Oil Spaces: The Global Petroleumscape in the Rotterdam/The Hague Area

Hein, C.M.

doi:10.1177/0096144217752460

Oil Spaces

Title

Oil Spaces: The Global Petroleumscape in the Rotterdam/The Hague Area

Author

Hein, C.M. (TU Delft History, Form & Aesthetics)

Date

2018

Abstract

Corporate and public actors have built the physical and financial flows of petroleum into the very landscape. This article identifies different layers of those flows— physical, represented, and everyday practices—that combine into a palimpsestic global petroleumscape. It posits that these layers historically became essential parts of modern society and of citizens’ everyday lives. Resulting path dependencies and an energy culture help maintain the buildings and urban forms needed for physical and financial oil flows and celebrate oil as a heroic cultural agent, in a feedback loop that leads societies to consume more oil. Following a general analysis, the article uses the Rotterdam/The Hague area, part of the North West European petroleum hub, as a case study of this feedback loop. Only in appreciating the power and extent of oil can we engage with the complex emerging challenges of sustainable design, policy making, heritage, and future built environments beyond oil.

Subject

petroleum
urban history
global flows of oil
Rotterdam
The Hague

To reference this document use:

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:607194ae-ebba-46d1-b97e-81506aec88da

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144217752460

ISSN

0096-1442

Source

Journal of Urban History, 44 (5), 887-929

Part of collection

Institutional Repository