Abstract
In 1989 the young Dutch architect Willem Jan Neutelings, who had just left the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, was hired to develop a project for the area between Rotterdam and The Hague that was going to face, in the following years, a huge increase in population and activities. This part of the Dutch territory is located in between two urban areas but, at the same time, it is located in the middle of another construction known as the Randstad, in which the explosive growth of urban and suburban development has led to a singular blurring of the distinction between the city and the countryside. In this context Neutelings proposed his reinterpretation of the urban form called De Tapijtmetropool or ‘Patchwork Metropolis’. This essay will try to deconstruct Neutelings’ proposal in order to understand whether his “previsions” have actually had a real effect on the contemporary Randstad territorial configuration.
Ph.D., 2016: “PATCHWORK METROPOLIS. The construction of a theoretical model for the project of contemporary territories, University of Cagliari”. Supervisors: Giorgio Peghin, Paola Viganò.
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Notes
- 1.
In Dutch Derde Nota voor de Ruimtelijke Ordening published in four parts from 1973 to 1983.
- 2.
That in the rest of this essay will be called ‘the patchwork scale’.
- 3.
At this regard it is relevant to quote an extract of an interview made by the Author with Willem Jan Neuteling the 21st of June 2011: CP—Do you think that it is possible to guide the evolution of the patchwork metropolis? WJN—We stated that it was impossible to guide the territory on the Randstad scale. The only way in which we can guide the territory is at the patch level. You can replace the old patches with new ones, you can fragment the existing ones, but in the neo-liberal and market oriented society you cannot still deem it possible to guide the Randstad as a whole (Pisano 2011, 2018).
- 4.
Here ‘scale’ is intended both as ‘resolution’, so the level of detail of the representation, and as ‘frame’, so the boundary at which the drawing can be cropped.
- 5.
For a more accurate analyses of the concept of fragment in urbanism see: Secchi, B., 2007. Prima lezione di urbanistica. Roma: Laterza. And Jacobs, S. 2012. Shreds of Boring Postcards: Toward a Posturban Aesthetics of the Generic and the Everyday. In: Ghent Urban Studies Team (Eds), 2012. Post Ex Sub Dis.: Urban Fragmentations and Constructions. Rotterdam: 010 Uitgeverij.
- 6.
Lifestyle is used as the way to define the prevalent behavior of a specific social group. See Weber, M., 1978. Economy and Society, Oakland: University of California Press.
- 7.
With part of city formally completed I am referring to the Italian tradition of urban morphologists founded by Muratori and Caniggia during the sixties and leaded by Rossi and Aymonino between sixties and seventies.
- 8.
See Hertweck F., Marot S., 2013. The City in the City: Berlin: A Green Archipelago. Ennetbaden: Lars Muller.
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Pisano, C. (2018). The Patchwork Metropolis: Between Patches, Fragments and Situations. In: Viganò, P., Cavalieri, C., Barcelloni Corte, M. (eds) The Horizontal Metropolis Between Urbanism and Urbanization. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75975-3_9
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