Modern castles and country houses: the use of history in ‘gated communities’ in The Netherlands

Abstract

This article deals with the question of why the architecture of new gated communities includes references to built heritage. The emergence of ‘gated communities’ in the Netherlands is especially interesting because its diffusion is not primarily driven by distinct urban segregation and the gap between rich and poor. ‘Gated communities’ in the sense of exclusive communities with rigid boundaries are basically seen as ‘un-Dutch’ by the planning community and the public media. This paper examines, firstly, the local sensibilities to these residential places in the context of a strong institutional spatial planning practice and, secondly, the reasons why ‘gated communities’ were nevertheless embraced by middle-income households. These groups identify with the reference to built heritage-like walled towns and castles and use them for purposes of social distinction. Moreover, they perceive historical as a symbolic marker for like-minded fellow residents.

Keywords:

• built heritage
• gated communities
• historical references
• residential architecture
• The Netherlands

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Laurajane Smith and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and valuable feedback.

Notes

1. The organisation’s website of the Dickens Night in De Veste states: ‘The atmosphere of England in around 1850 fits outstandingly into the decor of De Veste, the heart of Brandevoort. The authentic English market hall is the centre of the market. In the streets around this market hall, 85 booths are arranged with Christmas-like, high-quality products. The Dickens Night foundation also decided to opt for quality rather than quantity’ (www.dickensnight.nl; accessed 8 April 2013).

2. The term heritage has not been standardised, but there is agreement that the term includes tangible, intangible heritage while built heritage is part of the first one. ‘[I]n 1999 UNESCO clarified the scope of tangible values as cultural properties to include monuments, groups of buildings and site (Article 23:5) and the scope of environments as natural properties (Article 43:10)’ (Ahmad 2006, 298).

3. According to the Dutch political definition, a middle income is a pre-tax income which most household in the Netherlands actually have, which is € 33,500 in 2013. Available from: http://www.cpb.nl/artikel/toelichting-op-prijzen-lonen-en-koopkracht [Accessed 13 August 2013].

4. In this paper, we use the term ‘community’ in the first place to refer to all residents of the newly built enclosed places in the Netherlands and, in the second place, to explore the way they define their community from the inside.

5. The term ‘exclusive’ is used here to refer to commodities which are only accessible for a privileged minority.

6. The authors expect this to be only a fraction of the actual number and a considerable number of communities were still under development at the time of this research.

7. ‘Sheltered-by-design’ is a consciously chosen variation of the famous adage ‘secured by design’ by Oscar Newman formulated in his book Defensible Design (1972).

8. VINEX is Dutch acronym of the 1991 supplement to the Fourth Report on Spatial Planning by the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. The results of this spatial planning project are suburbs near the cities which were built between 1995 and 2005.