Hop, the sloop bullet in it, says Amsterdam
A ghost haunts Amsterdam – a ghost with a boat hammer. Anyone who thinks it is from the years of housing blocks and monumental buildings from the sixties, seventies and eighties, has the twentieth buildings in Amsterdam – and more than that.
Two (architectural) historians from the University of Amsterdam, Wouter van Elburg and Hanneke Ronnes, sound the alarm. She a complete website a book, Amsterdam sloop, which was published late last year. The overview of disappeared properties that they have entered makes the reader burst into tears. How is it possible that in Amsterdam there is always a lot of beauty on the horizon?
The three biggest threats to the cityscape today, write Van Elbug and Ronnes, are project developers, wealthy individuals and housing corporations. The first two main interests of the tower real estate prices in Amsterdam: new luxury apartments bring in more money than carefully restored old buildings. For the housing associations, which control approximately half of the Amsterdam market.
How is it possible that in Amsterdam there is always a lot of beauty on the horizon?
You would say that the municipality, which developed the engine behind the sloop in the first decades after the war, has learned its lesson: you will find few Amsterdammers who are still happy with – just to name a few – the Wibautstraat, the Stopera of the shopping center De Kolk. Or regretting that the Jordaan was never demolished and the Olympic Stadium still standing.
Yet it is the municipality that facilitates, or at least does not prevent, the large-scale demolition of this beautiful architecture, as Van Elburg and Ronnes show in their book. Anyone who wants to demolish in Amsterdam does not need a permit: a simple notification to the municipality is sufficient. a monument, of a building that design of a protected landscape. But that only applies to a fraction of Amsterdam’s buildings, certainly outside the city center.
For example, it could happen that the beautiful Valerius clinic in Oud-Zuid had to make way in 2017 for a complex with apartments from 3 million euros. The monument status is missing, the protected cityscape of Plan Berlage at the Apollolaan: go, the wrecking ball in it. For the same reasons last year – despite a city fighting and loud protest – three historic villas on the Vondelpark, in the Van Eeghenstraat.
Housing associations have been investing in flat housing blocks since the 1950s. At the time, this was done in the context of urban renewal, but they are also happily continuing in the twenty-first century. In the nineteenth-century neighborhoods, complete clear-cutting has now taken place: in the Van Lennepbuurt 31 percent of the social housing has been demolished and replaced by new construction, in the Dapperbuurt 39 percent and in the Indian neighborhood even half.
For the sloop of their buildings, the corporations use a ‘grab bag of false arguments’, write Van Elburg and Ronnes. For example, the houses are too small and the residents themselves would like a sloop. The boldest argument: the buildings are dilapidated. But, um, who was responsible for the maintenance again?
Corporations hardly agree with each other who will demolish where, says Hanneke Ronnes. This lack of direction is particularly evident in Amsterdam-East five, where approximately five hundred housing association homes have been demolished between 2018 and 2020 – housing blocks that often started at a distance from each other. Ronnes: “I think they just run into each other with the wrecking ball. Like: oh, you breaking down too?”
Very occasionally it is possible to avoid the sloop of a building, such as two years ago at the former home of diarist Etty Hillesum. But that required alert local residents, heavy publicity pressure and a whole procession of prominent people.
“A sloop often follows regret”, write Van Elburg and Ronnes in their book. “The first instances were also of sloop.” You could add to that: what will replace all those vanished Amsterdam buildings is mediocre at best and hideous at worst.
NRC asked Van Elburg and Ronnes to select the five difficult cases from Amsterdam sloop, plus one example where sloop was successfully averted.
Wouter van Elburg and Hanneke Ronnes: Amsterdam sloop, publisher Panchaud, 126 pp., price € 18.90.
Valerius Clinic
Built 1910
Scrapped 2017
The Valeriuskliniek, a psychiatric institution for ‘the insane and nervous patients’, was designed by architect Huibertus Bonda, a student of Berlage. Later, the building was fitted with an eye-catching stained glass window. After the clinic moved to a new building in Buitenveldert in 2012, the new owners demolished the building. There are hyper-luxurious apartments for the over-55s. The decision to open a sloop, write Van Elburg and Ronnes, was taken “with flying speed”, “apparently without the possibility of protesting”.
Hanneke Ronnes: „Everything here was obvious: the clinic was not a monument, the Vondelparkbuurt was not a protected cityscape. The district apparently thought it was fine for luxury apartments to be built here, and expects them to be proud of the historical value of Valeriusplein. Which square in Amsterdam was so beautiful? On the one side you have the Amsterdamsch Lyceum, with that beautiful underpass, on the other side still gave mansions. Part has now been removed. You have to cycle past it with a blinker on.”
Post CS
Built 1968
Scrapped 2009
Until 2009 the Stationspostgebouw by architect Piet Elling stood on the spot where the appearance of Booking.com is now rising. In the 1970s and 1980s, more than a third of all mail in the Netherlands was sorted here on Oosterdokseiland. After the last postal train left in 1997, the building found a new destination as a temporary exhibition space for the Stedelijk Museum Post CS.
“Post CS would remain in the first plans for Oosterdokseiland,” says Wouter van Elburg. “It was demolished for some reason. It has emerged: no more layers at all, but architecture from the same time.”
For Van Elburg, Post CS is a symbol of Amsterdam architecture after 1965. “There is an immediate revaluation for this: buildings are being inventoried to become monuments. If Post CS were still there today, it would never have been demolished.”
Residential block Lootsstraat
Built 1910
Scrapped 2017
Also in Amsterdam-West, housing associations are mercilessly placing the sloop hammer. This residential block in the Kinkerbuurt, on the corner of Lootsstraat and Borgerstraat, was originally established by private entrepreneurs and eventually came into the hands of De Alliantie.
The housing corporation to new construction: in 2017 the buildings were destroyed.
Wouter van Elburg: “This was a corner in a neighborhood that has been well preserved since the 1990s. The sloop of such an entire block destroys the cohesion in the street. Constructively, this block was completely in order, it just needed an applied facelift after an unfortunate renovation in the years with plastic frames and front doors that consist of plates.”
Colonial Establishment
Built 1913
Scrapped 2009
In this large building at the beginning of the Westerdoksdijk, the Inspection Service of Colonial Waren was located, where goods from the Dutch East Indies were stored and inspected. After Indonesia’s independence, the building served various purposes, most recently as a base for the National Police on Water.
The building was demolished to make way for the marina of IJdock, the enormous complex in the IJ that includes a luxury hotel and the Palace of Justice.
Wouter van Elburg: „The Etablissment was a beautiful, large building. Now that it’s gone, there’s no more variety at Westerdoksdijk – pretty crazy for this place. Moreover, a piece of history has been erased. The second half of the 19th century. This would have been an excellent place to house the future Slavery Museum.”
Gabriel Metsu Street 2-6
Built 1900
saved
In this house on the Museumplein, the Jewish Etty Hillesum (1914-1943) wrote her famous war diaries. When real estate magnate Ronald Egger wanted to demolish the building two years ago to make way for luxury apartments with an underground underground neighborhood residents in action. After a publicity storm, the city council agreed: the building was given municipal monument status, the demolition plans could go straight into the drawer.
Wouter van Elburg: „The owner of the little knowledge of the property, and how many intense feelings sloop. He now has a plan to bring it back to the state.”
Hanneke Ronnes: „The properties have been issued, but still a lot of effort: there are petitions and protests from the NIOD and people like Arnon Grunberg and Paul are involved in Witteman. Preventing sloops in Amsterdam only seems to be successful with the help of the media and cultural heavyweights.”
Residential block Sumatra Street
Built 1912
Scrapped 2020
This triangular residential block on Sumatrastraat, Madurastraat and Borneostraat in Amsterdam-East was built by the original housing association of Amsterdam: the Vereeniging Bouwmaatschappij tot Acquisition of Own Homes.
A gable stone to the historical importance of the building.
Two years ago the current owner, housing association de plain.
Hanneke Ronnes: „Together with Studio K across the street, this building formed a beautiful ensemble. That’s gone now, they could also have refurbished. What will take its place soon doesn’t matter much. It is true that housing associations have had a tough time in recent years, due to the landlord levy and the disappearance of subsidies. But they don’t really have to explain to anyone what they demolish.”