city: dire necessity or eternal regret?
A book about a city that no longer exists: UvA scientists Hanneke Ronnes and Wouter van Elburg wrote Sloop (“Demolition”) about an Amsterdam that is constantly being destroyed and rebuilt. “The thought that keeps recurring is that something is made better when it is demolished.”
Although Amsterdammers have been born in a historic city for centuries, it is always a different one. These are the words of anthropologist and historian Hanneke Ronnes and architectural historian Wouter van Elburg in their book Sloop. They reconstruct how the city is constantly being rebuilt and how houses, buildings and even entire neighbourhoods have to make way for new wishes and ideas.
This was already happening when Amsterdam had just been founded. “When something is created out of nothing, you immediately think of growth, as in the case of a city like Amsterdam,” says Ronnes. “Yet growth can only come about when the old is demolished. The boundary of the city is constantly being shifted and that means what was there has to give way.”
“There are already many books about how Amsterdam has grown,” Van Elburg adds, “but not about which Amsterdam has disappeared. We want to tell the other side of growth.” Ronnes: “Our book is as much about blocks of identical working-class houses that have been demolished as it is about the unique, leading buildings that have disappeared. Put someone from nineteenth-century Amsterdam in today’s city and he no longer has any idea where he is.” Van Elburg: “The city hall is still there, but the guild houses, the chariot, city walls and city gates, the landmarks of seventeenth-century Amsterdam, have almost all disappeared.”
Little remains of medieval Amsterdam. Only the Schreierstoren, the Munttoren and the current Waag on the Nieuwmarkt still date from this period. Yet because in the centuries that followed, wooden houses were replaced by stone ones, hardly any homes have survived. Moreover, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the city expanded considerably. “That must have done something to the inhabitants’ perception,” says Ronnes. “Suddenly you look out over a landscape because the city wall was demolished in front of your house.”
Nineteenth century
Yet during these times, people hardly protested against destruction. Such resistance only arose in the nineteenth century, the scientists write. This century also saw the first time that fewer people lived in the city. Demolitions were taking place because neighbourhoods were emptying because of the economic downturn. “And people were very aware of this decline,” says Van Elburg. “In texts, we can see that people felt that the city was much nicer and better before.”
Notorious was also speculator Frederik Kaal, write Ronnes and Van Elburg. He bought up country houses at the end of the eighteenth century, deconstructed them and sold the remaining materials; the word “kaalslag”, named after him, is still used for large-scale demolition campaigns. Van Elburg: “The Industrial Revolution brought more prosperity. Railways were built, it became more common to work in offices, tourists came. A lot happened in a short time and space had to be created for it in the form of housing, offices, shops, department stores and hotels.”
Ronnes: “In the nineteenth century, destruction was really deplored for the first time. It was thought to be a form of progress if a new building was erected. A thought that keeps returning, that something is made better if it is demolished.”
A well-preserved example was the indignation of Amsterdammers around 1808 when King Louis Napoleon wanted to demolish the Waag on Dam Square. He wanted free views of Damrak and the harbour. In that year, the widely circulated mockery poem Het klagend Waaggebouw was published, which penned: “Wat’s dit, wat hoor ik knak op knak / Men breekt, men scheurd, vernielt mijn dak / ‘K stond nog zoo regt en sterk als gij / Zeg waarom toch vernield men mij?” (What’s this, what do I hear knack upon knack / One breaks, one rips, destroys my roof / I stood still as straight and strong as you / Say why nevertheless one destroys me?”)
(Text continues below the image)
The renewed 1901 Housing Act laid the groundwork for stricter requirements for housing, in areas such as sanitation, ventilation and running water. “The socialist ideal, which stood up for the workers resulted in better housing, but also caused destruction,” says Ronnes. “Even now, demolition is sometimes carried out a bit too easily because it would be an improvement for the current residents. For example, a lot of demolition is taking place in Nieuw West these days.” Van Elburg: “That way of thinking from the nineteenth century, we are going to make it better for you, remained an ideal for a long time. As in Wim Sonneveld’s song: “Blijkbaar woonden ze verkeerd / het dorp is gemoderniseerd / en nu zijn ze op de goede weg.” (Apparently they lived wrong / the village has been modernised / and now they are on the right track)”
World War II caused almost all Jewish neighbourhoods to disappear. “The Amsterdam Jewish quarter received blow after blow after blow,” says Van Elburg. “First and by far the most dramatic, of course, were the deportations, then the wood rot in the houses left empty by the deportations, then the houses were deconstructed due to vacancy because most Jews did not return, and finally, highways and metro lines were conceived and built over the old neighbourhoods. With each wave, another piece of Jewish history disappeared.”
Climate impact
Besides the concerns about preserving and guarding history, destruction is also not very environmentally friendly, argue Van Elburg and Ronnes. “Many buildings consist of concrete and steel, which are very environmentally damaging materials,” says Ronnes. “Yet the trucks used to dispose of the destruction material and the trucks used to bring in new building material are also taxing. Abroad, demolition is already treated with caution because of its climate impact. Here, this is only very slowly penetrating too.”
The late 1960s saw the Nieuwmarkt riots, in which the government and residents argued about destroying the neighbourhood. “Students still played a big role in that,” says Ronnes. Demolition for economic reasons runs like a thread through the book. And even today, economic gain often still plays a big role in considerations. Van Elburg: “The housing corporations have been cut back a lot, so they have sold and demolished many properties for more profitable new construction.”
He also points to the monumental Valerius Clinic in Zuid, for which a “hideous apartment complex” took its place. “The clinic was part of a beautiful cityscape from the 1910s/20s that included a twenty-metre-high stained-glass window. The building was not a monument nor was it in a protected townscape. A real estate developer bought the property and demolished it.”
(Text continues below image)
Cheese cover
“Due to population growth, unbridled tourism and sharply rising square metre prices, the pressure on Amsterdam has increased enormously in recent years,” the scientists write. “The number of demolition projects seems to follow this trend.”
Yet, given the tightness in the housing market, there is still a need for substantial additional construction. How does that affect the city? “A city is not a stationary phenomenon,” says Van Elburg. “It can and must always change and there is room for infill development, for extra houses among the buildings that are already there.” Ronnes: “You can’t put a cheese cover over a city, we don’t want that either. Yet the question is how you want to change a city: demolition is often not the best and most sustainable solution. Repurposing a building is almost always possible, as long as you are creative. Just look at the new University Library: it will be located in a building that the UvA wanted to destroy, but now that the renovation is almost finished, everyone is happy that it was not demolished.”
The book launch of Sloop. Utopie en protest in Amsterdam van 1800 tot nu is on 19 November at bookstore Athenaeum on the Spui. You can register via this link.
