Almere - the Dutch Way of Urban Planning

Booming polder town Almere: the Dutch way of urban planning

ALMERE, The Netherlands, Jan 1, 2007 (AFP) - They say that God created the Earth but the Dutch created the Netherlands; and Almere is one of the most striking examples of the Dutch determination to reclaim land from the sea.

Less than 50 years ago the land Almere was built on was still open water. Now the town that was built from scratch is the most rapidly growing town in the Netherlands and the fastest growing "new town" or planned city in Europe.

"This is a city straight from the drawing board. Nothing here developed organically, everything is mapped out," Almere mayor Annemarie Jorritsma said.

Almere celebrated last November the 30th anniversary of the date the first inhabitants received the keys to their homes. The town, a 30-minute drive from Amsterdam, went from zero to 180,000 inhabitants in 30 years with predictions of 250,000 in 2015.

The town is popular with architecture enthusiasts and social scientists because of its pioneering role.

"Almere embodies this idea that government policies can effect social change and shape society. This experiment of how a city works and can be built is interesting on a social level and on the level of urban development," Jaapjan Berg, a former curator of the Dutch Architecture Institute NAI who is writing a book about Almere, told AFP.

Almere is also quintessentially Dutch as it showcases the artificial environmental and urban planning that permeates the Netherlands, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with 16 million inhabitants living on 41,528 square kilometres.

"The Netherlands cannot afford to do it any other way than strictly organized because of the population density. Also it's just not in our nature," Berg said.

Now, with its expansion endorsed by the government that designated Almere a growth location, the town has to make a quantum leap in size.

To help make it a real city with its own identity the Almere municipality has commissioned the development of a new ambitious city centre and shopping area.

Dutch modernist architect Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitain Architecture studio designed the masterplan for the new centre. Koolhaas is known for his love for complicated and large scale buildings. He is the designer behind the Prada stores in Los Angeles and New York.

Although only one building in the complex, the movie theatre, is designed by Koolhaas's studio he did come up with the most eye-catching feature: an artificial incline rising to 6.5 meters above ground level to bring some relief from the flat polder landscape that dominates Almere.

By creating a small hill Koolhas was also able to create two levels in the shopping area making space for roads, public transport and 2,400 parking spaces in the lower level while the upper level is a pedestrian zone with shops.

At the city centre's highest point stands the Citadel building by Parisian architect Christian de Portzamparc. On the lower level is a large shopping mall but the top of the building is a big roof garden with 52 terraced houses creating a green oasis in the middle of a busy shopping centre.

Mayor Jorrtisma hopes that the new city centre will help boost Almere's image. It has been long seen as a dormitory suburb of Amsterdam where everything was dominated by similar housing estates.

"People have the idea that Almere has no identity of its own," she said.

"It is artificial and it is planned but it is also a city ... a city that is still not finished".>