Patching Up The Lowlands

Abstract

The Netherlands is a place where the interplay between mankind and Nature1 resonates deeply within the roots of its omnipresent cultural landscape. Proactively shaping this landscape, which is widely considered as the most eminent aspect of place identity of the Lowlands, stands at the cradle of the by now long and rich tradition of planning urban development. The unintentional production of this key facet of Dutch culture traces back to the Middle Ages when the peatlands of the western delta were cultivated and colonized, gradually forming over millennia through natural processes. Inhabiting this inhospitable environment led early settlers to adopt a technophilic2 approach, perceiving nature as something that needed to be controlled. This organized endeavour resulted in rapid polycentric urbanization, where manmade inland waterways interconnected medieval cities and rural villages spatially, socially and economically, on the territorial scale of what is referred to in this thesis as the Deltametropolis3. However, the transition to modernity disrupted this equilibrium, creating a divide between the increasingly separate spheres of ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ driven by the pursuit of global economic competitiveness. A metropolitan region was starting to take shape based on the already centuries-old urbanized configuration – complete with mutually competitive and independent cities in a discontinuous countryside, connected by an extensive infrastructural network, and where each individual citizen could compose their own polycentric city. While urban and rural typologies have long been dissolved into a continuum, today public policy still prioritizes compact city models and sectoral economic development, overlooking strategic interdependencies within the metropolitan region and worsening socio-economic inequalities. With the increasing pressure from Natural forces – once the core catalyst of the production of Dutch culture – the Anthropocene is experiencing a second deep transition that will once more inevitably alter our relation towards our natural environment. In anticipation of an uncertain future, this design exploration aims to express an authentic articulation of the spatial configuration of the Deltametropolis, drawing lessons from the past to shape the future, in which urban and rural spatial qualities are symbiotically reintegrated and our relation with Nature is critically reassessed.

(de Geyter et al., 2002; Geuze et al., 2016; Koolhaas et al., 1993; Palmboom, n.d.; Van der Woud, n.d.)