Paul van de Laar (Amsterdam, 1959) promoveerde in 1991 als economisch historicus op een proefschrift over het financieringsgedrag van de Rotterdamse maritieme sector na de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Hij is sinds 1997 bijzonder hoogleraar Geschiedenis van Rotterdam aan de Erasmus Universiteit en daarnaast jarenlang directeur van het Museum Rotterdam. Sinds 2020 is hij hoogleraar Cities as portals of Globalization en hoofd van de Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication.

Abstract: The dynamic interplay between global maritime flows and the spatial, economic, and social development of port‐city‐regions lies at the heart of this thematic issue. As globalisation accelerates, the relationships between ports, cities, and their surrounding regions become increasingly complex, requiring innovative conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and interdisciplinary collaborations to address both challenges and opportunities. Flows of goods and people shape infrastructural networks and create nodes of logistics and administration in and around nearby cities. They establish specific networks that primarily facilitate transport. Multiple approaches and definitions exist to describe and map these unique spaces. This thematic issue of Ocean and Society aims to advance our understanding of these phenomena by exploring a range of terminologies, typologies, spatial transformations, and examples of sustainable practices across diverse geographic contexts.

The editorial “Mapping Beyond the Monodisciplinary Approach: Exploring the Potential of Mapping in Comparative Research Methods” introduces a special issue of the European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes (Vol. 7, No. 1, 2024). It highlights how geospatial mapping can bridge disciplinary, geographic, and temporal divides to address complex global transformations such as climate change, migration, and urbanization. The authors argue that mapping is not a neutral or merely technical practice but a comparative and critical tool for revealing spatial, social, and ecological interrelations. The issue’s contributions demonstrate mapping’s versatility—from historical urban morphology and socio-spatial experiences to logistics landscapes, participatory planning, and education. Together, they show how mapping integrates quantitative and qualitative knowledge, supports ethical and political reflection, and fosters collaboration across fields. Ultimately, the editorial positions mapping as a generative process for shaping more inclusive and sustainable futures.

The ‘Blokjeskaart’: the first national planning map on the spatial layout of the Netherlands

The so-called Blokjeskaart, published in 1966 as part of the Second Policy Document on Spatial Planning in the Netherlands, is the first detailed national spatial planning map of the Netherlands and also the first comprehensive government policy statement on the future layout of the Netherlands. This article briefly outlines how this map is an amalgam of diverse sources and of various mapping and research traditions, such as the cartogram from the late 19th century, survey-before-plan cartographic research from the 1920s and 1930s and the so-called balls map, which shows the distribution of population concentrations across the Netherlands around 2000.

Digital tools and related open datasets, particularly for geospatial analysis, provide an opportunity to connect planning history more closely to the methods of planning practice and heritage itself. While contemporary planners have adopted advanced, data-driven tools to model urban systems and environmental risks, planning historians have largely kept relying on traditional methods, such as static cartography and archival interpretation. This disconnect has contributed to a widening gap between planning practice and its historiography. Drawing on historical examples, such as Maurice Rotival’s pioneering use of computers in planning, and recent digital mapping initiatives, this paper argues for a more integrated, interdisciplinary approach to planning history. It examines how digital platforms, datasets and analytical tools can improve spatial and temporal analysis while maintaining critical historical inquiry. The paper discusses practices such as GIS-based analysis, digital inventories and dashboards, and reflects on institutional and methodological barriers to wider adoption. Engaging with the digital turn enables planning history to evolve beyond biographical and text-based traditions, offering richer insights into the urban past and informing more sustainable, just and historically grounded futures.

In een tijd waarin de concurrentie om ruimte in Europa steeds scherper wordt, biedt het boek Urbanization in Europe een broodnodige realiteitscheck. In de periode van 2000 tot 2018 werd maar liefst 1,26 miljoen hectare land – zo’n 236 voetbalvelden per dag – in Europa omgezet naar stedelijk gebruik. Deze ontwikkeling was vrijwel gelijk verdeeld over woningen, commercieel en industrieel gebruik, infrastructuur en stedelijk groen. Zulke cijfers maken de urgentie van het onderwerp – verstedelijking in Europa – pijnlijk duidelijk, zeker in dichtbevolkte landen als Nederland waar de rek er ruimtelijk gezien wel uit lijkt. ‘We zijn getuige geweest van de meedogenloze uitbreiding van stedelijke nederzettingen en de versnippering van open ruimten’, stelt Sebastian Dembski (Universiteit van Liverpool) in zijn voorwoord. [...]

During the 1960s, a rift between urban planners and architects increased as the first group relied on data and other facts, whereas as the second was led by artistic considerations. The two inaugural lectures of Willem Steigenga and Sam van Embden, published in English for the first time in this booklet, are important testimonies to this rift. Steigenga, originally a social geographer, was appointed in 1962 at the University of Amsterdam. He paid little attention to questions of architecture and beauty. In 1964, Van Embden became professor at the Delft Institute of Technology (TH Delft) - where he had studied under the influential Professor Granpré Molière - and dedicated his speech to the importance of form in town planning. The two lectures are preceded by an introduction written by Yvonne van Mil and Arnold van der Valk.

Large ports such as Rotterdam, Shanghai, or Los Angeles are always in the foreground; they are in the press, the subject of many academic studies, and key players in political decision-making, but what about all small and medium-sized ports in the same territory? If we look at the map of the port city territory of Rotterdam (Hein et al., 2023), we see several red spots indicating the ports of Scheveningen, Schiedam, Dordrecht, and Moerdijk, among others. These ports facilitate access to water and land, effectively support local industries, connect communities, and cooperate with larger maritime hubs (Figure 1). Together, these small ports form an important spatial, social, and economic grouping that is under-researched (Carella et al., 2024) and in need of comprehensive planning and policy advice. This blog presents different perspectives on the challenges and opportunities of small ports by presenting five ongoing projects by PortCityFutures members that address key issues in small ports. These projects were presented during the poster presentation at the symposium (RE-) CONNECTING MARITIME-URBAN ECOSYSTEMS on 16-17 September, 2024. [...]

Sinds maart 2023 is Steffen Nijhuis hoogleraar Landscape-based Urbanism bij de afdeling Urbanism van de faculteit Bouwkunde van de Technische Universiteit Delft. Op vrijdag 2 februari 2024 hield hij zijn intreerede met de titel ’Landschapslogica’. Namens de redactie spraken Yvonne van Mil en Marcel IJsselstijn in Delft met Nijhuis over de ideeën uit zijn intreerede. [...]

Europe is a continent surrounded by water on three sides, with major seaports and metropolises along its coastlines. Each of these waters is different in terms of depth, water quality or role in global shipping, and their unique characteristics have influenced the planning of coastal and port city developments on their edges. Looking at Europe from the water allows us to study how people have adapted the spatial configuration of their port city territories to the characteristics of their neighbouring waters, and to identify similarities and differences in the development of port city territories on a single sea, across seas, rivers or river networks. We argue that such a historical perspective on planning offers decision-makers new insights into the complex territories at the water/land interface and the challenges for future planning in Europe and beyond. Mapping can help us overcome the limitations of historical boundaries and institutions that shape planning and act as a ‘gap finder’, identifying spatial, institutional or functional opportunities and challenges and where planning can be beneficial. In the context of Europe, we argue that the internal focus on nation states, national borders and European unification has distracted policy makers and stakeholders from a multi-scale and maritime perspective of the continent. Crossing borders, exploring territories from sea to land, highlights the unique role of seaports in shaping Europe, past, present and future. By exploring the conceptual and methodological underpinnings of the Port City Atlas, this presentation provides an insight into the role of mapping in planning history.

Analoog aan de campus-atlassen van Delft en Eindhoven in OverHolland 18/19 wordt in deze bijdrage de ruimtelijke opzet en transformatie van de campus van de Universiteit Twente (UT) gedocumenteerd in een serie kaarten en analysetekeningen. Uitgangspunt is daarbij een vergelijking tussen het Structuurplan van de campus uit 1962, de feitelijke situatie in 1975 en die in 2015. Deze drie peilmomenten geven een goed overzicht van de ontwikkelingen van de campus in de afgelopen decennia. De atlas biedt daarmee achtergrondinformatie voor de hiernavolgende beschouwingen elders in dit nummer.

Het Structuurplan uit 1962, opgesteld door Willem van Tijen en Samuel van Embden, vormde het kader van de eerste bouwactiviteiten op de campus. In 1975, elf jaar nadat de eerste gebouwen werden opgeleverd, zijn de oorspronkelijke ontwerpideeën uitgekristalliseerd en heeft de campus min of meer vorm gekregen zoals het de initiatiefnemers en ontwerpers van het eerste uur voor ogen had gestaan. Veertig jaar daarna, in 2015, bevindt de campus zich midden in een ingrijpend transformatieproces. Een algemene heroriëntatie op de oorspronkelijke opzet van de universiteit en de aanwas van studenten hebben hun sporen nagelaten in de ruimtelijke verschijningsvorm. Wat opvalt is niet alleen de ruimtelijke verdichting van de campus, maar ook de hybridisatie; het loslaten van oorspronkelijke functionele zonering en de introductie van nieuwe uitgangspunten. Ook zijn verschillende universiteitsgebouwen van de eerste generatie, die inmiddels hun beste tijd hebben gehad, vervangen of herontwikkeld.

In OverHolland 22 staan de architectuur en stedenbouw van de naoorlogse universiteitscampus centraal. Het nummer bouwt daarmee voort op OverHolland 18/19, waarin een systematische vergelijking van de architectonische erfenis en de recente ontwikkelingsstrategieën van de universiteitscampussen van de TU Delft en de TU Eindhoven de kern vormde. In deze aflevering van OverHolland wordt de naoorlogse universiteitscampus vanuit verschillende perspectieven belicht. Het onderzoek wordt uitgebreid naar de campus van de Universiteit Twente en in een internationaal en didactisch kader geplaatst. Zowel in Nederland als daarbuiten waren in de jaren vijftig en zestig van de vorige eeuw universiteitscampussen bij uitstek het terrein van belangrijke experimenten in het kader van de moderne architectuur en stedenbouw. Maar niet alleen het experimentele karakter, ook de vaak langdurige betrokkenheid van vooraanstaande ontwerpers bij het ontwikkelen van de landschappelijke en stedenbouwkundige opzet en de architectonische uitwerking van de genoemde campussen maken ze tot een interessant object van studie. Tot op de dag van vandaag zorgt de continuïteit van het opdrachtgeverschap voor een zorgvuldige documentatie van bouwplannen en tegenvoorstellen, verdichtings- en uitbreidingsvoorstellen. Recentelijk is daar het vraagstuk van de cultuurhistorische waardenstelling en het erfgoedbeheer nog bijgekomen. [...]

The Atlas was created within the LDE PortCityFutures research group and the Faculty of Architecture TU Delft. It is part of the series on the Urbanization of the Sea, and the kick-off of a sub-series on Mapping Port Cities
> An analytical study on the complexity of port cities in Europe

A multitude of port cities dots Europe’s coastline, all serving the purpose of facilitating maritime transportation. Over millennia, public and private leaders have built harbours, urban spaces and infrastructures in diverse territories to serve hinterlands, including landlocked capital cities and metropolitan areas. As nodes on the edge of water and land, port city territories embody knowledge on maritime flows and water conditions. At a time of climate change, they can be paradigms and stewards of sustainable development.

Taking a comprehensive, mapping based approach, Port City Atlas visualizes 100 port city territories located on four seas and connected through shared waters. It provides a foundation for comparative analysis beyond case study approaches that are often locked into national contexts, select languages or disciplinary approaches. Conceived as a work of reference, the book makes the case for a sea-based approach to the understanding and design of Europe.

Dit artikel presenteert aan de hand van een tijdlijn en een netwerkdiagram van de betrokken architecten en stedenbouwkundigen de ontwikkeling van de Twentse campus naast die van de twee andere Technische Universiteiten in Nederland. De Twentse campus was de derde in de rij, na Delft en Eindhoven. Hoe verhouden de drie campussen zich tot elkaar wat betreft stedenbouwkundige inbedding, ruimtelijke inrichting en gebouwontwerp? Wat zijn de overeenkomsten en verschillen en welke architectonische ideeën migreren tussen de campussen? Voor deze vergelijking maken we gebruik van de campus-atlassen van Delft en Eindhoven die zijn gepubliceerd in OverHolland 18/19. Om de drie campussen te begrijpen en te vergelijken in de tijd, hebben we twee periodes van ruimtelijke ontwikkeling onderscheiden, 1960-1975: Conceptie en consolidatie, en 1975-2015: Transformatie en hybridisatie.

In de eerste periode van conceptie en consolidatie zien we sterke verschillen. In Delft kreeg de campus vorm als een monofunctionele ‘sector’, een apart stadsdeel dat in twee richtingen kon worden uitgebreid. Het ‘studentenleven’, op studentenkamers en in gezelligheidsverenigingen, bleef in de stad gevestigd. De TH’s in Eindhoven en Twente waren compleet nieuw. In Eindhoven verrees de eerste compacte hoogbouwcampus in een parkachtige setting. In Twente werd de eerste en enige residentiële universiteit opgericht, een voor Nederland uniek onderwijsexperiment dat aansloot bij Angelsaksische voorbeelden.

Tijdens de tweede periode van transformatie en hybridisatie beginnen de ruimtelijke ontwikkelingen naar elkaar toe te groeien. Vanwege stagnatie van de studentenaantallen in de jaren zeventig en tachtig was er aanvankelijk in deze periode weinig ontwikkeling op de drie campussen. Er komt pas weer beweging in na de invoering van de bachelor-masterstructuur in 2002. Het werd daardoor voor internationale studenten makkelijker om in Nederland te studeren en het leidde tot een aanzienlijke toename van het aantal studenten, wat meer behoefte aan studentenhuisvesting en andere voorzieningen met zich meebracht.

Port cities around the world have long facilitated trade and the exchange of people. They have developed as part of a network with mirroring facilities for storage, trade and housing in each location. Many of these cities have developed over centuries and share long histories and extensive heritage sites. In this chapter, we argue that while it is relevant to study the reconstruction of a particular waterfront or urban area, it is also important to analyze these projects in the wider context of sea and land, port and city, as part of global maritime networks, and to assess the role that contemporary ports can play in sustainable development of port cities. We argue that the UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach is particularly appropriate for exploring the links between port cities and their heritage in individual cities and for examining the maritime links between cities and using these to inspire preservation and new development activities. The chapter proposes a new socio-spatial methodology, the datawheel, with the aim of collecting existing knowledge and developing new knowledge, values, attitudes and preferences related to historic cities and their heritage. Through the use of historical geospatial mapping (HisGIS), which overlays different, abstract data layers and uses a uniform legend, the chapter briefly explores Rotterdam, Hamburg and London as port cities with changing spatial and institutional constellations in a way that develops a new framework for research on heritage and sustainable development.

For the PortCityFutures community, the working year of 2022 started with a five-day workshop hosted by the Lorentz Center. Even though we couldn’t meet in person because of the lockdown in the Netherlands, these five days were full of connection: between academic, societal and governance partners, between new ideas, concepts and tools, and between water, culture, space and society. Through presentations, discussions and hands-on exercises, we got to know each other’s work better, but were also introduced to new ways for balancing the focus on technology and economy within port cities with a diversity of spatial, social and cultural approaches. In this report, we look back at each day and synthesize the main learnings from this workshop for our world-wide research community.

Ons land is in een periode gekomen, waarin de zorg voor het in stand houden van een goed leefmilieu aan overheid en maatschappij meer dan vroeger ter harte moet gaan. Het besef daarvan dringt algemeen door.

Contemporary urbanization patterns around the North Sea can only be understood by looking at their long-term development and studying how these patterns arose and evolved over the centuries. If we look no further back than the Industrial Revolution, we get a distorted picture. The fact is that urbanization patterns were for the most part already established before that period, as can be clearly seen in the composite map showing all the cities and all reference years. Major port cities like Hamburg, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp emerged during the late Middle Ages. Many other cities of importance today also date back to that period. The Industrial Revolution was decisive for only two groups of cities: those in the English Midlands and in Germany’s Ruhr area. The maps reflecting the situation in 1300 and 2015 reveal that the type of landscape had a huge impact on the urbanization patterns. Landscape provides continuity. In reaction to dramatic changes wrought by political and economic processes, the areas around the North Sea behaved like communicating vessels: the cities in the Southern Netherlands contracted, those in the Northern Netherlands expanded, Holland declined, England prospered. A succession of major economic and political processes is crucial to our understanding of the position, function and significance of today’s key North Sea cities. The foundations of urban patterns around the North Sea were established in the period before 1500. It is noteworthy that for centuries the epicentre of major port cities lay in the politically fragmented areas along the eastern shore of the North Sea where powerful and enterprising townsmen ensured an intensive exchange of goods. In the decades before and after 1600, the far-reaching political changes that occurred during the Dutch Revolt resulted in a shift in prosperity from the southern to the northern provinces, which subsequently experienced the Golden Age. While the southern provinces were constrained by their Spanish rulers, in the newly formed Republic where wealthy citizens were in charge, the cities of Holland flourished as transhipment and trading centres. During the eighteenth century, there were more dramatic shifts: the centre of gravity moved to the other side of the North Sea, to England, where the character of the economy was completely transformed by the Industrial Revolution and the main port cities were now part of a kingdom that evolved into the British Empire in which both government and entrepreneurs played an important role. Ever since industrialization took hold in northern France, Belgium and the Ruhr in the early nineteenth century, the North Sea region has been characterized by several economic epicentres that have managed to survive further far-reaching economic changes in the twentieth century. A consolidation of the pattern of cities around the North Sea occurred, seemingly due to the fact that, since the birth of the welfare state and the European Union, national governments have concentrated on the development of the economy, the population and the cities.

Ports are clearly demarcated structures on land and water. They are fenced in, easily recognizable on satellite and orthophoto images, and they have specific functions. This apparent clarity of ports, their function and outline, in relation to nearby urban and rural areas, becomes more complex when explored through the lens of land use, that is the existing and planned future functional dimension or socio-economic purpose of the land. In contrast to urban and rural areas, where land use has been mapped and defined for centuries, the use and function of land and water in port areas has long been multifunctional and not defined on land use maps. This raises questions about the role and understanding of port territory in relation to neighboring spaces, past, and present. This article first defines land use and describes its historical development. Scholars from various disciplines, including geographers, planners, and economists, have addressed the issue of land use in port areas. Land use patterns have emerged over time and are based on earlier demarcations of port areas and distinctions between port and city. As shown by the historical port city borders in Hamburg, Rotterdam, and Koper, these delimitations can change over time, by location and by function. The land use register has only recently been harmonized at the European level. European and national registers distinguish existing and planned land use in port areas differently. Mixed uses prevail in new port interventions, creating a new kind of permeability or porosity; that is, areas where port, urban and rural functions merge. New land use porosity is a particular state of land use (on both sides of the boundaries of port areas) that goes beyond the physical boundaries marked by fences. Land use porosity effectively creates land use continuity, a functional porosity that serves as a hidden blueprint for future planning. Understanding land use porosity can provide a foundation for novel approaches to the development of transition strategies that are needed to address contemporary challenges, including climate change and sea level rise, digitization, and new work and life practices in port city regions. In conclusion, we note that due to the porosity of land use patterns, the separation between the present port and the city is beginning to crumble. However, this process has yet to be made fully visible and used as a basis for design.

Centuries of trade have left their traces in the culture and society of port cities. This paper explores the usefulness of the concept “maritime mindset” to recognize these traces, and analyses it from different disciplinary perspectives. In the second part, it proposes the practice of “deep mapping” as a methodology of identifying and documenting expressions of maritime culture and trade in public space. In conclusion, it addresses some questions that are crucial when addressing a maritime mindset, such as whether it is a top-down or bottom-up mindset, which spatial scale it entails, and whose values and interests the mindset represents. Ultimately, we argue that (deep) mapping can play a role in producing a more layered spatial, social and cultural understanding of the complex nature of port cities.