European Landscape Architecture: Best Practice in Detailing

The Netherlands

Project history

Broad, slow rivers are an integral part of the delta

landscape in the Netherlands. In this flat country,

their fall is only slight, and these rivers seem to

flow more slowly than they do. But while they look

peaceful, appearances can be deceptive. For the

low-lying land of the delta needs protection not only

against the sea, but also against the rivers.

The Netherlands has always been at the mercy of

water. Over the years, increasingly radical measures

have been taken to keep it out, and thereby to pro-

tect new and reclaimed land. It was for precisely

this purpose that public organisations – the so-

called regional water boards – were established as

long ago as the early Middle Ages.

As technology advanced, the number of floods was

gradually reduced. However, in the second half of

the twentieth century, coastal and river defences

were tackled in an increasingly technocratic way,

and, as with landscape planning, matters were car-

ried too far. Too great a stress was placed on engi-

neering, and the measures became increasingly

uncompromising. One result was an illusory sense

of security. Embankments and levees were raised,

and land was taken for housing and other types of

intensive land-use when it was actually necessary

to the system of rivers, streams and coast.

In 1995, high water levels in the Dutch rivers

revealed just how dangerous it can be to deprive a

natural system of the space it needs. The real dan-

ger of severe flooding made it apparent that rivers

needed to be given more space in the stretches

between towns. It also became clear that the vari-

ous sluices, dams and water-control structures that

lay along these rivers should be examined anew.

Today, the paradigm that long dominated the think-

ing of the regional water boards therefore seems

to be changing. No longer are structures intended

as defences against the water regarded in isolation;

instead, they are seen as vital parts of the land-

scapes and towns that surround them. Such a view

provides scope for integrating that structure within

the urban landscape, and thus for linking a town

with the river that runs through it. The quay along

the IJssel in Doesburg is one of the first projects in

which a structure that meets the most recent safety

requirements will be integrated with a new, public

quayside, one which is itself part of a network of

public urban spaces.

Just like its riverside sisters of Zutphen, Deventer

and Kampen, the little IJssel town of Doesburg

evokes the heyday of the Hanseatic League.

However, since the decline that began at the end

of the fifteenth century, it has never developed a

true waterfront of its own: over the years, the area

6.1
Aerial photographs of the total project area and its
context