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The Hague, a Divided City
The Dutch essayist Rudy Kousbroek once wrote of The Hague that some parts of the post-war city evoked images of half-eaten plates of food piled one on top of the other. Certainly, no other city in the Netherlands has undergone as much reconstruction as the Hague. No Dutch city has felt for so long the destruction caused by the war, and no city has changed so radically in appearance as The Hague. It took some 50 years before the holes torn by the war in the centre of the city were filled with buildings again. The post-war city was also abandoned in another sense. It had always been the residence of stadholders and kings, but after the war Queen Juliana, who succeeded her mother Wilhelmina in 1948, decided to move the court to Soestdijk, a small town far away from the nation's capital. The fact that her successor, Beatrix, decided in 1980 to return to her birthplace and live in Huis Ten Bosch, built during the reign of Frederick Henry, did not restore the sense of royalty to the city. The royal house chose The Hague as its residence, but it has never really become part of the city again.
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Destroyed by war
After the war The Hague with its dunes, many parks and two coastal resorts Kijkduin and fashionable Scheveningen - once a health resort of international repute - became more than ever a city without a heart. It remained, as of old, the seat and meeting place of government and although these became inextricably linked with The Hague, parliament and government at the same time became, as it were, an introverted community which was far removed from the people of The Hague. With the exception of Willem Drees, who had been an alderman in The Hague before the war, most of the post-war Prime Ministers had no connection with the city and lived elsewhere, even though an official residence was available in The Hague. The government dictated its own conditions to the municipality of The Hague; it has thus never acquired the status of a city. The Hague has always had an uneasy relationship with the nation's government which calls the tune at its heart. This was the case after the war, but in earlier times the relationship had been no different.
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It meant, in effect, that the post-war city simply had to meet the spatial needs of a demanding government. This was an extra complicating factor during post-war reconstruction. In addition to having to meet the housing needs of a rapidly increasing population in a city which had lost a good deal of its housing stock during the war, The Hague was also faced with the complete reconstruction of two districts. The first was located on a stretch of land along the coast, which the Germans had cleared from 1942 for the construction of the Atlantic Wall. Many thousands of houses and buildings were demolished to make way for these concrete defenses designed to prevent a coastal invasion by the Allies. A second devastation was the result of the bombing of Bezuidenhout by the raf on 3 March 1945. British pilots had mistakenly identified Bezuidenhout as the launch-site for the feared v1s and v2s, flying bombs aimed at London which caused a great deal of destruction there. During the bombing Bezuidenhout was razed to the ground within the space of a few hours, and many hundreds lost their lives.
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Dudok
The Binnenhof (Photo De Haagse Beeldbalie).
Before the war the city council had already engaged the services of the Hilversum municipal architect Willem Marinus Dudok, who had made a name for himself with the new areas in Hilversum, the city of radio and television. He also designed the Town Hall in Hilversum, architecturally a remarkable building. After the war Dudok designed a large new residential area which was built without too many problems in the west of The Hague, and developed plans for the reconstruction of the coastal area which had made way for the Atlantic Wall.
Dudok had a highly individual style. He broke the rule that a house in the Hague could be no more than three storeys high. Under Dudok's influence, The Hague moved upwards. But by no means all Dudok's plans were realised. Although he was given a free hand in developing his plans, Dudok was definitely no Hausmann (who transformed nineteenth-century Paris to his own design). He first came to realise this when he submitted his plans for the city-centre area with its partly filled harbours which, right next to the old historic centre of the Counts with its ‘Ridderzaal’ (Knight's Hall) and parliament buildings, was already completely derelict and desolate before the war. Dudok wanted to create a total vision for this area, together with bombed Bezuidenhout. The then Government Department for the National Plan required that a new main road be built right through the city, the socalled ‘Utrechtse Baan’. There was now space for the road, partly as a result of the bombing of Bezuidenhout. With the construction of the new main road, and the parallel railway, which would lead to a new Central Station and be extended in the future, the city would be permanently cut in two. Dudok refused to cooperate. He wanted to see a ring road around The Hague, and in this he was ahead of his time. When the new road was built anyway, he withdrew his services. Decades later, his idea for a ring road around The Hague was implemented, but the damage had already been done. The Utrechtse Baan, as Dudok had predicted, became a bottleneck without facilitating the smooth flow of traffic.
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The Utrechtse Baan: straight through The Hague (Photo De Haagse Beeldbalie).
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Destroyed by peace
The Hague's reconstructed centre is an example of failed urban architecture. Mastodon-like buildings housing civil servants tower over the historic centre of government. Thanks to the lack of agreement as to how the city centre would take shape, it was 25 years before The Hague had its new Central Station - a large, solid building in the style of the ministries. It was appropriate to the spirit of the age, which precluded a form of architecture that was adapted and historical. Everywhere in the city major alterations were planned to accommodate the advancing tide of traffic, and clashed with the
Central Station in The Hague (Photo De Haagse Beeldbalie).
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delicate city structure and building style of the past. After the plans were put into effect, it was clear that The Hague still had no real heart. In the 1980s, therefore, plans were developed for the construction of a new city hall in the centre. It was designed by the American architect Richard Meier, replacing the old city hall which had been built in the northern, prosperous area of the city in the 1950s. The building of a city hall was one way to give The Hague a true centre. It was an attempt to end the long-standing social division in the city.
The Hague had two social groups existing independently of each other. One group, however temporary, comprising the civil servants and ex-colonials who settled in areas specially built for them such as the Statenkwartier and Archipelbuurt to the north of the historic centre of government, and the other group living in the old working-class areas such as Kortenbos, Schilderswijk and the Transvaalkwartier. Even today, there seem to be two types of citizens in The Hague, both retaining their own form of the Hague dialect. No other city in the Netherlands has such a sharp social division as The Hague, and the community spirit of other large cities such as Rotterdam and Amsterdam is lacking there.
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Destitute
The large-scale reconstruction brought The Hague to its knees, financially speaking. The situation was exacerbated by the large-scale renovation of old working-class districts. Areas such as Transvaal and the Schilderswijk, where large numbers of immigrants settled in the 1960s and 1970s, were taken in hand and the city was thus protected from becoming run-down. As a result of this expensive redevelopment The Hague became a poor city, even more dependent than before on the government. At the end of 1997 the government relieved the city of a considerable proportion of its debts.
In the meantime, there have been notable architectural developments during
The new city hall, designed by Richard Meier (Photo De Haagse Beeldbalie).
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the 1990s. Architects such as the Belgian Charles Vandenhove, the Catalan Ricardo Bofill and the American Michael Graves have introduced new structures into the city which are more in harmony with its original structure. They are a dressing on the wound of an injured city. However, new problems have arisen because the city is running out of space. All available space has now been developed. New housing cannot be built until old housing has been demolished. Moreover, the social composition of The Hague's population is not sufficiently balanced. The wealthier citizens usually move to the independent suburbs of Wassenaar, Rijswijk and Voorburg. The Hague is the regional centre for all these surrounding communities, but receives no revenue in return. It is a fundamentally unhealthy state of affairs. Incorporation of these municipalities has been considered, but the inhabitants are wholly opposed. Attempts are therefore being made to establish new forms of administrative cooperation between The Hague and these municipalities, including the idea of bringing them together in a ‘city province’, thereby creating a new, fourth layer of government within the existing trio of state, province, municipality.
But the politicians are still undecided. As is usual in a culture of compromise like that of the Netherlands, all manner of proposals for a middle course are being put forward. History is repeating itself: yet again the national politicians are deciding the fate of their fellow citizens.
paul van velthoven
Translated by Yvette Mead
Residential buildings, designed by Michael Graves (Photo De Haagse Beeldbalie).
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