Kor Wagenaar is an assistant professor at the Delft University of Technology, a professor at the University of Groningen. Deals with the history of architecture and urbanism. He teaches the course "History of Urbanism" as part of the Master's program "Best Practices of Urban Design" at the Graduate School of Urbanism, National Research University Higher School of Economics and the Strelka Institute.
Archi.ru:
Is it possible to change cities without changing the way of thinking of the townspeople? To develop the outskirts, while having centralized power and "centripetal" consciousness?
Kor Wagenaar:
- Changing the consciousness of the townspeople is not at all the primary task of urbanists, as you might guess. Moreover, centralization is now becoming an almost global trend. This is a reaction to the fact that suburbia is becoming obsolete and the urban outskirts are creating more and more problems. Sometimes such processes result in population displacement and gross gentrification of centers. Keeping the outskirts alive is the challenge that city planners have to solve.
In the minds of many, the development of Dutch urbanism stopped, if not in the 19th century, then at Almera for sure. What are the current challenges facing urbanists in the Netherlands?
- The story with Almere clearly demonstrates the path that urbanism has traveled in the Netherlands. When it just took shape as an independent discipline, which began to be taken into account in the management of cities, its main task was to combat unsanitary conditions, social disorder and political tension. That is, with everything that big cities give rise to. Therefore, its promising direction was decidedly anti-urban. This anti-urbanism grew even stronger after 1945, when the suburbs were considered ideal places to live. As a result, the car became a key attribute of life, settlements with low density were considered the best place to live - all this changed, and many even believe that it destroyed the landscapes of the western provinces.
The Almere project has become a kind of turning point. Now the suburbia is over, only those who have no choice live on the outskirts: the cities have won. Not only big ones like Amsterdam, but also smaller ones like Utrecht and Groningen are undergoing gentrification. She must turn them into a safe habitat for those who can afford to live in them. Along with this, the suburbs are becoming a source of many problems - public, social and medical. Urbanists now need to deal with the complexities of the suburbs as they once had to deal with the problems of cities. This is a very serious challenge, because suburbs are everywhere, they cannot be taken and simply erased.
Take Randstad and Moscow. The first is an example of a metropolis that has grown together from cities into its own self-sufficient structure. The second is purely centralized education. Should the approaches and methods be different for such megacities? Which ones are easier to work with?
- Since the Dutch urbanists realized that big cities are becoming popular and the suburbs are going out of fashion, they have portrayed Randstad as a metropolis or big city with suburbs. But strictly speaking, Randstad is the benchmark for suburbanization. When the suburbs were still held in high esteem, it was positioned as an ideal anti-city: empty on the inside, with a "green heart", and thus built on the outside with "Rand" - a ring of cities around the green center. In fact, this is not a megalopolis at all, it is impossible to compare it with Moscow. A real metropolis should have a single core, and not several dozen, which, moreover, compete with each other. There is no doubt that Moscow is much easier to deal with than Randstad. In terms of urban planning, the suburbs are out of control by default. They lack a centralized authority that would take over the management functions, or at least monitor what happens in them.
one of the typical Randstad panramas (Almere):
How does the fact that the population of Europe and, in particular, the Netherlands, have changed a lot over the past decades affect urban planning? First, it has become much older
- Aging is a fact. It is also a fact that those changes in cities that are favorable for older residents are also favorable for all other generations. There is no specific “healthy city” model for older people. But in itself, working with models of “healthy cities” is another new facet of urbanism.
The population of Europe is becoming more and more diverse in its ethnic and religious composition
- Is it possible to create special models of cities that meet the fact that our society is becoming more and more multi-ethnic, multicultural and multi-confessional? To create an environment in which different groups would live together without conflict, and ideally merge at all, has always been an integral task of urbanism. Presumably, architects are prudently committed to building and developing residential areas, correlating with the problems of the outskirts and models of the "healthy city". I don't even mean the half-joking Le Medi building in Rotterdam. It was designed by Geurts & Schulze in 2006 to recreate a Mediterranean atmosphere that would resonate with some migrants.
To what extent should the unforeseen be taken into account in the process of urban planning? What is the role of the unpredictable in urbanism?
- Admitting unpredictable events is inseparable from planning. But in neoliberal doctrine, allusions to the unpredictability of things may result in planning ambition diminishing or disappearing altogether. In addition, city planners are often pointed out their mistakes, which, by the way, they do not deny. But the fact that in many countries people live in much better conditions than their ancestors is largely due to urban planning. Of course, the current toolkit is fundamentally different from the masterplans we worked with in the 50s, 60s and 70s. It is now becoming important to interact with both political structures and other disciplines. Incidentally, architect Ralph Pasel, now based in Berlin and formerly based in Rotterdam, is exploring the benefits of informal urban growth - that is, development from the bottom up. He studied illegal settlements in Latin America and transferred their features to the development of the Dutch suburbs. That is, in fact, he turned them into tools for urban planning.
How did it happen that exactly Dutch urbanism became one of the synonyms for high-quality urban planning?
- Urban planning develops between two poles. On the one hand, urban studies as a body of knowledge is an absolutely international discipline. But at the same time, she is faced with the need to solve local problems, work with people who received local education, and act within the framework of local laws, which, in turn, grew out of national politics. The Netherlands is a very successful example of the constant interaction of national characteristics and international knowledge.
What factors contributed to this?
- In the 17th century, in its Golden Age, the country became one of the most urbanized regions. Amsterdam was the third largest city in the world and at the same time the richest. Holland was, in the words of Amy Chua, a colonial "superpower" and exported its methods of urban development, which in most cases included fortification systems. The layout of cities was largely determined by natural features: the country is partially located below sea level. The result was a simple lattice structure in which basic geometric shapes were surrounded by a strip of fortifications. Gradually, from a country exporting its model of the city, Holland turned into an importer of the latest trends. In the 18th century, we looked at France, from the middle of the 19th century and 1930s - at Germany, and then - more and more at the United States. However, we have always adapted the imported models to local conditions. The classic project - the expansion of Utrecht in the 1920s - followed international trends, but resulted in a layout that was still typically Dutch. The most impressive projects associated with the development of Amsterdam in 1918-1925 would have been unthinkable without the example of Germany. But they are all very Dutch too.
What determines this "Dutchness"?
- The territory, land and culture are very bourgeois, hardly amenable to the influence of the aristocracy and thoroughly imbued with a rejection of the ostentatious, which is usually associated with Calvinism. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the role of state housing has been strengthened. It weakened somewhat in the nineties, but now it is gradually gaining strength again. This is due to the VINEX program, according to which the districts were built up in the second half of the 90s - early 2000s. Despite the fact that most of the housing there is occupied by owners, planning models stem from the methods that were developed during the years of post-war reconstruction.
What are the features of the course you teach with Russian students?
- I am teaching a course on the history of urbanism in the magistracy. I constantly emphasize that history is not about the past, but about the present and the future. It provides an opportunity to see and analyze social, economic and cultural changes. The history of urbanism is associated with the analysis of the natural, spatial and design characteristics of cities, settlements, villages and landscapes. It is not limited only to monuments, but includes all the phenomena of the environment. Obviously, the history of urbanism deals with material culture - buildings and cities, but should not be limited to the description and analysis of these objects.
The main goal is to figure out how they appeared, how the processes of thinking and design developed, what ideas, ambitions, ideologies, beliefs and interests are behind them. Urban historians view buildings, cities, settlements and landscapes as historical documents, and this creates another layer that complements and sometimes coincides with their cultural and historical significance. We study, analyze how artifacts from different eras coexist, and this turns the city into a multi-layered historical and cultural phenomenon. With students we study a certain number of topics: health and the city, the city and war, the city and genetic codes, years and nature. Each of them is presented as a continuous historical process - from the past to the future. And since the course is taught in Moscow, we try to refer specifically to Moscow as pars pro toto. Since the history of the city is very rich and it is extremely interesting from the point of view of urban studies, the course was liked by both foreign and Russian students of the program. The reporting form may differ from the traditional exam. It can be a guidebook, an exposition, or a film festival - like the one we are planning to hold in June at Strelka.
