Traces of Timber Traffic
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Abstract
In 1299, Count Johannes I van Holland and Count Johannes van Avesnes granted Dordrecht staple rights. Consequently, all goods that were transported over the rivers Merwede and Lek had to be offered on the market of Dordrecht first before they went anywhere else. This secured Dordrecht’s position as a trading city, which it had become due to its strategic location at the intersection of east-west and north-south trade routes. Significant for Dordrecht was the trade of wine, grain, and wood. The latter had already started in 1287. That year, the first known report was made of a German wood raft flowing down the river to Dordrecht. This marked the beginning of Dordrecht as one of the most important Dutch centres of wood trade for more than six centuries.
Physical remnants of the pre-industrial wood trade in the Waterdriehoek, the area around Dordrecht, were looked for during the research part of this thesis. Landscape remnants were found by comparing old maps to current satellite imagery. Timber buildings were found through archival research and fieldwork.
The design focuses on one of the five remaining pre-industrial timber barns in the Waterdriehoek. This barn stands in Kinderdijk, the village that is world famous for its mills. The outer dike barn was part of a shipyard and millrod-producing factory. Its rich history is the starting point of the reconstruction design.
On the other side of the dike stands a former boardhouse of one of the two former waterboards in Kinderdijk. It was built to meet, eat, and sleep in. These functions are again accommodated in the redesign. Meeting rooms, a bakery shop and lunchroom, and a B&B are placed both in the original boardhouse and in newly added nature-friendly barns behind the boardhouse.
These functions serve both the village inhabitants and the tourists who come to see the mills. Its position between the mass tourism zone and the small village prevents the tourists from entering the village, reducing the tourist nuisance for the village inhabitants.
Furthermore, the masterplan design enriches the tourist experience. Routing, functional, and design alterations are made to make the tourist visit complete, logical, and pleasing to the eye.