Background information on the city of amsterdam


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For example, an elegant residential area was constructed around Vondelpark. The architect and entrepreneur P.

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Cuypers was responsible for designing part of this area. In addition, Cuypers designed the Rijksmuseum, in which he combined neo-Gothic and neo-Renaissance stylistic elements. At the close of the nineteenth century, criticism of the neo-styles increased, led by H. P Berlage. From Housing Act to General Extension Plan At the close of the nineteenth century, many city dwellers in the Netherlands were still living in deplorable conditions and there were calls for the creation of a statutory framework for public housing.

This resulted in the Housing Act, which was important for all further developments. The Act obliged councils to draw up expansion plans and building regulations in which the requirements public housing had to meet were laid down. The period in which this plan was realized was also the period of the Amsterdam School and the architects of this school in particular were commissioned by housing corporations to design housing blocks in Amsterdam-Zuid. These architects conceived the block as a large sculpture, the components of which were given a characteristic treatment, without destroying the unity of the whole.

They aimed at a sober functionalism, promoted the use of new materials such as concrete, steel and glass, and emphasized the importance of air, light and space in buildings and in the city. Not long after the first signs of a new architecture had become visible in Betondorp , Amsterdam witnessed the construction of monuments such as the Cineac and the Open Air School by J. Mulder are indissolubly connected. This plan, in which living, working, recreation and traffic are separate, and which is characterized by row housing, was approved by the city council in but its execution was put on hold due to the outbreak of the Second World War.

New attention to the city centre After the Second World War, a major house-building programme, based on the General Extension Plan AUP , was launched in order to ease the housing shortage. In , work started on the realization of the western city expansion and four suburbs Slotermeer, Geuzenveld, Slotervaart and Osdorp were built around Sloterplas, constructed in the same period. A characteristic feature of these spacious residential districts is the mix of high-, medium- and low-rise and the presence of open green space.

With the construction of Buitenveldert from onwards , the original AUP was completed. However, new sections were then added to the plan because it had become clear that there was a need for more and larger dwellings. New expansion areas were designated in Amsterdam-Noord, which had ceased to be isolated with the construction of the IJ tunnel in , and in Amsterdam-Zuid and Zuidoost, where the Bijlmermeer was built. The latter in particular attracted attention because it was even closer than the original AUP to the urban design ideals of CIAM, with tall flats in green space, raised roads and open areas reserved for the use of pedestrians and cyclists.

Already during the construction of the Bijlmermeer, there was a growing realization that in the first decades after the war too much attention had been focused on the expansion of Amsterdam and that the old city had suffered from neglect as a result. At first, the council tried to solve the problem through demolition and the construction of new buildings. However, some neighbourhoods objected to this policy and two districts, the Jordaan and the Nieuwmarktbuurt, played a leading role in opposing it.

In , the Jordaan, for which large-scale demolition plans existed up until , succesfully campaigned for a zoning plan in which existing building lines were respected. The Nieuwmarktbuurt, which already suffered severely during the Second World War, was in danger of being wiped off the map in the seventies with the construction of the metro and the planned clearances for new traffic routes.

Here too, however, residents demanded the restoration of historical buildings, affordable new dwellings combined with commercial space and shops, and that new development be constructed within existing building lines. The guiding principle in the postwar reconstruction of the Nieuwmarktbuurt was an urban design scheme, by A.

8 Years On, Amsterdam is Still Leading the Way as a Smart City

Bosch, based on diversity and a mix of functions. Living, new and renewed The emphasis on house-building continued throughout the nineties and beyond as a consequence of the persistent demand for housing. In recent decades, new residential areas have been realized both in the existing city and on the periphery.

10 Historical facts about Amsterdam

In the city, space is created by demolishing old dwellings sometimes entire street frontages and building new ones Mercatorplein, Tropenpunt , by giving areas a new use the site of the former barracks Oranje-Nassaukazerne, Meander and by infilling gaps Binnenwieringerstraat, Hoogte Kadijk. For the expansion areas, concepts have been found which differ from that of the Bijlmermeer in southeast Amsterdam. Partly because of high rents and the lack of social facilities, soon after its completion this district was confronted with untenanted dwellings and problems such as social insecurity and vandalism.

For this reason, since the late eighties, the focus has been on building low- and medium-rise housing at high densities. In the nineties, districts such as Nieuw Sloten and De Aker were developed in accordance with this concept. Although the aim was to integrate various functions, these new districts exude a suburban ambience. In the same period, parts of the Bijlmermeer underwent a metamorphosis in which high-rise was modified or replaced by new-build, often with the front door on the street.

Amsterdam Facts

In the re-use of the former industrial islands in Oostelijk Havengebied, various urbanistic principles for the residential districts were experimented with, witness the large housing blocks on KNSM Island, the contiguous medium-rise on Java Island and the ground-accessed dwellings built at high densities on Borneo-Sporenburg.

The exuberant urbanistic and architectural diversity of the new residential districts reveals that construction took place here in an increasingly liberal and market-orientated climate, in which citizens have become primarily housing consumers. Shortly after , the redevelopment of Oostelijk Havengebied was more or less complete. A new focus of house-building activity is situated further eastwards in the IJmeer, where a new city district is being built on a series of artificial islands.

While the continuing economic downturn of the beginning of the twenty-first century is slowing down construction, it appears not to be standing in the way of a rich diversity of urbanistic ideas and housing concepts — including private plots. Towards the end of the twentieth century, work also began on the renewal of the Westelijke Tuinsteden, expansion areas developed in the period of reconstruction after the Second World War. A major aim here is the integration of old and new Dutch citizens. This has resulted in, among other things, the realization of new office locations, new educational buildings, new tourist and cultural facilities, and new retail complexes.

Examples include the city-centre shopping complexes De Kolk and Magna Plaza, all of which were built in the nineties, and the entertainment and shopping area near the Amsterdam Arena in southeast Amsterdam, which is to be further densified in the coming years. The development of this extensive business district, which according to the plans is to be upgraded with housing and cultural facilities, plays a key role in the competition with other municipalities, cities and regions in the Netherlands and beyond. The aim is to attract major companies. The new-build for the Anne Frank House adjoining the original building , for the storeroom of the Maritime Museum and for Architecture Centre Amsterdam, points to, among other things, the importance of Amsterdam as a cultural- tourist destination.

Part of this long-term waterfront project is the transformation — currently in progress — of the two islands Westerdokseiland and Oosterdokseiland into new areas in which to live, work and linger. It also allowed the laws and ordinances of the states of Holland to apply. Previously, during the private, commercial period, only the law of the ship had applied.

In May , the first settlers in New Netherland arrived on Noten Eylandt Nut or Nutten Island, now Governors Island aboard the ship New Netherland under the command of Cornelius Jacobsen May , who disembarked on the island with thirty families in order to take legal possession of the New Netherland territory. A fort and sawmill were soon erected at Nut Island. The latter was constructed by Franchoys Fezard and was taken apart for iron in The threat of attack from other European colonial powers prompted the directors of the Dutch West India Company to formulate a plan to protect the entrance to the Hudson River.

Amsterdam | History, Population, & Points of Interest | taira-kousan.com

By the end of , the site had been staked out directly south of Bowling Green on the site of the present U. Custom House. The Mohawk - Mahican War in the Hudson Valley led the company to relocate even more settlers to the vicinity of the new Fort Amsterdam. In the end, colonizing was a prohibitively expensive undertaking, only partly subsidized by the fur trade. This led to a scaling back of the original plans. By , a smaller fort was constructed with walls containing a mixture of clay and sand.

Legislative history

The fort also served as the center of trading activity. It contained a barracks, the church, a house for the West India Company director and a warehouse for the storage of company goods. Verhulst, with his council, was responsible for the selection of Manhattan as a permanent place of settlement and for situating Fort Amsterdam. He was replaced as the company director-general of New Amsterdam by Peter Minuit in According to the writer Nathaniel Benchley, to legally safeguard the settlers' investments, possessions and farms on Manhattan island, Minuit negotiated the "purchase" of Manhattan from a band of Canarse from Brooklyn who occupied the bottom quarter of Manhattan, known then as the Manhattoes for 60 guilders ' worth of trade goods.

Minuit conducted the transaction with the Canarse chief Seyseys, who was only too happy to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was actually mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks. A textual reference to the deed became the foundation for the legend that Minuit had purchased Manhattan from the Native Americans for twenty-four dollars' worth of trinkets and beads, the guilder rate at the time being about two and a half to a Spanish dollar.

In a sawmill was located in the northern forest at what was later the corner of East 74th Street and Second Avenue , at which African laborers cut lumber. The New Amsterdam settlement had a population of approximately people, including infants.

The work was carried out by recent English immigrants, the brothers John and Richard Ogden. The church was finished in and stood until destroyed in the Slave Insurrection of A pen-and-ink view of New Amsterdam, [16] [17] drawn on-the-spot and discovered in the map collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna in , provides a unique view of New Amsterdam as it appeared from Capske small Cape Rock in Capske Rock was situated in the water close to Manhattan between Manhattan and Noten Eylant, and signified the start of the East River roadstead. New Amsterdam received municipal rights on February 2, , thus becoming a city.

Albany, then named Beverwyck , received its city rights in Nieuw Haarlem , now known as Harlem , was formally recognized in The first Jews known to have lived in New Amsterdam arrived in First to arrive were Solomon Pietersen and Jacob Barsimson, who sailed during the summer of directly from Holland, with passports that gave them permission to trade in the colony. In the Communipaw ferry was founded and began a long history of trans-Hudson ferry and ultimately rail and road transportation.

They destroyed 28 farms, killed settlers, and took prisoners. In , Jan van Bonnel built a saw mill on East 74th Street and the East River, where a 13,meter long stream that began in the north of today's Central Park, which became known as the Saw Kill or Saw Kill Creek, emptied into the river. On August 27, , while England and the Dutch Republic were at peace, four English frigates sailed into New Amsterdam's harbor and demanded New Netherland's surrender, whereupon New Netherland was provisionally ceded by Stuyvesant.

On September 6, Stuyvesant sent lawyer Johannes de Decker and five other delegates to sign the official Articles of Capitulation. In the Treaty of Breda ended the conflict in favor of the Dutch. The Dutch did not press their claims on New Netherland but did demand control over the valuable sugar plantations and factories captured by them that year on the coast of Surinam , giving them full control over the coast of what is now Guyana and Surinam. Previously there had only been West India Company directors. After the signing of the Treaty of Westminster in November , the city was relinquished to the English and the name reverted to "New York".

Suriname became an official Dutch possession in return. The beginnings of New Amsterdam, unlike most other colonies in the New World, were thoroughly documented in city maps. During the time of New Netherland's colonization, the Dutch were the pre-eminent cartographers in Europe. The delegated authority of the Dutch West India Company over New Netherland required maintaining sovereignty on behalf of the States General, generating cash flow through commercial enterprise for its shareholders, and funding the province's growth.

Thus its directors regularly required that censuses be taken. These tools to measure and monitor the province's progress were accompanied by accurate maps and plans.