Ijselbuurt-Oost, Amsterdam

One of the (many) trials and tribulations of being an independent researcher (that is, not attached to any formal teaching institute) is that much information is learned the hard way. A very hard way. It sometimes feels like ploughing through a field of deep mud with a broken share pulled by an ancient ox that should have retired long ago.

One is confronted by a great mass of things, people, places, events, genres, dynamics and histories that one knows little, if anything, about. Asking AI to sort all this out might create more content but that’s not the same as the production of the sort of knowledge that human consciousness craves.

Just one example is that it took several weeks for me to understand that Amsterdam Zuid and Plan Zuid are two different things. Once that was clarified, it felt as if I could progress.

Plan Zuid was created by the architect and urban planner, HP Berlage and approved in 1917. It involved the building of housing, shops, schools, services and whole new neighbourhoods across an area of 13 km² in the south of the city. There were some existing buildings; sheds, farm infrastructure, workshops and small factories but it did not require widespread demolition.

Amsterdam Zuid refers to the expansion of the the municipal administrative boundaries of the city in 2010. This area is around 17 km square; and it incorporates Plan Zuid.

The original Plan Zuid was loosely defined by the Amstel river to the east and the Schinkel river to the west. Within the overall plan, a number of new buurts (neighbourhoods) were created. The main ones being Stadionbuurt, Apollobuurt, Rivierenbuurt and Nieuwe Pijp, and each contains smaller, distinctive, areas.

Ijselbuurt is one of these smaller communities and is divided into two; Ijselbuurt-West and Ijselbuurt-Oost.

Ijselbuurt-Oost is bounded by the Amstel canal to the north, the Amstel river to the east, Vrijheidslaan to the south and Rijnstraat to the west. These provide the perimeter of a square shape of around 10 hectares (24 acres) which contain the residential streets and open spaces of Amstelkade, Borssenburgstraat, Burgplein, Vechtstraat, Meerhuizenstraat, Meerhuizen Plein, Uithoornstraat, Kortemeerhuizenstraat and Holendrechtstraat.

Most of the housing was built during an intensive burst of construction between 1921 – 1924. When first built there were approximately 1,700 homes which housed around 6,000 – 7,000 people.

The building work was undertaken by a consortium of 70 companies which combined into the Amstels Bouwvereniging (ABV), the Amstel Building Association.

The housing was intended for a ‘middling layer’ of workers, rather than the poorest. This included skilled workers, white collar workers in public services, shop keepers.

Within the overall Plan Zuid were local plans, including one for Ijselbuurt. A committee was formed of the architects J Gratama, J de Meyer, J F Staal and AR Hulshoff. This committee drew up a detailed masterplan of the area, supervised ‘the planning process and architectonic resolution’, and advised the architects on materials and design.

Although Staal was involved he also publicly criticised the development in the magazine Architecture (issue 9, 1923), complaining that ”It so happens that we have now arrived at sham architecture, at ‘masquerade’ architecture…’

Was this opinion valid?

There can be no faulting the overall ambition of Plan Zuid and how well it has been implemented. It addressed at a city, local and neighbourhood level a whole range of questions. How to provide high density housing that was of good quality, well designed and fitted together, while leaving space for greenery, play areas, public transport systems; and be supported by schools, surgeries, shops and services.

Many of the architects involved were committed socialists, or socially committed or both. There was a strong governance framework of building regulations and aesthetic standards. These regulations and standards were both monitored and enforced.

Across the whole of Plan Zuid it is impressive how each block fits into the street, the street fits into the buurt, the buurts interlock together and the sum of all these parts fits into the city as a whole. The best way to discover all of this is surely by foot.

I walked to Ijselbuurt from the 305 bus stop at Prins Hendrikkade, mainly along Valkenburgerstraat to Waterlooplein and along the Amstel river.

It was from the opposite bank of the river that I caught the first glimpse of Ijselbuurt and the bridge designed by Piet Kramer.

I first walked around the perimeter roads of Vrijheidslaan, Rijnstraat, Amstelkade and Amsteldijk and then explored the residential streets and open spaces within.

Here are some photographs, notes, a map and self-generated thoughts of that enjoyable summer afternoon in this particular neighbourhood of Amsterdam.

The map above will help to identify the architects involved.

It takes a particular skill to design housing blocks to run along a wide busy city road so that the housing doesn’t get lost or overshadowed by street traffic. The block on the right hand side is by Michel de Klerk, the block that faces is it by Piet Kramer.

They were good friends and often worked together so closely that even now architectural historians are not always clear who designed which buildings. De Klerk was a communist, of the early Russian Revolution sort. Kramer was influenced by Sufism.

They both had the ability to make something special and compelling about any expanse of brick. What might become barrack like or industrial is bought alive by swirls and turrets, bricks forming a surprising kink in a wall, the roof tiles tipping their hats to the world.

Both De Klerk and Kramer held pencils that could not stay still on the drawing board; pencils that were always, as Paul Klee would say, taking a line for a walk.

The corner of Vrijheidslaan and Rijnstraat looking north towards the Amstel canal along Rijnstraat. This marks the boundary between Ijselbuurt-Oost and Ijselbuurt-West. Both the main blocks on either side of the Rijnstraat are by Boterenbrood. The end block on the right hand side is by Jouke Zeitsma.

Look closely at each block and note the variation. One has arches to the shops, bay windows on the first, second and third floors; there is variation even at this detailed level.

The three pointed-arch windows (spitsboogvensters) on the Zeitsma block are part of his signature style

Here is a different view of the end block by Zietsma. It forms a bookend to the whole street.

This is the front elevation of the block by Boterenbrood on Rijnstraat. There is great deal going on here without intrusive fussiness.

The single arched window creates not just a window, but a means of time travel; this might be a medieval hospital, a place of comfort, sanctuary and care.

The sculpted pieces in the centres of the wall suggest something heraldic, or perhaps more appropriately, a reference to the guilds of quality and craft that medieval workers put their species being into. Through the quality of their work expressing their knowledge and skill as an offering to God, to the universal spirit. And a reminder to all that it is labour that makes us human.

This is the corner of Rijnstraat and Amstelkade and most of what can be seen here is by Gerrit Jan Rutgers.

This building seems to be an expression in brick of the age of high speed express trains, great ocean liners, the chugging of engines and the low drone and throb of the machines of an era of mass production.

Note the symbolic aerials made of brick on either side of the staircase towers; surely a reference to transformation of the means of production through the harnessing of the natural power of electricity. An expression of the revolution in the means of communication which produced radio transmission. This could be the architecture of revolutionary Petrograd.

The Amsterdam School made good use of a range of styles, helping to create elements of eclecticism, although there was also tension between architects in relation to Expressionism, De Stijl and much else.

This block along the Amstelkade is by HT Wijdeveld. His long career started when he began work at the age of 12 in the offices of Jacques van Straaten (who designed the Bijenkorf department store). He lived until he was 101. This housing has views across the Amstel canal.

The Amstel river is at the eastern end of Amstelkade and then to the right, the Amsteldijk. The housing along here was built for the Amsterdam Cooperative Building Association Eigen Hulp and was for middle class tenants. The architect was Theo Lammers. It is worth pausing to consider this further.

Cities need mass architecture to house the thousands or even millions of people who live in them. For this to be done well it means working with the quotidian, because that’s where most people live, most of the time, both physically and psychologically.

And below is an example of how the delight of the everyday can be expressed in practice. There is so much good detail here.

Let’s start from the left hand side and move our eyes along starting with the curve on the wall behind the bike carrier. Next is the concrete or stone cap. Then the light next to the door. The door itself of solid, varnished wood that has the atmosphere of Arts & Crafts. It is a clear separation, a strong pattern, that defines the change from the busy street life into the domestic interior.

The window above the door that will provide light into the hall, and then next to the door, a dropped jewel ear-ring set in a red brick which drips in a vertical pattern. Held up by a foundation of horizontal bricks.

It is an outcome which suggests that the architect, Theo Lammers, was playfully toying on a drawing board one afternoon with a big slice of ginger cake and a large cup of black coffee. Dawdling around, inspiration emerged. How about a brick walk with alternating brick work and stone caps?

Then why not stretch that wind-chime red-brick work across the whole of the ground floor facade? I wonder what it would look like if I change these bricks to horizontal and then put a low brick wall in front with a curved top? Well if there’s going to be a curve, why not another curve up along the height of the building to create a wave, as if the brick was blown by a gentle breeze before it settled?

The overwhelming impression is that everyone involved in this, the architect, brick layers and tenants thoroughly enjoyed the process of design and construction and liveability. Imagine that. Perhaps the conviviality of labour is part of the antidote to exploitation and alienation.

And here is that lovely detail within the wider context of the block and the street.

Now let us go and explore Holendrechtstraat

This was designed by Margaret Staal-Kropholler and built between 1921 – 22. It is the first housing design to be produced by a woman architect in Amsterdam. Staal-Kropholler studied at the School of Architecture, Decorative Arts and Artistic Crafts in Haarlem and then at night school in Amsterdam.

She met her husband to be, the architect JF Staal, when they worked together in the same office. They mixed in radical circles that included the communists Henriette Roland Holst and Roland Holst.

Staal-Kropholler was an advocate of socialist feminism and took a particular interest in the position of working class women within the family and worked to incorporate her ideas into housing design.

This is well defined architecture. and forms part of an overall perimeter block with the housing on the Amsteldijk. Within the perimeter there is a large garden.

Staal-Kropholler was an Amsterdam School architecture and here we see some of the motifs that the school applied. Round towers; almost medieval, castle like, castles in the sky, formed by clouds, nebulous, changeable and yet when you look again it is the permanence that remains.

Now to explore some more. This housing is by Liesbeth van der Pol and was built in 2002. I think this works really well; van der Pol not only acknowledges the Amsterdam School in her work but develops it for new times.

I am not sure where that wall has come from but it is a wonderful part of the open space. The fact that it’s at an angle surely encourages all sorts of people to try it as a seat?

There is still more to see and I will just select one further street, Vechtstraat.

Much of the architecture here is by Nico Lansdorp. He had the distinction of having work submitted to the 1924 Summer Olympics held in Paris. Between 1912 – 1948, Olympic medals were awarded to architecture, painting, sculpture, literature and music.

There is so much to like here that I think the best approach is to just spend some time engaging in visual exploration. As your eyes adjust you will notice the brick work, the decoration in the corner at roof height, two triangular windows, the chimney which has become a decorative feature, the effect created by the parallel brick lines at the attic storey.

And then at street level note the friendly signs of life.

A cafe, a bicycle covered in pink and white flowers, chairs and a cot being given away for free; two pairs of shoes for anyone who needs shoes on the top of the waste bin. The flowers that surround the base of the tree, the flowers that grow from the pavement, the green trailing plants that cover the base of the first floor windows. It is a lived in community.

It is this sort of street life that is completely missing from private management-controlled high rise large-lump buildings. Everything in such places is focused on service charges and poor doors.

And the only selling point is height and yet more height, and then one day, like Icarus those buildings will rise too close to the sun and they will tumble and fall.

And yet the socialist inspired housing of Amsterdam, London, Vienna, Paris, Zurich, Berlin, Frankfurt and elsewhere continues to thrive.

Build well my friends, and let us work towards creating the housing the people of the world deserve.