Design with history

Abstract

Preservation through development is advocated by Dutch heritage policy makers for about 2 decades now and it seems to be a useful strategy in reintegrating abandoned modern industrial areas in the city fabric. Daily practice has shown that it is very difficult to do so, because every actor and stakeholder in the process still tends to act from his traditional and narrow perspective. In many cases this frustrates the process and leads to unsatisfying results. This paper refers to a study on the transformation of the former industrial area of Oostenburg in Amsterdam executed by a team from TU Delft's section Heritage & Architecture. The study showed that interdisciplinary academic research ranging from the assessment of values of cultural heritage and architectural space cultural values to the development of design scenario's and a cost analysis is the key to discover the full opportunities for redevelopment of industrial areas. Oostenburg, a former VOC-harbour and ship building yard at the north-east of the city centre of Amsterdam, was redeveloped as industrial area during the 20th century. Only one building cluster from the turn of the 20th century was listed as a monument; following a traditional approach of preserving individual objects rather than acknowledging i.e. the context of industrial production processes. The process of redevelopment suddenly came into serious trouble last year when the municipality of Amsterdam started a procedure to list another cluster of buildings designed by the architect G. J. Langhout (1879-1962) in the 1920s-1930s and designated to be demolished in order to realize new dwellings. To help reconcile the contrary viewpoints of the municipality and the landowner/developer the authors collaborated with others on a study that unravelled the development opportunities of Langhout's factory buildings, based on an assessment of the rich heritage values of the site.