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How Amsterdam Built A Dystopia — Transcript

by Hoog · 2,052 words · 356 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00part of this video was sponsored by
0:02Squarespace this is the bmer it's a
0:05neighborhood in Amsterdam compared to
0:07the city's canals briak architecture and
0:10six-story tall buildings the belmer
0:12looks
0:13different its concrete buildings are
0:15arranged like Honeycombs there's lots of
0:18green space and even a raised Metro it
0:21looks strange but a few decades ago it
0:24looked even stranger this is not just
0:27any ordinary City neighborhood Once Upon
0:30a Time the belmer was the city of the
0:32future a City built in a park a Utopia
0:36in
0:40Amsterdam one day it was the country's
0:42largest housing project in history
0:44another day it became its largest
0:46demolished one in a time where the
0:49netherland's urban planning is
0:50borderline fetishized the belmer is
0:53considered by some its biggest urban
0:55planning
0:57failure what is the Balmer
1:01the Netherlands is not known for
1:02high-rise buildings its people are tall
1:05enough so there's not much need for
1:07compensation in the' 60s though there
1:09was an exception y high-rise Estates
1:12dominated the building in this era these
1:15years proed to be the time of peak
1:16housing production in the Netherlands
1:18and many other European countries after
1:20the second world war there weren't many
1:22homes but there were lots of people who
1:24needed them all across Europe new
1:26high-rise neighborhoods developed these
1:29neighborhoods became experiments in new
1:31types of living Architects and planners
1:33believe the time of organic bottomup
1:35cities was over it was now the time to
1:38build them top down artificially c.i.
1:42a.m is a group of the world's most
1:44leading urban planners and Architects we
1:46have designed the cities of the future
1:49the population is too dense within the
1:50historic nuclei of cities structures
1:53built along Transportation routes and
1:55around their intersections are
1:56detrimental to habitation the ratio
1:59between the size of a population and the
2:01land area that it occupies can be
2:03entirely changed by the height of
2:05buildings high buildings set apart from
2:07one another must free the ground members
2:09of CM believe that the design of cities
2:11should divide living working Recreation
2:14and transportation this is the model we
2:16have created for a perfect City
2:18high-rise buildings give room for Green
2:20Space among large populations zoning
2:22separates housing work Recreation and
2:25travel efficient but separated
2:27Transportation connects the different
2:29zones of the city
2:30uniform and standardized buildings give
2:32equal access to sunlight large green
2:34spaces give equal access to clean air CM
2:38was influential but there were few
2:39places in the world that applied their
2:41principles precisely one of the few
2:43places that did was
2:45[Music]
2:58Amsterdam SP for
3:01amsterd for
3:04for and for
3:07[Music]
3:17amstd in the 60s Amsterdam had just
3:20finished the construction of four new
3:22neighborhoods slir star held and oorp
3:26these neighborhoods were supposed to
3:28increase the housing Supply
3:30but they weren't enough Amsterdam wanted
3:33more so the city picked a fight with the
3:35national government and a different
3:38municipality Amsterdam wanted the belir
3:40in its East but the municipality it
3:42belonged to
3:43disagreed the other municipality wanted
3:46to merge with two others to make an
3:48entirely new on-edge government that
3:50could hold the red Amsterdam at Bay the
3:53fear was that if Amsterdam grew too
3:55large the distance between the
3:56representatives and the represented
3:58would be too far
4:00this conflict led to the belmer question
4:02a multi- hour long debate at the
4:04national level on whether the belmer
4:06should go to
4:07Amsterdam in one reality Amsterdam lost
4:11the belmer remained in the hands of the
4:13original municipality and the city today
4:15would have looked quite different but in
4:18this reality Amsterdam won the bmer is
4:20the city of the future as opposed to
4:23those cramped polluting streets in the
4:24center we've built a city in a park
4:27residential homes are separated from
4:29industry but you can easily get to your
4:32work by using raised roads separated
4:34from pedestrian walkways all a working
4:36man needs to do is leave his apartment
4:39walk to the parking garage connected to
4:41his high-rise and get into his car he
4:43can do all of this without getting hit
4:45by a single drop of rain our traditional
4:48European cities are cramped messy and
4:50polluting we've designed a place that
4:52gives you all the benefits of density
4:54without the penalties all the positives
4:56of Rural Life without the negatives
4:58after that long fight with the national
5:00government the mayor of Amsterdam and
5:02the rest of the city council were almost
5:04in complete agreement the belmer was not
5:06just some buildings that would change
5:08Amsterdam it would change cities
5:28forever
5:33the's buildings Road networks bike paths
5:36bus lines and parking garages were all
5:38strictly set from above the goal was
5:41space green and light a key difference
5:43between bmer apartments and your
5:45traditional Amsterdam one is the amount
5:47of room our Apartments can have three
5:49bedrooms a living room storage and a
5:52kitchen Old City Center Apartments
5:55sometimes don't even have their own
5:56bathroom our apartments are an upgrade
5:59by using using concrete and steel we've
6:01been able to stack up large apartments
6:03for middle class families we have all
6:05the benefits of a dense wealthy
6:06neighborhood but with the empty space of
6:08a rural one from the start the belmer
6:10was meant to attract middleclass Dutch
6:12families it was supposed to unlock a new
6:15system of living spacious rooms with
6:17semi-public spaces and recreational
6:19facilities all without sacrificing
6:28nature
6:30on the grounds you could find running
6:31tracks many parks to run and play around
6:33in ideal for a
6:42[Music]
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7:45domain the buildings were 11 stories the
7:48ground floor was used as storage space
7:50this was supposed to give each resident
7:51in the belmer an equal amount of privacy
7:54different housing corporations were
7:56responsible for different groups of
7:58buildings leading to to slight
7:59variations in the monotonous uniform
8:02design the hexagonal arrangement of the
8:04buildings was meant to give each
8:06building an equal amount of sunlight
8:09inside were communal areas and interior
8:11streets that could be used by the
8:12building's residents discover our
8:14Innovative three- tiered transportation
8:16system dedicated roads for cyclists and
8:18pedestrians separate roads for personal
8:21cars buses and trucks an elevated metro
8:24line between the apartments connects you
8:26to the Heart of the City to further
8:28streamline movement in the neighborhood
8:30we've constructed alleys under the
8:32building so that you can bike and walk
8:33beneath them there you can find a stray
8:36junkie who is illegally occupying one of
8:38the apartments a lot of middle class
8:41people do do do not want to live in the
8:43B bmer our apartments are empty our
8:46construction has been delayed our Metro
8:48isn't finished yet so the bmer is
8:50separated and alone the planners planned
8:53incorrectly the bmer did not attract the
8:55amount of people that were expected many
8:58households were turned off by the large
9:00alienating
9:01high-rises so they left for recognizable
9:03suburbs instead the beur flats had to
9:06compete with semidetached houses in
9:08several rapidly developing small towns
9:10surrounding Amsterdam like fand and
9:12almir why the [ __ ] would anyone go to
9:17[Music]
9:28per
9:30if you get an apartment now that the
9:31housing corporations are desperate to
9:33rent it will definitely be worth it in
9:35the future just make sure you don't
9:37spend too much time in the parking
9:39garages under the trees and in the
9:41Alleyways beneath the buildings the
9:43prices in the belmer were too high to
9:46justify moving to such a radically new
9:48place people were less enthusiastic than
9:50the planners had
9:58thought
10:02vacancies led to delayed rents and high
10:04turnover rates the neighborhood
10:18spiraled the public amenities that were
10:20promised became too expensive without
10:22money flowing in from paying
10:28residents
10:31the parking garages which were supposed
10:33to be such an Innovative addition became
10:35instead areas of
10:37[Music]
10:46concern the alleys beneath the buildings
10:48and the interior streets became
10:50increasingly difficult to
10:58maintain
10:59a place that was intended to attract
11:01middle class families just didn't it
11:03attracted poverty
11:05instead the bellmer's design and
11:08negative stigma created a
11:09self-fulfilling cycle the nature alleys
11:12and parking garages helped criminals get
11:14away with crime and made people feel
11:16unsafe poverty reduced its
11:18attractiveness separating the
11:19neighborhood even more in 1975 Serama a
11:24former Dutch Colony became independent
11:26people fled to the Netherlands to escape
11:28the power vacuum that was developing in
11:29their country but when they came to the
11:31Netherlands they were welcomed with a
11:33cold
11:35hand could
11:39in
11:41in in and in
11:46ut no better place to put this new group
11:49of people than where the existing
11:51residents didn't want to go anyway the
11:54belmer became known for its poor and
11:56stigmatized migrant population
12:00[Music]
12:08[Music]
12:12inip Hoover one of the buildings about
12:1490% of its tenants had a ceremon
12:17background migrant families tended to be
12:19larger which led to overcrowding and
12:21also increased pressure on the public
12:23facilities that were already
12:25weakened the bmer ghettoized it turned
12:28into to an isolated stigmatized
12:30underprivileged urban area in the' 70s
12:34the city pursued distribution policies
12:36spreading out new incoming ceremony
12:38migrants to other parts of the city what
12:39a pretentious video essay way of saying
12:41that entire groups of people were banned
12:44you're not seeing the bigger picture
12:46it's not our fault that other
12:47competitive housing developed or even
12:49that multiple housing corporations
12:51fragmented and delayed Construction in
12:53Amsterdam Center there's always eyes on
12:55the street in the beur we just didn't
12:57have enough eyes when there's lots of
12:59people there's social control it becomes
13:01harder to litter when you feel like
13:03there's other people holding you
13:05accountable however the bellmer's
13:06advertised spaciousness and privacy
13:08became its biggest
13:14[Music]
13:21enemy not enough people meant not enough
13:23eyes on the street not enough eyes on
13:25the street me that the bmer had more
13:27crime hyper Focus Fus on the crime and
13:29then people don't want to go outside not
13:32enough people go outside and then
13:34suddenly you have more crime then we
13:47[Music]
13:51could turn over rates showed that the
13:53bmer wasn't working it was not a place
13:56to live in but a place to work your way
13:58out of
14:00[Music]
14:04the Amsterdam City government have been
14:06slow and waffled around ways to tackle
14:08the negative stigma for years in the 9s
14:11they were forced to in 1992 a 747 L all
14:15cargo plane crashed into the belmer to
14:18this day it is the largest flight
14:20disaster on Dutch soil for the residents
14:24the crash left more questions than
14:25answers and left them feeling more
14:27neglected than accepted
14:29it fueled motivation to demolish some of
14:31the high-rises almost 2/3 of the
14:33original buildings were destroyed in
14:36their place the neighborhood was
14:37densified with low
14:39[Music]
14:57Rises
15:02is
15:04it fa what it
15:08is the original plan that made the
15:10belmer special was modified hallways
15:13underneath the buildings were removed or
15:15made larger the ground floors which were
15:17meant to be storage spaces were
15:19converted into workspaces and new
15:21dwellings the front of the ground floors
15:23were converted into private Gardens
15:25turning public Collective responsibility
15:27into isolated plots of private ownership
15:30today the belmer is still used as a
15:31poster child for the dangers of utopian
15:34Master
15:35planning thank you glow for the intro
15:37and outro song for Vis with help with
15:39the research lar for the footage as well
15:41as the B Museum Andreas and S for help
15:43with the
15:44modeling

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