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Architect definition for kids11/15/2023 ![]() Van Eyck’s path and that of the functional modernist school were initially one and the same. Aldo van Eyck played an important role in defining what would follow. They were soon to find a huge protest movement on their way that effectively poured sand in the machine, and finally defeated what was by then called the ‘urban bulldozer’ (3). The Dutch planners, however, never got that far. A wholesale urban modernization wave that would form a 20th century version of the hitherto unrealized 19th century Hausmannisation of Amsterdam, much like Robert Moses famously used ‘the meat-axe’ to make space for his parkways and causeways in New York. What was on the agenda was a tabula rasa makeover of Amsterdam’s 19th century ring of popular and derelict neighborhoods, the Jordaan, Nieuwmarkt, Oostelijke Eilanden, Weesperbuurt and the Pijp (2). This vision was radicalized in the sixties, when the entire city clogged up due to the explosive rise of car traffic, and urban planners introduced a proposal for an extensive network of metro lines and highways to cut through the old fabric of the city. This was the basic premise of the large-scale construction of new post-war neighborhoods in the fifties such as Buitenveldert and the Westelijke Tuinsteden, resulting in the well known open housing blocks with large amounts of light, air, greenery and monotony.īut the agenda of functional separation also resulted in the conclusion that Amsterdam’s economic center, the CBD, had to be further expanded and the old city had to be “opened up” to traffic. His plan embraced the ideal of functional separation, meaning that housing, work, traffic and recreation where to be functionally separated and integrally planned. In Amsterdam, Cornelis van Eesteren, longtime president of the CIAM, was to implement his General Extension Plan (Algemeen Uitbreidingsplan – AUP) of 1934, one the first modern urban masterplans to be based on extensive statistical forecasts of demographic and transport developments (1). Postwar urban planning in the Netherlands mainly consisted of a rushed and economized implementation of the prewar ideals of the modernist movement grouped around the CIAM (Congres International d’Architecture Moderne), identified with the work of modernist architects like Le Corbusier, Giedion, and Gropius. ![]() Van Eyck’s playgrounds, initially build on temporarily unused plots of land, can be seen as an emergency measure, but they had a significance far beyond that of a creative solution in a time of need. At that time, some playgrounds existed in the city, but almost all of them were of a private nature and based on membership of the fortunate few. On top of that, this ravaged urban context was soon to be confronted with the birth peak of the postwar baby boom, whereas almost no space for children was available, neither inside nor outside the house. Combined with a dysfunctional infrastructure, it presented planners with the situation of an outright emergency. The housing stock was falling dramatically short in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Immediately after the Second World War, Dutch cities were in a state of dereliction. Though largely disappeared, defunct and forgotten today, these playgrounds represent one of the most emblematic of architectural interventions in a pivotal time: the shift from the top down organization of space by modernist functionalist architects, towards a bottom-up architecture that literally aimed to give space to the imagination. Many hundreds more followed, in a spatial experiment that has (positively) marked the childhood of an entire generation. In 1947, the architect Aldo van Eyck built his first playground in Amsterdam, on the Bertelmanplein.
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