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Abstract
In the current debate about the future of the Dutch countryside, more and more attention is drawn to the role of landscape heritage. Spatial designers are asked to translate historic identities into spatial forms in order to bridge the gap between past and future. Special cultural heritage policies are developed to stimulate a shift in design practice and to increase awareness of the value of cultural landscapes. Because interpretation of the rural landscape is often rooted in nostalgia, most conservation efforts are directed at old historical landscapes and rural scenes. But what about modern rural landscapes? How do these landscapes relate to the emerging issue of heritage protection and development? To answer this question the historical significance of these landscapes was examined by analyzing their design in the slipstream of post-war reconstruction. Attention was also given to their possible future in a planning and management context that is increasingly influenced by a public and professional demand for landscape conservation and heritage. We argue that these landscapes are at odds with the values and core convictions of the current heritage policies and merit recognition in their own right.
Notes
1 See the work of W.G. Hoskins for a well-known example of this anti-modern attitude in geography. In his seminal book on the making of the English landscape he stated that “the industrial revolution and the creation of parks around the country houses have taken us down to the later years of the nineteenth century. Since that time, and especially since 1914, every single change in the English landscape has either uglified it or destroyed its meaning, or both” (Hoskins, Citation1969, p. 298). Bender (Citation1993) has sharply commented this view. She has argued that Hoskins's version of history is “the past cut off from the present”. This could lead to a situation in which “those in the Heritage trade would claim Hoskins as the intellectual inspiration for their mummification of the countryside” (Bender, Citation1993, pp. 737 – 755).
2 Norbert Bézard, a farmer from the Sarthe region in Central France, initiated Le Corbusier's plans for The Radiant Farm and The Radiant Village. Bézard was a syndicalist and had joined the Prélude group in 1933. In that same year he wrote to Le Corbusier asking for a solution to the agricultural and rural problems of France (Bézard, Citation1934).
3 The famous urban planner Cornelis van Eesteren was chairman of the CIAM from 1930 to 1947. Van Eesteren worked for the Town Planning department of the Municipality of Amsterdam (1929 – 1959), where he developed the Amsterdam General Extension Plan together with Van Lohuizen. Van Eesteren was also involved in the planning, layout and design of the IJsselmeer polders, one of the highlights of the history of Dutch land reclamation and dike building (Hemel, Citation1994).
4 In fact the main function of the University of Wageningen in the 1950s and 1960s was to deliver all sorts of agricultural specialists, trained to assist the government in implementing its large-scale agricultural reconstruction program.
5 Sicco Mansholt came from a socialist farmer's family in the Dutch province of Groningen. Prime Minister Schermerhorn asked Mansholt immediately after the war, in June 1945, to take a seat in his cabinet as minister of Agriculture, Fishery and Food distribution. Mansholt remained Minister of Agriculture till 1958. Then he became one of the Commissioners of the newly formed European Commission where he was Commissioner for Agriculture, modernizing and rationalizing European Agriculture. For a short period of time (1972 – 1973) he also became President of the European Commission. At the end of his career, influenced by the Club of Rome, he radically changed his ideas on agricultural modernization.
6 ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) is a global non-government organization for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage sites. Within ICOMOS an International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes is active. This committee promotes worldwide cooperation in the identification, increased awareness, study, education and training for protection, preservation, restoration, monitoring, and management of cultural landscapes.
7 DOCOMOMO (Documentation and Conservation of Modern Movement), founded in 1990, is an international association that promotes the recording, documentation, preservation and management of the works of the Modern Movement. One of its aims is to explore and develop the knowledge of the Modern Movement. In order to do so, every two years DOCOMOMO organizes an international conference where specialists from all over the world meet and exchange knowledge.
8 In 2005, a private foundation called Stichting Signalen Onderzoek en Ontwerp, organized a conference on the role of Dutch landscape architects in post-war landscape planning. This conference was initiated by Dirk Sijmons, the Dutch National Advisor for Landscape. Some (renowned) landscape architects involved in post-war land consolidation projects were present. Their lively accounts of the practice of landscape architecture during the period of land consolidation deepened the understanding of this unique, dynamic and historical episode in Dutch landscape planning. For a detailed report of this meeting, see [http://www.dutchwatercity.nl/maakbaar/landschap.htm].