Housing design in Amsterdam, 1909-1919

THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF HOUSING DESIGN IN AMSTERDAM, 1909-1919 by Nancy Stieber A.B., Harvard University (1971) M.L.A., University of Michigan (1975) SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE FIELD OF ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY September Q 1986 Nancy Stieber 1986 The author hereby grants to M.I.T. permission to reproduce and to distribute copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of Author Nancy itieber, Department of Architecture June 23, 1986 Certified by Plofessor cif Histor7 and Achitecture Thesis Supervisor Stanford Anderson, Accepted by W Stanford Anderson Chairman, Departmental Committee for Graduate Students MASSACHUSETTS INSTiTUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AUG 2 8 1986 LBPARES Rotch M ITLibraries Document Services Room 14-0551 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 Ph: 617.253.2800 Email: [email protected] http://Iibraries.mit.edu/docs DISCLAIMER OF QUALITY Due to the condition of the original material, there are unavoidable flaws in this reproduction. We have made every effort possible to provide you with the best copy available. If you are dissatisfied with this product and find it unusable, please contact Document Services as soon as possible. Thank you. The images contained in this document are of the best quality available. ii THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF HOUSING DESIGN IN AMSTERDAM, 1909-1919 by Nancy Stieber Submitted to the Department of Architecture on June 23, 1986, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the field of Architecture, Art, and Environmental Studies. ABSTRACT Housing design became an issue of public policy in Amsterdam when population growth spawned rapid urban expansion in the late nineteenth century. Dissatisfied with social, hygienic, and aesthetic aspects of the recent housing construction, between 1908 and 1919 the Amsterdam municipal council approved 87 housing projects to be built by housing societies and the municipality itself under the auspices of the 1902 Housing Act. In the attempt to improve housing design by public means and for collective benefit, the municipality drew on expertise from a variety of professions: medicine, architecture, law, and social work. However, the professionalization of housing design generated a number of conflicts: struggles between professions for authority, disagreements between laymen and experts, between middle and working class values, and between political and cultural progressives and conservatives. A close investigation of the first 87 housing projects, the societies which built them, and the experts who shaped them, reveals fundamental dilemmas in the professionalization of housing design. Experts had to perform two potentially conflicting tasks: 1) to advance their profession and its discipline; 2) to serve the collective needs of a socially diverse society. In the case of the plan, housing professionals attempted to standardize the type, but the diversity of views represented by the various housing societies succeeded to a limited extent in expressing a pluralism of forms. In the case of the facade, the strength and autonomy of the architectural profession succeeded in using housing design as an opportunity to advance the discipline through the development of an innovative style, but the commitment to a partisan aesthetic position which was necessary for that development conflicted with the government's requirement for official neutrality. Amsterdam serves not only as an model of housing reform, but also as a demonstration of the dilemmas inherent to public professional service in pluralist societies. Thesis supervisor: Stanford Anderson Title: Professor of History and Architecture iii ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations have been used in the text, figures, and notes. AG BW BWT CBSA GAD GC IISG MAA NDB PW Sc SDAP Stat Med STVDIA VH WD Amsterdam Gemeenteblad Bouwkundig Weekblad Bouw- en Woningtoezicht - Building and Housing Inspection Centraal Bureau voor Sociale Adviezen Amsterdam Municipal Archives, Ceres Depot Gezondheidscommissie - Health Board Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis Amsterdam Municipal Archives, Amsteldijk Nederlands Documentatiecentrum voor de Bouwkunst Publieke Werken - Public Works Schoonheidscommissie Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij Statistische Mededeelingen uitgegeven door het Bureau van Statistiek der Gemeente Amsterdam Sociaal-Technische Vereeniging van Democratische 1 Ingenieurs en Architecten Volkhuisvesting - Housing Alderman Woningdienst - Housing Authority iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people have contributed to the creation of this study, but foremost I owe a debt of gratitude to Stanford Anderson for his intelligent, generous, and tolerant criticism. My research methodology benefited continuously from Stan's sensitivity to the semi-autonomous nature of the relationship between architectural form and its social context. Helen Searing, whose work on housing in Holland inspired the study originally, provided early encouragement and continuing support. John Habraken helped shape the direction of the inquiry by opening my eyes to new possibilities for defining the architectural profession. At different phases of the research a number of architects and historians have reviewed portions of the study. For their contructive comments and criticism I am grateful to Donald Grinberg, Egbert Hoogenberk, Richard Pommer, Joseph Siry, Samuel Frank, Jonathan Mathews, and Mardges Bacon. Particularly in the early stages of the research, a number of historians in the Netherlands generously introduced me to the archival and library resources. I am especially grateful to Richter Roegholt, Egbert Ottens, Ed Taverne, Peter de Ruyter, H. M. Welcker, Manfred Bock, Winnie Folkersma, Clara Brinkgreve, and Frank Smit for their guidance and discussion. At both the Ceres Depot of the Amsterdam Municipal Archives and the records office of the Amsterdam Bouw- en Woningtoezicht, where the bulk of the research was conducted, I was received with an extraordinary grace and hospitality. The librarians, curators, and assistants of these two collections helped me with perseverence and patience. At the Universiteits Bibliotheek in Amsterdam, R. B. Knottnerus and his aids gave me every possible assistance. I am also grateful to the librarians and curators at the Amsterdam Municipal Archives on the Amsteldijk, the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, the Nederlands Instituut voor Volkshuisvesting, the Rijks Planologische Dienst, and the Nederlands Documentatiecentrum voor de Bouwkunst. Egbert Ottens at the Amsterdam Housing Authority and Mr. Weyerstraus at the Public Works Department generously allowed me to consult materials not generally accessible. I am grateful to Mr. Stork of the Algemene Woningbouwvereniging for making available the papers of the Amsterdam Bouwfonds. Maria Moesman provided assistance in photographing documents and sites. Elizabeth Campbell Elliott provided a list of the Dutch periodicals held in Widener library. A travelling fellowship from the Columbia University Center for European Studies allowed me to carry out preliminary research in Netherlands. A generous pre-doctoral fellowship the from the Social Science Research Council provided the funding which sustained the primary research for the study, while a Catherine Bauer Wurster fellowship from the Harvard-M.I.T. Joint Center for Urban Studies supported the writing. In addition to their financial support, I am grateful for the faith these institutions placed in my project. V In the Netherlands, Bertil Geerts and her entire family welcomed me into their homes. Nothing can repay their hospitality, which not only lifted my spirits, but also gave me invaluable insight into the best of In the United States, I am grateful to Randee Dutch mores and manners. Brenner Goodstadt, Hilary Ballon, my students at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and many other friends for their encouragement and support. Richard D. Duke first made it possible for me to study Dutch planning when he invited me My Advanced Study in 1974. list here. Unquestionably, Bombadil Bartlett, it would to join him at the Netherlands Institute for parents encouraged me in ways too numerous to without the help of Francis Bone and Tom have been impossible to complete the work. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ABBREVIATIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION ii iii iv 1 PART I 1 2 PROFESSIONAL AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL SERVICE Historical Origins of the Modern Professions The Cognitive and Social Structure of the Modern professions The Semi-professions Housing Design: A New Field of Social Expertise THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BASIS OF CULTURAL PLURALISM IN AMSTERDAM The Economic Revival of Amsterdam The Social Transformation of Amsterdam The Changing Labor Market Restructuring Society Divisions Within the Working Class Working Class Identities Cultural Pluralism and the Politics of Accommodation 10 10 13 20 28 31 33 43 46 49 53 56 76 PART II 3 LAISSEZ-FAIRE URBAN GROWTH IN AMSTERDAM Urban Growth Housing Conditions The Old City The New City The Redistributions of the City's Population 82 86 91 96 103 107 4 THE SHIFT TO COLLECTIVISM The Discovery and Investigation of the Housing Problem 123 Private Philanthropy 129 Design 133 The Failure of Private Reform Efforts 139 The Turn to Public Intervention 144 Amsterdam and the Housing Act of 1902 153 114 5 THE ORGANIZATION OF HOUSING PROFESSIONALS The Social Engineer The Waning of Medical Dominance in the Housing Field Planning: A Threatened Field of Engineering The Politics of Housing and Planning Policy in Amsterdam Institutions of Housing and Planning Expertise Conclusion 156 156 167 178 190 202 212 vii PART III 6 7 SOCIAL EXPERTISE: CIVILIZING THE WORKING CLASS Introduction The Organization of Housing Expertise in Amsterdam Urbanizing the Working Class Legislative Means to Improve Housing Training the Working Class The Pillars and Reform Through Housing The Housing Societies Worker Initiated Housing Societies The Organization of Workers' Housing Societies Rochdale Cooperative Housing Society Between Deference and Independence HOUSING DESIGN AND VALUES Results of the Housing Act The Organization of Housing Design: The Separation of Plan and Facade Setting Workers' Housing Standards Housing Type: Responses to Urban Life Control of the Housing Design Process 215 215 218 221 225 231 236 241 244 250 255 260 266 266 269 272 296 323 PART IV 8 9 HOUSING AND THE ARCHITECT The Collectivization of Aesthetics The Call for Aesthetic Expertise The Identification of Architectural Expertise Architectural Socities Architecture: Profession or Art? Architecture and Housing Professional Adjustments Architectural Expertise and Housing Housing as an Architctural Issue Aesthetics and Housing 341 345 348 351 355 358 360 364 368 370 THE INSTITUTION OF PUBLIC AESTHETIC CONTROL Design in the Public Sector The Aesthetic Advisor The Beauty Commission The Regulation of the Street The Implications of Design Coordination Keppler and Aesthetic Control 376 382 385 388 392 396 10 THE BEAUTY COMMISSION Procedures of the Beauty Commission The Beauty Commission Debates The Beauty Commission and the Municipal Government 341 376 402 402 406 416 viii 11 WORKERS' HOUSING AND AESTHETICS Adequate or Excellent Housing Design Aesthetics and the Workers' Housing Societies The Reform of Working Class Taste Art for the People Workers and Aesthetic Expertise Workers and Modernism 425 428 431 434 437 439 12 PUBLIC ARBITERS OF TASTE: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN NEUTRALITY AND COMMITMENT The Collective Control of Aesthetics Controlling the Choice of Architect Stylistic Control Creating Harmony The Preservation of Neutrality Conclusion 448 450 455 461 466 470 CONCLUSION: HOUSING DESIGN IN A PLURALIST SOCIETY 421 443 475 APPENDICES 481 FIGURES 490 NOTES 593 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 675 1 INTRODUCTION By the end of the nineteenth century, political collectivism had emerged in Europe as a curative for the social dysfunctions resulting from doctrinaire laissez-faire capitalism. As a non-revolutionary, reformist movement, collectivism sought to achieve social order by permitting the intervention of public authority wherever the pursuit of individual interests conflicted with the interests of the community at large. collective interest was determined by political means. The Institutions such as mass political parties permitted the expression of diverse viewpoints, and through the compromise and negotiation of public political discourse the collective interest was defined. No such institutions arose to channel cultural discourse publicly and permit a diversity of viewpoints to operate as resources for a collective culture. Instead, publicly sponsored cultural production such as housing design was subject to social processes which limited the expression of cultural pluralism. In particular, professionalization substituted the internal discourse among experts for a public discourse by the community. Twentieth century Europe accepted the principle that the design of cities and their housing should be done for a collective interest. who was to determine their forms? defined? But How was the collective interest to be What processes of cultural politics might reconcile divisions within society with a unified expression of community? 2 Nowhere is the contradiction between the ideal of collective cultural expression and the pluralism of society so clear as in the Amsterdam of the first decades of this century where, in a city experiencing deep divisions along class, religious, and political lines, a program of publicly sponsored housing succeeded both in introducing new standards of housing and in producing remarkably harmonious neighborhoods. The architectural achievement in Amsterdam attracted immediate international acclaim. Enlightened municipal authorities had engaged the services of leading architects who, as participants in the Dutch modern movement, believed they might represent the conditions of the twentieth century as successfully as the seventeenth century had represented those of the Golden Age of Holland. Their search culminated in the creation of a style of expressionism in brick which came to be called the "Amsterdam School" style. If the Amsterdam School can be identified as part of a general movement in European architecture, it can also be interpreted in regional terms. Its name recalls its origins in a specific municipality. Berlage claimed for it a national significance, identifying it as Dutch modernism. An American observer, Catherine Bauer, although observing the flamboyant excesses of the most extravagent examples with some reserve, proclaimed that the style had succeeded in creating a modern vernacular. More recently Helen Searing has subjected the Amsterdam School housing to a penetrating analysis of its relationship to the Social Democrats who pushed hardest for a strong municipal housing policy. The variety of these descriptions reveals the complexity of their subject, but each acknowledges the cohesiveness of the stylistic expression and seeks to associate it with a socio-political significance. The installation of the 3 Amsterdam School style as semi-official public style and the development of new standards for the dwelling plan took place in the context of social processes which enabled an aesthetic cohesiveness to occur in a deeply divided society. The purpose of this study is to understand those processes and their relationship to the housing forms generated. The production of culture is usually approached as the autonomous production of form. potentials Since form itself contains inherent limits and to meaning which can be elicited under changing conditions, it can be shown that the social conditions under which form is produced may not limit subsequent re-interpretations and uses of that form. Nonetheless, it is equally true that such subsequent "re-readings" are themselves products of changing social conditions. of form Meaning does not exist outside the constraints of social conditions and is a product of a dialectical relationship between form and social context. It is important to avoid confusing this dialectical relationship between form and social processes with a reflective one. Neither society, nor politics, nor ideology can be said to be reflected in form. instance, It is inadequate, for to equate a given set of forms with "collectivism," or "paternalism." The temptation to make such a from the same historiographical "socialism," one-to-one equation stems fallacy which inhibited the development of a democratic model of cultural response to pluralism, namely the assumption that a society generates a typical form of cultural expression. This conception posits a static relationship between society and culture and cannot account for change. Only if we acknowledge the autonomous development of both form and society, and study the points where those developments interact, can we analyse their respective processes of change and their reciprocal relationships. 4 In this study, social processes are viewed both as enabling the production of form and as being enabled by that production, by the making of The history of fields such as architecture are double-sided. culture. We must recognize on the one hand their contribution to an internal growth of knowledge and at the same time acknowledge them as social practices subject to processes on-going in the world outside the internal logic of their development. Professions like architecture altered their organization, their relationship to clients, and their methods of production when they were called upon to fulfill new tasks in service to the community. The social processes of collectivism and pluralism created conditions of constraint and opportunity within which housing designers The design of housing was then enabled, but not determined, by operated. those social processes. The relationship was reciprocal: the production of culture itself enabled the unfolding of social processes. Housing design became a stage for the enactment of relations between classes, between ideologies, and between the professions. The design of housing offered a vehicle for the interplay of pluralism and collectivism. While the forms assumed by housing schemes, public gardens, and civic centers cannot be interpreted outside a tradition of stylistic and architectural development, those forms also enter into a different history, the history of their making, use, and meaning informed by social and political processes. The professionalization of housing design in Amsterdam took shape within the context of conflicting movements toward societal unity and diversity. The movement toward collectivism, that is, government in the service of a unified public interest, was countered by the growing division of society into distinct subcultures, with separate political, 5 cultural, and social institutions. At the very moment when increased government regulation of work, education, and home life drew its support from the notion of community interest, partisan divisions characterized schools, sports clubs, newspapers, and labor unions. split society along both religious and political These divisions lines, while class conflict was heightened with the emergence of new political, social, and economic organizations which could directly represent the points of view of the working and lower middle classes. At the same time that Dutch society was wracked by the conflicts engendered by these countermovements, a process of accommodation cultural issues to a non-partisan plane of neutrality. The role of the professional in diffusing cultural pluralism was pivotal. to function as a tool to maintain social stability. removed Expertise came By representing value-laden issues as problems subject to solution by means of expertise on the model of engineering, professionalization attempted to depoliticize many arenas of activity created by new collectivist policy, including housing design. As a result, the expression of cultural pluralism was distorted and sometimes thwarted. The chapters that follow explore the development and application of housing expertise in Amsterdam. The study begins with a theoretical dis- cussion of the modern helping professions, delineating the inherent conflict between their requirements for disciplinary advance and their requirements for social service. In this first chapter I argue that that conflict is central to the history of modern housing design. The second chapter introduces the Dutch social pattern which set the stage for the exercise of housing expertise century. in the early twentieth The social and economic basis for the pluralistic society of the 6 Netherlands is explained, and the relative positions of the social groups are described. The chapter ends with a discussion of the specifically Dutch resolution of democratic political accommodation in a pluralistic society and draws implications for the role of expertise in that accommodation. The following two chapters, based primarily on secondary source material, describe the genesis of the Dutch housing issue. Chapter Three provides the nineteenth century background necessary for an understanding of the historical development of the housing problem in Amsterdam. Chapter Four then describes the governmental response to the housing problem, that is, the inauguration of collectivist responsibility and the organization of the bureaucratic apparatus for housing reform. With progressive legislative and increased administrative intervention in housing came the call for the experts who would carry out reforms. Chapter Five examines the emergence of professional expertise in the housing arena. While nineteenth century housing reform efforts had been dominated by the medical and legal professions, in the beginning of the twentieth century the architect and planner were called in to plan neighborhoods and design housing. Housing professionals carved out their areas of expertise and consolidated their positions of authority as they defined their role in service to the interests of the community. In the main body of the thesis, I study housing design within the context of social processes previously described. In Chapters Six and Seven I look at the dwelling plan and in Chapters Eight through Twelve at facade design. This division of plan and facade reflects the division of expertise resulting from the separate traditions of the nineteenth century philanthropic housing reformer and the form-giving architect, the first 7 asserting authority over the allocation of space in the home, the second asserting control over the aesthetic treatment of the facade and the collective space of the city. The relationship between reformers and the newly constituted workers' housing societies is studied in Chapter Six. The influence of those relationships on the design of the dwelling plan is studied in Chapter Seven. Housing design was affected by the persistence of nineteenth century reformist assumptions, incorporated in the building ordinance, health board, influential reform groups and the civil service. The influence of prevailing middle class notions of morality and hygiene led to the stipulation of plans based as much on assumptions about the proper life style of the working class as on actual needs. chapters, I examine the politics of style, In the final as developments internal to the architectural profession, coupled with the authority accorded architects as experts, put in their hands the possibility of imposing the Amsterdam School style as the semi-official style for housing in Amsterdam. The modern architectural ideology which called for the architect to design for the community provided the theoretical basis for the claim that the best, most competent architects be selected for the design of publicly subsidized housing. Recourse to professional competence and expertise removed the determination of a public value, in this case aesthetic taste, to a presumably non-partisan plane. It is easy to forget, when attempting to analyze large-scale societal processes, that they are the products of many individual decision-makers, operating within the material and social constraints of the given situation. The method of this study has been as far as possible to base the analysis of social processes on an accumulation of information about individual actions and events. Taking the period when publicly sponsored 8 housing production was first introduced in Amsterdam, the discussions of the municipal council and its committees regarding housing and planning have been examined to reveal the political debates. The records and docu- ments of the bureaucracies have been tapped to expose their attitudes and work methods. The debates within and among the professional and reform organizations in their societies and journals have been consulted. Working class opinion and involvement in the housing question has been studied by means of labor journals, autobiographies, newspapers, and the records of the various housing societies. Finally, the housing itself has been studied both on site and through the compilation of comparative data from the Amsterdam Building Inspection Office for each of eighty-four housing projects, the first to be built under the new reform provisions. (See Appendices.) At the start of the twentieth century in Amsterdam, the determination of housing form by the exigencies of the commercial market was deliberately replaced by the collectivism of municipal intervention. Community interest replaced the profit motive as the motor behind the. design process. Objective expertise was to interpret that interest in service to the community, but every topic addressed was value-laden: the constitution of the household, daily life style, aesthetic taste. While officially the design process had removed itself to an objective plane, applying the highest architectural quality and the best technical expertise to determine the best form of housing for the community, this purported neutrality hid positions of political, class, aesthetic, and professional interests. produced in We will see that the unified cultural expression Amsterdam's early days of public housing reform was not a reflection of social cohesiveness. Rather, it was the outcome of a 9 struggle between conflicting tendencies toward collectivism and pluralism, a struggle in which the helping professions were torn between a selfserving autonomy and social service to an increasingly divided community. 10 Chapter One PROFESSIONAL AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL SERVICE Historical Origins of the Modern Professions In The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi demonstrates that political means, rather than natural economic processes, created and maintained the self-regulating market promulgated in the nineteenth century. He brilliantly analyses the means used by governments and capitalists to create an artificial environment for the unfettered pursuit of the free market economy, interpreting European economic and social history in the light of a complex set of interrelated developments by which land, labor, and money were transformed into the commodities of a market economy.1 Almost simultaneous with the development of the laissez-faire ideology which restricted government intervention in the marketplace, arose a countermovement described by Polanyi as a reaction to the massive social upheaval that capitalist economic transformations had instigated. The countermovement took the form of increasing state intervention into those aspects of collective social life which might be, and were being, adversely affected by the spread of the market economy.2 Politicians and investors had discovered that planning was necessary to preserve the social stability required for further economic development of the free market. To the extent that the movement for social reform was successful 11 then, it was in large part due to its role in settling social unrest and thus serving the economic interests whose uncontained activities had caused social dysfunctions in the first place. The countermovement against laissez-faire was, Polyani argues, necessary for the selfpreservation of the free market. 3 Coupled with the advent of state initiated social planning came the expansion of bureaucracy expertise. and the development of new public roles for Weber's description of bureacracy and the technocratic idealism of Veblen reflect their optimistic visions of a society efficiently growth, regulated by trained specialists. exploitation of natural resources, The course of industrial financial administration, and city planning were to be governed by a corps of experts with advanced training. Highly valued expertise had traditionally been organized in the professions. The medieval professions of law, medicine, and divinity acted as models for the organization of expertise in self-protective guilds under the sponsorship of legitimizing authorities such as the crown or state. The modern form of professional organization took place during the nineteenth century in a "wave of association" described by CarrSaunders.4 As new fields achieved societal recognition and self- definition, they proceeded through a series of organizational stages before attaining the professional maturity of officially authorized autonomy. The establishment of unified discipline and practice, the founding of professional societies and journals, and the codification of professional training were the social expressions of a process whereby professions secured a monopoly and organized a market for their specialized knowledge.5 12 During the late nineteenth century the professions enjoyed enhanced power and prestige for two reasons. In the first place, the increased effectiveness of scientific knowledge, or the belief in such knowledge, had won public trust and legitimized the professional claim to expertise and its effective application. Secondly, the corrective countermovement to laissez-faire placed an increased value on the expertise useful for social planning. New areas of expertise, organized into professions, emerged alongside the older professions to serve the public interest under state auspices. Thus the modern helping professions developed from both internal and external conditions, from historical changes in the epistemological content of disciplines, as well as changes in the social functions the disciplines were called upon to serve. Accordingly, the historical origins of these professions cannot be understood unless each of these changing conditions and their interactions are taken into account. 13 The Cognitive and Social Structure of the Modern Professions The modern organization of the professions was based on the creation of a market for knowledge which society deemed valuable. 6 this endeavor derived from two factors. The success of The first was the claim of the professions to a monopoly of knowledge and its growth. The second was the value placed by society on that knowledge and the claim of the professions to serve socially accepted values. To the degree that a profession could successfully establish its exclusive mastery over an area of knowledge, and apply that knowledge for the good of society, the profession derived a special position of privilege. A profession is the social institution which organizes the growth and application of knowledge. Where knowledge, its growth, and application take the form of rational enterprises, we find a "shared set of aims and ideals leading to the development of a repertory of procedures open to modification."7 Rational enterprises encompass the many theoretical and practical areas of human understanding where consensus on aims and techniques permit a selective criticism leading to a constant process of modification. Following Toulmin, we will consider the "communal tradition of procedures and techniques for dealing with theoretical or practical problems" to constitute a of the discipline's profession.8 discipline, and the social institutionalization growth and application to constitute the corresponding Rational enterprises encompass many varieties of human understanding, from the academic professions of science and the humanities to engineering and the fine arts. Two factors, a claim to monopoly over the specialized knowledge of a discipline and service to society through application of that knowledge, 14 are the justification for the privileged nature of the professions' social organization. The privilege which distinguishes the social organization of professionals from other forms of labor is their right to selfregulation.9 On the basis of their claim to a monopoly of knowledge in a discipline, the professions are granted self-regulation, that is, they are In permitted to control the content and growth of that discipline. practice, this control is exercised through training and education, publishing, the dissemination of knowledge, Self- and peer review. regulation in a sense permits the professions to create the authorized notions of reality, to establish the norms for knowledge of their delimited areas of reality. Inherent in the status of profession is the since professional status for producing ideology, potential "allows a group of experts to define and construct particular areas of social according to an autonomy granted the profession reality" very standards by which its alone have the right superior competence is "to define the judged." 10 Professions to dismiss and disregard outside evaluation as illegitimate, while reserving for themselves the power to denote authoritative versions of reality. Since they also control access to knowledge, they are able to sustain the unequal distribution of such power, and thereby enhance their own position of privilege. "The singular characteristic of professional power is that the profession has the exclusive privilege of defining both the content of its knowledge and the legitimate conditions of access to it, while the unequal distribution of knowledge protects and enhances this power. ,12 The justification for self-regulation derives from the nature of the growth of knowledge in a rational discipline. The rationality of a 15 discipline is characterized by the application of shared procedures to the solution of well-defined problems which are subject to critical review according to shared criteria. by an internal discourse. The discipline's advancement is generated We can say that the development of a discipline proceeds by means of the refinement of criteria and procedures in a closed discussion between those who agree to the problem as defined, investigative procedures and evaluative criteria. the The population of propositions which constitutes the body of knowledge of a discpline thus undergoes constant revision. Autonomy is necessary to safeguard the process whereby the discipline grows, since rationality depends on the scope that exists for criticizing and changing the discipline from within. 1 3 Professions granted self-regulation create environments within which the requirements for disciplinary autonomy are recognized and protected. In the first place, speculation and innovation are freely tolerated and allowed to be tested; in the second place no ideas are allowed to pass without subjection to critical review.14 The profession justifies its claim to a monopoly of the knowledge of a discipline because it organizes the forum for disciplinary discourse. But it is only able to guarantee the conditions which will permit the autonomy necessary for disciplinary growth if it is granted the self-regulation which will permit it to institute those conditions. To the extent that autonomy guarantees the free and independent development of a discipline, rational enterprises. it is necessary to the organization of However, rational enterprises differ in the degree to which they are isolable. Where problems are less well-defined, or consensus on criteria is shaky, autonomy can be characterized and maintained only with difficulty. Where the aim of a profession is limited 16 to the growth of knowledge, and the discipline has been well-defined, autonomy which insures freedom from external pressures is both possible and necessary. Professions dedicated purely to the growth of knowledge are supported because they are perceived as beneficial to society, although the real clients are the professionals themselves. conflicts take, Thus over the direction which development of the discipline should investigatory strategies, norms and criteria can remain concerns purely internal to the disciplinary discourse. The self-regulation of the professions is also justified on the basis of the professions' service function. Professions engage in the self- regulation of their professional behavior in order to protect the basis for their claim that they act beyond the narrow confines of economic selfinterest while engaged in service to values held by society. They devise means to control their collective behavior to ensure that the claim is not violated. As we have just seen, the development of socially valued knowledge requires an autonomy which protects it from the interference or distortion of external interests. The application of that knowledge by professionals requires similar protection in order to ensure that collective values are served. product is Dedication to enhancing the professional thus perceived as serving society.15 Typically, professions regulate their behavior to protect public interest from malpractice and to support publicly held values. function is Self-regulation to preserve the service performed through the establishment and monitoring of a professional code of ethics, setting standards for the quality of professional practice, the standardization of fees, arbitration of client relations, and punishment of malpractice. The application of knowledge by professionals occurs according to 17 societally approved values which, by virtue of their wide acceptance, contribute to an aura of professional neutrality. "Professions derive an ideology of neutrality from their generalized 'societal' appeal, that is, an ideology which implicitly stresses the classlessness of professionals and explicitly the service of the public as a whole." 16 In the application of knowledge, to the degree that service to society remains unquestioned, professions appear to be free of the charge of selfinterest. They appear to be free from interests which would interfere with the service function such as self-promotion and advancement toward economic or political power, service to those in power or to specific class or political interests. The degree of self-regulation accorded to the profession for the development of the discipline, thus ensuring its rationality, is perceived in turn as a guarantor of both universality and neutrality. Professional self-regulation of practice further contributes to control and diminish the influence of outside interests. To summarize, the growth and application of knowledge is organized socially in professions. of knowledge, By virtue of the nature of the rational growth professions are granted an autonomy which, while allowing the free development of the discipline, also reinforces the profession's monopoly on the specialized knowledge. Professions also are granted the right to regulate their practice to ensure continued service to socially held values without distortion from external interests. Attacks on the professions' privilege of self-regulation invariably focus on one of the two justifications for it: the requirement for professional control of the discipline, or the feasibility of the application of knowledge unhampered by outside interests. Attackers insist on the conspiratorial nature of professional control and the 18 nefarious use of professional power to perpetrate ideology. Defenders of professional self-regulation insist on the ideological purity with which the professions can create the environment for disciplinary advances. A total refusal to acknowledge the role of external influences on both the development of knowledge and its application stems in part from a fear for the loss of the profession's monopoly, and thus its power and prestige. In fact, both the nature of the professions by definition and the behavior of professionals as observed demonstrate the interdependence of developments internal and external to the discipline. Since disciplinary development becomes socially manifested in the institution of the profession, the history of discipline and profession are inextricably intertwined. Ideas attain their authority by virtue of the internal criteria of the discipline, but it is the institutions of the profession which create the forum for that discussion. The authority accorded professional institutions is subject to political processes which determine the distribution of prestige and power within the profession. The discrepancy between the means by which an idea attains authority and an institution attains authority leads us to a question posed by Toulmin: "what ensures that institutional authority shall be exercised predominantly on behalf of views that are also entitled to disciplinary authority?" 1 7 Historians of science and culture have been pursuing research programs aimed at answering such questions and clarifying the historical relationship between the development of knowledge and its social context. The social systems of scientific research, the patronage of culture, the relationship between societal values and the prestige accorded professional institutions, and by extension disciplinary strategies, have 19 all been studied. The potential contradiction, inherent in the structure of the professions, between self-interest and societal service, the inevitable clash between the claim for professional authority and the necessary reliance on state support pose problems for the standard justifications of professional self-regulation and disciplinary autonomy. While such questions can be posed for even the hardest of natural sciences, there are more obvious political and epistemological grounds to question the legitimacy of the claim for autonomy and self-regulation in the helping professions which grew up during the late nineteenth century. As part of the countermovement to reform social dysfunctions, these professions grew to play an important role in the emergent welfare state. The helping professions succeeded in establishing themselves with state support both because of their claim to a monopoly on the relevant rational knowledge and their claim to neutrality. Medicine, the profession which most successfully established prestige, power, and autonomy, set standards for the organization of the new professions. Medicine combined the unassailable aim of providing health care selflessly indisputably based in science. with a discipline Only recently, through the work of such sociologists and historians as Freidson and Starr, have we come to understand the historical nature of medicine's achievement of selfregulation and the limits to its objectivity and neutrality. 18 20 The Semi-Professions Cognitive objectivity and political neutrality are more difficult to establish when a discipline is less well defined and therefore the autonomous, internal development of knowledge is less clearcut, or when consensus on the service function of knowledge is subject to dispute. This is true in general for the fields whose aim is the application of knowledge to everyday life, that is, fields where knowledge is to be applied to externally generated social or cultural problems rather than internally generated problems. 9 The rationality of such disciplines need not be in question, since rationality depends on the way discourse is conducted rather than on the origin of the problem, internal or external. 2 0 The disciplines and professions of everyday life problems have variously been called preparadigmatic, quasi-disciplines, or semiprofessions.21 They raise a number of questions each of which brings into doubt their justifications for autonomy and self-regulation. These fields are generally characterized by a discipline only partial in which there is consensus on procedures or aims, so that the internal development of knowledge in the discipline cannot be isolated from external influences. Epistemologically, the issue may arise whether or not expertise exists at all, or in any case whether professional monopoly can exist where common sense or other client input may contribute to the development of the discipline. Here the main struggle over the legitimacy of professional self-regulation will center around the question of who is to be admitted to the discourse, and the power of the profession to control access to the disciplinary forum.22 Secondly, in such fields the application of knowledge may be governed according to values on which societal consensus 21 cannot be assumed. This poses the question how properly to determine the interests to be served by application of the discipline, a question which sometimes translates into the issue of defining the real client, that is, whether the client is the professional himself, the state, or the public. Inherent to the modern planning and helping professions is a potential incompatibility between the autonomy necessary for the growth of the discipline and the social input necessary to fulfill the service function. 2 3 Historically, where the professional-client relationship was either one-to-one, or the professional was his own client, as in the natural sciences and humanities, the clash between the requirements for disciplinary autonomy and social dependence rarely emerged. In the case of the academic professions, well-defined disciplines growing according to shared assumptions about procedures and aims could successfully achieve isolation, although too great a degree of isolation might incur the loss of the tacit tolerance of society, which in fact supports the profession's activities. In the case of those traditional professions where the relationship with the client was face-to-face, the professions originally served elite patrons of the aristocracy or court and eventually made the successful transition to middle class patronage because they were able to conduct a one- or two-way dialogue with the client satisfaction of the client's interests. which secured Such professional relationships have persisted into modern times in the form of the family doctor or lawyer, or the architect who designs private homes. But with the advent of professional service to the public under state auspices, as in the case of the professions responding to the call for social planning, the contradiction between the disciplinary requirement for autonomy and the social service requirement for public service emerged clearly. The 22 replacement of the individual client with a public client conditions of the patronage relationship. longer rely on a changed the The professional direct dialogue with the client in could no which the client's wishes and interests could be determined while the professional shaped client perceptions. Means for determining the interests of a faceless aggregate had to be found. The professions achieved their authority on the basis of successful advances made in autonomous disciplines. No one will dispute the remarkable achievements in such fields as medicine and engineering. But when the public replaced individuals as the client, when the traditional professions were joined by new quasi-professions in the social application of knowledge, a threat to professional self-regulation appeared as it became necessary to address the problem of determining the public interest. The public as client raised political and sociological issues for the conduct of professional practice. When can a collective public interest be said to exist, and if it does, how is it to be determined? determination to be accomplished by democratic means, either political or disciplinary? Is such or by an elite, Where no consensus of opinion exists on issues of public concern, how are the varying positions to be reconciled? When- is needs, it legitimate for the professional assessing values, interpreting to take on the task of defining making assumptions about preferences, mass opinion, or projecting values derived from the logic of the discipline itself? The conflicting means of determining public interest take different forms, pitting middle class against working class values, mass, expert against lay. elite against But the standard professional answer is to 23 cloak with neutrality the assumption of values necessary to the conduct of the semi-professions. Since for the most part professional consultation is non-controversial, the claim to neutrality can go unchallenged, although in fact the professions are necessarily partisan on two counts: the often tacit assumption of values, and the dependence on societal, usually state, support. present, Such affiliations, and the interests they represent, are always but as long as they remain uncontroversial, contribute to the appearance of professional they are hidden, neutrality. and Professionals resist identification with partisan interest since disinterestedness is one of their sources of social prestige.24 But the professions are dependent on the state, since their privilege of self-regulation is given official sanction and protected by the state, while the state is often the employer of the professional bureaucrat-technocrat. Historically the appearance of professional neutrality as the representation of the public good serves both state and profession. Official acknowledgement legitimizes professional authority while the neutrality of expertise imparts legitimacy civil to the state service reform, and enhances and emphasis on state its authority. "neutrality" Bureaucracy, create a favorable climate for the state supported professions' assertion of neutrality and disciplinary autonomy,25 while "the state acquires connotations of objectivity which are implicit in the appeal to science as an instrument of legitimation. The three main principles of progressive political reform, non-partisanship, the strong executive, and the separation of politics notion of a transpolitical from the administration, all converge toward the and ultimately technocratic state...a reality in which all interests can be reconciled by the magic of science.,26 The problems addressed by the professions may be social 24 depoliticized to hide the operation of special interests, and the elite determination of solutions. 27 The marriage of state and professional interests is not, however, universal. Professions, isolated in their institutions, may grow independent from ruling class ideology and values. 2 8 There are equally elite implications if the profession imposes the internal perspective of the discipline on the lay public when it represents values not shared by that public. Disciplinary autonomy always harbors the potential problem that the discipline may become detached from generally held social values within the isolation of its peer review process. In the professions of pure knowledge, the interests of client and professional coincide because they are identical, but in the semi-professions the possibility of conflict between the internal evaluative criteria of the discipline and those of the lay public is inherent. Where the public is the client, and the feasibility of direct dialogue is closed, the facelessness of the client is virtually tantamount to the elimination of the client altogether, opening the opportunity for the professional to impose his own values and serve his own interests, whether dictated by the needs of the discipline, economics, class, or politics.29 Autonomy can thus lead to professional elitism, especially when the state protects bureaucrats from public review, but this is always limited by the need for state and societal support. The purported neutrality of the professions may hide specific class, professional, or economic interests whose ascendancy is a product of elite political process. The notion of a unified collective interest becomes an important ideological aid in sustaining the legitimacy of professional neutrality, because it suggests either the universal validity of specific 25 interests or the reconciliation of conflicting or parallel interests. Pluralism can not be easily accommodated in the social organization of the professions because it challenges both the self-regulation accorded the professions and the consensus which characterizes a compact discipline. The multiplicity of values available for the execution of the semiprofessions poses a challenge to those professions: how can they maintain standards of professionalism (with its associated prestige and privilege), yet respond to multiple values? critical in This challenge becomes especially a period of democratization. corporate multiple values? How are the professions to in- Persistent notions of professional superiority have prevented most professions from facing this challenge. The problem of determining the values to be served in the application of knowledge where the public is the client poses difficulties which appear to require external inputs that challenge not only the selfregulation of professional practice, but also the vulnerable internal dialogue which protects the discipline's rational growth. The requirement for pure disciplinary autonomy in these fields is questionable since the disciplines are partial and expertise sometimes non-existent. As a result of their fragmentary nature, there is a danger that the misuse of autonomy can create the illusion of valid expertise. Such misuse would act to restrict or eliminate necessary external lay input to the disciplinary discourse. authority and self-regulation Any profession by virtue of its has the power to limit lay perceptions. 30 Professionals feel the need to protect their claim to a monopoly on expertise since it bolsters the claim of a quasi-discipline for autonomy, and professional status allows the construction of social reality "under the guise of universal validity conferred by expertise." 3 1 'The appearance 26 of codification of knowledge through the rational processes which constitute a discipline occur in a depersonalized manner which looks universal and objective, although it may not be. 32 "A scientific basis stamps the professional himself with the legitimacy of a general body of knowledge and a mode of cognition, the epistemological superiority of which is taken for granted in our society. The connection with superior cognitive rationality appear to establish the superiority of one professional 'commodity' independently of the interests and specific power of the group or coalition which advocates this definition. The monopolistic professional project is legitimized, therefore, by the appearance of neutrality."33 Thus professionals assume that admitting the layman into the disciplinary discourse will undermine professional prestige. Professional concern to maintain monopoly is not limited to excluding the laity from discourse. At times the application of rational knowledge to social problems raises the problem of delineating the boundaries of new disciplines, defining which existing expertise to apply, or selecting what new expertise to develop.34 Professions fear a loss of monopoly which would occur by letting outsiders into the discussion because such admittance is perceived as the loss of its basis for legitimacy and authority. But where a discipline is not "compact" its internal discourse may in fact be permeable. possible in evaluation. A public role may be determining both disciplinary procedures or criteria of It is then necessary to raise the questions already discussed about the proper means to organize such input. The development of the professions in service to the public interest at the end of the nineteenth century posed a new challenge to the established model of the professions based on self-regulation and 27 disciplinary autonomy. The replacement of the individual client by the public revealed the potential contradiction between the disciplinary need for autonomy and the social service requirement for lay input. The monopoly of knowledge and the appearance of disinterestedness on which the professions depended for their prestige appeared to be threatened. 28 Housing Design: A New Field of Social Expertise Housing design for rural and urban workers became part of the social reform program espoused by European governments in the late nineteenth century. The failure to satisfy housing needs both in quality and quantity was a dramatic and highly visible failure of the rapidly expanding European economies. Since reform of housing could be undertaken without far-reaching social, political, or economic upheaval, various programs for the reorganization of housing production were embraced by a broad political spectrum. State supported housing reform took a number of forms including encouragement of both private and public housing construction. Aside from the many policy decisions that bore on the drafting of housing legislation or the organization of housing authorities, the state also became involved in establishing housing standards and the design of specific housing projects. As states attempted to regulate and organize this new area of expertise, they encountered the issues facing the semiprofessions which have been outlined in this chapter. Housing design has always been linked intimately to assumptions about life style. The design of the home is based on knowledge about living conditions: the nature of family life, the relationship between workplace and residence, sex roles, and class behavior. Thus housing design - encompasses not only practical knowledge, but assumptions about values. The home must meet the daily requirements of its inhabitants and its success is judged on its satisfaction of those needs. But housing is also judged on the basis of assumptions about what these requirements should be. Concepts of the preferred or recommended life style permeate housing design. Practical design decisions such as density, room height, 29 amenities to be included in the house, and the site plan are based both on factual knowledge and on values. At a time of rapid social change, however, there may be little consensus on appropriate life style. the question must arise whose values a should serve. state Then supported housing design How might the decision making process respond to conflicting values? Housing was not a compact discipline. profession. It was not an organized Discussion about housing reform took place among members of many existing professions and several new ones. engineers, and architects all Doctors, lawyers, civil contributed to creating housing expertise, each from within the tradition of its own internal discourse. A lack of disciplinary consensus as well as a lack of socially cohesive values characterized housing reform. Because of the multifaceted nature of housing as a social problem, it could not generate a profession analogous to medicine. designed. Nonetheless, standards were achieved and plans were Housing reform thus provides an interesting subject for the relationship between the organization of expertise and the expression of values. Among the professions involved in housing reform, architecture played an unusual role.35 to change its As a traditional discipline, architecture was forced professional organization task of housing design. face elite client. if it were to respond to the new An anonymous mass client replaced the face-to- New relationships with the state were forged. Yet the discipline maintained its tradition of autonomous internal dialogue. strength of that internal dialogue allowed architecture unequalled by the housing field taken as a whole. housing task altered the professional organization The to make advances While the advent of the of architecture, it 30 also gave rise to advances within the disciplinary discourse. However, this response to external stimulus did not imply penetration of disciplinary autonomy or an opening to external participants. To the contrary, advance was made possible by the perpetuation and protection of closed professional ranks. In the case of the Netherlands, we will see how many of the questions raised in this chapter about autonomy and social service were met as housing expertise developed and organized. We will observe the difficulty with which housing expertise was defined, and the resultant disputes over professional boundaries. We will examine the way state support for housing experts was organized and find that the mechanisms for validating and authenticating experts varied depending on whether expertise was being applied to matters of life style or taste. official neutrality Similarly the need to maintain generated different responses to pluralism depending on the cohesiveness of disciplinary expertise. In the case of poorly defined disciplinary boundaries, mechanisms were found to ensure a representative, neutral balance of values. In the case of well defined disciplinary boundaries, professional self-regulation was defended, keeping out the expression of pluralism, and instituting the authority of neutral expertise. In order to understand how housing expertise related to the expression of value, we must understand the sources of value at work in the society. Accordingly, we will start the account of the professionalization of Dutch housing with an examination of the social and economic basis of Dutch cultural pluralism. In the following chapter we will describe the structure of Dutch society and identify the social positions within it which generated values. 31 Chapter Two THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BASIS OF CULTURAL PLURALISM IN AMSTERDAM The Netherlands was one of the last It joined the modernized economies late industrialize. century, at European countries to in the nineteenth a time when much of the new world system of imperial capitalism was already established. transformation As a consequence the simultaneous of society and economy occurred with a efficient and disruptive. rapidity at once What had been a stagnant backwater of economic development in 1850 had become in fifty years a thriving environment for shipping, finance, insurance, trade, and manufacture. A cultural renaissance blossomed in the arts, architecture, literature and the sciences. As society restructured itself to accommodate new functions, the tenor of family life and material culture altered. Dutch industrialization, In the course of changes took place similar to those which had previously begun to take place in England, Belgium, and Germany: the making of a working class, the emergence of mass politics, the development of large-scale economic interests, and the growth of urban centers. Yet there was a persistence of old mannerisms, a carry-over of traditions, a clinging to to the trappings of Holland's glorious past. The exploration of the new conditions shaping contemporary possibilities allowed solutions to emerge which eventually both acknowledged and overpassed the old 32 culture. The persistence of old attitudes and the coming of new ones coincided with the persistence of nineteenth century social and economic forms during the emergence of new relations between economic change and social structure at the turn of the century. In what follows, we will examine the patterns of persistence and change from which Amsterdam emerged as a socially and culturally diversified city. 33 The Economic Revival of Amsterdam The origins of Amsterdam's social and cultural diversity lay in its economic history. Dutch industrial take-off, coming as it did in the second wave of European industrialization, did not follow the classic pattern described by Landes in which a leading sector gives the impetus to development. De Jonge has shown that neither of the prime candidates for the role of leading sector, textiles or the metal industry, functioned as such in the Netherlands. 2 Rather, industry developed across the board, and the economy as a whole, including trade and agriculture, banking and service sectors, grew at a dramatic pace in the years between 1880 and the start of the.First World War. 3 The Netherlands, in the heyday of its economic modernization at the turn of the twentieth century, experienced expansion in all aspects of its traditional economy. The maritime sector, which had traditionally played such an important role, continued to dominate in the sectors of shipbuilding, trade and shipping, while the agrarian sector continued to flourish. This simultaneity of development was accompanied by tendencies toward concentration and mechanization, but was marked as well by the persistence of nineteenth century forms of economic organization, such as small scale firms and sweated labor. By the turn of the century, the Netherlands was firmly on the path toward a modern industrial economy, but one foot was just as firmly implanted in the nineteenth century. As a result, the social, political, and cultural structure was based on both forward and backward looking positions. Amsterdam's economic functions were altered during the course of the nineteenth century by the modernization of the Dutch economy as a whole. While the last remnants of its position as a world-wide staple market were 34 dismantled to be replaced with the new function of entrepot for products destined for local consumption, and its position as primary Dutch harbor was overshadowed by the new pre-eminence of Rotterdam, Amsterdam developed new economic functions in the form of banking, insurance, a national and regional stock exchange, as well as a number of areas of industrial and commercial specialization which allowed it to participate fully in the economic revival of the Netherlands in the second half of the nineteenth century.4 Throughout this century of dramatic change, Amsterdam maintained its role as the nation's capital, or hoofdstad,5 in the last quarter of the century becoming the forum of significant political discussions. cultural and The cultural life shaped by the conservative and progressive newspapers, magazines, theaters, and political organizations, the city's musea, zoo, universities and theaters, placed it at the center of Dutch cultural life just as it was assuming new economic functions in trade, commerce, finance and industry.6 After termination of French occupation in 1815, problem of reconstructing its dismantled economy. 180,179 in 1814 and only in previously reached in 1795. 1850 did it Amsterdam faced the Population declined to match the maximum of 217,024 The stagnated shipping and trading sectors were slow to recover, despite energetic attempts on the part of William I to pursue policies of economic recovery. Amsterdam did, however, remain a center for the Baltic grain trade, and, with the introduction of the cultuurstelsel, the system of enforced production of crops in Indonesia, Amsterdam recaptured some of the colonial trade. The establishment in the 1830s of the government's Nederlandsche Handelsmaatschappij, the trade monopoly for the Dutch East Indies, meant for Amsterdam not only the restoration of its market function, but the stimulation of ship-building, 35 ship-repair, and warehousing. The colonial products, for instance coffee and sugar from Java, continued to be processed for export and local consumption as in the past. In particular, the sugar refining industry was one of the earliest modern and efficient manufactures in Amsterdam. The market in sugar, coffee, and tobacco, while less determining of the nation's economy than in the past, still influenced the hinterland, while both the Baltic grain trade and the colonial staples contributed to Amsterdam's growing Rhine trade. However, despite Amsterdam's absolute growth in the Rhine traffic, after 1840 its proportion of the traffic declined relative to Rotterdam's in terms of tonnage and number of ships. Amsterdam was, to some extent, unprepared for the new task of providing massive transit for raw materials, food (rye, wheat, meat), products and manufactures to Germany. Small sailship companies, guaranteed commissions by the Handelsmaatschappij route, sprang up, established in for the East Indies as did an industry specialized in riverboats for the Rhine. and colonial the production of The first modern shipping manufacture was 1825 in Amsterdam by Paul van Vlissingen, and the first modern drydock was founded there in 1842. In a period of technology shifting from the sail to steam, from wood to metal, however, the Dutch, including the Amsterdammers, lagged behind the English in ship-building. Amsterdam's position as a transportation center was further enhanced by the slow, but gradual, development of railroad linkages, the first a passenger line to Haarlem in and Arnhem in 1845. 1839, followed by lines to Utrecht in 1843 Its capacity as an ocean harbor, capable of handling large sea going vessels, was severely hampered by silting, and the first step taken to compensate was the construction of the North Holland canal between 1818 and 1825, which routed ships through a long and winding path 7 36 by way of Den Helder, a solution which quickly proved inadequate because of locks too small to accommodate the growing sizes of ships. During the second half of the century, Amsterdam improved its transportation connections, both to the North Sea for the Baltic and East Indies trade, and to Germany. In the 1870s, a more practical solution was sought to the problem of linking the harbor to the North Sea than the The construction of the North winding and circuitous North Holland Canal. Sea Canal, linking Amsterdam to the coast via the most direct line, was initiated in 1865 under a private concession. When construction of the large locks, which had to be planned progressively larger as the standard size of cargo ships increased toward the end of the century, proved a task too burdensome for private initiative, the state took over the concession and completed construction in 1885. State management made possible abolition of canal tolls which had acted as a hamper to trade. twenty years following the In the 1876 opening of the North Sea Canal, the gross tonnage travelling in both directions through the North Sea Locks increased 3.5 times, from 4 to 14 million tons, while the total tonnage cleared at Amsterdam increased 2.5 times. 8 Meanwhile, Amsterdam's first direct rail connection to Germany was initiated in 1856, and the expansion of the Dutch rail network, largely completed by the 1880s, increased Amsterdam's communications with Germany and the rest of Europe. The completion of the Merwede Canal in 1892, linking Amsterdam to the Rhine, made Amsterdam's ties to the south of the Netherlands and to Germany more secure. Within the city, the urban infrastructure underwent a period of rapid modernization as the harbors were expanded and modernized, modern water (1849) and sewer lines were designed, gas (1840) and electric power were 37 introduced, Bell Telephone was established in the city (1891), and the city was crossed with tram and omnibus lines, the tramway first becoming electrified in 1900. The most dramatic period of urban modernization took place around the turn of the century, corresponding to the period of economic take-off. To cite increased from 25,500 in but one example, 1898 to 112,000 in the number of gas meters 1910.9 The Indonesian trade continued to increase in importance to Amsterdam to the end of the century. The colonial staples, sugar and coffee, retained their vitality, while other imports, such as tea and quinine, grew. The expansion of tobacco cultivation in Java was reflected in increased tobacco trade and manufacture in Amsterdam. Capital from Amsterdam, as well as England, had poured into Indonesia upon the abrogation of the government trade monopoly and the ending of the compulsory crop system, resulting in resources by private enterprise. the exploitation of the Indonesian The Rhine trade continued to flourish, although largely overshadowed by Rotterdam, Germany and returning with coal. transporting machines to By the turn of the century the Amsterdam harbor had developed its capacity for petroleum shipments, while timber, grain, seeds, coal and metal imports increased as well. 1903 and Between 1912, the number of sea-faring ships arriving in Amsterdam increased from 1977 to 2501, an increase of 27%, with a corresponding increase of tonnage from seven to eleven million cubic meters, an increase of 54%. same period, Rhine transit increased from 564 to 1548 ships, During the an increase of 174%, and from 260,000 to one million cubic meters, a fourfold increase. 10 Although by the end of the century shipbuilding in Rotterdam far outstripped that in Amsterdam, shipbuilding and related industries 38 constituted the largest and heaviest of Amsterdam's industries. The Amsterdam Steamboat Company (Amsterdamsche Stoomboot Maatschappij, established in 1825), developed from its origins as a shipping company to ship repair and manufacture, branching out to machine manufacture as well. This company was the nucleus of two of the largest employers in Amsterdam at the turn of the century, the Nederlandsche Scheepsbouw Maatschappij, shipbuilders established in 1894, and Nederlandsche Fabriek van Werktuigen en Spoorwegmateriaal, known as the Werkspoor, which from 1891 manufactured ships' boilers, engines, locomotives, rail carriages, trams, bridges, and other machinery. The American-invented floating drydock came into operation in Amsterdam from 1842: the largest and most successful was the Amsterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij, established in 1879. The refining and reworking of colonial raw products remained an important part of the Amsterdam economy; sugar refining was highly industrialized, as were cocoa and chocolate manufacturing. Amsterdam, The tobacco industry continued to grow in while new drug and chemical products such as quinine, sprang up. industries, based on colonial The processing of chemicals such as sulfur phosphate developed alongside other modern manufacturing processes, such as the gas companies, established primarily with foreign capital. Old manufacturing businesses, such as beer breweries, expanded and modernized as new ventures, such as the ready-made clothing industry, took root. The diamond industry, which grew rapidly during the so-called Kaapsche Tijd of the 1870s, employed approximately 1500 in 1870, increasing to some 10,000 by 1889.11 With the expansion of the city in the '80s and '90s, the construction sector grew rapidly as well, doubling in from 7000 workers in 30 years, 1859 to 14,000 in 1889. Alongside manufacturing and industrial enterprises, the service, financial, and these 39 retail sectors emerged at the turn of the century as vibrant and modernizing factors. Shipping-related activities, such as warehousing and longshore operations, were major employers in both their municipal and private forms. Banking, insurance, and government expanded clerical and civil servant positions. Carried by the wave of German industrial growth and the enlarged market for colonial goods precipitated by the second industrial revolution in Europe, Amsterdam was somewhat abruptly thrown into the twentieth century. This economic modernization, caused primarily by stimuli outside the Netherlands itself, occurred with a rapidity which distinguished its processes of change from those which accompanied initial industrialization in England. Shocking as the first industrial revolution was to the society which pioneered industrialization and the accompanying experience of adjusting to the new social constraints imposed by transformed economic realities, the second industrial revolution may be said to have shaken Dutch society by the roots in an even more severe and traumatic way. However, there is a danger in overemphasizing the rapidity with which the Dutch economy underwent this transformation. It would be misleading to assume that as soon as the direction and character of the changes became evident, that the transformation uniformly took root. To the contrary, we must bear in mind the extent to which nineteenth century and even preindustrial forms of social, economic and political organization persisted into the modern era. The model for the process of modernization was not one of gradual and even development toward modern forms. At any given point during the period of transition, different economic sectors responded in distinct ways to the new conditions. Since change is the result of almost numberless individual decisions based on the perception 40 of immediate circumstance, it is important to avoid the assumption of a collective will which had perceived a clear goal and was somehow in unison aiming toward a single end. In fact, the history of the Dutch economy allows us to examine a variety of industrial responses between 1914 1850 and because of the simultaneous transformation of a variety of sectors (trade, shipping, manufacture, banking, and insurance). In Amsterdam, as elsewhere in the Netherlands, the major economic upheavals of the last quarter of the nineteenth century generally implied shifts toward increased concentration, increased mechanization, and altered organization of production. As de Jonge's survey of Dutch industrialization indicates, these shifts occurred to varying degrees. For example, 1909, in the textile, shoe, and leather industries between the increased number of workers increased more than the increase in in 1889 and the large firms actually the total number of workers in that sector, whereas in most other sectors, the number of small scale firms remained relatively constant and even increased in food and clothing branches.12 the Werkspoor In Amsterdam in 1900, the largest industrial employers were (1735), the Netherlands Shipbuilding Company (650), Western Sugar Refinery (667), the Amsterdam Drydock Company Spakler and Tetterode Sugar Refinery (370), the (402), the and the Steam Diamond Works (315), the Royal Candle Works (300), the Jonker Coffee Hulling Works (298), and the Nederlandsche Veem Steam Coffee Hulling Works the other hand, workers, countless firms and workshops, continued to be active in clothing manufacture. baking, (293).13 On numbering under ten carpentry, diamond cutting, and The extent to which the small artisanal shop persisted should not be underestimated. Similarly, the mechanization of production was introduced increasingly from the 1870s, particularly in the 41 machine industry, sugar refining, candle, gas, and beer production. after 1900, the motor began to replace advanced industries. the steam engine in Soon the most But here again we should not underestimate the extent to which handwork continued, for example in diamond and clothing manufacture or in construction. The organization of production in factory work, usually thought to accompany the introduction of mechanization and concentration, also appeared in uneven application. Sugar refining followed most closely the classic pattern of an industry which must operate at an increasingly large scale and with mechanization in order to compete and maintain quality. In 1850, twenty-two of the twenty-seven Dutch sugar refineries were located in Amsterdam; by 1900 these had consolidated into five large, fully mechanized refineries. 4 In the tobacco industry, however, despite some increased concentration by the 1890s, home industry persisted in Amsterdam, particularly for cigar manufacture. The ready-made clothing industry, while increasingly carried out in ateliers and factories, long persisted as a home industry: in 22% of the workers worked at home, factories. 15 48% in ateliers, 1911, and 30% in Whereas cigar factories existed side by side with home manufacture, the clothing industry tended to witness a gradual transition from home to factory production. The diamond industry, on the other hand, was split into two categories, the cleavage and cutting occurred often at home, polishing almost always at a factory. workers' Around 1900, union reported that 52% of the cleavers, the diamond 64% of the cutters, and 16 only 0.8% of the polishers worked at home. Proprietary forms varied as well. While there was a distinct tendency for the large factory to take the form of a corporation, family ownership persisted. At the small scale of operations, both the putting 42 out system and the independent atelier system co-existed. While the chain store and the department store had appeared, by far the most prevalent form of retail venture remained the owner run and occupied store. This juxtaposition of modern and nineteenth century forms of economic activity characterized Amsterdam at the turn of the century. 43 The Social Transformation of Amsterdam As the economy of Amsterdam changed during the last decades of the nineteenth century, its social composition and organization changed. The workforce altered as recent immigrants from the countryside and women entered the job market, and as child labor gradually decreased. began to marry younger, to have fewer children, People and to live longer, with the result that the population pyramid of Amsterdam began to assume the shape of an older, more established city, with a large segment of the population in the productive phase of life. Industrialization and the expansion of trade transformed the spectrum of job opportunities as well. With the erection of factories, even unskilled factory hands had to learn a factory discipline and routine which had not been inculcated on the farm or in the craft tradition of manufacture. For everyone, the new economic life of the city demanded a faster pace, but additionally it altered the meaning of the various positions on the social hierarchy. formed alongside old, New subclasses and new relations were forged between all they came to define themselves in the new economic framework. groups as In the course of this vital process of self-definition, cultural values were manifested, and it is the way in which the interactions between various classes generated the meanings used to deal with housing which will occupy us in the later sections of this study. One of the great historical problems of urban history is to understand the role of the city in the creation of classes. In the Netherlands, where urbanization and industrialization occurred so late but so rapidly, we can see the creation of a modern working class and its assumption of a political role during the period we have been examining at 44 the end of the nineteenth century. But there has been little agreement about when precisely a modern working class came into existence, or even about the terms to define such a class. According to Brugmans, whose social history of the Netherlands in the nineteenth century served for years as the standard text, Dutch society around 1850 consisted of the rural and urban poor, a small community of prosperous merchants and landowners, and a very small number of urban craftsmen and shopkeepers who constituted the middle class. He claims that the creation of an urban proletariat came with the introduction of industrial processes in the 1850s. Others would argue with his date for the emergence of a working class, and more importantly, over the nature of the event itself. Do we define class in purely material terms, that is, in terms of the ownership of the means of production? Or is a class determined by its more subjectively derived status amongst other groups in the society? There are limits to the accuracy of either a purely economic approach or an approach based on status. One of the difficulties of any attempt to describe class and its formation is the dynamic nature of the phenomenon. independent of each other; they exist in relation to each other, and to the changing economic context. if it were an entity, its Classes do not exist While we may speak of a working class as consciousness or selfawareness, its material conditions and economic prospects are in constant movement at any moment, determined not only by its collective hopes and desires, or the nature of the current economic situation, but also determined by the possibilities shaped by other classes. The theater of relations between classes changes scenes as society changes, but always provides the focal point through which the classes define themselves. In Amsterdam, the upheaval in 45 society accompanying the economic revival of the late nineteenth century set in motion a restructuring of the older, traditional groupings of society. The economic changes wrought during the last decades of the century did not affect all segments of the population equally, and while the argument can be made that many shared directly and indirectly from the increase in per capita production made possible by new economic arrangements, it is clear that the impact of the new prosperity on people's lives was not only uneven, but that the prospects opened up were of very different characters. Individuals'greeted the new conditions created under the expanded economy with responses varying according to their own particular situations. Where many found themselves in similar conditions with respect to family background, life expectations, relation to the job market, workplace, and schooling, it is possible to identify patterns of response that enable us to speak of classes and subclasses. When referring to such classes as if they constitute autonomous bodies, operating with specific relations in society and under specific constraints and opportunities, it should be borne in mind that what is always meant is the behavior of individuals whose shared societal position is such that the collective reference is justified. defined in both economic and cultural terms. Such groups can be That is, they can be defined as occurring purely in terms of economic relationships, such as relation to sources of livelihood and related factors such as relative wealth, or they can be defined according to self-imposed categories, cultural attitudes and life-style. based on shared The following discussion presents a tentative analysis of societal divisions in Amsterdam. It will attempt to describe broadly the classes which appeared, the changes occurring within them, and the relations between them. 46 The Changing Labor Market An analysis of the emerging nexus of class relations in Amsterdam must begin with the shifting pattern of employment reflecting changes in the relative importance of Dutch economic sectors, shifts even more noticeable after the turn of the century. The pattern of growth which emphasized certain industries and which was reflected in increased employment also changed the nature of the employment within those industries. New jobs were created to satisfy demands both for organization within enlarged enterprises and for the management and maintenance of more sophisticated machinery. Administrative and technical positions increased in number and importance with ramifications for employment opportunities at all levels of society. As industry modernized, it was the newer, more concentrated, and technically advanced sectors which grew most quickly, while the artisanal, craft, and labor-intensive sectors declined in relative importance. While the growth of manufacturing employment simply kept pace with the growth of the working population as a whole, within it the heavy machinery manufacturing grew at an accelerated rate. At a much smaller scale, the new chemical and electrical industries advanced sharply also. Shoe and furniture manufacture, which had in large part remained small scale operations, experienced slow growth. experienced several booms during the The construction industry, which '80s and '90s, when the city's population expanded rapidly, slowed at the turn of the century, dropping from 8.8% to 6.4% of the working population between 2.1) Diamond workers, 1899 and 1920. who during the Kaapsche Tijd of the (Fig. 1870s had expanded to become a significant segment of the working population, slowed 47 in growth as well. Altogether, the construction, clothing, machine metal, and food industries accounted for approximately half of the manufacturing workers in Amsterdam. The fastest growing area of employment was the banking and insurance sector, which expanded quickly in the 1890s and quadrupled in size during the first two decades of the twentieth century, growing from 2.1% working population in 1899 to 5.4% in 1920. 17 of the This rapid growth is an indication not only of the renewed shipping trade which stimulated the growth of such ancillary activities as insurance, but also the return of Amsterdam to its position in world finance. 18 workers such as The call for white collar clerks and bookkeepers increased as industry and business became more concentrated. Whereas small scale businesses were often run by the owner, perhaps aided by a family member, larger scale operations became unmanageable without properly trained and competent employees. Literacy was on the rise as the school system was reorganized, and specialized schools were introduced, such as the trade school, the commercial school, high schools for girls, and better elementary schools for the lower classes. Local government undertook a more complex and varied set of duties imposed by its population growth. It became a large employer of administrators and bureaucrats, all of whom required an adequate preparation. Between 1891 and 1916, the municipal bureaucracy grew from 3325 to 8995, an increase of 170.5%, at a time when the Amsterdam population grew only 50.5%. Growth was particularly fast during the last decade of the nineteenth century, especially at lower echelons. (Fig. 2.2) The creation of a new set of subclasses under industrial capitalism is expressed in the figures derived from the dicennial employment census 48 (Fig. 2.3). Here, the gradual decline of the independent small scale manufacturing shop and the decline of small retailers declining figures of the first two categories. to be found in is shown in the The largest expansion is the professions and white collar category, while a increase is experienced amongst the general category of workers. 19 small 49 Restructuring Society These changes in the labor market signalled a restructuring of society in Amsterdam. Around 1850 Amsterdam's working population had consisted primarily of shopkeepers, craftsmen, skilled and unskilled workmen. Above these was a small group of nobility, patricians, and large-scale entrepreneurs, while below was another small group of the structurally poor. (Fig. 2.4) As van Tijn has pointed out, Amsterdam at mid-century manifested the strata of a capitalist society, but one in which industrialization had but recently been imposed and with little effective impact on its pre-industrial social organization. The gap between the top layer of society and the rest, between heren and volk, gentlemen and the people, was a virtually unbridgeable one. 2 0 working population, rank was clearly delineated. Within the The independent shopkeeper and craftsman, who ran his own shop or atelier employing others, had attained a position which the wage-earning craftsman, handworker, or assistant strove after. In some cases, especially if economic conditions permitted it, the jump from dependent to independent position was possible. For the large number of unskilled and casual workers, whose work was irregular and required no training, the slide down the societal ladder to indigence was the easier, independent status was, for the most part, By 1920 this pattern had changed. whereas the ascent to excluded. The overall shift in social structure appears most dramatically if we compare the relative weighted sizes of three groups. Around 1850, the old lower middle class, consisting of the shopkeeper, entrepreneur, and craftsman, was 28% of the working population; the new lower middle class, consisting of the semi- 50 professional and management, was 11.2%; workers constituted 60.8% (41.2% skilled, 19.6% unskilled). In 12.8%, 22.9%, and 64.3%.21 The old lower middle class had declined, while 1920, these figures were, respectively, the number of white collar and industrial workers had increased. These changes can be understood in terms of the changes in the job market created by the renewed economy of Amsterdam discussed above. Industrialization and the changing job market had altered the societal possibilities for the craftsman, shopkeeper, skilled and unskilled worker. Industrialization brought with it methods of mechanization and efficiency of production which, in some cases, eliminated the need for small-scale craft production, or made it impossible for small-scale entrepreneurs to compete with the economies of large-scale operations, either industrial or commercial. On the one hand, the independent craftsman was threatened and his position made more precarious, while at the same time the avenue of upward mobility wasreduced for his workers. Similarly, the status of the old middle class was threatened as a result of industrialization. The small shopkeeper was threatened by the advent of the department store, and had to change his merchandising practices, possibly by affiliating with a chain. On the other hand, the ranks of the new lower middle class, the white collar workers, were strengthened. What had been a small segment of the petit bourgeoisie, albeit Amsterdam's segment was proportionately large compared to the Netherlands as a whole, grew rapidly as the demand for bureaucratic and technical workers grew. This new important employment opportunity, along with others such as elementary school teaching, offered new possibilities for societal advance to workers through schooling. 2 2 The mass of structural poor, the chronically unemployed and disabled, 51 the widows and orphans for whom the prospect of financial stability remained obscure, had declined as a percentage of the population by the end of the nineteenth century, reduced by the increased availability of work in the transport sector or in the harbor where the change from sail to steam had made jobs available for unskilled workers from all walks of life, whether fresh from the country or unemployed from other trades. 2 3 However, lack of social security and unemployment insurance, the irregularity of work, and its often seasonal nature, combined to create an underclass of underemployed, composed primarily of the families of casual laborers,- sweated labor, and others with precarious sources of income, such as street hawkers. For many families, home industry was an activity in which all members participated, including the head of the family, who might also be working another form of casual labor. The struggle for subsistence in this segment of society was characterized not only by job insecurity and frequent shifts, but simultaneous jobs. For instance, many wives took in washing or sewing, worked as chars or in factories. For many casual laborers, work conditions differed concretely from those of sweated labor, in that they contracted daily for work. returned regularly to the same foremen, Some who collected a team of workers and acted as the liaison to the hiring company. Others shifted day to day, without the 'least security of tenure or personal commitment to the employer. 2 4 For those without skills, it was difficult to move beyond the strictures of this layer of casual labor. The most that could be hoped for was that one or more of the children might learn a trade and climb one step further up the social ladder. But most frequently even the minor costs infringed by apprenticeship to trades were beyond the family's reach. 52 While there was a large gap between these casual laborers and the established working man with a stable position, a large number of the working class faced the vagaries of work opportunity. The precariousness of their economic position caused by living so close to subsistence and the lack of insurance to protect them against slack times meant that many of the less fortunate workers would fall temporarily or permanently into casual labor. Harborworkers' numbers were swelled during busy winter months by workers in construction who were experiencing their slack period. 25 Thus a new social structure replaced the old. The ranks of the middle classes increased in strength and a new white collar subclass began to bridge the gap between heren and volk. The chronically poor had largely disappeared, but a large segment of the working class remained in a precarious economic condition. 53 Division within the Working Class The change in Amsterdam's social structure which was to have the greatest impact on housing was the restructuring of the working class. The working class in Amsterdam was divided by many nuances of social and economic position which produced correspondingly diverse cultural positions. Distinctions occurred within the working class between those within the craft tradition and those without, those with pretensions to middle-class life-style and those embedded in traditional Amsterdam workers' districts with their own local patois and social mores, the respectable and the rough, the unionized and the unorganized. The hierarchy of status within the working class was fine-tuned and unambiguous. The major divisions were the crafts, skilled labor, unskilled labor, casual labor and the indigent. Within each division, the various industries were ranked according to criteria of skill, pay, and security of job tenure. Finally, within each industry there was a keen awareness of the status accorded each of the different work positions. In the diamond industry, for instance, the cutters far outranked the roosjesslijpers on the social ladder. One author, writing in a union newspaper, revealed the working class hierarchy explicitly. He placed the craftsmen at the peak of the hierarchy, especially the tailors, type compositors, and goldsmiths. shoemakers, carpenters, Following the craftsmen were the trades: joiners, plumbers, and tinsmiths. These, in turn, looked down on bellringers, lantern lighters, and nightwatchmen. At a second level were the factory workers, but amongst those the cotton factory workers were better than the bottle workers, the weavers better than the spinners. At a third level were found the workers who live by 54 the strength of their muscles. But even here there were internal divisions: the carriage driver was not at home to the hired hack. Below all three levels was the mass of the criminal and poverty stricken, "always fighting yet staying together, living from God knows what, finding employment in the dirtiest affairs and fame in the worst, and when missing usually gone to fill a slot in jail." 26 The hierarchy, then, was a generally accepted assessment of status based on a variety of factors contributing to prestige: income, skill, security of job tenure, relative independence from the employer, and potential social mobility. The interpretation of this hierarchy by the workers themselves was, however, open to political interpretation. status was not disputed by any. The existence of layers of It was how these layers were to be interpreted, their economic, cultural, and political significance, which was at issue. Generally, the positions taken on this issue reflected the economic and social position of the thinker. The notion of class affiliation, with its correlated political and cultural implications, introduced vying analyses of status. Solidarity could form across status lines on the basis of religion, shared life-style, or a vision of society. The working class as a whole would be seen pitted against the ruling class. On the other hand, the hierarchy could be emphasized as a social ladder, where no sharp divisions existed between middle, lower middle, and working class, only differences in income. Such a view posited a single continuum identifying middle class status as a goal and accepting middle class political interests. Finally, a conservative position might view the hierarchy as fixed, and rank as hereditary. The view taken on the divisions of society also had implications for cultural identification. If society was viewed as basically dichotomous, working class culture 55 could be considered as something separate and isolated from the middle class, either in the form of old working class traditions, or newly forged expressions of political solidarity. If, given the notion of a continuous societal ladder, middle class values were taken as the norm, working class culture might be viewed as imitative of middle class style, manners, dress. A more subtle position, based both on the awareness of the middle class model and working class origins, would make some accommodation with middle class culture, not necessarily imitative, perhaps even critical, but at any rate a specifically working class reaction to it. Thus workers' perceptions of their position in the social structure were integrally linked to their cultural as well as their political identification. 56 Working Class Identities Between 1880 and the First World War, the cultural and political divisions within Dutch society formed an organizational pattern. Dutch society fragmented along four parallel "pillars": Liberal, Socialist, Catholic and Reformed Protestant. The pillars organized most aspects of social life: political parties, school, sports, and even shopping. They provided Dutch society with a highly articulated expression of cultural pluralism. of political Affiliation with a pillar identified an individual with a set and cultural positions. Each of the four pillars was defined by affiliations of class interests, religious beliefs, and political ideology. Liberals and socialists were secular, Catholics and Reformed Protestants were religious. Liberals represented middle class interests, the socialists working class interests, and the confessional pillars attracted members from all classes. Politically, each pillar created one or more parties which represented the major political voices in the nation. In Amsterdam, the political and cultural significance of the pillars for categorizing the divisions within the working class can be understood in terms of the shifting social structure of the city. As we have seen, old divisions between middle, lower middle, and working class were redefined as economic changes necessitated redefinition of employment types and workplace organization. The line of status division between independent entrepreneurs and wage earners was blurred as craftsmen were increasingly proletarianized, while the division between non-manual and manual status was blurred as white collar workers and officials recognized the common economic plight they shared with other workers. Changes in the 57 conditions of employment (e.g., for the crafts) and creation of new conditions (white collar workers and bureaucrats), as well as religious and political ideology, highly influenced the pattern of attitudes toward class identity, politics, and culture, and thus the pattern of affiliation with the pillars. While it is an oversimplification to associate economic position in a direct relation with political and cultural attitudes 2 7 there are relationships between these which illustrate the main strategies followed by various members of the working class. These relationships shed light on the affiliations with the four pillars. Working-class entrepreneurs For many, the traditional lower middle class shaped the preferred work image, representing a position of independence, skill, financial stability, and respectability. The lower middle class at-mid-century was predominantly composed of the small independent shopkeeper, the artisan, or small manufacturer, although in many cases, such as shoemaking, baking, and tailoring, the functions of craft, manufacture, and retail were mixed. The position of craftsman or entrepreneur, as it had existed in preindustrial, pre-capitalist times, remained a viable model for many workers. The shopkeeper's assistant could hope to learn the trade and either set himself up independently or rise in responsibility. The craftsman's apprentice not only looked forward to establishing his own shop in the future, but might in some cases hope to become a large-scale manufacturer. In the 1890 government inquiry into working conditions, one of the manufacturers interrogated was found to comment on his humble origins as a "simple workman. "28 The assistant worked closely with the 58 boss, assuming his interests as his own, since he saw the boss as the model for his own future position in the trade. In many instances, assistants lived closely with the boss as well, sharing meals with the shopkeeper's family, and living near or in the store or workshop, which was most often part of the shopowner's dwelling. By the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, however, for many such areas of economic activity, illusory. independence became increasingly We have already mentioned the crushing competition of the chain stores and the advent of department stores as a many small indepdendent shop owners. threat Similarly, to the viability of for certain artisanal occupations, the introduction of new machine processes and mass production techniques created an economic pressure which made craft production unprofitable. For instance, the availability of mass produced iron items eliminated the necessity of hand crafting at the forge, with the exception 29 of custom made products, and resulted both in the loss of skills and the reduction in the number of forges. However, despite the decreasing opportunities for assistants and apprentices to rise and become self-employed entrepreneurs, identification with the boss and aspirations to positions of independence remained strong among many workers. business The 1930 census indicates the extent to which small (run by 1 to 3 people) continued to thrive, particularly in bakeries, shoemakers, and so on. 30 Furthermore, other non-artisanal positions, offered opportunities for advancement in status and income, as well as the appearance of semi-independence. The factory foreman, the baas, previously described, is one such instance. Work in the factory, the harbor, or in construction was often organized so that a subcontractor or foreman collected a team of workers, received payment from 59 the contracting company, and distributed it amongst the workers himself. 3 1 In the diamond industry, for example, with very little capital, a worker could set himself up as a baas either at home, in an atelier, or within a factory where he would rent a number of mills. There were frequent abuses of this system, the foreman taking advantage of his power to provide work. Particularly decried by reformists was the custom of paying out wages in a pub, where the worker was expected to spend a certain amount of his income in order to stay in the good graces of the baas who either was part-owner or received some form of kickback from the publican. However, the position of baas was precarious, and just as subject to the vagaries of unemployment as any worker under him. In times of underemployment, foreman was likely in to join his workers manual labor. baas would be forced to return to the rank and file. the Often enough, the 32 Other forms of self-employment permitted a sense of independence unknown to the factory worker, but because of low pay, long hours, insecurity, and the ties of exploitation were in fact scarcely better off than casual laborers. to their creditors. Street hawkers and market stall vendors were tied Many forms of sweated labor were practised in Amsterdam: pasting labels, peeling vegetables, sewing, shoe making, cigar manufacture, furniture making. Until the 1909 census, a seamstress working out of her home on the putting out system was counted as working for herself, independent thus categorized together with the factory owner as an entrepreneur. In real terms, however, the seamstresses and other sweated home labor were in binding relationships to the wholesalers from whom they received their raw materials and to whom they sold their finished goods. A seamstress, for instance, would "buy" the sewing machine she used at home from the shop from which she received her 60 piecework. Not only might she also be required to make other purchases from that shop, such as a certain number of spools of thread per week, but once her machine was paid off, her piecework rate would be reduced. She would, however, have no recourse in seeking work elsewhere, since a shop The shop, would give work only to those using the machines they provided. in effect, had a body of hired help without having to pay the overhead to 3 maintain a factory facility or even to repair sewing machines. 3 Despite the reduction of opportunities to establish entrepreneurial independence, many workers continued to associate their interests with those of the middle class. Whether their original workplace position had been maintained, or they still clung to the memory of it, if they associated themselves with rising expectations and entrepreneurial aspirations, they were likely to identify with middle class political interests. Until the late nineteenth century, this meant cooperation with one of the liberal political clubs, participation in the sense of campaigning, since voting was excluded by the high property requirements for suffrage. unions, However, starting with the organization of skilled craft such as the typographers in 1877, restrained forms of union activity allowed the voicing of some working men's interests. The original unions grew out of burial societies, self-help societies with educational and social entertainment purposes. Far from encouraging organization against factory owners and bosses, these societies often invited their participation. The general liberal union ANWV worked closely with leading liberal leaders and adopted policies in concert with the prevailing laissez-faire economics. The strike as a tactic was not advocated.34 Late in the nineteenth century, under the strident leadership of 61 Abraham Kuypers, the Reformed Protestants organized a political movement which appealed in large measure to the interests of the petit bourgeoisie. The main political struggle of the movement, one which tied domestic politics for decades, was the issue of schools. up Dutch Under the liberal constitution private parochial schools received no support from public monies. The confessional parties fought to reverse this policy. In addition, the Reform Protestant party, the Anti-Revolutionary Party, took an extremely conservative position on the interference of the State in family and business affairs. Kuypers, himself spokesman for the small man, de kleine luyden, introduced a more reasoned approach to the social question. The workers' organization Patrimonium was established and worked with leading reform groups on issues of social welfare. It was the umbrella organization for local Anti-Revolutionary unions, unions which opened membership to both rank and file workers as well as bosses. Patrimonium abnegated the strike tactic, and followed a policy of cooperation between employed and employer. was much later in formation. The Roman Catholic equivalent Dr. H.J.A.M. Schaepman had provided Catholic leadership in the arena of social affairs. The Catholic position, like the Reformed Protestant, sought to establish a cooperative basis for problems arising between labor and management. to join together to improve society. Worker and capitalist were 35 The liberal, Catholic and Protestant political alternatives, while each spawning a range of positions left and right within its ranks, adhered to a vision of society in which workers' interests coincided with those of the rest of society. The liberal stance emphasized a view increasingly sympathetic to the notion of a mobile society, while both confessional parties stressed the rigidly fixed hierarchical nature of society. 62 Casual Labor For large numbers of Amsterdam's working class the opportunity to establish economic independence, or even the memory of such an opportunity, was never a reality. Regularly employed unskilled factory workers and the casual labor employed on a a day-to-day basis fulfilled function during the new economic upsurge of Amsterdam which shaped a position of low wages, high risk of unemployment, long hours, and lack of security. Because of the need for as much income as could be scraped together the children were rarely allowed to attend school past their twelfth (mandatory) year, and even during their school years might be 36 expected to contribute by working before and after school hours. Opportunities for advancement were minimal and the heritage of poverty became a way of life. In certain sections of Amsterdam there grew up neighborhoods solidly working class: in the northern part of the Jordaan, in the Jewish quarter, in the old center of Amsterdam, and in the east and west harbor islands. with the employer. Here workers experienced no commonality of interest Indeed, the fact that many switched jobs frequently added to the lack of contact on the job to shape a condition of alienation from middle class interests and values. work on a day to day basis, For casual laborers contracting security of tenure might depend on a good relationship with a foreman, while contact with the actual employing "company" was minimal or non-existent. job, Others simply drifted from job to forming no sense of loyalty or connection with employers. On the other hand, ties of language, custom, and kinship with the community in which the worker lived could be very strong, particularly in the older, working class districts which developed insular traditions. In the center of town, for instance, some of the back alley neighborhoods enforced a measure of surveillance resulting in some cases in the expulsion of 63 residents who did not conform. The eastern islands, a stronghold of the Amsterdam dockworkers, were famous for insularity, and residents were said to spend their entire lives on their island, with a visit to central Amsterdam considered an outing. During the second half of the nineteenth century when the crafts and skilled trades were starting to organize themselves to fight for better material conditions, the unskilled and the casual laborers generally limited their political expressions to spontaneous outbursts. carnivals Yearly (kermis) had long provided an outlet for the pent-up frustrations of working-class life, and a tradition of riotous and sometimes violent behavior had grown up in given neighborhoods, e.g., Hartjesdag in the Dapperbuurt. When the attempt was made to limit the carnival festivities from two weeks to one, rioting broke out in protest. The most dramatic of outbursts occurred in 1886 in the Jordaan, after several years of extreme conditions of unemployment, especially in the building trades. The sport of eel-catching, that is, the attempt while seated in a boat in a canal, to pull an eel from a rope strung taut over the canal, had been forbidden in Amsterdam. But in 1886 in the Lindengracht canal a crowd gathered to bet on just such an event. protests, lasting several days, put a stop to the sport. Violent took place when the police and military While the claim was made by the authorities that the protest was socialist inspired and the popular press portrayed it as such, there was no evidence of any organized socialist participation. The Palingoproer ("Eel riot") was rather a spontaneous expression of the frustrations of long, cold winters with high unemployment.37 Equally spontaneous was the widespread support throughout the working class of the Royal House of Orange. In certain areas the enthusiasm for royalty was 64 famed, for example in the Eastern Islands among the workers known as bijltjes or the residents of Willemstraat, known for their festive decorations in honor of a royal visit. The pressure to participate in such symbolic support of the royal family is illustrated in the story told by Thijssen of his father's refusal to contribute to a decorative gate at the end of their street in 1872, the birthday of King Willem II. father, a Domela Nieuwenhuis, supporter of the socialist the street to have refused to contribute. 3 8 The was the first on A market woman in Amsterdam at the turn of the century is representative of the affectionate attitude of many Amsterdam workers toward their royal family. She recalled the proud moment that the king, appearing incognito at the market, was recognized by the market girls, and dance for him. who then spontaneously performed a song But Orangists could become violent, as in the reaction following the Palingoproer when the celebration of the King's seventieth birthday became the occasion for riotous attacks on the homes and gathering places of known socialists. Unable to express their political preferences through the ballot, the underclass in Amsterdam, and elsewhere in the Netherlands, had to find means through the use of traditional forms of collective action, expressing either forms of deference, as in the case of the Orangists, or class conflict, as in the case of the Palingoproer. It would be inaccurate, however, to make too strong a division between those adhering to a model of deference and those adhering to a conflict model of society. The same bijltjes who were known for their highly emotional support of the royal house, strike action against their employers. were also capable of declaring a In general, the kind of political activity favored by the underclass was spontaneous, unmarked by strong organization, and built on immediate goals rather than long-term aims or 65 principles. Whereas unionization of the skilled laborers and craftsmen had occurred during the 1860s and '70s, the organization of casual, unskilled, and factory workers was slow to develop. The leaders of the First International in Holland attempted in the 1870s to attract dock-workers, and raftsmen (houtvlotters)39 without success. Unskilled factory workers did not organize either, with the exception of the early mechanized sugar workers and the brewery workers who organized at the end of the century. But unskilled workers did participate in spontaneous and unorganized strike action during the second half of the nineteenth century to a degree which the crafts did not. J. Giele has noted that the unskilled and casual laborers were more prominent in this sort of action than is 40 generally to be observed in other industrializing countries at the time. Short lived and loosely organized unions appeared often during or after such activity, but rarely developed into full-fledged permanent unions. Under the influence of its generally more progressive atmosphere, water transport and dockworkers in Amsterdam established unions by the turn of the century, well before their Rotterdam counterparts. unions individually, and later Nationaal Arbieds Secretariat established in 1893 in together as a (NAS), joined the the umbrella organization close cooperation Party of Domela Nieuwenhuis. federation, Many of these with the Socialist of unions Democratic The NAS intended to act as a neutral labor board, but invitations to the liberal and confessional union federations were refused, leaving a strong bias toward socialist policy. Within the leadership of the NAS a schism developed by the turn of the century which divided the parliamentary syndicalists. social democrats from the anti-parliamentarian The syndicalists influenced by the French movement, favored 66 decentralized unions without professional union leadership, low union dues (generally support. f.10 per week), and consequently a weak treasury for strike Its political program called for the general strike to be used as a tool leading to revolution. With the establishment of the Social Democratic Workers' Party (the SDAP) many of the unions belonging to NAS withdrew from membership, later forming the NVV, a federation with close ties to the SDAP. The NAS with its emphasis on spontaneity and its syndicalist aversion to central control was more sympathetic to the unions of the unskilled workers, such as existed, and at the beginning of the twentieth century it found its greatest remaining support in the Amsterdam unions in the building trades, the harborworkers, and certain segments of municipal workers. The Modern Workin Class Not every worker viewed his position as either identification with middle class values and interests or solidarity with the working class. The material conditions of many workplace positions was characterized by ambiguous identity. The typographers, for instance, who were among the first of the working class to organize for material gain rather than for entertainment, education, or mutual aid, saw themselves as the leaders of the working class, a sort of labor aristocracy, which would guide those lower in status. This dual position, in solidarity against the capitalists, but aware of the status differences between the layers of the working class, was particularly evident in the early days of the workers' movement among the old crafts with their proud exclusionary guild tradition. It was not uncommon for unions to include a requisite minimum income for membership. But as the century wore on and the movement matured, awareness of the political 67 advantage of solidarity between all segments of the working class grew, and while perceptions of the degrees of status continued to be sharp, among the socially progressive workers, movement became increasingly feasible. identification with a unified Appeals to raise the working class consciousness of craft and skilled workers emphasized the economic dependancy they shared with those of lower status. The author who carefully delineated the status layers of the working class did so with the purpose of pointing out the common cause of all strata. Addressing the craftsmen he asks: "Are you treated any better by the government and in society than they? Do you already have the vote, do you enjoy the full value of your labor, are your sons relieved of military service, are your daughters free of prostitution, is your retirement insured, are you free at work, free to think, speak, and gather as you wish? No! And the poorest of the poor are oppressed in just the same way, so you should understand that their business, their struggle is your business and your struggle." 4 2 There were three identifiable groups whose class affiliation had become ambiguous through changes in economic conditions. In some areas of manufacture the skilled craftsman had become proletarianized by the introduction of machines or mass production processes, which eliminated the need for the traditional skills and opened up employment opportunities for less well trained workers who consequently lowered wages by overfilling the labor market. 1870s a period of unprecedented The diamond workers who had enjoyed in the growth and prosperity both because of the increased availability of raw diamonds from the South African mines (hence the name the Kaapsche Tijd) and the increased market in post Civil War America, came to experience a devastating depression in the early 1890s 68 once demand was down and the labor market was overflooded with young and often poorly trained recruits. 4 3 A second group of workers whose class affiliation was ambiguous was the relatively small number of skilled factory workers. Dutch industrialists had complained about the quality of Dutch laborers and had found it necessary in a number of instances to import workers trained in technical skills from England and Germany. Toward the end of the century, however, more Dutch workers were able to take technical positions in factories as a result of newly established vocational training schools. These workers frequently received wages five times higher than their colleagues, and formed a small labor aristocracy, 44 both because of their higher training and their higher income. Finally, a third category consisted of the new lower middle class which had arisen in response to the need for increased technical, management and School teachers, clerks, accountants, bureaucratic capabilities. administrators, managers, and draftsmen increased in period of economic renewal. number during the The income of these non-manual, white collar workers was steady and high relative to other workers. Their education was highly developed in comparison to manual workers, generally consisting in a degree from the newly established high school, the hoogere burgerschool. This high school was introduced as an intermediate school offering a commercial course, including the modern languages, but it was not as prestigious or expensive as the gymnasium which taught the classics in preparation for the university.45 The new lower middle class recruited mostly from the old lower middle class, but in many instances permitted some mobility from the ranks of the working classes. Bright working class children, for instance, could seek scholarships to the State Normal School for teacher training. Others after finishing primary school and 69 commencing work were able to follow night courses in languages or drawing Despite the which enabled them to enter clerk or draftsman positions. high status due to their income, job security and education, white collar workers by virtue of their position as employer-dependent wage-earners shared some of the perspectives of blue-collar workers. The need to organize in unions, where this was not seen to interfere with professional status, became widely accepted. Strike action, collective bargaining, and solidarity with other workers for political and bargaining advantage became strategies adopted by some white collar workers. The non-manual workers were able to identify economically and politically with their manual counterparts. These three categories of workers composed the so-called modern working class, that is, the participants in the socialist unions. The Example of the Diamond Workers The situation of the diamond workers merits some closer attention because of the special role this group played in both the workers' union and political movement. 1400 workers in 1890, 1865 the diamond workers grew to approximately thus forming the largest body of workers employed in industry.4 6 From some 10,000 by a single Their size meant that the impact of their remarkable history of organization on Amsterdam's working population was all the greater. In the 1860s when other crafts were organizing, the diamond workers organized into a number of separate trade unions to set wages and limit the number of apprentices. During the boom period following the discovery of vast diamond mines in South Africa, however, the unions lost strength. wages increased at first at fabulous rates: some workers were able to save sufficient capital to set themselves up as "jewelers," that is, employers. 70 Others put their money into real estate, and many enjoyed unheard of levels of consumption and high living. In the Jewish quarter where the diamond industry flourished, and provided one of the few lucrative opportunities for the otherwise pauperized population, children were pressed into apprenticeships. In the Jordaan, non-Jews joined the ranks of the diamond-workers, primarily in the lowest paid job of polishing the smallest diamonds. 4 8 With the continued increase in workers, many of whom were poorly trained and unskilled, wages inevitably began to fall, and when world economic depression led to a decrease in the market for diamonds, the evils which had commonly plagued other workers in Amsterdam hit the diamond workers. Unemployment, low wages, long hours, and fierce competition between workers became the norm. Bosses and jewelers introduced unfair practices such as required purchase at exorbitant prices of boort, the diamond material used for cutting.49 In 1894, following a strike initiated in the Jordaan by the Christian diamond workers, various kinds of diamond workers joined together to form a federation of unions, the Algemeene Nederlandsche Diamantbewerksbond contained many contradictory interests. (ANDB). The new union Bosses and assistants both belonged, and all layers of the status hierarchy of workers, although the aristocracy of diamond workers, the diamond cutters, refrained for a number of years from joining. The leadership of the union was in the hands of men who had been previously active in the Social Democratic Bond. This in itself was unusual since the primarily Jewish workforce was supportive of the liberal politics of the banker A.C. Wertheim, and in general there was little support for socialism. The socialists who organized the ANDB were part of the social democratic reaction against the anarchist leanings of the SDB. From the 71 first they railed against the policies of the NAS which had been formed the year before, and through the work of the chairman Henri Polak, the ANDB became the foremost representative movement which had grown up in of the so-called modern union England and Germany. Polak and the rest of the union leadership worked to create a strong centralized organization with high dues, strong strike support, disciplined strike action, and 5 1 , solid insurance against sickness, injury, birth, and death. During the first decade of its existence, the ANDB used over half of its funds to support strike action. 5 2 It repeatedly won strikes, winning concessions from the jewelers and factory owners such that by 1904 the diamond workers enjoyed conditions surpassing those of any workers in Europe. day. The diamond workers were the first to achieve the nine hour work- The union established a standard wage scale, and settled wage disputes which arose between, for instance, the hourly and piece workers, the factory and home workers. It introduced a lunch break, and eliminated exploitative practices such as required purchases. It arranged a limit on the number of apprentices per year, and worked to enforce it. The union was often supported in its struggles by members of the municipal government, by the liberal newspaper the Algemeen Handelsblad, and even by some of the more progressive jewelers. model of the modern union in By 1904 the ANDB had become the the Netherlands. The question remains how this union made up primarily of skilled craftsmen with liberal leanings was able to achieve a unified and disciplined rank and file. Van Tijn has examined the economic and socio- cultural sources of the ANDB's success. The lack of cooperation among employers, and the proliferation of small employers allowed the union to become the single unified force which, by setting wage levels, facilitated 72 an end to the vicious cycle of price-cutting which had harmed both employers and workers. A number of employers recognized that the union's activity was advantageous to their interests as well as to those of the workers. The rise in wages could, on the other hand, be borne by the market because of the nature of the luxury product, while price undercutting from outside the coalition of Amsterdam and Antwerp was no threat because of the monopoly on expertise and the concentration of the workforce in those cities. 5 3 Of greater interest to our attempt to understand the nature of working class politics, however, are the factors which encouraged a disciplined membership in the union. In the Jewish community, memories of the period of high status and income during the Kaapsche Tijd enabled workers to take a less respectful attitude toward employers, especially jewelers. The attitude which prevailed was rather one which suggested that any of the ordinary workers with a little luck might have achieved the same independence as the jeweler, an attitude underlined by the close family ties between jewelers and employees.64 On the other hand, the large number of Christian workers who had joined the diamond trade in the '70s and '80s had little or no family connection to their bosses, and thus were not constrained by links of patronage to their employers from union activity. Those workers who enjoyed a relatively independent stance as bosses themselves, or at least sub-contractors, were treated by the jewelers with respect and therefore felt little compunction about making demands. Their workplace position in the factories where they rented mills placed them alongside lower-ranked factory workers, and they shared many of their experiences, leading to some sense of solidarity among all ranks. 5 5 In other words, under the conditions of proletarianization which 73 dominated the diamond industry in the 1890s, the aristocracy of the workers and the lower-ranked workers both perceived the need for collective action and both perceived themselves as capable of such action. The strategy of the diamond workers' union, unlike that of the syndicalist unions, was to aim for immediate improvement in material conditions. Whereas the syndicalists saw every strike action as a small step toward the civil disorder which would eventually usher in the revolution, the ANDB operated strictly on the basis of short term practical goals. A socialist union affiliated with the Social Democratic Bond had been established in 1888, but had been able to attract only twenty members, all but one Christian.56 The ANDB was able to attract even those hestitant about joining union activity, in particular female workers, because of its attractive package of benefits, including maternity compensation. 9576 in 1911.57 It grew quickly to include most diamond workers, The union replaced the standard weekly dues of f.10 with a rate of f.25 to f1.00 depending on income (f guilders). is the abbreviation for It paid its leaders on a full time basis, paying in 1894 f23.00 per week when the typographers union was paying only f14.00. Of course, had the officers been working in the trade itself they would have been able to earn two times as much as their union salary. Only the relatively high wages earned by the diamond workers made such high union dues and salaries possible. The union policy of enforcing payment of dues (those in arrears were thrown out of the union), and actively encouraging all diamond workers to join the union, was carried out by leaders who were widely regarded with respect. In summary, the diamond workers represent the use of the working class movement by a group of skilled workers to attain the material benefits of middle class life. 74 Reference has already been made to the attacks made by the leadership of the ANDB on syndicalist union policies. The ANDB refused to join the NAS, and quickly perceived the necessity of establishing another central labor organization of unions sharing its viewpoint. In 1899 the ANDB took a leading role with the SDAP in founding a local board of "modern" unions, the Amsterdam Bestuurders Bond (ABB), but it was not until 1906 that a national organization was founded, the Nederlandsch Vakbond Vereniging (NVV).58 the ANDB. The NVV represented the moderate reformist position pioneered by It supported strong centralized unions with strong strike treasuries and salaried union employees. It was closely tied to the SDAP, but the differences between the economic and the political arms of the workers' movement were strong enough that these two bodies did not always see eye to eye.59 The SDAP, whose leadership included both former bourgeois left liberals and workers, ranged in support from the mildly reformist to Marxist revolutionary. It called for a wide-ranging package of social reform laws, universal suffrage, and Fabian socialist municipal socialism. 6 0 Support for the SDAP came for the most part from the ranks of skilled workers, craftsmen and the new lower middle class who had come to experience the need for collective action, and to perceive the position of powerlessness vis-a-vis their employers which they shared with other workers, whether wage-earners or semi-independent, high or low status. Within the circles of the diamond workers nearly 90% of the ANDB members voted SDAP, although only 10% were actual members. Some 30% of the SDAP membership in Amsterdam, where the party was strongest, were diamond workers.61 In 1908 approximately 10% of the members in Amsterdam of the Bond van Nederlandsche Onderwijzers of the SDAP, (Union of Dutch Teachers) a higher percentage than that of the ANDB. 62 were members 75 Summary We have looked at a rough sketch of the divisions within the Amsterdam working class, pillars and their of Dutch society. corresponding affiliations with the Workers who associated themselves with middle class interests supported the liberal parties. The Anti-Revolutionary Party drew its support from the petit bourgeoisie. Many Catholic workers maintained their affiliation with their beleaguered religious group. The traditional working classes and casual labor partook of more spontaneous, unorganized political and labor expression, which in some cases could be tapped by the anarchist politics of the SDB and the syndicalism of the NAS. The proletarianized crafts, skilled labor, and the new lower middle class, which sympathized with working class economic plights, but kept middle class material goals, found a voice in the politics of the SDAP and the unions of the NVV. 76 Cultural Pluralism and the Politics of Accommodation Varying responses to the new social positions created by rapid economic change in Amsterdam produced a society consisting of diverse cultural and political interests. As we have seen in this chapter, some members of society associated their interests with the persistence of old ideologies and traditional social patterns. necessity to recast social organization. Others perceived the The outlet for expressing these varied positions was the channel of organized political expression: political parties the associated with the pillars. Modern Dutch democracy has been the object of studies by political scientists because of the way it has accommodated its deep societal cleavages within a stable parliamentary system. The Dutch have served as a model for pluralistic societies which are seeking a means to resolve their pluralism with democracy.63 The problem of defining the public good where society is segmented along clearcut and competitive lines has obvious implications for all aspects of social, economic, political and cultural life. In the Netherlands, the system of political accommodation which emerged during the first decades of this century also profoundly influenced the organization of new professions. During the economic modernization of the nineteenth century, the structure of Dutch society and politics underwent a transformation. In the first place, political life was gradually opened to larger numbers of the population. Long in the hands of a regent bourgeois class, by the end of the nineteenth century the foundations had been laid for the major mass parliamentary parties. In the second place, society had divided along sharp sectarian lines. Dutch politics in the late nineteenth century was 77 dominated by the controversy over state support for secular and parochial schools. The non-denominational liberals were pitted against the confessional voices who argued for the freedom of parents to chose the ideology of their children's primary education. The Anti-Revolutionary Party, founded on principles opposed to the secular French revolution, drew its support from the largely lower middle class extreme Protestant splinter group, the Dutch Reformed (Gereformeerd). By the end of the century, they had made common cause with the Catholics whose emancipation in 1848 had granted them rights of suffrage and office equal to those of other citizens, politics. thus making feasible the introduction of Catholic-based Monarchist and religious, these two parties were pitted against Dutch the republican and secular parties of the liberals and socialists. politics was thus divided along both religious and class lines. As we have previously noted, these divisions permeated society. During the period between 1900 and 1920, the evolution of mass society was 64 marked by increasing segmentation along the lines of the pillars. Membership in a pillar largely dictated numerous other choices, including patronage of shops, labor unions, newspapers, societies. sports clubs, and choral Most aspects of social life, from recreation to commerce, from culture to politics, experienced some pillarization. In politics the parliamentary system appeared to respond well to the exigencies of a segmented society by providing the means for a proportional representation of views. Modern Dutch politics has been characterized by a large number of small splinter parties, difficult and temporary coalitions, and frequent cabinet changes. How then has the Dutch system managed to maintain continuity and social stability? The classic study of modern Dutch politics by Arend Lijphart contends that a 78 political system of accommodation was evolved during the first decades of the twentieth century. Lijphart's model accounts for the success of the Dutch system by considering it as a form of elite pluralism.6 5 As Amsterdam responded in the early twentieth century to the challenges presented by urbanization, it had to find a way to reconcile its cultural and political diversity within its democratic framework. In Amsterdam, as in the Netherlands as a whole, the process of reconciling pluralism with democratic political processes occurred by means of the process of accommodation analyzed by Lijphart. According to Lijphart, the politics of accommodation consists of a number of strategies to which the elite of each segment tacitly agree. Basic to their system is a common commitment to the preservation of the Dutch state and the representative system. The system of accommodation acknowledges that the populace is structured in cultural segments, and agrees to distribute rewards proportionately. All segments of the population are guaranteed a proportionate degree of influence, corresponding benefit. But with the acknowledgement and of cultural segmentation, a degree of tolerance becomes necessary if the stability of the state is to be maintained. Thus there is a tacit agreement to disagree on questions of cultural ideology. The participating positions receive acknowledgement and are permitted representation; forced to renounce itself. no position is The potential disruption to social stability, likely to follow virulent public disagreement were the various cultural ideologies to pit avoided. themselves openly against each other, Public debate of cultural issues is eschewed. is consciously In its place, closed "summit diplomacy" by representatives of the cultural elites from each segment decides cultural issues and presents the compromise position 79 as a fait accompli. This system leads to the public depoliticization of cultural and policy problems. By avoiding public rancor the system creates the illusion that such problems exist in a neutral vacuum. play a special role in maintaining this system. The expert can As we noted in the previous chapter, relationships between experts and state are normally symbiotic, the neutrality, authority, and legitimacy of the one reinforced by the other. In the Dutch system of political accommodation, the need of both state and profession for neutrality takes on special significance. The state requires that issues appear susceptible to impartial solution, since this will aid in the depoliticization of potentially disruptive issues. The opportunity to appear to treat public problems impartially increases the expert's appearance of professionalism and enhances his opportunity to attain prestige and privilege. Elite pluralism is married to elite expertise. The expert contributes to maintaining the system of political accommodation by diffusing problems with his claim of professional neutrality. This effectively reduces public participation in either the disciplinary dialogue or the application of that dialogue, and creates the opportunity for professional elitism. knowledge -appears to be scientific from the cultural identified Professional neutrality is twofold: and impartial, segments which make up society. de facto with the public and it It is disassociated comes to be good. The emergence of the pillars, and the politics of accommodation which reconciled them with representative democracy, occurred at the same time that government was introducing measures which called for an increase in professional participation. Thus in the Netherlands in general, and in 80 Amsterdam in particular, the political system, acting in response to cultural pluralism, encouraged and reinforced professional claims to autonomy. Rapid economic development in the late nineteenth century altered the social structure of Amsterdam, creating new social positions alongside persistant older ones. A new technocracy, consisting of professionals and bureaucrats, formed alongside the traditional professionals and the civil service. The mass of workers began to form new unions and political parties alongside older working mens' clubs. Their ranks splintered into the ideological and religious affiliations which have been described in this chapter. At the turn of the century Amsterdam was characterized by a marked political and cultural diversity. Economic resurgence also posed a number of problems, which constituted an urban challenge for Amsterdam. The issues were transportation, education, public safety, sewage, housing and the provision of other public services. opportunity to create itself anew. Their solution offered Amsterdam an But the segmentation of the city produced a variety of responses to the urban challenge. competing visions of the shape urban life in It generated many Amsterdam might take. While the various splinter groups did not articulate their values with equal clarity or force, all segments of Amsterdam enjoyed some public expression. Thus the shaping of a new Amsterdam in the twentieth century had to be carried out in a way which acknowledged the rights of all groups to democratic representation, yet produced a collective solution. Above the cacophony of competing values, new expertise offered neutral objectivity as an apparant means to reconcile differences and represent a collective interest. 81 Housing was one social issue which evoked a diversity of response. As Amsterdam developed its strategies for attacking the housing problem, the politics of accommodation were put to work. Reconciliation of diverse positions was made possible by the creation of organized housing expertise. Before examining the Dutch response to the housing issue and the corresponding creation of a corps of a housing experts, we will trace the genesis of the housing problem in Amsterdam in the next chapter. 82 Chapter Three LAISSEZ-FAIRE URBAN GROWTH IN AMSTERDAM In the 1880s and '90s, Amsterdam experienced population growth rates which dramatized the city's economic revival by generating new neighborhoods outside the traditional city limits, the Buitensingel. As in other European cities which mushroomed in the late nineteenth century, 1 a reciprocal relationship between population growth and economic activity produced Amsterdam's population growth burst, a growth with far-reaching implications not only for the shape of the city, but for its tempo and life-style. The transformation of Amsterdam from provincial backwater to burgeoning modern metropolis was accomplished in the dynamic process of responding to the hygienic, social, and administrative problems introduced by a population which more than doubled from 224,035 to 510,853 fifty years between 1849 and 1899. (Figs. 3.1 in the and 3.2) While in camparison to other European cities the rate of Amsterdam's population growth after 1850 was dramatic rather than spectacular, it clearly represented a renewal of the city's fortunes contrasting sharply to the decades of stagnation immediately preceding it. turning point in economic history. Mid-century was a the demographic history of Amsterdam as well as in Before 1800, its Amsterdam demonstrated the demographic pattern typical of pre-industrial cities: a high birth rate, high mortality, and low life expectancy. Population increase resulted then 83 primarily from in-migration, and when net out-migration occurred, during the French occupation between 1805 and 1815, dropped, reaching a low point of 180,179 in as the population Population change was 1815. furthermore subject to episodes of epidemic diseases, such as smallpox, cholera, as well as typhus, diphtheria, and measles, which temporarily raised mortality to high levels. At mid-century, Amsterdam experienced a gradual increase in the birth rate, climbing to 37.6 per thousand in 1884, and a gradual decrease in the death rate punctuated by less frequent epidemics. This pattern of increasing excess of births over deaths accounts for much of the population increase shown during the period 18701890. (Figs. 3.3 and 3.4) After 1885, Amsterdam's pattern shifted gradually and began to demonstrate the demographic trends of a modern city: a lower birth rate, reduced mortality rates for all dramatic reduction in infant and child (to age 13) decline in the frequency of epidemic episodes. 2 ages, with mortality, and a Verdoorn's thorough discussion of health care in Amsterdam during the second half of the nineteenth century argues that the decline in mortality was due less to the introduction of public measures for hygiene, improved nutrition, or the increased availability of medical services, than to the percolation throughout society of a modern cultural pattern of personal health care and hygiene.3 Arguing that few were as yet able to enjoy the material benefits of better diet, improved water sources, or better medical care, he finds rather that the high attendance in public schools, the richer sources of communication, and the increased organization of cultural and political life which accompanied the modernization of the city introduced the knowledge and practice of life-prolonging behavior to a broad segment of the population. 4 84 Since the decline in the birth rate paralleled that of the death rate after 1885, the yearly increase in population due to excess of births over deaths came to rest at a fixed rate of 12 to 14 per 1000 and the significance of in- and out-migration was correspondingly reduced.5 Amsterdam's rate of growth during the second half of the nineteenth Despite a century was outstripped by that of the Hague and Rotterdam.6 in decrease rate in the average age of a woman at Amsterdam dropped more rapidly in large Dutch cities, this marriage to 1900, Amsterdam than in the birth the other was perhaps because of the generally more progressive nature of the city, which may have found expression in a greater willingness on the part of families to attempt some form of birth control. On the other hand, Amsterdam's mortality before 1900 higher than that of both the Hague and Rotterdam. lower birth rate remained The combination of and higher death rate accounts to some extent for the 8 lower rate of increase in Amsterdam. Shifting trends of migration also had an effect on the pattern of Amsterdam's demographic change. The rural depression, resulting from the fall in grain prices following massive importation from North America, drove many to seek relief from rural poverty by seeking employment in the cities. industry9 Opportunities for work, for instance in the construction or in the harbor, attracted many from the countryside.10 waves of in-migration hit Amsterdam in the 1880s and in the early 1890s, coinciding with the periods of greatest natural population 3.5) However, between 1904 and 1909, and again in Two increase. (Fig. 1912, net migration shifted out, because of the limits to growth reached by the city in its current extension, and the tendency for the well-to-do to move to such outlying areas as het Gooi. Between 1850 and 1899 the increase in 85 population due to excess of births over deaths was 158,039, the increase due to net in-migration was 106,939. 12 By 1900 Amsterdam had grown to the size of a major modern metropolis. We have examined briefly the pattern of its growth and some of the causes of population expansion. But economic and demographic change did not occur without inducing radical changes in social and spatial structure of the city. the internal makeup of the 86 Urban Growth In 1615 the Burgemeester and Vroedschap of Amsterdam approved a plan for fortification of the city, a series of linked bastions in the Italian style, which would enclose an area more than twice the then current size of the city. The seventeenth century was nearing its plan had been executed, taking the well-known close before the form of a half-moon lying with its flat side along the river IJ, and filled with the concentric girdle of three canals, the Jordaan, the Plantage, and the harbor islands. 13 (Fig. 3.6) The half-moon remained intact throughout the period of Dutch economic eclipse as the still active trading capital promoted continual construction within the city walls. comsume all the available space. demand for development of sites it decided to plot fact, lots In 1690 Expansion, the city however, did not acknowledged that to the east of the Amstel was slight, there to lease them to citizens and as gardens. 4 In given the population decline we have observed during the French occupation, it was not until 1842 that the municipal authorities found it advisable to remove the fortifications ground. in order to open up building By mid-century when growth was hardly apparent, founded optimism prevailed among civic leaders, growth beyond the Buitensingel, but a well- the need to regulate the encircling canal, had become apparent. Of course, the line of fortifications had long ceased to function as the demarcation of legal building. In 1615 the establishment of settlements outside the city walls was considered by city officials not only a threat to security, but a loss in tax revenues. construction within fifty Consequently feet of the city walls was prohibited. the situation was somewhat different. In Jerrybuilt hovels and caravan 1860, 87 lodging areas sprang up irregularly along the rim of the city. Sawmills and a number of other small industries had been established along small polder canals. Pressure from developers wishing to take advantage of both the cheaper land prices outside the Buitensingel and the demand for office, industrial, and residential space was brought to bear on the alderman for Public Works 15 who repeatedly asked and received municipal council approval for small development plans outside the encircling canal. Development outside the seventeenth century half-moon was occurring in an arbitrary and uncoordinated way. Within the city, the inadequacy of space available for current demands was becoming daily more apparent. The housing market shrunk, and eighteenth century bourgeois houses were subdivided into one and two room Back yards and alleys of the old working class areas, the apartments. Jordaan and Jodenbuurt in particular, were filled with jerrybuilt housing. Warehouses near the harbor were transformed into housing, and especially in the eastern harbor islands, but also throughout the city, cellars were furnished for families to live in. The Plantage, the only major parcel of land which had been left undeveloped within the Buitensingel, was sold off by the municipality and quickly developed into a middle class residential It was clear, however, as Amsterdam entered the district. 1870s, that a large portion of the immigrating work force would be housed outside the old city limits. Amsterdam, as we have seen, was a latecomer to modern economic development. Because of its robust participation in early capitalism, its seventeenth century expansion was on a grand scale which was able to encompass nearly two centuries of economic Amsterdam's change without alteration. grand plans of the seventeenth century, combined with its late 88 arrival to modern capitalist development, deferred until the third quarter of the nineteenth century the need to deal with the problem of growth beyond its Renaissance core. Nineteenth century planning in Amsterdam outside the Buitensingel was initiated by private rather than official institutions. Attending the 1851 London Exhibition, Dr. Sarphati, a man of extraordinary interests and enterprise, had been impressed by the Crystal Palace, and decided to organize the construction of a similar building in Amsterdam. He received a concession from the city and came up with plans for development of the former site of the Utrechtsepoort. The development, which was to include housing as well as the Paleis voor Volksvliet, hardly augured a grand vision of Amsterdam's future expansion. Sarphati later established a company to manage the development, but the financial backing was insufficient to avoid compromises in the original plan. A factory was incorporated into the plans and a park which was to be handed over to the municipality was reduced in size. Sarphati's venture was predicated on an arrangement with the municipality whereby he leased the land from the municipality, paid himself for improvements (raising the land, bridges, roads, etc.), addition contributed a park. and in Such private development in cooperation with the municipality was not immediately imitated by other philanthropic capitalists. The only other comparable development occurred with the founding of a philanthropic organization of old Amsterdam families whose purpose was the establishment of a major urban park. This development was financed totally privately.16 The necessity that the municipal authorities provide some guidance to further development was recognized by some within the government by the 89 In 1867 an abortive attempt was made by the city engineer, J. van 1860s. Niftrik, to devise a plan acceptable to the city council. (Fig. 3.7) The council rejected the plan, and in so doing declared further development of the city as the domain of private initiative, with limited government intervention. The reporting committee noted that, without the right to expropriate land, the municipality lacked the authority to carry out such Having rejected a full-scale a plan as van Niftrik's. plan for the general development of Amsterdam, the council was prepared in street accept a partial plan designed by van Niftrik. 1870 to This was for a triangular area outside the Buitensingel across from the Frederiksplein development of the Sarphati concession. (Fig. 3.8) It was the first portion of the district which would later be called the Pijp. Parallel streets were run out perpendicular to the Ruysdaelkade, parallel to a normalized Buitensingel as far as the Noordelijk Zaagmolenpad (Gerard Doustraat). plan was approved in A second partial August 1872. This was for the choice land across from the Leidschepoort, between the Vondelpark and Boerenwetering. for this area in create a The municipality had decided to request expropriation 1869 (granted 23 December 1874), where it intended to luxurious living environment. With these two plans the municipality had taken timid steps toward guiding private development. the first years. Pijp. In fact, development was slow to follow in By 1876 some five hundred houses had been built in the Development in the future Museum quarter was even slower to occur, given the many restrictions on building and the tendency of the well-to-do to move out of the city to the suburbs. was slowly being led by the private 1876 housing construction Elsewhere in the city development developers. During the years 1867 took place inside and outside the encircling to 90 canal, in irregular patches of uncoordinated development. 1 7 By the 1870s Amsterdam's housing market was adjusting itself to the new conditions of population growth with the onset of speculative housing, particularly in the Pijp. The continuation of current practise, permitting developers to dictate future street patterns with no overview to overall relationships, promised to produce a chaotic situation. Once again the executive branch of the municipality proposed a general plan for development. This plan, designed by Ir. J. Kalff, new director of Public Works, was accepted in 1877. (Fig. 3.9) It ratified the existing pattern of development, and provided a blueprint for the further commercial development of a ring around the city. Bereft of any intentions to foster a particular public good other than practicable transportation and hygiene, the plan's principles could clearly be understood to promote the interests of private land owners. To this end, it took as its physical basis the existing pattern of property lines, canals, and roads with the result that its parallel streets and endless right angled intersections offered a minimum of relief in the way of parks, squares, or other urban amenities. The Kalff plan served as a general basis for the direction and layout of streets, which were then adjusted to the requirements, mostly exploitative, of the developer. Over the next twenty years came the sharpest increase in Amsterdam's population and concurrently a high pitch of housing speculation, which filled the Kalff plan by the end of the century.18 91 Housing Conditions Population growth and the physical expansion of Amsterdam combined to alter the housing conditions of much of Amsterdam during the second half of the nineteenth century. The housing choices of both middle and working classes changed as Amsterdam began a repetition of the process it had undergone in the seventeenth century. Then, the merchants who had previously lived at or near their places of business, along the wharves or by the warehouses in the center of town, moved out to the new ring of canals to form a mixed but predominantly residential district in which the wealthiest took up residence along the main canals while the shopkeepers and other providers of services moved to the cross streets and canals. At the same time a new residential district for the working classes, primarily the artisans (as distinct from the harbor workers who moved to the East and West Harbor Islands), was established behind the Prinsengracht in the Jordaan. In the nineteenth century, a number of businessmen and other members of the bourgeoisie in the old center left to reestablish themselves in the better districts outside the Buitensingel. And the wealthiest, including some of those living on the main canals, moved both to the new districts and to the suburbs developing in the Gooi and in Haarlem which were less than an hour from Amsterdam by commuter train. The old city core was left to a process called city-vorming, the attrition of the residential function and total encroachment of commercial and administrative activity. Meanwhile the established working classes moved when possible to the newly forming districts: in the east in the Dapperbuurt, and Oosterparkbuurt, in the south to the Pijp and to the west to the Kinkerbuurt, Staatsliedenbuurt, and Hugo de Grootbuurt. 92 For the middle classes there was a certain continuity of residential style for those moving from the old city to the new city. The old canal houses had often been left unaltered on the exterior, and the interiors were also often maintained. The standard bourgeois household in the old city functioned in a house type dating from the seventeenth century. (Fig. 3.10) The gabled row house of two or three storeys with attic narrow but its depth provided ample space. might be A stoep, a flight of front steps, led through the front door to a vestibule which extended through the full depth of the house as a vestibule was the voorkamer hall. long corridor. The first room off the the front room which served as reception The full width of the house encompassed front room and vestibule. Behind the front room, also accessible from the hall, was a bedroom which looked into an interior courtyard. the front house or voorhuis. Bedroom and reception room constituted The next room off the hall was the large kitchen with windows into the courtyard, and behind it was the living room, the huiskamer, which looked into the narrow garden behind the house. These two rooms composed the achterhuis (back house). Stairs between the front and back house or between kitchen and living room lead to a second and third floor of bedrooms, and finally to the attic which might also include a further subdivision as a storey: the mezzanine or vliering. In another variation, the door under the stoop led down to a half basement which contained butler's room, kitchen and a room at the garden level called the garden room (tuinkamer) where the family might dine. new houses built outside the old city echoes of this In the house type persisted. The inner court was eliminated and with it the distinctive front and back house, although front and back orientation remained essential. The plan now placed the entrance at street level, with a hallway again reaching the 93 full depth from street adjacent, fore and aft, to back garden. Front room and living room were and joined by French doors en suite. The stairs to upper floors was found to one side of the corridor, behind it a toilet, and to the rear the kitchen. 19 While the bathroom was not yet considered a necessary addition to the bourgeois house, the house was amply provided with specialized rooms furnished with specialized equipment and furniture such as the office (spreekkamer), pantry (provisiekamer), the drying attic with clothes rack and basket, the kitchen counter (aanrecht), and so on. Rules of common decency, in some cases elevated to the status of law, dictated behavior in the semi-public areas of the house: carpets were to be cleaned only at given hours, the wash was never hung out where it could be publicly observed. The cleaning of the stoop and the sidewalk in front of the house were the responsibility of the house dwellers. Bourgeois sensibility dictated that the public nature of the street be acknowledged with strategies to enhance decorum and privacy. For many in the working class, however, the conditions of life and work precluded the reproduction of bourgeois home and family life. Not only could they not afford the space and equipment necessary to maintain bourgeois life style, but the social circumstances shaping their life style constrained their choices. they were put in institutions. To counter the insecurity of old age The necessity to be close to work prevented them from moving to less dense neighborhoods. Long hours at the workplace meant that some members of the family rarely encountered each other, haven. while working at home destroyed the function of the home as a The model of the nuclear family, a beloved image of Dutch culture, could not survive the conditions under which much of the working class 94 For many the nuclear family ceased to exist altogether. lived. large family, In a where children might be sent out to work as soon as they reached school leaving age, some might be sent into domestic service where they lived in the family of their employers. service where they lived in barracks. long periods of time. Sons went into the military Sailors were absent from home for Some jobs, such as those in bakeries, encouraged the hired help to live on the premises because of the non-standard hours of work. In a small concern, the help might live with the owner's family next to or on the work premises. In the case of medium sized firms or factories, a dormitory system might be maintained. In such cases, it was not unusual for four or five workers to share a small bedroom or for a worker to find someone from a previous shift occupying his bed. Similar live-in working conditions existed for a variety of other jobs. Other alternatives for unmarried workers were renting rooms in boarding houses associated with pubs, or boarding with a family. was likely that sleeping space would be shared. In both situations it For the elderly, destitute, orphans and the mentally ill, charitable institutes provided housing, typically in the form of a hofje: a courtyard behind the main street surrounded by individual rooms for each dweller, and often provided 2 with a large meeting chamber for the regents of the institution. 0 Most families who did live together were forced into housing which was inadequate. While apartments with more than two rooms might be affordable by the skilled workman with a solid position, for nearly half of Amsterdam in 1900 one or two rooms had to suffice. In 1899 44.8% of all homes had only one or two rooms, the kitchen being counted as a room. A full 37.4% of the homes occupied by more than two people were single room dwellings.21 Such overcrowded living conditions could be found in 95 multi-room dwellings as well. In the older districts within the Buitensingel overcrowding produced a number of substandard housing solutions, outside the Buitensingel, while in the new districts where speculative housing was virtually unregulated by municipal ordinance, residential districts were The unsatisfactory from the point of view of both aesthetics and health. following sections discuss in detail the housing conditions of the old and the new districts. The overall failure of Amsterdam to create housing which could meet both the practical needs of the city's populace, at the same time maintaining the high standard of urban form established in the seventeenth century, is comparable to the inadequate responses observable in other European cities period of time. facing massive growth in a relatively short Amsterdam's civic leaders belonged for the most part to the leading commercial families and their prevailing faith in untrammelled private little enterprise as the engine which would run the municipality met with or no opposition during the '70s and '80s. Only gradually did some professionals assess the unfavorable impact of rapid growth on housing conditions, particularly doctors whose work brought them regularly in contact with sections of the town rarely entered by other members of the bourgeoisie. Motivated by their negative peception, the progressive professionals joined with workers who had begun organizing to represent their civic interests in order to launch a movement to reverse the policy of government abstention from interference in the provision of housing. 96 The Old City the old city took up almost all Initially the population increase The already crowded created by both natural growth and immigration. districts of the old city center grew more densely populated particularly in the poorer sections: occupation per house increased substantially in the '80s in neighborhoods of the Jordaan, the Jewish quarter, the East and West Islands.22 QQ), In the northernmost triangle of the Jordaan, housing stock increased by 66 houses between population increased by 2346.23 (district 1889 and 1899 while the Density only began to slacken in the 1890s when the first effects were felt of the newly built districts outside the Buitensingel and the suburbs of the Gooi. Even with the gradual attrition of population, however, the most crowded sections of the city remained densely packed, since a number of dwellings were replaced by new urban functions such as the Hotel Krasnapolsky, shops expanding on the Nieuwendijk, the shift of housing to offices, and so on. As late as 1920, Amsterdam's density was by far higher than most European cities, although this density must be understood also to reflect the comparatively little open space (parks, boulevards) and high percentage of built surface area 24 in addition to the high rate of occupancy. Families found new homes in the old city for the most part in large houses originally intended for single family occupancy. merchant's house in the old city was divided in the last A large years of the nineteenth century into dwellings for eighteen families, twelve one-room dwellings and six two-room dwellings.25 Houses were purchased by investors whose incomes were only slightly higher than those of the dwellers. 2 6 During the Kaapsche period, diamond workers able to save from 97 their new high earnings invested heavily in for slum housing.27 Overpayment for houses forced the new landlords to As a result the houses were extract the maximum amount of rent possible. subdivided to accommodate flats occupied, driving up prices estate, real the greatest number of families, were divided into two dwellings, found to carve out additonal dwellings.28 were attics and other means were Within the confines of these generally tight quarters, families created sleeping space wherever attics, and sometimes porches were pressed into possible: closets, service. The rural custom of built-in curtains to close off the bed during the day), the city. one third (closets with door or alcoves was applied regularly in In the Western Islands and southern half of the Jordaan, over of the dwellings had bedsteden, in the Eastern Islands and northern half of the Jordaan well over half as late as 1930.29 Sometimes built-in "bunk-beds" of two or more layers would be constructed by the dwellers to accommodate all members of the family. Children slept two, 30 three or more to a bed. The hygienic amenities of such housing was minimal. Amsterdam was not connected to sewage or water. Much of In the absence of a water closet, sewage was collected in a bucket placed in the room, in a closet 31 Every other night it was carried away by a horse drawn or under stairs. municipal wagon, popularly known as the Boldootwagon after a well known eau de cologne. stairways. The bucket had to be carried down the steep, poorly lit In the back alleys of some districts, the rattle of the cart might not be heard and the collection service thus missed, so that the refuse had to be simply, but illegally, dumped into the nearest canal or kept for another two days. In any event the bucket would be washed out and the water used for rinsing it simply thrown down a drain.32 Even 98 where water closets were available, they might be shared by so many that In the Jordaan, there the sanitary conditions were less than desirable. In some newer housing on might be one toilet available for 15 families. the Lijnbaansgracht, one toilet per floor was installed to serve two families, but there was no air shaft for ventilation. Water from a tap was sometimes available for a number of families, but water could also be obtained from public fountains, by purchase from a "fire and water" store which also sold kindling, or from a man selling buckets. J. A. Tour found that a family could manage with 25 buckets a week, costing a total of 50 cents. 3 3 or rooms. Cooking took place on the single stove used for heating the room were non-existent, Bathing facilities arrangements with a laundry tub could be made. although special The money to pay a bath 34 house was often lacking for the poorest families. Frequent moves were often necessary for a variety of reasons: because the family needed more room as it increased in number, because illness, unemployment or extra mouths decreased the amount of rent the family could afford,35 36 or because the family needed to live closer to a new job. Until the 1860s the new room, could be found by walking the streets in search of placards "TO RENT" placed in windows, but later, lodgings were more difficult to find.37 The preparation of the dwelling by the new tenants usually consisted of a cleaning, installing flooring, lighting, was a domestic tradition. putting up new wallpaper, the stove and furniture. 38 Do-it-yourself Many household repairs had to be carried out by the tenants because landlords refused to invest any more funds in them. 3 9 These crowded conditions forced a drying, family to carry on all cooking, eating, its daily living, playing, and activities of washing, sleeping - sometimes with members of the extended family or boarders - all 99 in the same small space of one or two rooms. As you enter the low door of a street level house, then you find yourself immediately in the single room which constitutes the dwelling, and which is about the size of what is called a reception room in a bourgeois house. You can imagine how dark it is if you consider that a high wall is less than a yard away, and that the little daylight that falls through the one window passes three floors and an attic. In front of the window is a table with three chairs, a smokepipe nearby with a stove for heating and cooking underneath, a protruding bedstead with a dark curtain, a table with cooking utensils. There you have the house and its inventory. No trace of plumbing, drain, toilet,'coalbin, closet, 4 0 or second bed, just traces of dampness everywhere. The only feature of the bourgeois home which could be, albeit poorly, imitated in the working class home was the voorkamer or parlor. This could be created by partitioning off a part of a room or reserving a separate room in pristine condition for Sunday and important family events such as the celebration of an engagement. Here might be placed the best furniture, family photographs, prized china and other valued possessions, although many families owned very little For a significant furniture and few belongings.41 portion of Amsterdam's population, even such feeble efforts at imitating bourgeois life style were beyond attempt. In the densest and poorest neighborhoods of old Amsterdam wretched living conditions developed among the delapidated seventeenth century housing stock. In the east and west harbor islands, which formed neighborhoods somewhat isolated from the rest of Amsterdam as they were only accessible by bridge, the casual laborers who worked the harbors formed close knit neighborhoods. The necessity to be close to work meant that these islands of limited extent became increasingly occupied as ship related industries increased their activities in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the Eastern Islands cellars originally intended for storage were used extensively as homes. These damp dwellings usually consisted of one or two rooms and received a minimal amount of daylight through the front 100 basement windows. The front room, that is, the one with most access to light, was frequently used as the workroom or as a shop. Favored merchandise was turf and wood, petroleum, apples and pears, herring, penny candy or beer. The family's living and sleeping space was then pushed into the back room.42 Next to the Eastern Islands, an area called Funen, along Czaar Peterstraat, was built up for the first time in the 1890s. This housing was particularly poorly designed, consisting of five flats on each shallow parcel 4M by 9M , one in the basement, one at ground level, and three on upper floors on the same stair. The upstairs flats contained one main room with windows to the rear and a front room partitioned off with wood which faced the street. (Fig. 3.11) Built out to the rear a small kitchen contained a partition with toilet. rooms provided sleeping quarters. Bed closets in both Even with the building of new housing stock near the harbor, cellars still remained occupied.4 3 Similar conditions prevailed in the Western Islands after the Zeeliedenbuurt was constructed: on the Bickerseiland the dilapidated seventeenth century housing continued to be used. In the Jordaan, the use of cellars for dwellings was not the most prevalent abuse of housing standards. There, from as early as the seventeenth century, back yards and gardens had been prone to further development by real estate investors trying to maximize their profits. As a result the Jordaan was riddled with narrow alleyways leading between and through buildings to small courtyards giving entry to a number of dwellings. The main streets [in the Jordaan], the pleasant canals, and the long, narrow, friendly streets are known to every Amsterdammer, but less well known, I believe, is what is hidden behind these streets: the innumerable alleys and courts, to which many a gate on the main street gives entry. Once inside such an alley, the path leads between two walls, until one reaches a second alley, 101 just as narrow but often shorter than the first, making a right angle with it. The dirty walls are full of doors and windows on each side, with a child's or woman's face behind each. You will also see, although it is midday, a burning oil lamp, with a poor figure bent over sewing.44 These so-called impandige or enclosed houses added to the normal problems of the working class home the problems of poor lighting, inadequate provision of water, and rubbish and sewage removal. The best known instance of a complex of enclosed dwellings was the well documented group of the Goudbloemstraat, site of a housing experiment to be discussed later. Here on an area of 40M by 44M sat 37 houses with 131 dwellings, 36% of which were accessible only by enclosed alleys. of 1806 square meters, 1564 were built upon. cellars, 22 attics, and three mezzanines. a single long alley one meter wide. families. Of the surface area The dwellings included two Fifty people went home through One water pump served twenty-one One hundred and four families had no toilet, instead storing their chamber pots in the room, in the attic, closet or next to the bedstead.45 In the Jodenbuurt, the Jewish Quarter, overcrowding of some of Amsterdam's poorest inhabitants was combined with the presence of stinking stagnant canals, the prevalence of workshops in homes, and the use of housing for the storage of street market goods, including perishables and the refuse collections of the "rag and bone man." The vibrant street life of the neighborhood, where lives unrolled on the semi-public stoops and sidewalks and in the public markets, was in no small part due to the many uninhabitable dwellings. In the worst areas of the city pervasive dampness, lack of sanitation, dark steep stairways, built-in beds, parasites and vermin characterized the conditions under which people lived, and, in many 102 instances worked. city's In the otherwise coldly clinical description of the old housing which the Building Inspector's Office compiled during the last years of the nineteenth century, some sense of the horror of the worst neighborhoods emerges in the following passage: Mention must also be made of houses where the wood floor is in such bad condition that it is worn through in places and the ground could be seen through it, while an unpleasant odor spread through the dwelling; where the outer walls were cracked through to the inside of the room; where the walls were so damp that the wallpaper was covered with mold and was half fallen off; living rooms so dark that the inspector had to make his notes by candlelight although it was bright and clear outside; houses particularly neglected and dirty, crawling with insects; overcrowded houses in which the children slept in a drafty corner where the chamber pot in which all the family deposited its excrement was kept; or where the parents slept with one or more of the younger children, while the older children, boys and girls together, slept on the floor . . .46 103 The New City In outside the Buitensingel the new districts built from the 1880s the worst of the slum characteristics to be found in the inner city neighborhoods were happily improved. prevalent. street. Cellar dwellings were not as Housing was with few exceptions accessible directly from the On Backyards were generally reserved for gardens and storage. the other hand, the new districts were far from models of residential design. This failure to produce mass housing which could not only adequately serve the family sizes and life patterns of the working and lower middle classes, but even enhance the urban fabric, is traceable to the system which produced the housing. Because of the long period of economic decline and the slow recovery during the first half of the century, the construction industry was depressed in Amsterdam. Until 1840, when the population attained the same level it had reached in 1780, there was little call for construction other than repair work. Even when population increases began, housing construction was slow to follow. Construction had been in the hands of small builders who invested in the land and materials for the purpose of immediate sale, but this system could no longer thrive because of the lack of ready capital and the shortage of labor. Only the introduction of French mortgaging and speculative interest in land development made possible a new system which produced residential districts to the west, south, and east of old Amsterdam.47 The builder had little or no means of his own. Usually it was the land speculator who originated the entire process of development. With a construction mortgage, the builder was enabled to erect housing, but with 104 the pressure to produce it as quickly and as cheaply as possible so that immediate sale would be possible and the mortgage paid off with minimum interest and maximum profit. For none of those involved with the financial transaction was the quality of housing produced a criterion of success. The eventual owners were drawn for the most part from the segment of society which invested in real estate in the old city. Even they had little to gain from higher quality construction once the demand for housing was great enough. As a result, foundations were faulty, the paint was chalky, and the brick unsound. buildings On a number of occasions, collapsed while under construction. According to several measures the new residential districts failed to improve significantly on the old city slums. Density was high in a number of districts, particularly the Kinkerbuurt, the western parts of the Pijp, and the Dapperbuurt, where densities reached levels comparable to the worst of the old city. Occupancy rates quickly developed high levels as well. Although the number of strictly one-room dwellings was much lower in the new city, the practice of taking in boarders was widespread, especially as a means for a family to afford the generally much higher rents in the new districts. The Pijp, for instance, became known as an area for boarding students. Cellars constructed specifically for use as dwellings, and called euphemistically souterrains, appeared throughout the new districts. These were, of course, vast improvements over the storage cellars used on the islands, but nonetheless they suffered from similar disadvantages such as insufficient light and dampness. The new districts were constructed as perimeter blocks, and the interior of the blocks were primarily used as open space and storage area, 105 a vast improvement on the overcrowded alleys and back warrens in the old city. Nonetheless, the planning, siting, and layout of streets in the new districts left much to be desired. part loosely on Kalff's 1877 plan, The street plans, based for the most were unimaginative grids of endless narrow and straight streets, unrelieved by greenery with the exception of Sarphati- and Vondelpark. The orientation of much of the new building was north-south, insuring that for one half of the dwellings the living room never received light, while for the other half, the kitchen never received sunlight. The internal plan of the new flats maintained the standard front-back Most of orientation we have already observed in other forms of housing. The the housing plans were variations of two and three bay dwellings. two-bay dwellings consisted of front and back rooms with no, one or two Toilets alcoves between, and a kitchen built out in the back (Fig. 3.12). were either internal to the flat or accessible from the hallway. The three-bay dwellings contained front and back rooms, one, two, or four alcoves between, a small front room on the side, and a small kitchen on the rear side. In some cases it was possible to split the front and rear of the dwelling to form two separate dwellings. The chief objection to these plans was the insufficient provision of sleeping space. The use of the alcoves prevented cross-cirdulation of air, posing ventilation problems. While somewhat larger than their counterparts in the old city, these new flats often became little more than variations on the one-room dwelling, especially when front and back were split. The wood partitions used to form the alcoves contributed little to privacy, but even the fire walls between parcels or the floors between storeys were far from soundproof. Residents complained bitterly of the noise. One witness 106 blatantly referred to the fact that "your neighbor can hear you having sex. ,,48 Attics were divided by laths to form storage and drying areas assigned to each floor, but these were often transformed into bedrooms for the children or for boarders whose sublet rent paid the family's rent. kept aside for use as the parlor. The front room was often Altogether, the new flats were an improvement over the accommodations in the old city, but in no way represented a decent solution to the problem of housing masses of workers. 107 The Redistribution of the City's Population The importance of the housing in the new city becomes all the more apparent when we take into consideration the fact that by 1909 over half of Amsterdam's population was living outside the Buitensingel.49 During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the balance of population between the old and new city had rapidly shifted, so that, while in only 10.2% 1879 of the total population lived in the new city, this percentage had doubled every ten years, rising to 41.0% by the turn of the century. Not all segments of the population participated equally in this shift, however. The economic process producing speculative housing favored those who could afford a minimum rent of f2.00 or more, the minimum rent which still rendered housing construction profitable in the cheaper districts. As we shall see, this threshold was too high for a segment of Amsterdam's 5 working population and resulted in economic segregation. 0 The wealthiest Amsterdammers maintained their traditional occupation of the Grachtengordel, the concentric belt of canals, particularly around the crossing of Leidschegracht, the bend of the Herengracht KK). (district But as houses converted to offices, the cachet of the canals altered. Newer areas, both in the old city and without, proved to be more attractive to the better off: the Weteringschans and Frederiksplein in the old city, and the Plantage and Sarphatistraat for the wealthier Jews. These were new areas, and in them the rich reproduced their urban life styles in elaborate row houses and large flats. Similarly in the new city, the Willemspark, Vondelpark and Museum districts filled at a slow pace with villas, row houses and flats. Laid out for the most part with generous space, ample provision of green, and access to the prestigious 108 new cultural centers comprising the Rijksmuseum, the Stedelijke Museum, and the Concertgebouw, nonetheless many preferred to establish a new suburban commuter style of living in the Gooi or near Haarlem. 5 1 For the poorest, however, housing location was rarely a question of choice. As the housing stock dwindled in the old city due to re-use or neglect, housing affordable to those with low incomes was limited primarily to the traditional slums: the center of the city, the Jewish quarter, and the Jordaan. It was the Jordaan which was least affected by the decrease of housing stock, and the Jordaan, therefore, to which most of the poor took refuge.52 The result was a pauperization of the old working class districts, as the poor were increasingly squeezed into fewer houses in an increasingly smaller number of locations. While it was primarily the widows with children and the elderly who were hardest hit by this change, among those affected were the casual laborers, the haulers, the street vendors (especially in the northern section of the Jordaan and in the Jewish quarter), and others most subject to the vagaries of irregular work and unemployment such as the diamond workers, the The overcrowding which accompanied carpenters and construction workers.53 the simultaneous loss of housing stock and population increase was paired with a sharp increase in rent. Between 1850 and 1870 working class rents increased approximately 30%.54 In 1855 a one-room flat in the center of the city could be rented for f.25 to .35, commodious (54.6%) dwelling for f.70. and a craftsman could get a more In 1852/53 of 52,410 dwellings, 28,603 were assessed for tax purposes 55 at less than f 1.30 per week. Rents climbed steadily over the next decades. An inquiry into working class living conditions indicated that rents in Amsterdam had run f1.50 to f2.00 in 1872,~ but had increased by 1878 to f2.00 to 2.50.56 Other 109 studies showed that 80% of the cellar dwellings in the East Harbor Islands (buurt T) in 1874 rented at under a guilder, whereas by 1893 only 4 to 6% were under a guilder, and the average rent was f.56. 57 With the sharp rise in rental rates over the second half of the century, which increases in income failed to meet, even the lesser craftsmen, such as painters, masons, basketmakers, and especially the small self-employed, were forced by the late 1880s to move from the better working class housing along the streets of the Jordaan back into the warrens of alleys behind. Those who had had two upper rooms in a cross street of one of the main canals paid the same now for a slum in a back alley. 5 8 The skilled worker, earning f600-800 per year (f11.50 to 15.38 per week) was paying in 1882/3 from 1/8th to 1/9th of his income for housing, that is, from f1.25 to 1.90 per week.59 By 1900 slum housing could be had for rents between f.75 and 2.00. Hermans reported of dwellings in the Jewish quarter, with the worst characteristics of the slum housing, at rates of f.60 and .70 per week. In the Jordaan a single room 2M by 2.5M fetched f.75 per week. A rear room on the third floor attic with no toilet and water shared with six other families cost f.85 per week, and a 3M by 2.5M room with water went for f1.00.60 Ter Meulen reporting in 1903 on the housing of Amsterdam's poor (i.e., those receiving welfare ), rent which the poor could pay. noted that f2.00 was the maximum The cheapest housing, from f.75 to f1.50 was rented by those with the most precarious incomes, haulers, hawkers, and the widows who took in sewing, knitting and washing. could rent one small room. For f1.25 these Many paid more than f1.50: the lesser craftsman such as a smith, painter, glass washer, or mason paid more than f1.50 but rarely more than f2.00. For this he got a large back room, or a 110 small room with a kitchen, a small front room, or two very small rooms. This was the rent level for which there was the greatest demand and where there was the greatest overcrowding. Hermans placed the maximum desirable 6 rent for slum dwellers somewhat lower: at fl.20. 1 In either case it is evident that at those levels housing was available only in the old city. Slum dwelling was the lot of the poor not only because it was the only housing available at the prices the poor could pay, but also because of other economic advantages. The location of the traditional working class neighborhoods close to the working place, especially the harbor and market, was convenient for those who needed to arrive early to sign up for workteams or drum up employment. introduced in the Cheap trams at early hours were 1890s to facilitate the move away from the central city, but the ride was a nuisance, was an extra cost, and made it impossible for the worker to return home for the midday meal. The close ties of family and neighborhood were a factor which made life in the slums more bearable and, through mutual aid, possible.62 Local shopkeepers, familiar with the neighbors, were likely to extend credit which was essential for those whose pattern of employment was irregular. For the settled worker, the one with a steady position, regular income, and a large enough weekly pay-packet, the new districts were an attractive escape from the squalor of the old city's working class districts. The cheapest housing available in the new city were the front- and back-rooms with alcoves between f1.80 and f3.00. dwelling. (types 1 and 2) which could be had in 1903 for The rents always decreased the higher the The small flats in the Funen rented for a slightly higher rate of f2.0 and f3.0. They were hardly more than a variation on the single room with alcove and kitchen, but they had the advantages of front and 111 back ventilation, and the increased privacy of occupying an entire floor. The narrow flats (types 3 and 4) with extended kitchens rented at around f3.00, while the roomier three-bay flats more: f3.50 and higher. 6 3 lower middle class in (types 5 and 6) cost somewhat These were also the type most occupied by the the Pijp. Data available about the budgets of workers in Amsterdam during the second half of the nineteenth century, while scanty and inconclusive, do give some indication of the trends we have been discussing. (Fig. 3.13) We can see the failure of the increase of income from midcentury to keep pace with the increase in rents, especially at the start of the 1880s when there was an acute crisis in the housing supply. Both skilled and unskilled workers were paying one-fifth of their income in rent. While the skilled were paying an absolute higher amount for housing, they usually paid a lesser percentage of income than the unskilled. of 1883/4 tax returns shows that as might be expected, Analysis those with the highest incomes, above f10,000, paid the lowest percentage for housing, whereas highest. the lower middle class and middle class (f800-1000) (Fig. 3.14) paid the The lowest bracket appearing on this table, f600-800 per year, corresponds with the regularly paid unskilled worker and the skilled craftsman, who paid from 1/8th to 1/9th of their income, or from f1.25 to f2.00 per week. What we may be seeing here is the lack of disposable income among the lower brackets who, forced to spend a certain minimum on food and other essentials, could only afford to put 1/8th to 1/9th into rent, whereas the lower middle classes, with that much more income, could choose to put it into securing decent housing. Missing from the table are the poor, who might pay the highest percentage of their income on housing since, at an income of f3.00 in the week which might be 112 received as the dole to a widow, a rent of f.75 which must be the lowest rent which could be found, would constitute one-fourth of the income. Where fixed costs increased, such as a family increasing the number of mouths to feed, it was not unknown for the family to move to smaller, cheaper lodgings, thus leading to the anomaly reported to Johanna ter Meulen by one working class woman who pointed out that she had to move to a smaller house since her family was getting too big.64 A 1910 study of workers' budgets in Holland found both of these tendencies still to hold true. Holding family size constant, those at the lowest income level paid the highest percentage of their income in rent when family sizes were smaller (2 to 3.5 persons), but as family size increased, the lowest incomes paid a lower percentage of income into rent. For those with the smallest incomes, one would expect that a larger family would live in a larger dwelling; from these figures, the opposite appears to be the case. The fact that it is primarily the most poorly paid workers who seek cheaper housing when their family increases is an indication of the cause 6 of this phenomenon; there are more pressing needs to be satisfied. 5 Those paying the least rent were also paying the most for their space. The 1897 municipal study of 971 houses in the Jordaan showed the declining cost per cubic meter as house size increased. 66 Around 1900 a woman with an income of f6.00 in the week might pay fl.00 in rent, a casual laborer with f9.00 in wages, fl.50, and an unskilled regularly employed worker with an income of f12.00 helping) f2.00. (children None of these could afford the new city easily. It was primarily the skilled workman earning f15.00 a week and with older children adding in their earnings who could pay the f2.50 rent in the new city. 113 The building of modern Amsterdam in the late nineteenth century created a segregation which pauperized the old working class districts, placed the skilled worker in new neighborhoods, separated the well-to-do. In the old city, traditional working class neighborhoods such as the Islands, the Jordaan and the Jodenbuurt had always been isolated from the middle classes, but within the Jordaan there had been a resident middle class, a mixture. and within the well-to-do areas, less contact between the classes. Now there was to be Even the tram lines suggested separation: the line to the Pijp was a volkstram, the line to the Of special interest was the division between the Vondelpark respectable. less stable and the more settled worker. two housing problems for Amsterdam. old slums. The nineteenth century created First, it worsened conditions in the Secondly, it created new areas which, in spite of improved hygiene, recreated some of the characteristics of the old slums: dwellings, cellars, lack of open space. one-room The perception of the housing problem by the bourgeoisie, its analysis and proposed solution failed for the most part to separate these two problems, resulting in anomalies which persisted into the twentieth century. The problems affected different segments of the working population which together made up a broad spectrum of Amsterdam society. Slum dwellers consisted primarily of the structural poor and casual laborors. Workers in the new districts consisted primarily of steadily employed workers and the lower middle class. As we shall see in the following chapters, it was only with the recognition of the market economy's failure to provide adequate housing for even well-off workers that strong government measures were housing problem. initiated to remedy the 114 Chapter Four THE SHIFT TO COLLECTIVISM 1848 brought a bloodless bourgeois revolution to the Netherlands. new Dutch constitution of The 1848 marked the end of a hard-fought political struggle between the monarchists and liberals which ushered in a new era of representative government and ministerial responsibility. of romantic liberalism The victory belonged to a Dutch middle class both dissatisfied with the complacency 2 of the descendants of the merchant and regent classes and anxious to throw off the restraints imposed on private initiative by an almighty monarchical state. Direct election of parliamentary representatives by an electorate limited to those paying above a set level of taxes placed control of the government's policies for the first time in the hands of a broad middle class. Ministerial responsibility to the elected parliament eroded the bulwark of power which the autocratic William II had accumulated for the monarchy. Dutch liberalism found its intellectual roots in the economic theories of the Manchester school.3 W. Opzoomer (1821-1892), One of its foremost theoreticians, C. "noted with pragmatism the futility of endless discussion about the extent to which the state may intervene in social life, and came to the conclusion that the state must help in everything, except where not necessary."4 That is to say, liberal doctrine granted the state the power to intervene in social affairs, but held strictly to 115 the principle of minimizing any interference other than that necessary to maintain the social order. Municipal Act of 1851, In Thorbecke's-well-composed and durable the formation of autonomous local government was As a result municipalities were carried out with this principle in mind. largely granted police powers alone. goes beyond its social life: itself believed the state constitution, that legal right,"5 is, Thorbecke, responsible for the 1848 should refrain from all leaving individuals unhampered education, science, art "which to organize and religion. Disagreement about government intervention in societal organization was, in fact, to color much of Dutch political life during the second half of the nineteenth century. In the 1850s and '60s liberalism consolidated its victory over the residual elements of autocratic conservatism. 1870s and '80s, however, it was confronted with two threats. In the To the right, arose a largely petit bourgeois movement composed of the so-called confessionals, Protestant and Catholic. It stood for total state abstention from the affairs of the family and social life, which it considered more properly the domain of religious authority. On the left, a revolutionary socialist movement posed for the liberals a threat to the stability and safety of the liberal bourgeois state. Meanwhile within the liberal coterie itself, younger spirits, inexperienced in the struggle against monarchical autocracy, led a movement to extend the powers of the state in opposition to the older, more doctrinaire liberals. Polanyi has brilliantly demonstrated the spontaneous countermovement against pure liberal policy which arose in the wake of the social dysfunctions caused by the workings of the free market economy. While the expansion of market over land, labor, and money proceeded according to liberal principles, liberal doctrine overlooked aspects of industrial 116 society which affected the social basis of life: "professional status, safety and security, the form of a man's life, the breadth of his existence, the stability of his environment." 6 From the failure of the market system to assure satisfactory results in such important arenas of existence, arose the necessity for some countermovement in compensation. Throughout Europe the countermovement took the form of social legislation which extended state activity as a corrective and protective power. movement was a purely pragmatic countermeasure. The Its aim of correcting social ills caused by the free market was often supported by those liberals who realized that the stability of the bourgeois liberal economy depended upon some righting of exposed inequalities. The social acts which resulted in each case "dealt with some problem arising out of modern industrial conditions and was aimed at the safeguarding of some public interest against dangers inherent either in such conditions, or, at any rate, in the market method of dealing with them." 7 Self-preservation motivated liberals to the position of collectivist solutions. Collectivism represented the principle of a public interest which required protection from the effects of unrestricted private enterprise. It necessarily entailed some encroachment on individual freedom, but since its purpose was to preserve the system of private enterprise, collectivism itself was a product of the liberal economy. During the 1870s in the Netherlands liberal voices were raised to end the silence with which the middle classes had greeted even the obvious social inequities. In 1870 a small group of left-wing liberals influenced by German Kathedersocialisten met to establish a standing committee on the social question. The publicity surrounding the meetings and reports issued by this committee over the following years placed the social issues 117 The committee was initiated by of the times squarely before the public. well-respected bourgeois liberals and included such luminaries as J. the Delft industrialist, van Marken, H. Goeman Borgesius, journalist C. and later cabinet minister, B. H. Pekelharing, the Zutphen teacher who later exerted his influence while teaching at Delft Polytechnic, and A. Kerdijk, a school inspector soon to be one of the leading figures of leftliberalism in the Netherlands. 8 After some debate, and the exit of some of the original members, the committee opened itself to members from the working class. The significance of this move cannot be overestimated. Where previously the question of social ills had received scant attention from liberals, here a group was not only acknowledging the issues but engaging the working class directly in discussion about it. The tailor H. Gerhard, one of the earliest of the Dutch participants in the First International, and B. H. Heldt, a leader of the liberal trade union established in 1871, were among the working class member of the committee. The committee quickly moved to take a position on the need to restrict child labor and the right of workers to strike. Its primary aim was the improvement of relations between workers and bosses through discussion of the pressing social problems: housing, arbitration, compulsory education, savings banks, replacement. suffrage, the cooperative movement, trade schools, taxation, draft Its meetings, particularly those on the topic of universal came to draw massive attendance. But despite the widespread and vocal support it received from both working class and bourgeois circles, it was evident that opinions were divided on the need and efficacy of the social legislation which the committee proposed as a means to bring social 9 discord to a peaceful end. The liberals, who formed no mass party in the modern sense, but were 118 organized in local voting clubs, represented a variety of views. They 10 were often held together by little more than a shared anti-clericalism. The need for some state intervention in social affairs was acknowledged by some, such as the legislator S. van Houten, motivated by pragmatic economic factors. could be only insofar as it Thus van Houten was the initiator of the mild Child Labor Law, the first piece of Dutch social legislation, but was adamantly against universal suffrage which he saw as endangering the balance between the classes by giving the poor too much power where previously the rich had had too much. The willingness of a van Houten to use the state to regulate child labor, rather than leave it to the individual arrangements between child and employer, indicates his position as a pioneer of liberal encompassing a minimum of state social legislation at a level intervention. The fear of a return to an all-powerful, restraining state lived on De Beaufort in among some liberals. 1893, reacting to a leading liberal's prediction that the state would increasingly intervene on behalf of public interest in every arena of life, foresaw a great struggle between those supporting the reform of society by means of an almighty state and those who believed only the moral influence of individuals would reform it. De Beaufort believed that a clear choice had to be made between protecting individual freedom or increasing state power, and he cautioned against the latter. Other, more progressive, liberals felt that a middle path was feasible and desirable. Borgesius noted that there was as little general support for the restitution of state autocracy as there was for doctrinare laissez-faire. The free play of market forces had led to unsatisfactory social conditions, and the state must step in to assure that 12 population shared in the progress of the age. more of the The extreme radical Treub 119 The state was responsible for took this argument several steps further. Since society is an organic whole the current unfair division of wealth. composed of the individuals within it, being of all the individuals. the whole must guarantee The state must see that all members of society enjoy more similar advantages.13 the the well- over the following two decades liberals argued amongst themselves, generally on the extent and the speed of state intervention, the principle having already been acknowledged. The more radical liberals, who broke off to form renegade progressive parties, pushed.for the use of social legislation as a positive factor in the reshaping of a more equitable society. Although the radical liberals were accused of playing with socialism by both conservative liberals and members of the confessional parties who abhorred the prospect of state intervention into every aspect of private life, their vision of society was sharply distinct from that of the socialists. reform social democrats appeared to share a While both radicals and belief in the efficacy of a strong central state, and both pushed for early execution of universal suffrage, their analysis of society and their proposed solutions were at odds. Unlike the doctrinaire liberals, whose laissez-faire principle of individual freedom and equal opportunity assumed a society composed of autonomous cells and denied the existence of a societal substructure of classes, the radicals perceived the inequities of society and refused to maintain a silence about them. But the radical solution called for the preservation of free enterprise and the pacification of relations between the classes. It rejected the socialists' claim for the inevitability of struggle between the classes and the necessity to change the basic economic structure. The radical liberalism which in the last decades of 120 the nineteenth century laid the groundwork for the welfare state of the twentieth century held tightly to the notion of an enlightened reign of private enterprise and of harmonious relations between bougeoisie and working class based on the protection of collective interests, individual rights, and shared prosperity. The state was to be used to equalize the level of wealth and civilization among all members of society, thus refashioning it but leaving the basic structure of hierarchy intact. The resulting society would be morally defensible as the present one was not. In fact, the radical liberal distinguished himself most clearly from both the conservative liberal and the socialist in this: the logic (if not the ultimate motivation) behind his program for social organization was ethical not economic. In an article which was considered to usher in a new era of progressive liberalism, the leading liberal H. P. G. Quack asked "Can we now do something to make the working classes again take part in the feeling of social righteousness? In our opinion, very surely. If we only admit that in the whole social question principles of morality must be the impetus. It is rather an ethical than an economic problem."1 4 The self-sacrifice of the wealthy, for whom the seventeenth century precedent of generous philanthropy could serve as a model, and the firm establishment of the individual's call on the collective were to be the means to a just society. To analyze the social ills of the times as the result of the malfunctioning of the private enterprise system because of a lack of ethics required that the radicals reject out of hand the socialist interpretation of the inherent injustice of the capitalist system. The party platform of the radical party "Amsterdam," called for universal suffrage, the secret ballot, founded in 1888, the improvement of working class conditions through legislative measures, state support of 121 parochial schools, compulsory education, draft for all, and tax reform.15 But by the time the radicals tried to establish an independent existence as a political institution, mainstream liberalism had already begun to incorporate their point of view. By 1891 most of these planks had been assumed by the main coalition of liberal parties, the Liberale Unie. It had, in fact, in 1886 endorsed a circular written by van Hamel in which the complaint was lodged that a too dogmatic adherence to the principle of had placed the Netherlands behind in laissez-faire the development of government programs in social areas, such as child labor, vocational training, arbitration, etc. 16 By 1891, with the exception of universal suffrage, the political platform of the Liberale Unie agreed in most points with the demands of the radicals. The establishment newspaper, the Handelsblad, declared that the time of laissez-faire was over, that liberals now wished to call in the help of the state in the struggle of the weaker.17 accident, The liberals had come to support a broad program of health, and old age insurance, compulsory education to age 12, arbitrated labor contracts, required Sabbath rest, improvement of housing and revision of the expropriation act. 18 The last liberal cabinet dominated by the left-liberals, N. G. Pierson's cabinet of 1897 to 1901, pursued this program vigorously. While in the last half of the nineteenth century Dutch politics had been overshadowed by the issues of suffrage and state support for parochial schools, the Pierson cabinet managed to pass a number of important pieces of social legislation: the end of draft replacement (1898), compulsory education (1900), public health administration (1901), workmen's compensation (1901), (1901). and the housing act Unrestrained liberalism had spawned a set of social dysfunctions as by-products, and believed it could maintain its economic system by 122 permitting the state to penetrate all life aspects of social and cultural with corrective measures. The passage of the Housing Act of 1901 was a history of housing production in the Netherlands. turning point in the It marked the entry of the state into a process which had been strictly left to market forces. The ramifications of this intercession were widespread and significant, for both the form and the nature of working class housing, in subsequent chapters. For the first time, construction became a matter of conscious, premise that see as we will housing design and public decision-making. housing was a matter of collective concern, The and the assumption that an identifiable public interest could be served, changed the politics of housing, introduced new actors into the housing process, allowed the creation of new forms of housing, and altered the design process. But before we unravel the consequences of this act, we must first turn to the analysis of this elite in particular social issue by the ruling the second half of the nineteenth century in the kind of legislation drawn up as a remedy. order to understand 123 The Discovery and Investigation of the Housing Problem While evidence of bourgeois interest in the housing issue in Amsterdam dates from around 1850, awareness of the issue of proper housing for Dutch workers as a problem worthy of state investigation was spurred by the housing exhibits at the 1851 World Exposition in London. A report from the Royal Institute of Engineers commissioned by King William III in 1853 described the housing situation in terms which changed little over the following fifty years, and continued as the foundation for bourgeois analysis of the housing problem into the twentieth century. The home of the humble worker is for the most part pitiful, even in our fatherland where cleanliness belongs to the national character, where tidiness and neatness are fostered. Cramped, poorly lit, unprotected against the elements, in damp alleys and courts, without necessities, without water drainage, without outlet for the most hideous filth, the worker's house is often a fearful place for the more civilized, where the filth accumulates to the extreme, where immorality is nurtured, and where diseases are born which spread to reach all classes, and circulate the spirit of destruction even to the homes of the more respectable. The specter of immorality and disease, threatening both the social order and the health of the upper classes was a refrain which housing reformers invoked repeatedly throughout the rest of the century and into the next as discussion and study of the housing problem increased. As we shall see, bourgeois observation of working class housing changed little over fifty years, although the solutions proposed changed. Although more sophisticated and deeper study of the housing issue was undertaken, bourgeois attitudes toward the evils of the problem remained fixed. These attitudes were eventually to affect the nature of housing design, even into the twentieth century when the housing problem was accepted as a public responsibility. Doctors were the first to publicize the squalor of slum dwelling and 124 to provide the justifications most often used for calling for housing improvement. Their work brought them in contact with the warrens and alleys which were hidden to the rest of the bourgeoisie. The knowledge of the classes' living conditions were unevenly distributed, since the working class readily gained access to the bourgeois establishments in the capacity of maids, carpenters, and delivery boys, whereas the location of the working class districts, for the most part cut off from the main shopping and business districts, gave little occasion for the middle class 20 to observe them. From the eighteenth century Dutch doctors had expressed interest in preventative measures for insuring public health and had encouraged the collection of statistics on birth and death rates. Dr. S. S. Colonel, six years city medical officer in Amsterdam and best known for his work in Middelburg, set high standards of socio-geographical reporting of working class conditions which were read throughout the Netherlands.21 was one of the first to stress that the deleterious Colonel living milieu of the poor must be improved before disease could be successfully fought. Although his work was looked upon by some as trouble-making he received support from leading liberals such as de Bruyn Kops and Buys.22 The observations and assumptions of doctors trying to find means to prevent the spread of disease, by means of improved urban hygiene most clearly shaped the ideas about housing reform in the nineteenth century. The fact that the miasmic theory of the spread of disease continued to receive support in the Netherlands, even after the conclusive evidence that water is the carrier for cholera, explains their stress on garbage and sewage disposal.23 In Amsterdam, happily, the water supply was modernized at an early date, and from 1854 fresh water from the dunes was piped in and 125 available to the city, of course, the distribution being skewed, of the wealthier districts. in favor The sanitation movement led by Chadwick in England and the health reform movement of Dr. Virchow in Germany were both influential in the Netherlands where the Dutch Society for- the Advancement of Medicine est. (Nederlandsch Maatschapping tot Bevordering der Geneeskunst, 1849) took a lively interest in issues of water, sewage, and housing hygiene.24 Hygiene became a university subject as a result of the 1865 law governing academic subjects, teach it in Amsterdam. and in 1867 Dr. A. H. Israels started to The subject of hygiene encompassed workplace conditions, public sanitation, the long workday and occupational hazards, the conditions of the poor schools, and housing.25 It was thus the doctors who made the case for the relationship between living milieu, housing and disease which led them to plead for improved housing and city planning.26 Dr. Sarphati, philanthropist in Amsterdam, pointed out in 1864 that the quantity of housing was not increasing at the rate of the population and noted that "a third of the whole population is forced to 27 live in dens and pens which we would reject for our pets." Housing remained within the professional territory of the medical profession throughout the century since no other profession chose to claim it. the It was occasionally discussed in the architectural journals, and at 1892 Annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Architecture, housing was a topic of panel discussion. context was hygiene, and the speakers included doctors. Board, a municipal advisory committee, It was the Health which addressed the municipal council on issues relating to housing in Amsterdam. consisting of three council members, But even there the one jurist, This board, one scientist, one veterinarian, one architect, and three doctors, considered and raised 126 questions about the hygiene of newly built areas, the placement of hospitals and workers' housing, and the relation of mortality rate to density, residential streets in water and sewage. 28 Their advice on laying out 1872 was not acceptable to the municipal council however. When the committee wished for a municipal ordinance requiring the raising of polder land before development, the municipality claimed this exceeded municipal authority. 29 The emphasis on the connection between public health and housing spread throughout liberal circles as one of the several arguments for better housing. On the one hand, there was a general concern on the part of bourgeois investigators that disease would spread from the breeding grounds of the slums to the wealthy districts. On the other hand, it was considered economically sound to improve the health of the working class. The liberal reformer H. L. Drucker in 1898 noted that housing was not an unimportant factor in raising the level of the Dutch population, citing evidence relating population density to mortality, and tying disease to poor housing. He concluded that good housing is one of the means to improve the physical well-being of the nation. 3 0 The means to this end was to be housing improvement and the methods for improvement were to be sought on the basis of thorough examination and survey. The first real study of housing conditions in Amsterdam was undertaken at the instigation of the Health Board which set up a special committee to investigate 4988 cellar dwellings with 20644 dwellers 1874.31 in From the 1870s the left-liberal press published increasingly on 32 the social question, including the housing issue. Women under the influence of Octavia Hill's work in England published their observations 33 of the housing problem. The liberal penchant to collect statistics 127 before analysing potential action34 contributed to the meagre start of social science in the Netherlands, and the founding of the Society for 35 Statistics, after German example. Figures on housing density and rents were published in the society's monthly reports from time to time, but only with the establishment of the Centraal Bureau voor Statistiek, under the influence of liberal minister N. G. Pierson, did a housing survey at national level get carried out with the 1899 census. Amsterdam, a survey of conditions in Meanwhile in the worst slums of the Jordaan and the Jewish quarter, was carried out by the building inspection section of the Municipal Health Department. Even so, at the end of the century housing reformer Drucker complained of the lack of statistical available on the housing issue. evidence 36 The lack of sufficient evidence and the immature development of housing expertise did not stop the professionals involved with housing reform from continuing to make the same observations and repeatedly draw the same conclusions. By 1919 Saltet, the Amsterdam municipal medical officer and head of the Municipal Health Department, was able to deny the existence of any clear-cut link between housing and health, citing the complex genesis of poor health from the conditions of poverty, which gave rise to inadequate clothing and nutrition, lack of medical care and poor 37 work conditions in addition to poor housing. But as late as 1896, Dr. O. de Meyers could repeat, as many had before him, that while housing was not the only evil influence on health, it was generally recognized that 38 living in damp, polluted, overpopulated housing has disadvantages. Naturally as long as inadequate public sanitation remained a problem, it could be expected that it would be a focus of reformers' concerns. But even after the development of municipal methods of waste disposal, garbage 128 collection, and water distribution, the old eighteenth century call air and light remained the basic cure for housing improvement. for Interest in solving the housing problem had been aroused on the basis of public health. Liberals and professionals, that is the progressive bourgeoisie, had begun to view the problem and observe it, but with all the attempt to view the problem objectively, the practical solutions suggested were two approaches thoroughly compatible with liberal tendencies: reform through private initiative and social laws. 129 Private Philanthropy Even before economic revival had spurred the growth of Amsterdam beyond the Buitensingel and population increase had begun to press the bounds of reasonable living conditions within the old city, the natural dilapidation of the seventeenth century housing stock created vile living conditions in the poorest sections of the city, and in particular in the Jordaan with its legacy of cheap planning and construction. Influenced by foreign examples in England and Germany, leading members of Amsterdam society took up the cause of better workers' housing at mid-century and sought to affect housing conditions by establishing semi-philanthropic housing societies. These private ventures, whose sole purpose was to build model housing developments which would return a modest interest on the capital invested, continued to receive support to the end of the Housing reform through private initiative, however, made scant century. progress. By 1900 the local housing societies had built dwellings, mere "islands in the sea of slums." 39 relatively few Their designs were far from innovative either aesthetically or pragmatically, and for the most part the housing had not only failed to house the poor but had proved financially inadequate to house even the better-off worker. Nonetheless, it was precisely this failure to contribute significantly to solving the housing problem through the private means amenable to the most doctrinaire liberal which levied such a resounding argument in favor of the radical liberal solution of direct government intervention. The first housing societies established in Amsterdam were the initiatives of patrician reformers working within a tradition from the seventeenth century. The Society for the Improvement of the Working 130 Class, (Vereeriging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse), founded in 1852 after at least five years of discussions, counted amongst its founders several who were active in the Reveil movement, an orthodox religious reform movement which flourished among the wealthy Calvinists of Amsterdam and the Hague.40 The perception of housing as a medical issue appears in the fact that 18 of 37 members of the 1849 cholera committee showed up as members or shareholders of this society, and in its report of 1859/60 the society noted with extensive data that many illnesses and early deaths in 41 Amsterdam must be blamed on poor housing conditions. Several other housing societies, which took this society as a model for their organization and activity, were established soon after. Salerno They included (1853) whose members were of the same high status as the other societies', and who were active in the Enlightenment society Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen (Society for the General Good),42 a non-sectarian national organization largely active in fostering habits of industry and thrift through establishing savings banks and educational programs. Adherence to liberal ethics appears to have outweighed religious and ideological differences between the various housing societies, for their modus operandi and motivations varied only slightly. Starting with capital contributions from a group of investors, the societies were constituted solely with the aim of improving working class housing conditions by private means on a sound financial basis. That is to say, housing was not to be provided as a form of charity in kind, but was rather to return a reasonable interest, limited by statute, on the capital invested. The Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse began with a 3% limit but later, in order not to be too philanthropic, changed this to 43 give a dividend which was compatible with its aims. This "five per cent 131 philanthropy," as similar endeavors were called in England, was justified, according to the logic of contemporary social thinkers, in providing capital for working class housing since the working class was incapable of raising such funds for itself. But a reasonable return on the capital had of to be insured in order to avoid falling into the dangerous pattern direct subsidization of rents, which like any other charity in the form of a free handout, could only exert a dissipating influence on the working class recipients.44 Furthermore, the housing provided by the housing societies was to match comparable market values, so as not to disrupt the iron laws of supply and demand which prevailing liberal doctrine considered to be inviolate. The semi-philanthropic nature of the societies derived then from their stated objective of providing better housing than that available to the working class on the free market, to act as a model to the private building in the matter of housing design, and to operate within guidelines which would both prevent the housing from becoming charity but equally insure that the developments would not pass into the hands of speculators.45 In this last effort the housing societies were successful to the end of the nineteenth century. some 15 housing societies had been founded and had built dwellings, constituting By 1900 around 4000 approximately 8% of the addition to housing stock in Amsterdam between 1852 and 1902.46 Several strategies housing societies. for housing improvement were undertaken by the In England the attempt had been made to purchase slum buildings and make them more habitable through repairs and proper management, but in Amsterdam this strategy was little applied.47 related attempt at immediate improvement demolition of buildings and their Another of slum property was the replacement with model dwellings. This 132 was a strategy pursued most strenuously in the working class district the Jordaan. The Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse cleaned up the stinking Goudsbloemgracht, filled it in 1857 purchased and demolished the slums alongside, to form a new street, and built afresh. Finally, the least costly option was to build on new construction sites, for instance on the Lijnbaan next to the Jordaan or in Funen near the Eastern Islands. Since this last option was the most practicable from the financial point of view, but did not contribute directly to the elimination of the worst slum conditions, the preference for this strategy was justified by the claim that a natural process of "filtering" would eventually lead to the disuse and destruction of the worst slums, that is, the population would shift up into the improved housing, leaving the worst housing uninhabited. Such filtering was seen in particular as the means to eliminate the use of the much disabused cellar dwellings. 4 8 133 Design whether built on new ground or above the rubble of demolished slums, the new housing provided by the semi-philanthropic housing societies took form according to designs which remained rather consistent through the second half of the nineteenth century. The housing societies were pioneers of large scale development in Amsterdam, undertaking entire blocks of housing several decades before the speculative developers began to build up the new districts outside the Buitensingel. As we shall see, however, there is little evidence that the designs of the housing societies exerted much influence on the speculative builders, since neither plans, facades, or for that matter the design process show much similarity. On the other hand, it is also difficult to argue, despite the marked efforts to provide well-managed and hygienic dwellings, that the housing societies succeeded in building housing markedly superior to that produced by the commercial marketplace after 1880. The plan type most widely applied by the housing societies was the central double staircase giving access on each of four floors to apartments on either side. It is likely that the origin of this plan was Henry Roberts' Prince Albert Dwellings exhibited at the 1851 Exposition in London. 4 9 Several of the founders of the Vereeniging ten behoeve den Arbeidersklasse had visited England in 1851 for the purpose of studying English housing reform efforts,50 and doubtless they became familiar there with the much admired model houses. In any event knowledge of the designs was also attainable in the Netherlands through various architectural publications.51 In most cases when this model was applied, a central double doorway gave entry to eight families in the style referred to 134 repeatedly in the reform literature as the kazerne. Flats generally consisted of either one room, a room with an alcove, or two rooms front and back). containing a (Fig. 4.1) (usually The living room was equipped with a closet sink for washing, and a stove for both cooking and heating. The toilet was located either off the living-room or, where separate, often as a corner cut out of the kitchen. Built-in beds were placed in the living-room, and in back rooms provided sleeping facilities. The housing society plans, while not as monotonously repetitious as those of the housing speculators, did not provide much variation of plan within each project, or even from project to project. Societies tended to use the same architect repeatedly, and the architects undertook little experimentation once having adopted a plan. Where the Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse tried to introduce in one project three different plans, accommodating not so much different family sizes as much as different budgets, it found it could not rent the three room.(most expensive) units, and was forced eventually to convert some to smaller units. 5 2 Site plans remained consistent as well. The perimeter block, now unencumbered within by jerryrigged housing and enclosed houses, surrounded an open space divided into separate gardens for the ground floor dwellers. used, that is, In only a few cases was the traditional hofje layout the communal courtyard with individual dwellings access from the court. 5 3 gaining Cottage row houses of two story construction were built only on a few sites in the new districts of Amsterdam. 5 4 From the start the high density four-storey perimeter block site plan was 55 dictated by high land prices. The architectural treatment of the facades of these housing projects followed the eclectic manner prevailing in the Netherlands. 5 6 Neo-gothic 135 and Neo-Renaissance details were applied soberly. Facades were usually treated as if the blocks were composed of a series of row-houses, not unreminiscent of the rows of heerenhuizen along the canals. elements such as gable ends unit. Repeated indicated the width of a single or double The stairway between units was most often emphasized as the vertical element in the facades. In some cases, however, the block was treated as an entirety, in the manner of a palace. End sections were symmetrically emphasized as pavilions, and central portions given the most elaborate decoration. However, whether the rowhouse or palace approach was adopted, decoration remained minimal and sober. Colored brick string courses were applied to indicate floor levels and brick was laid decoratively around door and window lintels. On the whole, the housing projects make a dreary, impression, sober, and uninspired although it was the intent of at least several of the architects to bring a pleasant environment to the working class. 5 7 The chief advantage of the housing built by the housing societies over the old districts, and to some extent over the new districts, was hygienic. In general their ventilation and lighting. construction permitted more and better For instance, unlike the speculative housing, the housing societies always placed windows in stairwells so that the steep stairs received light and air. Almost all of the housing society dwellings were equipped with their own water source and drainage as well as private toilets,58 and the new rooms were free from the dampness that plagued the old city. On the other hand, the layout of the housing was for the most part unimaginative and evolved little during the fifty years under consideration. Back to back single-room housing as built repeatedly by the Vereeniging ten behoeve der arbeiderklasse and others may have 136 contained its own water and toilet facilities, and it may have avoided the worst of the stuffiness of the alcove system by providing only built-in beds or alcoves with ventilation, but dwellings with blind walls on three sides in which all the family functions were to take place can hardly be considered to have revolutionized housing conditions, provided a satisfactory model for commercial builders. let alone to have While the provision of separate toilets connected to a sewage system for each family was a considerable improvement over the bucket system of the old city, the not uncommon location of toilets directly off the kitchen or sleeping/living room, indicates a failure to address the issue of privacy and hygiene at a more sophisticated level. The use of wood for built-in beds and partitions bespeaks an inattention to fire hazards. The failure to provide dropped ceilings was justified as a measure against vermin, but the resulting free flow of sounds showed a want of sensitivity. The architects of the housing societies were for the most part well 59 but housing remained a respected members of the architectural community, specialized task viewed primarily in the light of hygiene and the social question, not primarily as an architectonic challenge. Its mention in the Dutch architectural journals then is limited for the most part to issues of public health, and in 1892 when the housing question was raised at the annual meeting it was handled more by hygienists and engineers than by architects. 6 0 That architectural circles perceived workers' housing primarily in terms of hygiene is also apparent from the way the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst (Society for the Advancement of Architecture) phrased its inquiry to the local sections of the society in 1894: "What measures have been taken in your district in the interest of building workers' housing which meets the requirements of hygiene? Is 137 there a committee for the advancement of hygienic interests and what have its main actions been with regard to existing housing and the construction of new workers' dwellings?" Answering for the Amsterdam section, W. Hamer, son of the most prolific designer for the housing societies and himself a housing architect, gave a clear account of the endeavors of the housing societies. He counted as their great achievement the building of dwellings with sufficient light and air, odorless removal of feces, and a water supply. That the architect through the application of design principles could contribute to a functional solution to housing design The problem to which he sought the solution remained outside his purview. was the purely economic issue of land costs which made prohibitive the construction of oneessential in and two-storey housing, which in his mind was the demands of hygiene.61 order to adequately satisfy One architect who managed towards the end of the century to explore the possibilities of architectural solutions to better workers' housing was the young follower of H. P. Berlage, J. E. van der Pek. In housing project he designed for the Bouwonderneming Jordaan in the 1896, he planned a variation on the one-room dwelling impressive for its attention to comfort, safety and practicality. (Figs. 4.2 and 4.3) The site was a section of the block between the Lindengracht and Goudbloemstraat in the Jordaan where the original slums were first demolished. Lindengracht On the side van der Pek proposed four double parcels of four storeys and attic floor. Unlike most of the housing society designs, however, the central staircase serving two mirror parcels was replaced with two separate staircases serving the three dwellings and attic on each lot, with separate entrances for all ground floor shops and dwellings. the two-room dwellings (see top of figure 4.2), Inside three separate sleeping 138 areas were provided, albeit one of the built-in beds was located in the front hall and the other two were back to back, contrary to hygienic preference. On the Goudbloemstraat side van der Pek designed a variation on the one-room dwelling which introduced courtyards between two parallel rows of dwellings, with staircases each leading to the upper three dwellings and attic available to both the front and back dwellings. der Pek's floor plans are models of ingenuity and efficiency. Van In all dwellings there is a front entry hall, a sitting room, a separate kitchen and a toilet with direct connection to the outside. Ground floor apartments have access to a garden or court, upper floor apartments are all provided with a balcony. The wooden partition between two balconies is arranged so that in case of fire families can gain access to the neighbors' house, and thus to another main staircase. units was ample. Closet space in all Windows facing the courtyards and gardens were arranged to give light and air, but placed high or with clouded glass to ensure privacy. F. W. M. Poggenbeek, reviewing the project in Bouwkundig weekblad claimed that the architect set for himself two architectural goals: fire safety and the greatest possible independence of each unit. 6 2 Beyond these requirements, van der Pek designed facades which are lighter and more cheerful than the usual project facades, using strips of yellow brick between the windows, and inscribing the cornice frieze of the ground floor shops with the names of the trades. However, we shall see that this project which can be safely called one of the few architectural of the nineteenth century housing reform movement, successes rang the death knell for the efforts of the private semi-philanthropic housing societies. 139 The Failure of Private Reform Efforts The ostensible aim of the housing societies was the improvement of housing conditions for the working class. Since, as we have seen, housing improvement was interpreted almost exclusively in terms of hygiene, the housing societies construed their task as the elimination of unhygienic slum housing and its replacement with sound, healthful housing stock. who was to move into the new housing? But Slum dwellers represented a wide spectrum of the working class: encompassing the true paupers living in the worst squalor, but also including casual laborers, respectable widows, and even the lesser craftsmen when rents began to rise sharply. Only the latter were regularly helped by the action of the housing societies, which consistently housed those who for the most part could afford better housing available in the new city, that is, the skilled worker and the worker with a steady income. Meanwhile, those living in the most offensive conditions were left unhelped, or worse yet, left with their housing demolished to make way for housing projects they could not themselves afford. One of the results of the housing society projects must then be counted the increased crowding of the very poor into a decreasing number of low cost dwellings. For all that the housing societies were spurred into action by reports on the worst housing inhabited by the poorest citizens of Amsterdam, they best served the settled working class. From the first the rental levels of the housing society projects were comparable to those of new housing which had been commercially built. The cost of land, materials, and labor imposed a minimum rental cost of f1.50 in the 1850s when the Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse was 140 first building. This was too much even for the steadily employed worker who was earning f12.00 per week. Accordingly, the Vereeniging did not succeed in housing slum dwellers. 6 3 In its Planciusstraat project the three "housing types" Vereeniging built intended for three classes of workers at rents of f1.00, fO.90, and f1.50, but as we have already noted the highest price units remained unrented since the amount was beyond even the best paid working class budgets.64 Even with the removal of the tax on building materials (a change instigated by the Vereeniging), costs of labor and land kept rental levels high. the rising In 1887 Helene Mercier, reporting on the housing society Concordia's project to clear the infamous Hof van Parijs in the Jordaan, noted that many of the new residents were office workers, paying from f1.15 to f3.75 per week. 65 By the 1890s a single room, back to back, with two bedsteads, a closet with a sink, and a toilet totalling 41.6 square meters cost f1.80 to f2.10 at the Marnixstraat project of the Amsterdamsche Vereeniging tot het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen. The same society charged f2.10 to 2.40 for a room with two alcoves, f2.30 to 2.60 for a room and a kitchen, and f2.45 to 3.10 for two rooms. 6 6 Hasselt and Verschoor noted that the average wage for the inhabitants of this society was f12.00 to f13.00 per week, the wage of a well-paid worker in 1890, placing the percentage spent on rent between 13.8 and 25.8%.67 By 1900 most of the housing built by the housing societies was rented to craftsmen or others with steady incomes who could 68 afford to rent in the new city. Since the Vereeniging ten behoeve der arbeidersklasse had started building early and had thus been able to purchase land and labor at lower prices than those prevalent fifty years later, by the end of the century it charged relatively lower rental rates for its older buildings and was 141 thus able to rent to the unskilled and the lowest paid of the skilled workers: streetsweepers, vegetable women, newspapermen, matmakers, cleaning women, coal heavers, bleachers and mason's helpers.69 Its newer buildings, however, had higher rents and were let primarily to better paid workers. A 1901 survey of all 742 dwelling units owned by the society reveals both the rents and occupations of the dwellers. The rents varied considerably from a block of 38 units in the Willemstraat (built in 1861) for an average rent of f1.75 to a block built between 2-, 3-, and 4-room flats whose rents averaged f5.88. 1887 and 1891 of 8 (Fig. 4.4) The distribution of rents and the average rent of f2.40 indicate that the rents were more in keeping with the rent affordable by a well-paid skilled craftsman. These rates were reflected in the composition of the inhabitants according to the occupation of the head of the household as of December 1901 which displays a cross section of the working class from white collar to casual labor. (Fig. 4.5) White collar and skilled labor are disproportionately represented by over half (53.5%) of the heads of household. The bias in favor of the more prosperous of the working class is manifested even more clearly in a comparison between the percentage representation of given sectors among the residents of the housing society in 1901 and in the population of Amsterdam as a whole in 1899. State and municipal workers who enjoyed stability of employment and relative security of tenure composed 14% of the heads of household whereas only 3.5% of the working population were so employed. On the other end of the job spectrum, only 0.8% of the residents claimed to be among the undesignated casual labor force, compared to 3.5% of the entire working population. The residents of the society's projects overrepresented the settled, regularly employed working class. 142 Aside from the process of self-selection imposed by high rents, certain of the management policies of the housing societies selection of the respectable and settled worker. encouraged the Prospective tenants were screened for cleanliness, good behavior, alcoholism, and other characteristics to weed out the undesirable elements before they were permitted to rent.70 The housing societies did not permit arrears in rent, so that it was essential to have a steady income stream, an impossible requirement for many seasonally employed workers. Paying lodgers were not encouraged, and in some cases were specifically excluded,. so that one of the most common sources of extra income, and the means used by many families to afford housing in housing society dwellers. the new city, was eliminated for Nor were tenants allowed to run a business or work at home (except in housing specifically designated as shops). Many slum dwellers worked in the house or ran an extra modest shop at home to add to income. From the inception of the housing societies, the management preferred to attract a "higher quality" tenant. 71 One striking example of the failure of the housing societies to replace demolished slum housing with housing affordable to those displaced is the project of the Bouwonderneming Jordaan which we already examined as an example of excellent design quality.72 On the original site between Goudsbloemstraat and Lindengracht were 103 families living in 92 homes, many of whom had unsteady work, home. were ill, Their tenancy was often short term. or worked a sweated trade at Some 50% of those living on the Goudsbloemstraat paid less than f1.70 for their housing. Lindengracht rents were somewhat higher: f2.25 to 3.50. Bouwonderneming Jordaan completed its On the Once the project the new rents began at f1.70 for the one-room units on the Goudsbloemstraat and rose to f3.40 for the 143 Of the best located two-room units on the Lindengracht. 103 original families, only 39 passed the criteria of cleanliness and respectability which would allow them to rent, and only nine families moved back in upon completion of the project. The new dwellers were for the most part from the lower working class, but with steady jobs. They paid a high percentage of their wages to rent: one fourth to one fifth of wages ranging from f6.80 to f7.00 per week, indicating a greater willingness to pay for improved housing than was usually accorded this class by housing reformers. The fact that these families tended to stay in the housing is one indication that the housing society was successful in selecting tenants who fit the housing and its management system, but on the other hand the failure to house those displaced by the demolition must be seen as the toll of the economic constraints and self-imposed philosophical 73 limitations under which the housing societies operated. The housing societies could not and would not house the poorest inhabitants of the city. They justified their policy of housing the more steadily employed and reliable workers by claiming a filtering process would bring better housing to the slum and cellar dweller, thus arguing that by increasing the better housing stock, they were indirectly contributing to the decline of the worst housing. displaced did not disappear. But the plight of the The search for replacement housing at affordable low rates brought them to live in an ever decreasing number of dilapidated slums. The housing societies did not build for the widow with many children, the elderly with limited income or the single casual worker. By the end of the century, to any housing society requirements which had eliminated the non-standard family, casual labor, or sweated labor, was added the economic constraint imposed by land costs. It was becoming infeasible for the housing societies to build for any member of the working class, even the best-paid. 144 The Turn to Public Intervention By the 1880s high land costs were making it increasingly infeasible from a financial point of view to continue building in the old city. The housing societies were becoming unable to provide housing even for the select number of the working class they had previously chosen to serve. Land costs had risen with the economic and demographic take-off of the city. The small landowners in the old city were able to drive hard bargains for their parcels of land, so that it became nearly impossible for the housing societies to accumulate the entire blocks needed to carry out large scale clearance and redevelopment. As the opportunities for the housing societies to contribute to housing improvement diminished, the clamor for state intervention grew. The housing societies had begun their work in the fifties and sixties at a time when labor and land were cheap. The outlook for large-scale private projects of slum clearance and renewal had been positive, and the experience with the filling of the Goudsbloemgracht and the subsequent creation of the Willemstraat blocks appeared to encourage the tendency to assign private initiative an important role in the field of housing reform. During the seventies the production of housing society housing more than doubled that of the previous decade, but already most of this housing was being built in the new city. 7 (Fig. 4.6) Construction of semi-philanthropic housing in the Jordaan halted altogether during the fifteen year period from 1879 to 1893, and during the eighties and nineties the number of dwelling units constructed in the new city dropped sharply. The Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse in its 1883 annual report blamed high land costs of f20 to f30 per square meter for 145 its decision to cease construction. 7 5 (Fig. 4.7) Rise of labor and materials costs must also be seen as contributing to the economic infeasibility of housing society construction. While rents of the Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse increased some 30% between 1852 and 1883, the cost of land originally available at f1.00 per square meter in by 1883. between 1852 had risen to f 10.00 by 1870, and had more than doubled that The cost per square meter of housing increased by about one half 1854 and 1880.76 In the 1890s fresh concern for the plight of the slum dweller led to renewed private efforts at slum clearance. The most influential of the projects was the experiment we have already examined, the attempt by the Bouwonderneming Jordaan to conduct an experiment in low-cost housing on a site between the Lindengracht and the Goudsbloemstraat.7 7 the experiment was multiple. The purpose of It included the question of whether replacement housing could be built which would house the original residents of the block. failed. As we have seen, this part of the experiment Another aspect of the undertaking, within the liberal tradition of the semi-philanthropic housing societies, was the question whether demolition and construction on a site in the central city could be made to turn a profit. On this count also the experiment failed. Even with the acquisition of public ways at no cost from the municipality and the relatively high rents, the original return on the investment was merely 1.46%.78 The report published on the findings of the committee involved with the Bouwonderneming Jordaan optimistically called for the intervention of the state in the form of powers of expropriation and financial support for the purpose of slum clearance. Arguments in favor of direct government involvement in housing 146 improvement had been around from the early nineteenth century when the results of investigations into the relationship between environment and disease gave the Health Inspection Office (Geneeskundig Toevoorzigt) impetus to call on the government for measures to improve conditions. 7 9 But these had met with little success. The proposal by Dr. W. Wintgens in 1854 to set up local health boards which might regulate housing standards, stipulate improvements, and condemn non-conforming dwellings had been rejected soundly in Parliament by a vote of 29 to 22 in 1856.80 In 1872 the Amsterdam municipal council requested the Health Board to carry out an investigation of cellar dwellings. The results of this first attempt to document housing ills in Amsterdam included the recommendation of the Board that the city take an active role in providing replacement housing for cellars condemned as uninhabitable. might sell land cheaply to builders. 8 1 For instance, the municipality After a trying council debate in which the pros and cons of government involvement were argued bitterly between the doctinaire and radical liberals, with especial objections from the council's Financial Committee,82 the city came to a compromise in 1874. It voted 16 to 14 to take the exceptional measure of loaning f1.8 million at low interest to a privately organized housing society set up expressly for the purpose of building low cost housing, the Amsterdamsche Vereeniging tot het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen.83 donate land and site preparation. philanthropist reformers,84 It also proposed to Organized and run by patrician much as the other housing societies, the society differed from the others in that all its holdings were eventually to come into the hands of the municipality. Still, the members contributing to a collateral fund to guarantee the city's loan were to receive 2.5% interest on their investment, a profit preventing any 147 interpretation of the society's activity as purely public construction of housing, or as charity.. The Amsterdamsche Vereeniging became one of the largest housing builders in Amsterdam, starting 774 units between 1883. But its projects were all 1875 and on new building sites and could hardly be understood as providing replacement for the 3650 uninhabitable cellar dwellings which originally inspired its establishment. Furthermore, the society, despite the free land and low-interest loan, rented its units at rates comparable to those of other societies (fl.80 to f3.10 in 1890),85 so that even this experiment in municipal aid to housing failed to house the neediest. The experience of the Bouwonderneming Jordaan reached the ears of the radical and progressive liberal reformers quickly since the participants were well-connected to those circles. 8 6 The 1887 decision of the Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse to put a halt to their activities because of increased cost of land and construction influenced the future cabinet minister N. G. Pierson, who also had direct experience with the effects of government loans for housing as one of the contributors to the collateral capital fund for the Amsterdamsche Vereeniging.87 Direct participation in the semi-philanthropic housing societies had taught the liberals that private initiative alone could not provide an adequate housing supply. In the 1890s a number of extraparliamentary voices were raised nationally and locally in a call for government intervention in the housing issue. The voices represented a variety of interest groups which formed the nascent, and as yet undisciplined, housing and planning professions. Rooted in the liberal reform movement the housing reformers agitating for state and local housing measures were primarily legal and 148 medical experts, many of whom had been active in the housing societies. Thus the experience of the housing societies in Amsterdam and elsewhere, which had exerted little direct influence on housing conditions, came to exert considerable influence on housing policy as those who had encountered the frustrations of high land costs lobbied for national housing legislation. The Enlightenment organization, the Maatschappij tot Nut an 't Algemeen, known for its early encouragement of worker "self-help," moved to more contemporary means of reform under the influence of its progressive secretary, A. Kerdijk. The 1887 general meeting took up the problem of housing reform, and decided to commission a report on the contemporary efforts of housing societies throughout the Netherlands. report, which appeared in 1890, The frankly noted the limitations of the achievements of housing reform by private means alone, and pointed out the necessity for some form of government aid for the expropriation of slums. 8 8 An 1892 juridical dissertation by A. Roell on the subject of housing legislation for the working class concluded that "actual improvement in housing conditions for the working classes can only be achieved through legal regulations." 8 9 Another study of the efforts the private housing reform movement, also published in of 1892, claimed that one of the most important social and political duties of the state was to bring satisfactory housing to all classes, and that improvement of housing for workers was the unavoidable pre-condition for success of any other reform. 90 And in the same year at the annual convention of the Society for the Advancement of Architecture, several participants spoke out on the necessity for a national housing act which would, for instance, establish minimum housing standards. During the first meeting of the Public 149 Health Convention (Congres voor Gezondheidsregeling) in 1896, the legal expert H. L. Drucker commented that there was need for a housing law and 92 not a general hygiene law. But the call for public intervention into the process of housing production was one strictly limited by the principles of liberal economics and reform ideology. At most such legislation was to make possible a cooperation between private reform efforts and government. After the difficulties encountered in the acquisition of large tracts of slum housing, both because of the high cost and the difficulty of negotiating separately with many small scale owners, reformers called for the revision of the existing expropriation law to allow the municipality the right to expropriate for the purpose of slum clearance. This would make possible 93 the subsequent rebuilding of the area by the private housing societies. Reformers looked for successful examples of government housing intervention, for instance, to the remarkable London slum clearance project of the Boundary Street Estate or the Klarendal project in Arnhem. That the emphasis lay on slum clearance and renewal rather than on proper means to extend the city and build anew indicated the continuing focus on the hygienic aspect of the housing issue, although the argument was also used that the private housing societies might serve as models of better housing to those in the construction business. Since the society housing would be of such a higher quality than the commercial, speculative housing the speculative builders would be forced to either lower their rents or 94 improve the quality of their housing in order to compete, it was argued. Such reliance on private enterprise to provide housing stock was the only solution compatible with liberal principles. Indeed, the introduction of the state in the manipulation of real estate was only to be justified by 150 the fact that the private market had in some way failed. This was to be one of the continuing refrains in these and subsequent discussions of the role of government: that only where private enterprise fell short might government enter into action. During the 1874 council debates in Amsterdam on the proposal that the municipality make available f1.8 million for the construction of workers' housing, the same argument was heard. 9 5 The state might act in a repressive or preventative manner to prevent overcrowding or to set minimum standards, but direct involvement in the actual financing and construction of housing was held controversial. At the architects' 1892 convention the opinion was put forth firmly that the state might aid housing construction indirectly by 96 assisting private societies, but it must not be directly involved. Volksbond conclusions The emphasized private slum renewal with the aid of government expropriation,97 leaving to the municipality the preventative tasks of proper street cleaning, better, more audible signals on the fecal pick-up cars, the power to force owners to make improvements on their property, and the right to condemn dwellings. The role of the state must not interfere with the right of the private builder to a free market, and furthermore, the precepts of proper welfare preclude any government 98 provided housing, they concluded. The most that the government might do to foster housing production was to make cheap capital available to private operators for use in housing improvement, thus fostering housing reform by means of the cooperation between government and private enterprise.99 However, for some, this revised version of governmental non-interfence failed to confront the well-known problem that slum clearance generated displaced families, unable to move into the renewed area because of either the expense or the fact that far fewer dwellings 151 replaced the previous slums, or both. The issue of the families displaced by slum clearance created a principle controversy, one which was to remain unsolved for another decade. Some claimed that the private market and the housing societies would naturally take care of their housing needs. 10 0 The liberal Pierson asked why private enterprise might not simply take care of the housing supply. wait-and-see attitude: Drucker responded that one should take a if private enterprise should, however, fail to provide adequate housing, then the municipality must be obliged to provide it. 10 1 Others took a more radical view of the obligations of the state to those forced out of their homes: the displaced, and only the displaced, had a right to replacement housing provided, if necessary, by the government. The Public Health Convention petitioned the government to require municipalities to provide replacement housing, not simply to allow them to do so. One reformer even went so far as to suggest that replacement housing be available before condemnation. 102 The socialists used this discussion as an opportunity to attack private enterprise, calling for the total elimination of the use of housing as a speculative tool. The most comprehensive analysis of the housing issue appeared in 1896, again under the sponsorship of the Nut. It expressed the growing sentiment in favor of a national housing act which would address the issues of slum clearance, expropriation, and condemnation.103 Support for a new act gathered momentum at the first and second meetings of the Public Health Convention, 1896-7, whose name already represented the focus of its proceedings. The first conference appointed a committee 104 which drew up a set of motions which the second conference amended and adopted. These motions and the discussion of them during the annual conventions covered 152 all the aspects of the law which was finally drafted in 1896 with the aid of one of the members of the committee, H. L. Drucker: a required municipal building ordinance, measures to prohibit overcrowding, enforced improvement of dwellings, condemnation, building inspection, expropriation for slum clearance, required master planning, financial aid to housing societies, and the right of a municipality to build housing. 153 Amsterdam and the Housing Act of 1902 By the time the proposed housing act came to vote in parliament, it was supported by members from across the political spectrum. Housing had not received much notice in parliament, during an era in which most social issues had been overshadowed by the school issue. From 1874 to 1899, it had been raised by only one representative, the socialist Domela Nieuwenhuis during the 1888-89 session.105 In 1892 the Radical party adopted a housing plank, followed by the Liberale Unie in 1897.106 At the first Social Congress of the Anti-revolutionary workers' organization Patrimonium in 1891 housing had been discussed. Progressive Catholics had supported housing reform as well, and the Catholic leader Dr. H.J.A.M. Schaepman had served as one of the organizers of the Public Health Convention. On the surface housing reform appeared to be one area not plagued by the growing pillarization of Dutch society. 07 But in fact, there was only agreement on the importance of housing reform, while there was considerable disagreement among the pillars on the best means to execute housing reform. The socialists were the most vocal proponents of housing as an inalienable right, which the state must provide to all since private enterprise failed to serve the community.108 But housing as a right was unacceptable to the liberals, who, as we have seen, perceived government intervention as a necessary evil which could be justified only when private enterprise fell short. Both the liberal and confessional parties were each split into conservatives and progressives whose views on the growing role of the state were at odds. During the last liberal cabinet of the nineteenth century, which managed to pass a number of social laws, the support of the progressive confessionals against the 154 opposition of conservative elements in both the splintered liberal parties and the religious parties made it possible to pass a progressive and comprehensive Housing Act in 1902.109 The passage of theiHousing Act enabled Amsterdam to proceed with a series of steps meant to alleviate housing shortages and improve housing standards. In 1902 Amsterdam proposed a new plan designed by H. P. Berlage to guide future expansion to the south. In 1905 it introduced a new building ordinance which established more stringent building standards. Meanwhile, the municipality re-organized its hygienic services and established a separate agency for building and housing inspection headed by the well-known housing expert Tellegen. Cooperating with the Health Board, the city council began condemnations of slum housing in the Jordaan and the Jewish districts. Simultaneously, the city began to plan a series of small residential districts on the periphery of the city: in the Indische and Transvaal districts to the east, Buiksloterham and Nieuwendammerham in the north, and Spaarndammerbuurt in the west. the First World War, the southern expansion began. After These districts were to be filled with housing built under the auspices of the Housing Act by newly formed workers' housing societies and by the municipality itself. In 1915 the city introduced a separate housing authority to lead the design and planning of housing projects. Between 1909 and 1919, plans were passed by the Amsterdam municipal council for over 14,000 housing units. With these efforts, the collectivist solution to the housing problem was initiated in Amsterdam. The bureaucratic structure necessary to devise and carry out these plans required new expertise. We will turn now to look at the development and organization of that expertise. Experts had to operate within the 155 In the first place they had to carry confines imposed by two conditions. out the mandate for the collectivist solution to the housing problem. They had to serve the public good. In the second place they had to reconcile diverse interests, that is, they had to operate within a society marked by cultural pluralism. In the development and application of housing expertise we can observe the politics of accommodation at work. In 1896, the progressive liberal journalist P. L. Tak, soon to turn socialist, responded with telling sarcasm to the influential Nut report on housing. His comments anticipated the struggles to come with the implementation of the Housing Act. Well done, reporter: you are radical and something more: you are Effective improvement of houses according revolutionaries . . . to legal requirements, that is, according to the requirements for a healthy life - light and air for everyone - one senses the meaning. What's left of free disposal of property, what's left of the large and small rent-milkers who make up the cities' of a large portion of the land What's left commendable wealth? to be no more cramming people together on tax revenues, if there's a few square meters, and if the new houses must be rented at a price that all can pay, including the homes put up by the government, and those supported by the duty decreed by the Nut?" 1 10 During the decades following passage of the Housing Act, the limits and extent of the powers of government would be subject to pressures from the interests which Tak mocked, as the conflict between the radical notion of housing as a right and the conservative belief in a market economy left its mark on the development of Amsterdam. 156 Chapter Five The Organization of Housing Professionals The Social Engineer With the maturation of the social question from subject of earnest discussion to object of reform legislation, the league of amateur philanthropists whom we observed in the second chapter came to be replaced with specialized professionals in the fields of social work, housing, planning, and labor relations. One of the effects of the recovery of the Dutch economy in the second half of the nineteenth century was to increase both the demand and availability of expertise. Greater distribution of wealth enlarged the market for professional services, while the technical and administrative requirements of modern business and government created new positions for professionals. The number of doctors per capita in Amsterdam increased as more of the population could afford to consult a physician, service in and we have already noted the phenomenal growth of the civil Amsterdam during the same period. 2 Meanwhile, the total number of professionals increased as more students entered institutions of higher education and new institutions were founded (such as the University of Amsterdam, the Free University, the Polytechnic School in Delft, University of Nijmegen). Consistent with this development of specialization and professionalization, the call for new reform 157 legislation was linked to a call for appropriate professional expertise in social reform. One of those who explicitly advocated the training of social reform specialists was J. C. van Marken (1845-1906). Van Marken was the director and chief shareholder of the factory De Nederlandsche Gist- en Spiritusfabriek in Delft. He was an active member of the progressive circle of bourgeois reformers who participated in the Committee for Discussion of the Social Question,3 and he published in progressive journals such as Vragen des Tijds, Sociale Weekblad, and De Kroniek.4 Van Marken who also found a ready outlet for his social philosophy in the factory newpaper De Fabrieksbode where he strongly supported both public and private measures for social reform. Van Marken considered himself more "social than the socialists," but he dismissed both the welfare state projected by the revisionists and the worker ownership of production proposed by the revolutionary Marxists. In van Marken's paternalistic scheme the private industrialist would bear considerable responsibility 5 for the welfare of his workers. Van Marken was not an armchair reformer. He introduced a number of innovative social experiments in his factory. He established a workers' organization, De Kern, and a system of profit sharing. funds, health insurance, insurance, England, architect after and a savings plans, cooperative store. and Krupp in Germany, to design an industrial his wife), disability payments, life In the style of Cadbury and Lever in he hired an architect park near Delft where the director He set up pension and landscape (called Agneta-Park and the workers could live in peaceful proximity to the plant.6 Because of the success of his philanthropic ventures, other socially 158 motivated industrialists often requested van Marken's advice on how to set up similar practices in their factories, but van Marken was quick to note that such measures needed to be as carefully designed as machinery, and that he was no expert.7 Van Marken himself felt the need to find such an expert and put him in charge of the factory's social programs, much as he would hire a mechanical engineer to oversee the factory's machinery.8 He found it no easier, however, to find such a specialist than to aid inquiring industrialists, and so van Marken came to the conclusion that a new field lay open for development, that of the social engineer. In the 1890s he wrote a series of articles illustrating the need for the social engineer and describing his tasks and training.9 Van Marken thought the social engineer could fulfill positions in the three areas of industry, government, and education. In the factory, the In government, social engineer would design and manage social programs. he would be responsible for carrying out social legislation. And in technical universities, the social engineer would prepare future industrialists to promote good labor relations and the welfare, health and safety of the employees. The social engineer would receive his preparatory training in the hoogere burgerschool, the non-classical secondary school which gave admittance to the polytechnic school. For the specialized study of his field at the polytechnic, the social engineer would take up economics, labor law, housing, hygiene, engineering, 10 administration, and accounting. Van Marken based his projection of the new specialization on his ideas about the professional identity of the engineer. worth his pay because of his "competence, objectivity, The engineer is and honesty."" Van Marken repeatedly compared the problem-solving competence of the 159 social engineer to that of the mechanical engineer. Just as the factory director turns to the appropriate specialist when the machinery breaks down, so should he turn to the social engineer when the social systems of the factory need tuning. ethical necessity: This he felt to be both an economical and an the industrialist could ill afford to neglect the welfare of either his machines or his personnel. According to van Marken's model, once the decision had been taken to discard laissez-faire policy and embrace social responsibility, all that remained was the impartial application of the social engineer's neutral expertise. "Both the rights and duties of both boss and worker find in him an equally impartial defender," 1 2 he contended. With this comment, van Marken accepted the authority of the expert unconditionally, and depoliticized social issues. Van Marken's social engineer had a significance which went beyond the context of his industrial paternalism. The idea of the impartial professional trained to apply social sciences to fix societal ills exerted a profound influence on the development of the social reform professions in the Netherlands. The feasibility of social engineering was embraced by progressive liberals and socialists alike, both of whom encouraged the development and application of social reform professions in the service of the state and for the benefit of the community. In 1904 a progressive group of students, faculty, and politicians made an abortive attempt to introduce a curriculum to train the social engineer at the Technical Institute of Delft. Although the attempt failed, it illustrates the assumptions behind the development of the social reform professions. It was not unnatural, given the conservative climate of Dutch student 160 life in the older universities that the relatively young Polytechnic School at Delft should have generated the more active circle of students involved in social reform. 13 A group of students inclined toward progressive liberalism and social democracy gathered around B.H. Pekelharing, the charming and witty professor of law and economics who taught at Delft from 1874 to 1908. A liberal reformer himself, Pekelharing distrusted the bourgeoisie, but did not become a social democrat. 14 "My faith in the renaissance of our bourgeoisie is weak," he wrote to F. M. Wibaut. "On the other hand, I do not feel convinced by the theory of Karl Marx. With a deep respect for his genius, I cannot agree with his thought, even though I stand closest to his followers." 1 5 Indeed, many of the students inspired by Pekelharing's lectures on labor history later became leading members of the SDAP: the van der Waerden brothers Theo and Jan, Hettinga Tromp, J. W. Albarda, and Israel P. de Vooys.16 Tak wrote optimistically about the wave of social responsibility displayed by the Delft students at the turn of the century, an attitude he hoped would spread to the universities. 7 Pekelharing observed that even the more conservative students at the Polytechnic were beginning to expand their social horizons.18 The increasing significance of social issues for the Polytechnic students correlated with the increasing significance of the engineering profession for society. As late as mid-century, engineers were still a misunderstood novelty, as revealed in a dialogue in the 1868 novel Lidewyde by Conrad Busken Huet: "Engineers are fashionable at the moment. Almost every vaudeville show has an engineer in it." "Are you afraid that they'll supplant the doctors?" "As far as I'm concerned, they can go right ahead. But I don't really think they'll be able to keep up the competition. The engineers make a fine showing in the theater now, and no 161 wonder, since they're the most transportable subjects of our time and you can make them shoot up everywhere just like mushrooms but they will disappear naturallX from the scene once all the down."' have been laid railroads But by the end of the century it had become apparent that the engineer was to continue to fill a greater number of important societal functions, and that the integration of the engineering profession into society was proceeding at a rapid pace. Engineering sought the prestige of an academic status comparable to that of the other older and more established professions. The Dutch engineering school had been founded originally in 1842 as the Royal Training Academy for Civil Engineers van burgelijk ingenieurs). (Koninklijk Academie ter opleiding In 1864 the school was converted into the Polytechnic school under the act for secondary education (middelbare onderwijs) which also regulated the hoogere burgerschool. However objections were soon raised to the organization of the school on the basis of this act rather than the act for higher education which regulated university education. A career in engineering entailed preparation first in the hoogere burgerschool and then in the Polytechnic, where emphasis was on applied sciences and modern languages rather than the pure sciences and classical languages studied in the gymnasium and the university. Engineering graduates objected to the implication that their non-classical and practical education was inferior to that of university graduates. Engineers argued against the law which so inconsistently distinguished the pure and applied sciences, pointing to medicine applied science taught in the university. as an example of an In 1873 and again in 1892 the Society of Civil Engineers (Vereeniging van burgelijke ingenieurs) published reports supporting the regulation of the Delft school as a technical institute (technische hogeschool) of higher education in 1904. 162 A new Higher Education Act was passed by parliament which included a proposal to convert the Polytechnic at Delft into a technical institute. 2 0 Once the Polytechnic had been converted to the status of an institute of higher education, the question of an appropriate title, always an important symbol of societal prestige in a Germanic country, was raised repeatedly. It had become common practice for graduates of the Polytechnic School to preface their names with the abbreviation Ir. Ingenieur) in the manner of the legal profession's Mr. the scientific Dr. (for Doctor).21 (for (for Meester), and Engineers wished to create a professional identity comparable to that of the established professions. Delft students grew optimistic about their niche in society, placing themselves confidently alongside doctors and lawyers, or even viewing themselves as members of the leading profession of the times: Whereas in earlier times the military men and later the legal and financial men took the lead in the course of events, now the technical man is stepping into the foreground, and the engineer is being called in to fill increasingly important social positions. 2 2 The technical demands of industrial and urban society for the organization and management of workplace and residence required the engineer to take cognizance of the societal implications of his new functions. With these new tasks in mind, students began to support the inclusion of social studies in their curriculum. In 1904 forty of Pekelharing's students and former students formed an organization called the Social Technical Society of Democratic Engineers and Architects (Sociaal-technisch Vereeniging van Democratische Ingenieurs en Architecten, STVDIA). The society announced as its official aims the furthering of the general welfare, the growth of a democratic state, and the promotion of the interests of engineers.23 Over the following years the group took up a variety of issues, including housing and planning. 163 They published reports, sponsored a garden city competition, and petitioned the government for the revision of the Housing Act. At Delft, they sponsored lectures on social and economic subjects, encouraging the consideration of the social function of the engineer. In 1905 they petitioned Parliament to introduce a degree for the social-technical engineer at Delft. This proposal mirrored van Marken's proposals for the training of the social engineer. The STDVIA used the proposal to elevate the status of the Polytechnic School as the occasion on which to propose technical engineer be created. that the degree of social- They argued that new social laws such as the Health and Housing Acts required the services of specialists who not only understood the legal and societal implications of the new laws, but also understood their technical significance. Those currently appointed to carry out the inspection for housing, labor, and health, were inadequately prepared because their training emphasized one discipline at the expense of the other, they claimed. Doctors, lawyers, architects and engineers assuming these positions of authority could not be expected to carry out the laws effectively. For instance, An architect may design lovely facades, but what guarantee do they give that he knows the requirements of hygiene, social laws or 24 housing conditions? In the proposed curriculum, the social technical engineer would receive training in mathematics, physics, chemistry, mechanics, architecture, planning (stedebouw), drafting, hygiene, economics, statistics, social, 25 and administrative law. The amendment was supported by such figures as Pekelharing and Tellegen outside parliament and H. van Kol and Treub inside, but it was withdrawn and never put to a vote.26 Although a curriculum in social 164 engineering was never established at Delft, the assumptions underlying the proposal continued to exert influence: the belief in the efficacious application of expertise to social ills, and the idea that social engineering could imitate the objectivity of mechanical engineering. The proposal represented the position that social reform was not to be left to the amateur philanthropist or inappropriate specialist, but rather to be entrusted to the care of professionals with interdisciplinary training. Leading socialist and progressive liberal reformers alike had called for the creation of a new corps of professionals whose expertise would guarantee the quality of their opinions and thereby bypass the political nature of the decision-making process, the creation and competition of values. With the passage of the Housing Act in 1902, as state and local government moved housing and planning into the arena of public decisionmaking, the definition of expertise was to be raised repeatedly. constituted housing expertise? Who was the planner? What Who could provide the discipline and organization for the new professions? The professions in the Netherlands, as elsewhere, assumed their modern forms of organization during the nineteenth century in conjunction with the shifts in social and economic structure which industrialization introduced. Professional organizations performed two functions: they represented the collective interests of their members and they fostered the development of the discipline. In so doing, the professional societies were involved with both social and epistemological issues, on the one hand the external organization of the profession, and on the other hand its internal disciplinary development.27 In both cases professional organizations protected a highly valued and hard-won professional autonomy through self-regulation. They controlled entry to the profession, 165 publications, and the design of curricula. They established standards for ethics and administered punishment for malpractice. contractual arrangements and pay scales. They standardized In the role of parliamentary lobbyists and publicists they represented professional interests in the By mid-century many of the traditional professions had public domain. been organized, doctors in the Society for the Advancement of Medicine (Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Geneeskunst), engineers in the Royal Society of Engineers (Koninklijke Instituut van Ingenieurs) and the Society of Civil Engineers, and architects in the Society for the Advancement of Architecture (Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst). Each of these organizations was instrumental in creating a new powerful professional class in the Netherlands and each had a vested interest in maintaining its position of professional control. The organization of new social reform expertise, including housing and planning, posed several challenges to the existing professional structure. In the first place, the new expertise had to be defined, but the multifaceted nature of urban phenomena defied handling by any single existing profession. At the same time competition among the professions hindered the development of an interdisciplinary synthesis. In the second place the new task of social reform required that the professions alter their service function.. Traditionally, professions exercised their expertise in service to the individual client. The social reform professional was called upon to serve the community at large. When the traditional relationship of patron to professional was replaced with the relationship of community to expert, the possibility of disinterested expertise diminished. By definition, the identification of community interests was a political process which challenged the neutrality of 166 professional expertise. The new social tasks thus created a potential contradiction in professional identity. While the legitimacy of the professionals' expertise depended on its objectivity, in the service of social change it inherently incorporated social values. In this chapter we will trace the organization of housing and planning expertise. We will follow the struggle to define that expertise and to give it institutional form as the social engineer remained the model for the social reformer's professional identity. 167 The Waning of Medical Dominance in the Housing Field As perceptions of the housing issue matured and changed focus, expectations about the expertise necessary for contribution to its solution altered. The generalized bourgeois philanthropy represented by the efforts of the Committee for Discussion of the Social Question or the investigatory efforts of the Nut yielded to the efforts of increasingly experienced and trained housing professionals. At the same time, older professions such as law, architecture and medicine adjusted to new social tasks, while new professions such as social work and planning took shape to meet the needs for diverse types of housing expertise. The professionalization of activities related to the housing question proceeded in several stages. The first and second stages of this development of housing expertise have already been described in and fourth chapters. the third The housin.g problem was "discovered" as part of the overall social question by liberal reformers during the mid-nineteenth century, when it was subject to investigation and discussion by a group of concerned citizens representing diverse professions. In a second stage, the solution to the housing question was sought in the formulation of national housing legislation, Housing Act. culminating in the drafting of the 1901 During both of these stages, the medical perception and analysis of the housing question dominated as the primary motivation and justification for action. Housing was perceived as an issue of public health, and doctors, who had played an essential role both in first identifying the health hazards of poor housing and in specifying the necessary remedies, natura-lly assumed the lead as housing experts. But once legislation was in place and public intervention in the production of 168 housing, both as regulator and builder, had been established, research in housing reform shifted from the connection between health and housing to the legal and technical means to solve the housing problem. In this stage of the development of housing expertise, a hybrid discipline called public health or social hygiene, encompassing a number of activities including housing reform, called upon existing professions to apply their old forms of expertise in a new public policy arena. Increasingly the medical side of the housing question was eclipsed by the legal and technical side, although the perception of the problem in terms of public hygiene persisted.2 8 Social hygiene, made up as it was of separate strands of- professional traditions, proved to be too unstable a discipline to serve as the basis for the creation of a unified housing profession. The competition between various professions for authority in the housing arena, led to a piecemeal definition of new areas of expertise based on planning, social work, and the old and new professional identities: housing architect. 29 For the first fifty years of public awareness of the housing problem, from the mid-nineteenth century, housing was considered a branch of those concerns taken up by an emerging field variously called social medicine, public health or social hygiene, an interdisciplinary aegis of the medical profession.30 As medicine in field under the the Netherlands modernized with improved academic medical training, it also began to emphasize preventive medicine and a social mission in public health. Doctors focussed public attention on the housing problem and its connection to the spread of epidemic desease and higher rates of mortality. Both liberal and labor reformers took up the health argument to support action for housing reform. The liberals leaned toward 169 arguments about the threat to the health of the community as a whole, reduced productivity of unhealthy workers, and even the low vitality of military recruits, an argument more commonly applied in England. Socialists also relied on medical statistics about the unhealthy slums, but shifted emphasis to the right of the working class to improved material conditions. The 1901 Housing Act, the piece of legislation which most influenced housing reform in the early twentieth century, was formulated in close connection with the Health Act, and both were strongly informed by discussion of the housing issue during the first of the annual Dutch Public Health Conventions (Nederlandsche Congres voor Gezondheidsregeling), an organization dominated by the medical profession. Discussion during the first and second conventions in 1897 and 1898 took up most of the aspects of housing and planning which came to be covered by the Housing Act: building ordinance, planning requirements, housing stan- dards, condemnation, public housing. In its first decade most of the individual members of the Dutch Public Health Convention were doctors. (Fig. 5.1) Participation by interested engineers, architects, lawyers, labor representatives and others was far outnumbered by that of the medical profession, and the hygienic perspective dominated housing 3 discussions as well. The emergent field 1 of social hygiene was represented by the Convention's Journal of Social Hygiene (Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene) which published the Convention's proceedings and articles of related interest. In the introduction to the first issue, the editors distinguished between hygiene proper and social hygiene. They considered hygiene to be a pure medical science, but construed social hygiene to be 170 interdisciplinary since it required hygiene to call upon help from the technical, legal, economic, and policy fields. 3 2 Social hygiene contended as a new discipline which combined medical with other expertise to solve problems of public health in service to the community . Doctors tried to maintain their position of primacy and control when the Housing and Health Acts introduced the government as an active agent in the public health and housing arena. As the emphasis in housing reform began to shift from investigation and research to the design of regulations, the administration of the laws, and the planning of neighborhoods and housing, doctors claimed to be the only experts to understand the health implications of poor housing and to have the necessary familiarity with the evidence. take the lead in setting It followed that doctors should standards for materials and design, while engineers should simply provide the technical assistance to carry out the doctor's specifications. This was the relationship between policy makers and engineers which the STVDIA had hoped to avoid when it proposed the creation of a social technical engineer whose range of expertise would allow him to operate effectively and independently in the social application of technology. The engineer Sandick, a member of the group, had argued against the necessity of the engineer playing the role of second class professional,33 but in the case of housing reform, where the doctors had established a tradition of leading expertise, he and other proponents of the social engineer had failed to foresee the persistant hegemony of the medical profession. At the first Public Health Convention, it was doctors who wrote out the requirements for a healthy home, and who led the discussion of proper city layout. 34 The conflict between doctors and engineers came to a head on a number 171 of occasions. The design of the Health Act of conjunction with the Housing Act, 1901, a bill introduced in was one such occasion. Previous government health regulation had been minimal, primarily the licensing of legitimate practitioners and the limited policing of building practises. The regional health boards introduced in 1865 were advisory only, and had negligible power or impact on living conditions. of The proposed Health Act 1901 was intended to remedy this situation by providing a hierarchical organization for government health intervention. A central health board would report directly to the Ministry of the Interior. At the regional level, chief health inspectors would supervise health inspectors specialized in housing, medicine and workplace safety. At the local level, a state appointed municipal health board composed of experts would pass judgement on local planning and housing proposals as well as other tasks related to maintaining public health. 35 The broad mandate of the Health Act, which defined public health to include issues of planning and housing as well as the control of epidemics and other health measures, reflected the shift from pure medical concerns to the more comprehensive social laws under the ministry of Goeman Borgesius. 6 The government acknowledged this shift in emphasis by renaming medical inspection (Geneeskundig Staatstoezicht) as public health inspection (Staatstoezicht op de Volksgezondheid), and by explicitly specifying that the state public health inspection need not be, and might not be, exclusively a medical inspection. 3 7 This acknowledgement and welcome of the contributions to public health from the non-medical professions met with approval in the Society of Civil Engineers, whose committee to study the proposed Health Act, composed of two doctors, two engineers, and a lawyer, reported favorably on the decision to rename the state inspection agency.38 172 Doctors, on the other hand, were highly critical of the proposed changes. Objections came from both the Society for the Advancement of Medicine as well as the Public Health Convention. One commentator in Bouwkundig Weekblad reported, "Most commentary from that circle presumes that they, should be granted ultimate authority. the doctors, from their viewpoint since seriously doubt if it is This is understandable 'chaque cure prache pour sa paroisse', but we the correct viewpoint." 39 Most controversial was the question of who should head the central health board, a doctor, engineer, or jurist, since this position represented the leading form of expertise. The doctors did not deny the necessity for assistance from other disciplines, especially in the housing field, but insisted on the primary authority of the medical profession, and on the supervising overview its leadership would provide. The Amsterdam Health Board, for instance, argued that the leadership in health must be given to the hygienists, that is, doctors of medicine, since 4 health (gezondheidsleer) is a specialization of medicine (geneeskunde). 0 According to Arie Keppler, however, the doctors had no claim to the title of hygienist, particularly social hygienist. The doctors claimed to be "the" hygienists, he noted, but their social commitment was questionable. One doctor who had studied the problem of tuberculosis and the home had suggested that the best measure to take against the disease was to advertise the benefits of light, air, cleanliness, and good nutrition. His remark "You can provide the first three benefits in the back slums for nothing!" caused Kepplar to reply scathingly, This is a doctor serving the poor, but can he ever have looked around at their housing? Has he ever been in one of the 2000 or so cellar dwellings of Amsterdam, or in the alleys that scarcely Hasn't the doctor ever considered that get any light or air? cleanliness, not to mention the elimination of vermin, is almost 173 impossible in an overcrowded one-room flat, where people wash, cook and sleep? Or that when mother also has to go out and work, But that there's no time or energy left to keep everything clean? there he goes: "you can provide the first three benefits in the Doesn't he appear to have been back slums for nothing." 4 1 predestined to become a hygienist? Keppler also commented on a pair of articles which appeared in the progressive journal De Kroniek. There a doctor described social hygiene as a new field of cooperation between medicine and sociology, naming medical figures as the leaders of the new field. Keppler penned an unpublished attack on the idea that doctors had played a leading role in the social application of hygiene. The doctors had developed a scientific understanding of hygiene, he argued, but they had not looked into the social implications of hygiene until society, that is, pressure from outside the medical profession, forced them to do so. Doctors were not automatically experts in the issues of social hygiene, and others might be better qualified. 4 2 Keppler identified the engineer as the figure with whom the doctor would have to "cross swords." Social hygiene will appear increasingly in the forefront, and I am convinced that there is bound to be a conflict of interests between the doctors on the one hand, and the engineers and the architects on the other. First the engineers had to battle against the lawyers over business management and administrative matters. Now, with the rise of the practice of hygiene and particularly applied hygiene, 43 the medical and the technical experts will be crossing swords. The swords were crossed openly in Delft where Keppler and others had campaigned for the provision of adequate training in technical hygiene. They argued that the positions opened by the new social laws should be filled by properly trained appointees. They claimed that the continuing failure to provide specialized training in technical hygiene at either the universities or Delft had contributed to the failure to find proper hygienists to fill the positions of chairman of the central health board 174 or the chief inspectors.44 According to the Higher Education Act of 1904, technical hygiene was a field in which instruction might be given at Delft, but the option had not yet been exercised. Under the auspices of the STVDIA, L. Heijermans, a doctor specializing in social hygiene and particularly in workplace conditions, gave classes from 1906 to 1909. The overwhelmingly favorable response to his lecture series led to further discussion of the need for instruction in hygiene, who should teach it, and what should be taught. Heijermans and Bakker Schut, speaking at a meeting organized by the STVDIA each supported instruction by both medical and technical experts, but the government appointment eventually went to a doctor alone. The emphasis of his instruction fell on the containment of contagious disease, although he did acknowledge the many-sidedness of Adequate instruction in hygiene. foothold in medical housing and planning had not yet found a Delft and students argued that side had been provided, now that instruction in the a technologist was needed to provide 45 instruction in housing and planning. The split between the medical and technical aspects of hygiene also emerged in the changing organizational structure of Amsterdam's civil service. The reorganization of the bureaucracy illustrates vividly the eclipse of the medical profession's hegemony in matters of housing and planning. A health board was originally installed in Amsterdam in 1864 as an advisory committee to the muncicipal council. It was composed of three council members, three doctors, a lawyer, a chemist, an architect, and a veterinarian. From the first this committee actively promoted thoughtful city expansion, studying the problem of workers' dwellings, the requirements of sewage and water, the relationship between mortality and population density, and other topics reflecting contemporary approaches to 175 sanitation and hygiene. In the 1870s, the board had proposed and carried out an influential study of cellar dwellings, but it was not until the 1880s that the board pressed for the creation of a permanent sanitary inspection agency for the city. A municipal health service was established in 1893, under the direction of Dr. Saltet. Only a few years later the health board recommended that a special bureau to study housing conditions be added to the health service, and this was accomplished in 1896.46 Attention also came to focus on the inadequacies of contempory 47 building inspection, which based its powers on a scanty building code. Although it had been reorganized as recently as 1895, a movement to reorganize building inspection once again followed the collapse of several houses on Pieter Nieuwlandstraat in 1899. This incident had led to speculation that neither the current ordinance nor the competence of the current inspection office were adequate.48 Since it was anticipated that the proposed Housing and Health Acts might present the municipality with new challenges, the city council now combined both building and housing inspection in one municipal agency. This notion has been previously rejected because it could not be supposed that a director might be found who could combine competence in both areas. The position of director of Building and Housing Inspection (Bouw- en Woningtoezicht, BWT) was created and given the mandate to carry out a major revision of the building ordinance and to carry on the sanitary inspection of the city's housing stock. The Health Board, however, which had not been consulted on the change, objected strenuously to the removal of housing inspection from the domain of the health service instead of maintaining separate inspections for building safety and hygiene.49 The wrath of the medical lobby was further incurred with the appointment of an engineer instead of a doctor 176 as head of the combined housing and building inspection. appointment was a particularly fortuitous one: J.W.C. In fact, the Tellegen, a civil engineer, had distinguished himself nationally through his renewal work in Arnhem, and presented the model of a well-informed, administrator. competent The doctors' objections to the appointment of an engineer While were met with discussion of the nature of housing expertise. housing certainly should be the work of a hygienist, it was argued, a hygienist was not necessarily a doctor, expanded to include the technician. and the meaning of the word had "The housing question is that aspect of medicine that can be administered just as well, if not better, by a technical hygienist as by a hygienic physician."50 Social hygiene, intended as the discipline which would apply the necessary expertise to the material dimensions of the social problem, did not survive the interdisciplinary battles for supremacy between the engineers and the medical profession. The term came to designate a more limited field, that of social medicine, which was to apply the techniques of medical and social research to the control of epidemics, the monitoring of consumer goods, and the provision of health care. Although the Journal of Social Hygiene continued to publish articles on housing and planning throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century, and the health remedies of light and air continued to permeate discussion of proper housing design, the doctors yielded to others the leadership of the housing reform movement. One observer noted, "The difficulty of the housing question lies not in the formulation of hygienic requirements, but 5 in the technical and, especially, the financial side." 1 The campaign for social hygienists, however, represented an important effort to create expertise in the arena of public policy. It drew attention to the need 177 perceived by many for specialized experts to carry out the new social laws. The withdrawal of medical expertise from the lead in housing reform did not, however, result in a clear field for the engineers. With the emergence of planning, or stedebouw, as a distinct discipline, the locus of the interdisciplinary battle merely shifted to a conflict between architects and engineers. 178 Planning: "a threatened field of engineering" With the technological and administrative nineteenth century, Netherlands. engineering had become a changes of the late leading profession in the In mining, railroad and ship design, the Dutch engineers had proven their worth, but in the field of city planning, the civil engineers began to lose commissions to architects from the turn of the century. Dutch city planning in the nineteenth century consisted of the design of transportation networks and the location of public facilities: bridges, harbors, railroad terminals, markets, and sewers. In Amsterdam, as we have seen in Chapter Two, plans were prepared by engineers from the Public Works Department: van Niftrik and Kalff, and later Lambrechtsen. Under the influence of German engineers such as Baumeister, planning was considered primarily as the technical problem of transportation and sanitation. Van Niftrik, for instance, as city engineer oversaw the design of the harbor extensions and the North Sea Canal, the filling in of canals to create streets in the city, and the extension of the sewage system: In in short, all the technical requirements of the city's growth. 5 2 contrast, the scope of the city architect's position was limited; he had merely to oversee the design of public buildings. In general, during the nineteenth century, it was civil engineers working in city extension. It little public works departments who supervised Dutch city comes then as no surprise that architects contributed to the discussion of planning measures at Conventions, and that it the Public Health was engineers like Tellegen, with experience as director of Public Works in Arnhem, who cooperated with the doctors to draw up proposals for planning measures such as building ordinances and 179 urban renewal policy. While civil engineering was considered to be the appropriate training for planning, planning per se lacked a separate professional identity. Before the end of the century the problems of modern city extension were too new and the ramifications of extension too unexplored to have produced either a corps of experienced planners or an established planning curriculum. Planning was not acknowledged as a specialized department of the Amsterdam municpal bureaucracy until 1924 with the founding of the city planning office (Stadsontwikkeling) in the Public Works Department. Delft first inaugurated a chair and department in city planning in 1926. Public recognition of a separate area of specialization was slow to develop. The STVDIA had proposed a chair of planning at the time Delft was promoted to the status of technical institute; but during the debate in parliament, Prime Minister Kuyper had argued against the proposal, questioning the necessity of the specialization: "In earlier times in this country we knew how to lay out cities which still excite the admiration of Europe without any technical institute, without any lectures on planning, but at a time when people had energy and artistic sense." 5 3 But it was precisely the failure of Amsterdam and other city extensions to measure up to the aesthetic standards set by the extensions of previous centuries whic.h led to a reaction against the engineers. Objections to the lifeless, gridded extension plans and the grey characterless development which arose so quickly in the '80s and '90s in Amsterdam were expressed freely and frequently. The Pijp, for instance, the triangular neighborhood designed by van Niftrik with long narrow streets, was described by one commentator as "the ultimate expression of 'la vie grise,' the negation of all except empty boredom, a monument to 180 laissez-faire and private enterprise, and also to the taste of the politicians."54 The municipal council, having preferred the practical efficacy of the Kalff plan to the extravagent Haussmanian proposals of van Niftrik, reversed its callous orientation to planning in 1900 when it decided to reject engineer Lambrechtsen's plan for the southern extension of the city on aesthetic grounds. Lambrechtsen, director of Public Works, had proposed in 1898 to continue extension of the city in concentric rings cut by straight radial streets. The plan was defeated by the council during a first round solely on the basis of political disagreement about the proposed system of expropriation. In 1900, agreement had been reached on the expropriation issue, but the resubmitted design still met with criticism from council members. It was castigated as a repetition of the Pijp, an engineer's plan, the product of ruler and drafting board. The council chose to give the commission to a planning expert outside municipal government, and the following day in the council's Public Works Committee (Commissie van Bijstand in het beheer der Publieke Werken, CBPW) the choice fell on H.P. Berlage.55 This decision ushered in a new era of municipal responsibility for the aesthetic design of city extensions. Berlage was the logical choice, not only because he had already served the city by designing the municipal Beurs (Stock Exchange), but also for the reason that of all Dutch architects, he had been the most vocal in support of the campaign for aesthetic city planning led by the Viennese Camillo Sitte. In 1892 Berlage had summarized Sitte's new book on the aesthetic principles of city planning for architectural circles in a series of talks entitled "Art in Planning."56 Following Sitte, Berlage argued from examples of classical, medieval, and Renaissance planning that architecture and plan had been unified in a manner lost in the nineteenth 181 century. Only with the revival of architecture as an art could planning, a synthesis of architecture inevitably tied to architecture, also revive as an art form. Although Berlage claimed that the past was a source of artistic principles, not a copybook, the attention Sitte brought to bear on given historical urban forms led immediately to a rediscovery of a set of aesthetic effects: the enclosed square, curved street, irregular crossing, the asymmetrical placement of focal buildings. The contrast between the pleasing aspect of these forms and the miserable aspect of recent urban design spawned a series of historical investigations into the origins of the forms. Were they the inadvertant products of a response to functional requirements? Sitte speculated that the aesthetic effects of past planning were the result of an unselfconscious, innate artistic sensitivity. But the validity of such historical speculation was unnecessary for the persuasiveness of the polemic. The case was being made that contemporary aesthetic expertise was necessary. Underlying both Sitte and Berlage's thoughts on the aesthetic side of planning was the assumption that only the architect had mastered the aesthetic skills appropriate to city planning. In Amsterdam, proposition. the city council apparently moved toward accepting this After the architect Berlage's selection as a planner of the southern extension, the city council repeatedly rejected engineer's designs for neighborhood plans and replaced them with architect's plans. The replacement of engineers by architects did not go unchallenged, however. The requirement of the 1901 Housing Act for extension plans in communities with populations over 10,000 had created a demand for planners, and engineers did not wish to see their leadership in planning 182 threatened. In 1914, the head of Public Works in Tilburg, J. H. E. Ruckert, set off a spirited debate when he objected to the challenge architects were posing to a field traditionally lead by engineers. While he acknowledged the failure of engineers in the past to pay sufficient attention to the aesthetic dimension of planning, he suggested that the time of aesthetic ignorance was past, and that aesthetically trained engineers were in a position to provide mastery over all the aspects of planning: economic, technical, social, legal, hygienic, and aesthetic. To give architects the lead and bring in engineers only to advise on bridges, paving and sewage was an overreaction to previous mistakes. A series of responses to Ruckert's article quickly appeared in the engineers' and architects' professional journals. Architects and engineers each freely acknowledged that technical and aesthetic expertise were both necessary for planning. The struggle between the two professions for leadership in planning translated into a struggle over the legitimacy of their claims for expertise. Each argued that it held a monopoly of expertise in its own discipline, while claiming mastery of the others. Thus the architect Leliman could say, on the one hand, "that designing an extension plan as such is neither the work of the architect nor the work of the engineer. Planning is...the work of a planner," but then go on to claim that the architect is the natural choice to be trained in the new discipline.57 to shape space and mass as "At any rate, only an architect has the ability [planning] requires," wrote Berlage. 5 8 Each side clearly had an eye out for its own interests, while the ever critical Keppler watched from the sidelines, chastising all parties for their lack of preparation for the task of planning. "There's a new job, gentlemen: who's going to bid the most for it?" he asked cynically. 5 9 183 By shifting their argument to the issue of expertise, the architects and engineers evaded the real issue at stake: into their professional missions. and technique lay in the incorporation of values The real dichotomy between aesthetics contradictory popular visions of the built environment which pitted aesthetic values against technical advances. This was nowhere better illustrated than in the controversy over the filling in of old Amsterdam canals. 6 proposed for the 1902 budget that 0 When the Public Works Department the Reguliersgracht order to relieve congestion on the Utrechtsestraat repairs, a hue and cry of reaction was led by artist be filled in in and avoid costly bridge Jan Veth. Speaking at the Antiquarian Association (Oudheidkundig Genootschap) in Amsterdam, Veth gave a stirring question" in lecture on "Urban desecration and the Reguliersgracht which he made an impassioned plea for recognition of the beauty of the old canal, "not the proudest, the grandest, or the most 6 distinguished, but certainly the loveliest, the most intimate." 1 Can there be a more refreshing stroll imaginable on a summer evening than a short walk along that magnificent canal with her steadfast old trees, her quiet enterprises along the walls and on the water, her cozy little houses at the crossings with large canals to either side, with their charming cellar shops and mezzanines visible from outside, and their fantastic stoops? fairy tale - this Altogether these make you think of a spirited adorable canal, where everything that accidentally arises fits in perfectly because its proportions are so completely and indefinably pretty, and so imbued with a breath of illusion; this classic canal with her six large round and perfect bridges, three of which join each other at the Keizersgracht to form a monumental and splendid outgrowth of arches and curves, perhaps the most beautiful spot in the entire unforgettable old Amsterdam. 62 The rising directly popular sentiment for the beauty of the old city against the practical, transportation. between commercial interests was pitted favoring improved The Reguliersgracht question was raised repeatedly 1902 and 1907. It was defeated in every instance, and eventually a solution to the transportation problem was sought in the filling and 184 widening of the parallel Vijzelstraat. Meanwhile interest groups on both sides of the issue became increasingly organized. On the one hand merchants and shop-keepers organized to lobby in favor of their need for customer and delivery access, on the other hand middle class art and 63 nature lovers organized to protect Amsterdam's civic heritage. With the development of the science of planning, the necessity for amateur lobbyists would be eliminated, reasoned Berlage. Berlage projected that planning itself would take over their function as the values expressed in Jan Veth's encomium would become incorporated into professional expertise. By 1914, when he delivered a series of lectures on planning to the students at Delft, with the plan of the Hague behind him and the revision of the Amsterdam plan well under way, Berlage's conception of planning had evolved to a more sophisticated level since his initial encounter with Sitte's ideas. Not only had his formal position shifted, as he embraced the monumental over the picturesque, but experience had matured his assessment of the professional status of An economic understanding is planning. argued. the basis of any city plan, he Economic, statistical, and hygienic analysis are the scientific foundation for city extension which the artist organizes and manipulates into a great camposition according to the aesthetic insights of his time. only the architect, of course, has the creative expertise necessary to this task. Berlage, in both his architectural and planning theory had developed an integrated hypothesis about the economic determination of culture, and the function of culture as an expression of society which he applied in society. modern times to mean the expression of collective, democratic Could he, by sleight of hand, have confused this historical determinism with the kind of economic input necessary to the planning 185 effort? The processes which he traced historically in the formation of cities, and the representative significance which he placed on cultural expression then served him in the contemporary struggle to define the planning profession as a justification for placing the artist, that is, architect, in command. While he struggled to categorize the city as the result of "artistic science" (kunstvolle wetenschap) or "scientific art" (wetenschappelijke kunst), there was no doubt about the emphasis on art. His elaborated theory of planning continued to defend the earlier position he had taken on the nature of the planning profession: its incorporation of aesthetic values, and the primacy of architectural expertise. Lest his acceptance of the scientific application of the art of planning be misconstrued, Berlage had the striking insight to acknowledge that his insistence on architectural leadership was primarily a question of values. Some fear the threat of danger in the scientific handling of the planning art, he commented. Therefore municipal governments will have the tendency even more than now to consider the design of city plans as an issue only of science and not art. As a result of that, the designs will be commissioned from scientific men and not from artists. The recent controversy over the question whether an engineer or an architect should design the extension plan of a city proves that this is a real danger. As for myself, I believe the answer to this question to be incontestable, because it is only a matter of what one finally If one wishes that the plan wants for the city as a whole. satisfy all practical requirements with mathematical accuracy, then an engineer should make the plan; if, on the other hand, one wishes that the plan be a work of art, that is, that all parts be composed into a whole not only scientifically but also 64 aesthetically and practically, then an architect should do it. In Amsterdam, a comparison between the parallel planning processes followed for the southern and northern extensions of the city illustrates the contemporary difficulty in fusing competing values and expertise. Berlage's plan for the south was accepted by the council in 1905. His 186 planning report on the southern extension, Explanation," entitled "Architectonic did not claim to be more than an aesthetic description. It began by dismissing the continued concentric expansion of the city as Lambrechtsen had proposed. Instead, the cityscape must form a closed view which can only be achieved if streets and canals are not too long and if they offer variation. Berlage went on to describe his proposed canals, street patterns, green areas and squares, ending with the warning that he had not been primarily guided by financial considerations in this design. In fact, Berlage's explanation expressed exactly the circumscribed nature of his concerns: to provide Amsterdam with a plan for expansion which 65 might, in contrast to those of the recent past, be an embellishment. The council received the plan in this spirit. They repeatedly praised it as an aesthetic achievement, and expressed their satisfaction with the appointment of a renowned architect as designer of the extension plan. However, the onesidedness of the planning considerations also came in for sharp criticism, and if council members had no objections to the aesthetics of the plan, they were skeptical about the likely cost to the municipality. "Now I would be the last to blame the architect for that," claimed one council member. presented to him, "He has simply fulfilled the commission as according to his sensitive artistic nature. Nor is it the task of the architect to ask, if no limits have been set, if the patron can afford to start up such expensive undertakings." 6 6 Still more to the point, the Social Democratic council member P.L. Tak questioned the lack of economic study which should have formed the basis for a sound housing policy in the south. Nowhere in the explanation of the plan, including the Public Works' description of the public improvements and estimates of their costs, could be found an analysis of the housing market 187 in terms of income levels, rent, demand for housing types, on which might be calculated the requirements for workers' and other housing. Tak suggested a planning process which would begin with the acquisition of statistics in order to arrive at a sound housing policy on which, finally, the technicians and aestheticians might base their solutions. most brilliant drafting pen can't solve economic problems." "Even the 67 In the case of the southern extension of Amsterdam, there had been little disagreement about land allocation for residential and recreational uses. This made it possible for Berlage to make do with his aesthetic interpretation of planning, which was not incompatible with the simple definition of an extension plan in Article 28 of the Housing Act as the determination of land for streets, canals, and squares (pleinen). In the north, however, the planning process started on the basis of the economics of land use and global aesthetic considerations were overlooked. Encouraged by the apparent change of heart in the city council and its expressions of concern to rectify the aesthetic lapses of the past, the architect H.J.M. Walenkamp had made a plea in 1901 for an aesthetically sensitive extension to the north of Amsterdam. 6 8 But Walenkamp's vision of an all-embracing master plan for the north under aesthetic leadership did not come to pass. In 1901, not long after it had given the commission for the South Amsterdam plan to Berlage, the city council appointed a committee to prepare a plan for the extension of the city north of the River Ij. Discussion had been long under way over the question of land use in relation to the expanding harbor and the possibility of the location of heavy industry. In a political move deliberately taking the matter out of the hands of the municipal civil servants, the council created a committee headed by the mayor and made up 188 of such interested parties as the navy, the railroads and the Chamber of Commerce, in addition to civil servants from Public Works, Building and Housing Inspection, and Commerce. 6 9 The question of including an architect in the committee was raised, but promptly put down because it was not anticipated that building plans would be made. An architect could be hired at a later date when plans had advanced, it was felt, since the role of the architect was considered to be strictly limited to the aesthetic design of street plans. The final report of the committee appeared in 1903 and made recommendations about land use allocation. Lack of architectural participation had not prevented the committee from expressing its ideas on a plan which included rough layouts of residential districts. The proposals of the committee were accepted, and the plan gradually executed. Public Works prepared a partial street plan in 1910 for one neighborhood where several housing societies were to build (Spreeuwpark), and followed with a complete plan for the remaining neighborhoods in 1912. An extension plan prepared by the director of Building and Housing Inspection Tellegen in 1914 rejected the street plans prepared by Public Works, and indicated only designated land use.7 0 Over the years neighborhood plans were prepared by a series of architects, first by an architect especially assigned to Public Works (J. M. van der Mey, 1916), then a private architect working for the Housing Authority (J.E. van der Pek, 1917) followed by a housing society architect (A.W. Weissman, 1918), city architect (Hulshoff, 1921). and the The failure to provide a unifying aesthetic overview was repeatedly decried both inside and outside the city council. Planning practice in Amsterdam had failed to produce a synthesis of social, economic, and aesthetic concerns. 189 The engineer's professional hegemony claimed a technical definition of planning which was countered by the architect's aesthetic definition. This competition of expertise mirrored a competition of values which falsely posed the necessity for arbitration between competing professional traditions and thwarted the development of a new disciplinary synthesis. Both the engineers and architects had, however, failed to respond to the necessity expressed by P.L. Tak for the incorporation of socio-economic expertise. We will turn now to a discussion of the contribution which the social sciences made to the definition of planning and housing expertise and to the political character of that expertise. 190 The Politics of Housing and Planning Policy in Amsterdam In the United States and England, the rise of academic social science played an essential role in the creation of a professional climate for social reform, but in the Netherlands the universities did not welcome the introduction of new disciplines, and acceptance of the social sciences lagged behind other European countries.71 P. L. Tak, the progresssive journalist, attributed this to the conservativism of the universities, and specifically noted the lack of student interest in any field not required for their examinations. 7 2 Of the social sciences, economics was the first to become a university subject, where for the most part it was long dominated by apologists for classical Manchester school political economy.73 When sociology was introduced into the university as an elective course at the Utrecht law faculty in 1895, it was taught under the guidance of S. M. Steinmetz as comparative ethnology. Steinmetz argued that neither law, economics, nor history could develop the scientific understanding of society that sociology could, but his sociological research bore little direct relation to current social ills. of the nascent social sciences, economics rather than sociology exerted direct influence on Dutch social reform and in particular on planning. Statistics and economics provided tools of analysis which were applied with increasing sophistication during the first decades of the twentieth century. The Society for Statistics (Vereeniging voor de Statistiek) sponsored planning-related debates, the Economist published articles on planning and housing. More than the medical, engineering, or architectural contributions to 191 housing and planning, the economic approach was openly political. Economic arguments were invariably linked to specific political positions vis-a-vis the role of the state and private enterprise in social reform. Economists like Pekelharing and Treub supported a strong government social policy with economic theory braced by ethical and political arguments. To the right of these, N.G. Pierson remained committed to a modified liberal position, while van der Goes, Aalberse and Diepenhorst voiced respectively Social-Democratic, Catholic and Anti-revolutionary social theory. Housing and planning were essentially political issues. Even after the passage of the Housing Act, which represented national espousal of the principle of government intervention in the housing question, its application was subject to political debate. At the municipal level every aspect of housing policy split political opinion into several camps in Amsterdam. The extreme positions were occupied on the one hand by the lobbyists for real estate interests, who generally opposed any restrictions on the free disposal of property and on the other hand by the Social Democrats, who considered good housing as an inalienable right to be provided by the municipality, while Liberals and confessionals disagreed over the extent to which government should step in when private enterprise failed to supply adequate housing. Municipal land lease policy, condemnation of uninhabitable dwellings, the provisions of the new building ordinance, and the proposal that the city itself build housing became issues of heated debate inside the city council. Each side was supported by its own battery of arguments drawn from its social and economic theorists. 7 5 One of the areas of continuing debate, with the most profound implications for planning policy and the definition of planning itself was 192 the issue of municipal land management. The city of Amsterdam had in 1896 rejected the practice of selling off its considerable land holdings and had elected instead to lease its land. It hoped in this way to exert direct influence on the nature of the city's growth and to control the widely deplored land speculation which was blamed for the failure to provide adequate low cost housing. 76 While the lease system was largely a product of efforts on the part of radicals like Treub who had also led the drive to municipalize the utilities,7 conservative members of the council like the developer D. Schut also supported leasing municipal lands for economic rather than social reasons. They hoped to improve and reform real estate practice, in part through the elimination of the small developers.78 However, there was continuing debate inside and outside the council on what use to make of the municipality's essentially monopolistic control of land development. For the first twenty years of the lease system, two visions of land policy conflicted, the first, a policy of conservative fiscal responsibility, the second a policy of land management for housing improvement. Since the radical liberalism which had led to the adoption of the land lease system soon lost influence in the council, during the first years of the lease system the mayor and aldermen pursued a policy of leasing to the highest bidder. The municipality's policy was to set its 79 lease rate, the canon, according to the free market value of the land. It rejected the option of manipulating the lease rate to encourage socially beneficial land uses including low cost housing.80 With the passage of the Housing Act, the assessment of the land lease rates took on a new significance, since the housing societies began to bid for municipal land. The municipality began by adhering to the principle 193 that the canon be set by the price it could bear on the market, fully aware that the canon established the rent which would have to be charged by the builder. The issue of the canons became a frequent topic of discussion in the council's Public Works Committee (CBPW) which reviewed all proposed municipal land leases. In May 1906 an influential group of housing reformers, the Amsterdam Housing Council (Amsterdamsch Woningraad), petitioned the municipal council to lower its canons to allow for the development of housing at rents affordable to the working class. Pointing out that their plans to build housing at a rate which the worker earning f 12.00 or less could afford had been abandoned because no land could be found whose cost would permit a sufficiently low rent, the 8 Housing Council asked the municipality to revise its land policy. 1 Shortly after receipt of the petition, the Public Works Committee discussed whether or not to set the canons for low rent housing developments on a different basis than other canons in order to carry out the social part of the Housing Act. In this and subsequent debates, the representatives of the private developers, confessional council members D. Schut and R. N. Hendrix, argued against special treatment. Schut expressed the opinion that the housing societies, which were already receiving low-interest loans from the state, should enjoy no advantage in leasing land from the municipality because of the purpose for which they 8 were building, but should be treated like any other private developer. Progressive Liberals 2 (Vrijzinnig Democraten) and Social Democrats opposed this position, claiming that the municipality should use its control over land prices to lower the cost of housing, thus making more and better housing available to the working class. These political debates permeated the ranks of the municipal civil 194 service where they exerted an influence on planning practice. Within the civil service, the various bureaucratic units occupied with the building of the city became associated with opposed values and priorities, a situation resulting from a combination of leadership and historical precedent. The Public Works Department had long controlled all aspects of planning city extensions, constructing infrastructure, building municipal buildings, and administering the city's landholdings. It developed its procedures and working methods during the period of laissez-faire municipal policy. Under the former military engineer A.W. Bos (director of Public Works from 1907 to 1926), the department followed a land policy of turning municipal holdings to a profit. In contrast to the Public Works Department, Building and Housing Inspection (BWT), as we have seen, grew directly in response to calls for hygienic reform. Under the progressive liberal Tellegen, who assumed its leadership in 1901, this office interpreted its mandate as the protection of housing quality. Building and Housing Inspection saw in the municipality's land holdings a means to control development. It argued on behalf of both private developers and workers' housing societies for the lowest possible canon in order to cut the high land costs which had long obstructed the building of decent low cost housing. As the BWT took up the task of administering the Housing Act for the municipality, it negotiated with the housing societies, and began to exert some influence on the setting of the rates. When, for instance, the director of the BWT proposed a low rate for a private developer who was planning to build cheap one-room housing, this was perceived by Public Works as an infringement on its bureaucratic jurisdiction. 83 There was a growing perception in the city council that the interests 195 of housing improvement were not being adequately represented. In 1901 the mayor and aldermen had rejected a proposal to set up a special council 84 committee to handle questions arising from the new Housing Act. budget debates in again, During 1908, the issue of a separate committee was raised and one right-wing member questioned why the existing committee on public works, which had traditionally considered issues relating to the city's growth, could not handle housing. The Social Democratic council member F. M. Wibaut supported the call for a special council committee on the basis that such a committee needed members with other qualifications than those of the Public Works Committee. suggestion in terms of competence, van den Bergh in 85 Wibaut clothed his as did the Alderman of Public Works Z. 1909 when he suggested the need for a housing committee which would attend to the social arena rather than the technical emphasis of public works. unnoticed. But the political component of the proposal did not go A right-wing member of the committee on public works, noted that the committee was considered to lack competence only because of its conservative members. for social issues "Since its seats haven't yet been filled by Social Democrats, the committee is declared unfit to fulfill a so-called social role. the chairman will be the last This and nothing else is the issue and to deny it." 86 In 1911 Hendrix repeated the accusation that it was the political composition of the Public Works Committee which motivated the proposal for a the council's Housing Committee Volkshuisvesting, CBVH) was finally (Commissie van bijstand in formed in When housing committee.87 1912, its zake political composition was an immediate subject for discussion at the first meeting. There were no representatives from the right side of the council. 88 the two committees concerned with urban expansion came to represent Thus 196 different political orientations as well as pitting economic against social concerns. With the presentation of Berlage's revised extension plan for South Amsterdam to the council in 1915, a number of controversies were unlocked between the various bureaucratic agencies charged with its execution, chief among them the conflict between opposing land policies. Berlage's plan was a master plan, and left detailed street plans, land use allocation, and ground rents to be worked out. The Health Board, which included housing reformers Kruseman and Pek-Went, expressed the concern that Public Works not repeat its previous poor performance in the design of detailed street plans. Concern that the Public Works Department would not adequately represent the interests of good housing was expressed also in the council's Housing Committee.89 Both committees suggested that the execution of the plan be put into the hands of the three municipal services involved with urban expansion, Public Works, Building and Housing Inspection, and the newly founded Housing Authority. The Housing Authority (Woningdienst), established in 1916 as the city adopted a proposal initiated by the Social Democrats for municipal housing, was headed by Arie Keppler, Social Democrat and active member of the STVDIA who had previously been working with the housing societies in the BWT. In March 1916, the directors of the BWT and Housing Authority suggested to the Housing Alderman Wibaut that a they set up a permanent committee with the director of Public Works to prepare the detailed street plans and set canons, "to do justice equally to the interests of all the agencies and those involved."9 this suggestion was negative. 0 The director of Public Work's reaction to According to him, the directors were asking for participation in affairs outside their stipulated jurisdiction. 197 Although the Housing Authority's mandate encompassed review of street plans for residential areas which included housing subsidized under the Housing Act, and the BWT was concerned with the compliance of plans to the Building Ordinance, the director of Public Works claimed that these agencies had not explained "why it is necessary to clarify or confuse land 91 management by introducing elements which do not belong there." These agencies lacked the information necessary for the correct assessment of land prices, he noted, and they were not responsible for achieving a balanced budget. Keppler wrote again to the housing alderman in August insisting on his need to influence the street plans and land costs in cooperation with the two other agencies. The number of demands he had received from the housing societies for land in the southern extension propelled Keppler to seek this involvment. 9 2 As a result of this letter, Wibaut met with the Public Works alderman and set up a September meeting to discuss relations between the agencies. Wibaut asked each of the three to come up wih firm proposals.93 In his response to Wibaut, the director of BWT argued that all the municipal agencies were involved and interested in extension plans, but that only his had the administrative and technical capabilities to provide central guidance in order to combine the various interests into a final plan. The BWT did not serve special interests as did the other agencies, but rather performed a statistical, cautionary, and preparatory function. Public Works had historically taken responsibility for the technical aspects of city expansion, the preparation of building sites, streets, canals, planting, and public buildings. But the Housing Act required the establishment of a separate agency to handle problems arising from the 198 administration of the act: ordinance. building systems, extension plans, building Such an agency should have a which the BWT did. command of building statistics, The BWT was, he concluded, the one municipal agency which could divide the city into land use zones and maintain building order. The director's proposal to make his own agency central to planning grew from his perception of BWT as neutral in the controversy of and also from a sense of competence about planning expertise. interests, He attacked the Public Works tradition of planning for both its reactionary attitude toward land valuation and its inadequate planning techniques. An extension plan is more than the drawing of a ground plan with It must also the boundaries of streets, squares parks and canals. be seen as a division of the city according to the type of building (perimeter block, villas, with or without front yard, etc.) and also as a division by districts into zones which either permit or prohibit the activities proscribed by the Nuisance Law. In short, a plan describes the use of the various building lots and their division according to the kind of building. It is a plan of renewal or demolition of the old city and a plan of evacuation to the new districts for the inhabitants. It is a plan of land management which must principally provide for adequate construction and decent housing, and which treats the creation of a good street network at minimum cost as secondary while placing the building plan foremost. If this describes a plan, then the preparation and execution of such a plan should occur at the agency which is established for the advancement of those interests, and which understands their special requirements, where all the matters related to the building and housing problem can be judged and where all the relevant statistical materials should be gathered. Keppler, director of the Housing Authority, wanted to exert direct influence on the execution of the South Plan, assignment of land use, layout of residential the setting of canons, districts. particularly on the and the detailed street Since housing and planning are inseparable, he claimed "the agency which is specifically responsible for the interests of housing should participate in the creation of the urban 199 plan in proportion to the weight of those interests."95 knowledge of housing could determine housing needs, Only those with a and the Housing Authority's statistical understanding of housing in Amsterdam was indispensible. Keppler suggested that a committee of the three agencies be responsible for determining land use and prices, but that the Housing Authority bear sole responsibility for the plans of the districts where Keppler outlined the planning Housing Act housing was to be built.96 ' tasks he considered appropriate to each of the three agencies, reserving for Public Works only the technical execution of the plans. The BWT would designate building zones, prepare street plans for private builders, and negotiate for municipal land leases. The Housing Authority would study housing needs, and prepare street plans for districts built by the housing societies and the municipality. Keppler had previously reproached the Public Works Department for its land pricing policy. Others may consider their duty discharged by having set the land prices and assumed the period of amortization so that income will cover costs. We, on the other hand, ask for a feasible plan that will best accommodate the requirements for good, cheap housing.9 7 The disagreement about planning methods and responsibilities between the Housing Authority and Public Works came to a head on a number of occasions and characterized planning practice in Amsterdam into the In 1918 their conflicts over the division of responsibility 1920s. for municipal housing became a matter of public debate, as once again the Housing Authority argued for authority on the basis of its housing expertise, 98 while Public Works banked on its seniority as a municipal builder. Clashes over authority in planning continued into the agencies struggled to gain control of a 1920s as the two separate municipal planning department.99 The conflict between Public Works on the one hand and the BWT and 200 Housing Authority on the other was more than a power struggle between competing bureaucratic agencies. It was a struggle between competing positions which had profound implications political planning practice. for the nature of Public Works represented a continuation of nineteenth century planning traditions in Amsterdam: advocacy for private development and two-dimensional, piecemeal planning in service to economic interests. The BWT and Housing Authority sought to introduce recent ideas of zoning, land use planning, and large scale planning using municipal land in the service of social reform ideals. clothed in terms of competence and expertise. officially the conflict was Public Works defended its position as leader of Amsterdam's urban expansion because of its entrenched experience as well as its access to information about land values. The BWT and the Housing Authority based their claims for participation in the planning process on their command of building and housing statistics. occasionally the political underpinnings of the conflict would surface, as when F. M. Wibaut argued in the council that the entire municipal land management should be removed from Public Works to the Housing Authority. Wibaut always had the impression, he said, "that the Public Works Department treats land management as if it were a real estate business. That must come to an end. Land managment must not be commerce in land, but rather the best possible management of the land in the service of housing provision, and nothing else." 1 00 The shift to collective responsibility for the urban environment made the development of planning and housing expertise necessary, but that development was troubled by the conditions we have just examined: conflicting claims to expertise, conflicting values and political positions. The conflict of expertise between the hygienists and 201 engineers, the conflict of values between the engineers and architects, the conflict of politics between Public Works and the Housing Authority posed challenges to the development of professional authority in planning and housing since professional authority derives from the existence of a defined body of expertise and the objectivity of that expertise. have seen, during the first As we decades of the twentieth century different disciplines struggled to define an elusive synthesis of planning expertise. But the solution to the contradiction between value free objectivity and the necessarily value laden nature of planning expertise was found in the constitution of its professional organizations which we will look at next. 202 of planning and housing expertise Institutions As we have seen, the reformers who, toward the end of the century, spearheaded the search for a solution to social ills by legislative means were drawn in large part from the ranks of professionals, chief consequences of social legislation professional expertise. was the call and one of the for appropriate However, we have also seen that the appropriate expertise did not necessary coincide with the expertise available in the existing professions, nor were the existing professional societies necessarily the vehicles for the development of new expertise. It is true that these societies were some of the first to designate new areas for development. For instance the Society of Delft Engineers reported in 1895 on the need for the development of planning curriculum, and the Society for the Advancement of Architecture sponsored in 1892 a colloquium on the social question. However, the established professions were to some degree hampered by narrow vocational sectarianism. To the extent that their societies restricted their activities to the task of protecting professional interests, the task of developing new disciplines was left to other, often interdisciplinary, organizations. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, as social legislation was cautiously adopted, a number of organizations acted as midwives to the creation of the new helping professions, planning among them. The impulse for the organization of the helping professions emanated from bourgeois liberal and socialist reformers who shared the common ground of belief in the efficacy of rational expertise. The Maatschappij tot Nut voor 't Algemeen and the Volksbond tegen Drankmisbruik, both bastions of liberal-reform, operated as catalysts in 203 the creation of new expertise, for example by sponsoring investigations into the housing question. Newer organizations such as the Public Health Convention or the Social Technical Society of Democratic Engineers and Architects joined interdisciplinary forces in a specific search for expertise in response to the social question. As one student commented, the difference between the Society of Delft Engineers and the STVDIA could be read in their statutes, the older society defining its purpose purely in terms of the interests of the profession, the younger one making explicit a committment to social improvement. 101 But however much the Convention and the Social Technical Society contributed to the creation of a public forum for the discussion of housing and planning issues, neither formed the nucleus for the development of the planning profession. Out of the Convention, which was closely tied to medical interests, grew the field of social medicine. The Social Technical Society proved to be an influential, if short-lived, special interest group with strong political leanings. The professional- ization of planning and housing expertise was left to a series of organizations whose lineage derived directly the social engineer. from van Marken's call for These societies successfully legitimated the figure of the expert working in public service to address social ills by providing him with an organizational context which established his neutrality. Van Marken himself was involved in the founding of the highly influential institution from which several of the new helping professions became defined: the Central Bureau of Social Information voor Sociale Adviezen, CBSA). (Centraal Bureau In the late 1890s van Marken corresponded with a member of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor 204 in New York who invited van Marken to become a foreign contributor to a proposed "Bureau of Social Information." An existing Bureau of Social Economics already wrote for the press and consulted on such topics as cooperatives, social laws, public health, American view of the social engineer. ,102 Musee Social founded in and municipal policy, "an This model, as well as the Paris by the Count de Chambrun in 1895 and the German Centralstelle fur Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen, inspired van Marken and his adopted son Eringaard to establish a Dutch office to consult on social measures. 103 Enlisting the aid of others in the reform movement, they set up the CBSA with offices in Amsterdam to "provide advice as requested in reference to the foundation, organization, management and administration of institutions with the aim of supporting the working class in its attempt to improve its economic position in any way. ,104 immediately to consult on a variety of social measures: The bureau began health insurance, labor contracts, housing, pension plans, unionization, and cooperatives. It provided the kind of information which van Marken had projected would fall within the competence of the social engineer with this important difference: most of the consultations were requested by workers' organizations, not employers. From the first the CBSA placed a high priority on maintaining scientific and political neutrality. P. L. Tak, reporting on the meeting to found the Bureau, noted that "during the discussions, it appeared desirable that the matter be given a purely scientific, neutral character."105 Attendence at the Utrecht meeting was predominantly progressive liberal, but key representatives from other pillars also appeared: W.C.J Passtoors and A. S. Talma from the Anti-Revolutionaries; Dr. Schaepman of the Roman Catholics; Vliegen, de Vooys, and Wibaut of the 205 Social Democrats.106 of the officers. The question of neutrality dictated the composition At the second meeting of the officers of the CBSA the decision was made to invite A.S. Talma to join the board since it lacked a representative from the Anti-Revolutionaries. Vliegen and Ariens already represented the SDAP and Catholics respectively. 07 affected discussion of the directorship as well. Political affiliation Talma, for instance, suggested selection on the basis of competence and ability rather than political persuasion, while several candidates were rejected because their too pronounced Social Democratic leanings might create enemies. When the solicitants for the position of adjunct director all proved to be either Social Democrats or sympathisers, this was considered a problem. In the event, the Progressive Liberal Treub was appointed director, with the 10 8 Social Democrat Hudig his assistant. To win widespread support, the professional agencies of social reform had to present a public image of non-partisanship. Their fears of being associated with socialism were not ungrounded. In 1903 the CBSA was attacked for being socialist by Prof. L. W. C. Van den Berg in the Delft City Council. 1 0 9 Werk), The School for Social Work (School voor Maatschappelijk started by Progressive Liberals closely associated with the Nut and the CBSA, was confronted with parents unwilling to allow their daughters 1 to enter an obvious bastion of socialist subversion. 10 Throughout its 22 years of existence, the maintenance of neutrality remained a constant pre-occupation of the participants in the CBSA. From the beginning, for instance, the labor committee was composed of four members, one representative of each of the four pillars, the liberal ANWV, the socialist ANDB, the Calvinist Patrimonium, and the Roman Catholic Volksbond. The first annual report noted proudly that the stream of 206 requests for information represented many different political persuasions, and that the bureau had already achieved a reputation for its neutrality. Because of the potential threat to its neutrality, the CBSA decided not to publish Hudig's dissertation on the Dutch labor movement, but this did not prevent it from appointing him successor to Treub as director in 1905.112 P. L. Tak, at first skeptical of the neutral character- of the bureau, became convinced after its first year of operation that it could function as non-partisan. 1 13 The CBSA succeeded in creating a professional context in which social issues were addressed by means of expertise which apparently rose above political differences. Able to win support from the four pillars, that is the four active parliamentary parties Marxists were notably absent), (the anarchists and orthodox it appeared to remove social planning to a depoliticized plane. This depoliticization of social issues by means of neutral expertise must be examined against the background of a general political shift toward acceptance of state intervention by the major parties. The word "social" which was once a sign of left-wing leanings gradually lost its cutting edge as the confessionals and old liberals, under increasing pressure from the rise of working class political organization, moved toward more the more conciliatory acceptance of collective social responsibility. The liberals formed their Committee for Discussion of the Social Question in 1870, the Anti-Revolutionarys held their first Social Congress in 1891, reform, and the Catholics, the last to organize for social followed with a Social Week in 1908. The shared antagonism of liberals and confessionals toward the socialist menace frequently brought them together in working coalitions. The detachment of social reform from 207 the socialists became an important tactic for defusing the attraction of the social democratic movement. Right-wing parties continued to deny the existence of class struggle and opposed militant tactics such as the strike, but developed their for social reform. 14 own organizations own unions and created their The word "social" thus lost its threatening associations with the overthrow of the existing political and economic order and came rather to represent a position favoring the improvement of material living standards. Writing in 1909 the socialist de Vooys described the use of the word in connection with the term "social hygiene." "The word 'social' actually indicates a different meaning than the literal one. In our time, there is a social movement which clearly aims to raise an oppressed sector of society, the class of wage laborors, to a higher standard of living."115 However, the word "neutral" itself was not without its political overtones. During the school struggle which overshadowed all Dutch politics during the second half of the nineteenth century, confessional parties had contested the liberal notion that "neutral" non-denominational schools. support only the state It was argued that a "neutral" curriculum in history omitting reference to divine intervention, was as partisan to an Anti-Revolutionay parent as a history would be to a liberal parent. fundamentalist reading of Institutions such as the Nut which called themselves neutral openly supported the liberal Neutrality often served as a password for liberal, of some liberal unions as "neutral." school position. as in the designation Even where neutral meant silence on political issues, that silence could be interpreted as a political position. Thus the socialist Wibaut took the reform Toynbee organization Ons Huis to task for its neutrality on strikes, which he compared 208 unfavorably with English settlement house behavior.116 But influential socialists like P. L. Tak did come to support the efforts of organizations such as the CBSA and the School for Social Work. Tak defended his support for the latter, the school run by his "honorable opponents," because it provided expertise for social reform. The movement which we promise needs talents which the workers themselves cannot yet provide; thus they will fully appreciate it if young men and women wish to take advantage of this institution to render them services. 1 1 7 The fog of anarchy is clearing away with the daybreak of socialism. All kinds of institutions are beginning to appear and when they reach full growth they will take the place of anarchy in the future system. To achieve this a work force is necessary, but we can't supply the laborors, at least, not many, for we are too busy with the main business: the planting of Social Democracy in the hearts and minds of the workers. But it is pleasing to see now that the immediate care for many of the destitute has been assumed by trained members of the most well-intentioned 8 bourgeoise. 1 1 In expertise had a Tak's assessment, political making neutrality affiliation, validity which could be detached from The equivalent to objectivity. CBSA could thus provide "trained experts" to serve the welfare of the working class. Housing was one of the aspects of the social question which the CBSA planned to address. The CBSA took the lead in organizing the housing efforts of the CBSA itself, as well as a local Amsterdam group and finally a national body of housing reformers. Throughout the period in which these organizations took form, a relatively small number of dedicated housing reformers were actively engaged as the organizations themselves grew more professional, more official, and more prestigious. inception the CBSA had plans for a housing committee. From its At the same time the Nut had decided at its committee on housing. Representatives from the SDAP, Patrimonium, the general meeting in 1898 to establish a national Catholic Party, the liberal union the ANWV, and the Society for the 209 Advancement of Architecture accepted invitations to participate in a preliminary meeting.120 The committee was to consist of housing experts who would give advice on practical aspects of housing improvement, that is, to answer questions about legal, financial, and technical issues, including the siting of housing in relation to workplace and transportation, street plans, the size and arrangement of housing.121 On January 16 the preparatory committee met with representatives of more than thirty societies and appointed a permanent housing committee, but since the CBSA was concurrently being organized, wait in order to coordinate their the Nut's committee decided to housing endeavors. In October, the Nut committee met with the board of the CBSA and decided to associate the housing committee with the CBSA which would provide administrative assistence.122 The new committee began immediately to respond to questions from workers' organizations, particularly about the legal forms for the housing societies defined by the new Housing Act. The CBSA became the leading authority on setting up new housing societies, not only offering advice about administrative and financial issues, but also 12 3 directing new societies to appropriate architectural assistence. In 1901 the CBSA decided to establish a central office on housing for Amsterdam, to advise individuals and government on the possibilities for housing improvement offered by the new housing act. In- October 1901 it invited housing reformers "belonging to the most disparate political orientations" to a meeting led by A. Kerdijk, Amsterdam Housing Council was founded. 1 2 4 and in December 1901 the After trying unsuccessfully to draw up plans in the new districts for a housing society intended for workers earning less than f12.00 per week, the council petitioned the city to reform its system of setting land lease rates. It carried out and 210 published a series of studies on Amsterdam's parks, the condition of the old city, municipal housing and a retrospective on housing improvement in Amsterdam put out for the 1913 International Housing Congress.125 While its practical accomplishments were few, the council formed an important housing lobby, whose influential members included a number of city councillors. The experience with the Amsterdam Housing Council inspired Dirk Hudig, then director of the CBSA and an active member of the Amsterdam Housing Council, to suggest in 1914 the formation of a central organization for planning and housing on the national level. Hudig was convinced that none of the existing societies covered the entire range of the housing question. He proposed that a centralized institute work in the four directions of research, consultation, propaganda, and archives. The institute would coordinate the activities of the existing housing organizations. He explicitly called for an institute separate from the CBSA in order to catch the interest of more circles, that is, to disassociate the new institute from housing views already expressed by the CBSA, and thereby insure the broadest possible support.126 Although there was sufficient support for this idea from other housing reformers, the First World War and a number of delays interrupted the proceedings, so that it was not until 1918 that the Dutch Housing Institute (Nederlandsch Instituut voor Volkshuisvesting) was founded. consisted of representatives from organizations The board of officers active in housing reform.127 The institute became the central clearing house for information about housing and planning. It sponsored research, published a journal (Tijdschrift voor Volkshuisvesting) from 1920, and maintained liaison with the international housing community. It became the pre- 211 eminent national authority on housing issues. With the successful establishment of the Dutch Housing Institute, the Amsterdam Housing Council soon came to the conclusion that it had 128 fulfilled its mission and that it had been superceded. 1920, and was followed in 1923 by the CBSA. It dissolved in The CBSA, which had started as an umbrella organization to a number of committees addressing various aspects of the social question, had witnessed during its existence the growth in the separate organization and professionalization of those issues. To the extent that it had fostered the development of that organized expertise, it also eliminated the need for its own existence. Organizations like the CBSA and the Amsterdam Housing Council had paved the way to the creation of the Dutch Housing Institute which signalled the firm establishment of a national professional organization in the fields of housing and planning. 212 Conclusion At the turn of the century the housing question appeared to be one aspect of social life which was not plagued by political and religious divisions.129 A wide political spectrum embraced the cause of good housing and accepted the principle of government intervention on behalf of But the proper means to accomplish housing reform remained a housing. subject of political debate which took place in Amsterdam within the city council, civil service, and the ranks of housing experts. Yet the argument for the neutrality of housing expertise was sustained against acknowledgment of the intrinsically political nature of the housing question. The housing societies, for instance, were usually affiliated with one of the four political pillars and in federations formed along party lines. 1919 they joined large Hudig argued against this "pillarization" of the housing societies and put forth pragmatic reasons against their political affiliation. Talent would be spread thin, he claimed; the unnecessary multiplication of efforts would create administrative problems, and political favoritism would influence council votes. Underlying his argument lay the view that housing expertise is essentially apolitical: "there is no party line on the preferable type of housing or rental policy, any more than there is on the design of a gasworks or the layout of parks." 13 0 Hudig and others who were dedicated to the development of a planning and housing profession subscribed to the rational model of social problem- solving which van Marken the liberal and van der Goes the socialist had described in the 1890s. Van Marken had promoted the mechanical engineer as a model for the the social reform professional; van 213 der Goes had compared the social sciences to medicine and found them lacking. One can state with a great degree of certainty what causes particular disturbances in bodily functions, and what will result from particular medications and diets, because the symptoms of disease and recovery have been carefully observed. But one cannot state the causes for the poor constitution of society, or what one should do to eliminate those causes. At least no authoritative theory exists on these matters, no collection of general observations which would more or less apply equally throughout the civilized world. There is no clearly formulated system of probable causes and effects that one could consult as a matter of course as cases occur. No, not unlike the practice of medicine in The backward regions, everyone has to doctor society on his own. possibility that there could actually be a general classification of the symptoms involved is held in doubt and even denied.131 But van der Goes was convinced that such a science of society could be developed, and that "someday we will talk about the defects of society as impartially as we now do for the diseases of the body. ,132 An intellectual evolution was at work which would ultimately "end up by establishing clear formulas for the objective knowledge of life." 1 33 In the meantime, van der Goes compared the variety of opinions on the nature of society, its ills, and their reform to the superstitions which held back scientific understanding. "There is no Catholic chemistry, conservative mechanics,.no Anti-Revolutionary botany," he noted. no "But there is an Anti-Revolutionary politics, a conservative theory of society, and a Catholic solution to the social question."134 The important social questions of the day were treated without the required objectivity. We do not sense their great practical import. We do not realise that the laughable layman hinders their serious treatment. We do not acknowledge the urgency of what I have mentioned, which that one must reject all arbitrary amounts to the following: opinions and principles that do not fit within a system of serious sociology designed on the only trustworthy basis for human knowledge, patient observation and careful generalization. And least of all do we admit that it is as foolish to have an original opinion about politics as about electricity or surgery. Yet it is certain that we will eventually manipulate the gears and levers of society with the same confidence as the doctor and the naturalist 214 now manipulate their tools. We will cease to distinguish between liberal and conservative policies, just as we have stopped 135 speaking of a sacred and profane physics. Arguments like van der Goes' and van Marken's colored the self perception of the professions which answered society's call for social expertise. If physics, chemistry, or medicine could be approached with a scientific objectivity free from politics, so too could social issues like housing and planning. Social problems could be "solved" by experts who modelled their professional identities on engineers; social ills could be "cured" by experts who modelled themselves on doctors. In either case, the authority of the expert was maintained by a claim to neutrality, a strategy which confused depoliticization with scientific objectivity. Despite the failure of the professions to establish a unified discipline of housing and planning, the image of neutrality permitted the creation of legitimized professional roles and institutions. 215 Chapter Six SOCIAL EXPERTISE: CIVILIZING THE WORKING CLASS Introduction The new social policy adopted by the Dutch government in the 1901 Housing Act carved out a new arena for expertise in the service of collective interests. As we have seen, the challenge to create and organize the necessary expertise was met through a struggle among existing professions to establish dominance in the new fields of planning and housing. While there was relatively little success in creating a theoretically sound and independent discipline, nonetheless housing and planning experts from diverse disciplinary backgrounds managed to establish institutions whose promise of scientific objectivity and political neutrality gained widespread acceptance and government cooperation. At the municipal level in Amsterdam, these experts assumed positions important to the local regulation of the Housing Act. Many of the leaders of the national housing reform movement were associated with Amsterdam, placing that city in a special position when it came time for it to address the application of the new act. The Housing Act had been initiated at the national level of government; however, its effectiveness depended as much on local initiative as on continuing support from the 216 Given the tradition state. position of cultural, surprise of Amsterdam political social, radicalism, leadership, and political it Amsterdam applied the Housing Act during its that and its comes as no twenty first years with a force unequalled by any of the other major cities in the In fact Amsterdam's vigorous support of the Housing Act Netherlands. sometimes brought it into conflict with the national government which varied over the years in both committment to increasing the quality of mass housing and its support of government subsidized housing. The growth of socialist representation on the municipal council undoubtedly contributed to Amsterdam's commitment to housing, particularly to the inauguration of municipal housing in 1914, but the support and vocal participation of reform liberals and worker-oriented confessionals must not be overlooked. While the Social Democrats were the most vocal supporters of measures intended to enhance housing quality, their numbers never exceeded 16 of the 45 seats in the council during the period under discussion. Of paramount importance to the special character of Amsterdam's reform efforts was the coterie of housing specialists who operated at the local level while also exerting a national influence. As they moved from positions within the charity organizations, from within the labor movement, or from the Technical Institute of Delft, into official and semi-official government advisory boards, the housing experts formed a small circle whose names we see repeated in various capacities. Philanthropic figures like Willem Spakler and C. W. Janssen, important for their financial support of private housing societies and social work organizations faded in importance as their expert associates such as Johanna ter Meulen, Louise van der Pek-Went, and J. Kruseman grew in 217 stature and authority. and Harmsen, Tak and Wibaut played roles inside and outside government. Delft engineers positions in such as A. the civil Berlage participated in Left-wing union and party figures such as Wollring Keppler and Tellegen took up important service, in like van der Pek and while architects a variety of reform organizations and committees addition to designing housing projects. Many of these housing reform experts encountered each other repeatedly on committees and in reform organizations. The participants in the Amsterdam Housing Council, the CBSA, the School for Social Work, Ons Huis, the Temperance Society (Volksbond tegen Drankmisbruik), the Health Board and Welfare Board (Armbestuur) overlapped considerably. With the organization of municipal housing, the committee to advise its management was drawn from the same housing clique, as were the trustees for the many housing societies formed to carry out the provisions of the Housing Act. This group of reformers thus assumed key positions from which to influence thinking about the form of government supported housing. 218 The Organization of Housing Expertise in Amsterdam We have seen the withdrawal of the city council from active intervention in the planning process, the relative indifference of the Public Works Department to planning, and the ineffectiveness of the Health Board during the nineteenth century. philanthropy did little the Serrurier report, The occasional efforts of private to counter the speculative housing, described in which created the new working class districts of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. By 1909, newly organized housing societies began to build in Amsterdam under the auspices of the Housing Act. Between 1908 and 1919 the municipal council approved proposals for over 14,000 housing units to be built with government assistence both for the housing societies and the municipality itself. During this pioneer period of government supported housing, housing design came for the first time under the influence of the housing experts. The municipal civil service had been reorganized to deal with the new scale of housing devlopment. At first Building and Housing Inspection was the agency with primary responsibility for the execution of the Housing Act. From 1915 this task was split with the Housing Authority. The Housing Authority administered the housing to be built with government support, while Building and Housing Inspection administered condemnations and improvements to existing housing stock. The organization of advisory expertise at the municipal level divided housing into two general areas of concerns, health and beauty. practice this was a division between plan and facade. In The first came under the jurisdiction of the Health Board, whose constitution was 219 prescribed by the Housing Act. The Health Board reviewed proposed loans to housing societies, commenting primarily on the sanitary and life-style It also tried to gain implications of the siting, orientation and layout. some influence over general city planning and neighborhood layout. of the Beauty Commission, second came under the jurisdiction discussed in greater detail in a later which will be The commission, chapter. The which originated in 1898 on the suggestion of several of the local architectural societies, reviewed facade designs proposed for municipally owned land. With the increased application of municipal land leasing the commission grew in importance. Since housing societies built almost exclusively on municipally owned land, the Beauty Commission came to play an important role in guiding the design of housing facades. Finally, institutions of housing expertise played a role in petitioning, lobbying, Council played a and informing the public. role outside government as a The Amsterdam Housing center for information Its housing and as a pressure group for housing policy. concerns about included the improvement of urban amenities, attention to aesthetics, and the development of appropriate forms of mass housing. It was joined in its efforts by such local organizations as the Federation of Amsterdam Housing Societies (Federatie van Amsterdamsch Woningbouwvereenigingen) national organizations which had their National Housing Council base in and by Amsterdam such as the (Nationale Woningraad) or the Temperance Society. In the nineteenth century, the design of housing had been in large part dictated by the exigencies of the market place. Small builders with little economic power built as cheaply as possible, dividing neighborhoods into as many dwellings as possible. With the sharp growth in housing demand due to population increase, the dwellers' preferences had little 220 impact on the product provided. In the twentieth century the Housing Act made possible a new system of publicly supported housing which introduced a public process for approval of housing design. representing the collective interest, The expert's views, were introduced. While in the late nineteenth century, the privately funded philanthropic building societies could build according strictly to the insights of their supporters, in the twentieth century, design decisions were made subject to public discussion. As we shall see in this and the following chapter, public discussion of the appropriate design of mass housing was shaped by the social relations among the experts, the bureaucrats, politician, and the dwellers themselves. 221 Urbanizing the Working Class In Chapter Four we saw that agitation for improved housing drew its strength from reformers' observations, analysis and criticism of both inner city slums and the new districts of speculative housing like the Pijp. In reaction against the terrible health hazards and horrifying living conditions they observed, bourgeois reformers sought means to promote improved housing. This meant not only measures to increase health and safety, but also means to foster proper hygienic practices and moral behavior since, in the nineteenth century, cleanliness and morality, home life and moral character were considered to be closely linked. At the beginning of the twentieth century, legislative reform of housing had been justified as a means to raise the health and moral standards of the people. The assumed reciprocal linkages between hygiene and morality persisted during the first decades of the twentieth century. That better housing would foster better behavior, while virtuous behavior would improve living conditions, was taken as axiomatic. Thus during a 1913 housing exhibition a respected Dutch reformer lectured that bad housing causes bad temper, household quarrels, philandering, alcoholism, waste of money, neglect of children, that it is the enemy of household virtues, and leads to uncleanliness, disorder and immorality.2 In 1914, Dr. Middendorp, writing in a popular health magazine, argued that "air, light, and sunshine entered into the new dwelling, and with them tidiness, thrift, and domesticity."3 Although hygiene was the first area of housing expertise to become organized, and statistical investigations of health conditions, housing surveys, and technical investigations of housing were carried out, the relationship between housing and behavior was not 222 systematically studied. In 1890 Hasselt and Verschoor, who had been asked by the Nut to comment on the influence of housing on alcoholism as part of study, their hesitated to draw any concrete conclusions, noting that no long-term observations had yet been carried out which might suggest a relationship between the improvement of housing and a decrease in alcohol consumption.4 But the relationship, which reformers had cited for half a century, continued to carry weight into the twentieth century. In a novel written to enlighten working class girls about the household virtues, a young visitor to the heroine's model home laments, "Oh, if only it was 5 half as nice at home as it is here, then father would not go to the pub." The same sentiments were echoed in the pages of the Journal of Social Hygiene (Tijdschrift van Sociale Hygiene) in 1917: "The more unpleasant the home, the more likely the man of the house will seek refuge in the pub."6 In one of the first meetings of the council's advisory committee on municipal housing (Commissie van advies in het beheer der gemeentelijke woningen) in 1915, alcoholism was declared by Dr. Ben H. Sajet to be one 7 of the consequences of bad housing. A series of assumptions persistent from the nineteenth century about the relationship between housing and behavior permeated the housing reform movement, finding their way into official documents. The explanatory memorandum accompanying the proposed Housing Act, for instance, incorporated much of the contemporary wisdom: A good healthy house is conducive to domesticity and cleanliness; a bad house, on the other hand, is conducive to disorder and wastefulness. It may be true that many women, no matter where they are, will always remain impractical and slovenly. But many others, even with the best of will, have given up the struggle because they have to live in a slum, nearly without light and air, where the stink was unbearable and where, even with the greatest care, the steadily increasing family could not be housed any more decently. Ten to one, these women would be better housewives and mothers if they were put into a better environment. And another 223 factor should be considered. There are, unfortunately, many fathers who fritter away a large part of their wages outside the home. It would be unreasonable to contend that this would no longer occur if better housing were provided, but it would be just as unreasonable to maintain that the want of a cozy household hearth never sent a man of f to the pub." 8 To the extent that housing reformers consciously attempted to guide workers' behavior toward a new orderly conduct, they contributed to a broader, ongoing response to the urban problem, a response which was shaping the style of life to be led under new economic and social This conditions toward a new urban civility. civilizing response was to be observed in changes throughout the nineteenth century, all tending toward the creation of a new civil order. Aside from the introduction of orderly infrastructure such as sewage, water, and public transportation, social life had become more regulated. Police patrolled the streets, causing more than one older inhabitant to comment on a perceived loss of freedom of movement. occasions Public holidays such as Hartjesdag, traditionally for highspirited street shenanigans as well as vandalism, were railed against and gradually became more peaceful. Cruel sports such as "eel-pulling" were outlawed and the yearly carnival was abolished in midcentury. The modernization of urban life forced some patterns to change, but allowed others to persist. The old urban neighborhoods of Amsterdam lost some of their isolation, but maintained their character, while newer districts like the Pijp, Dapperbuurt and Kinkerbuurt developed correspondingly strong identities in which the central placement of markets played an important role. But with the movement of residential areas to the rim of the city, and the consequent separation of home and workplace, with the increase in material welfare and general education, shifts were induced in working class life styles. Housing reform afforded experts an opportunity to influence those shifts. While there is 224 scattered, inconclusive evidence that housing reform was perceived as a means to reduce urban unrest,9 most application of housing expertise took place in the context of a search for means to foster social order in the face of the overwhelming administrative and practical problems posed by rapid urban growth. Workers themselves adjusted to new social and economic conditions of the urban environment by developing their coping strategies. own At the same time, middle class experts brought their own assumptions to bear as they developed visions of a new social order. Disagreement between their respective positions could take place in one of two planes: either on the basis of differing class perspectives, or on the basis of differing lay and professional perspectives. Housing reform drew both on its strength as an area of legislative and administrative expertise and on its heritage from nineteenth century philanthropy. Housing reform was on the one hand the vehicle for persistent nineteenth century bourgeois reform attitudes, and on the other hand at its disposal the full arsenal of new legislative and administrative roles, enhanced by official recognition. 225 Legislative means to improve housing The 1901 Housing Act reflected housing reform measures which had been suggested by organizations such as the Nut, Temperance Society, and Public Health Convention. It addressed hygiene both negatively (through the condemnation of unfit dwellings and slum clearance to remove unfit and positively (through the requirement of a local building dwellings), After some ordinance to ensure future construction of adequate housing). deliberation, the legislators had decided not to try to introduce national minimum standards, but to allow each municipality to respond to local requirements points: and traditions. Each was required to cover the following the siting of buildings, the floor level and height of the building, the measurements of the living areas, stairs, and entries, toilets, availability of water, fire prevention, prevention of dampness, solidity, elimination of smoke, water, and sewage, adequate light and air. 10 The reorganization of building inspection in Amsterdam even before passage of the Housing Act had been widely perceived as a progressive and innovative move. The choice of Tellegen to head the new service was representative of a shift to appointing technical experts to bureaucratic positions. standards financed. Tellegen's proposed building ordinance of of hygiene for all Its housing, set new both publicly and privately highly detailed specifications incomplete ordinance. 1905 replaced an obsolete and To increase light in the dwelling it regulated the relation between building height and street width and the ratio of wall to window area, and it outlawed dwellings in alley courtyards. ventilation, it required outlets from the toilet, To increase a minimum ceiling height 226 of 2.7 meters, and it abolished the cellar dwelling. It prohibited construction of housing over five storeys. Later, on the recommendation of the Health Board the height of building north of the Ij was restricted 12 to three storeys. Tellegen's building ordinance was a milestone in housing legislation, and the culmination of a half-century of housing reform. When it was put before the municipal council it met with objections from several council members that it was the product of one man thinking for the rest, but in It rested on fact the antecedents of the ordinance were clear.13 discussions which had been carried out in the Public Health Convention, in reform journals, and at international conferences. 4 The building ordinance was also subject to public debate in the council where it soon became apparent that setting housing standards involved far more than the scientific process recommended by Dr. Weijerman in his dissertation on building inspection. 15 As the building ordinance was debated in the city council, the social and economic implications of minimum housing standards became a political issue. In the city council the building ordinance was met by a generally favorable council reaction. The principle of municipal regulation of building practice to ensure healthful housing construction was not disputed, but the setting of standards produced two extreme camps. It had been generally recognized that raising building standards would raise costs, and that the general populace could not bear higher rents. Higher standards almost inevitably implied that the private building trades could not continue as they were organized. opposed reactions. These consequences were met with On the right were the confessional councillors Schut and Hendrix who represented real estate and builders' interests. They 227 predicted that the too high standards and complicated requirements of the building ordinance would lead to increased rents, decreased building, and unemployment.16 On the left, Social Democrats Polak and Tak greeted the potential demise of the commercial builders as an opportunity for nonprofit housing societies and the municipality to step in to provide the necessary housing. Tak used the occasion to declaim his socialist objections to housing and real estate as profit making enterprises, claiming that in order to guarantee "that houses will in fact be decent lodgings for human beings, we are forced to think that it is inappropriate in the long run for the task of house construction to remain a profitmaking enterprise. For numbers of people that profit-making side of housing and real-estate produces a home that many a good farmer would not accept for his cattle."1 7 Accordingly the socialists introduced amendments to increase the stringency of the standards, while the confessionals introduced amendments to decrease their stringency.18 But aside from the policy implications for private or public housing, there was a discrepancy to be observed in the council between the standards council members were willing to accept as appropriate. Tak spoke of even the major changes to be introduced by the building ordinance as standards which in forty years would no longer satisfy. 19 In fact, by abolishing the alcove and built-in bed, an amendment proposed by Tak and Polak, the Amsterdam council preceded Rotterdam by more than fifteen years. But it did so over the objections of a council member like Hendrix who asked whether the alcove was so bad for health that it had to be eliminated, given the financial consequences its disappearance would cause. The assessment of hygienic standards on the council floor was a function of 20 political economy. 228 Legislating building practices standards in ventilation Amsterdam. in contributed to raising Wider communal stairs, well-lit living halls, better Hygienic reform was new housing were immediate results. further supported by efforts in the Health Board to foster better planning practices. In the Indischebuurt and Spaarndammerbuurt the committee influenced new neighborhood plans for working class residential areas. It encouraged a north-south street orientation for better sun exposure, and parcels with wider street frontage and shallower depths to increase exposure to sun and air.21 The Health Board also worked in conjunction with the Building and Housing Inspection to inspect and condemn housing which did not meet minimum requirements under the building ordinance. Since the inhabitants were then forced to find other housing, procedure came under increasingly evinced two extreme positions. sharp review by the council, this which again The council faced a choice between initiating municipal housing to provide a guarantee of decent, cheap replacement housing or eliminating condemnations by lowering its minimum housing standards. With the advent of the First World War, the council approved municipal housing, but condemnations had virtually ceased after 1912 under the pressure of severe housing shortages. 22 Although Tellegen's building ordinance was a major accomplishment, its influence was limited in a number of ways. circumvent the letter of the law. Builders found ways to According to Amsterdam building inspector Mels Meijers, alcoves were surreptitiously added after the 23 building had passed inspection by adding partitions prior to occupancy. And even when the building ordinance did perform as expected, it operated as a preventive rather than a prescriptive instrument. It could neither guarantee that housing design would improve nor insure that housing would 229 be properly used. In fact, Schut had argued against passage of the ordinance by blaming the inhabitants for producing bad housing conditions because of their lack of appreciation for hygienic construction. 2 4 Schut's attitude echoed that of nineteenth century reformers who claimed that workers had to be taught how to live. 2 5 Finally, even Tellegen himself in 1914 had to admit that a strong ordinance alone was insufficient to produce better'housing design, and he called for the design of better housing types. of the Housing Authority, Keppler in After five years as head 1920 commented that the building ordinance alone had not proved sufficient, for it had-been necessary to set higher standards for the housing societies. 2 6 But, for the experts to determine new housing types, it was first necessary to make assumptions about how the working class should live. The attempt had been made to make some aspects of housing use subject to legislation. At the second Public Health Convention the suggestion had been made that a "living" ordinance be introduced.27 This suggestion was represented in the Housing Act by the section which permitted a building ordinance to contain provisions pertaining to the nature and use of the dwelling, extermination of vermin, sleeping arrangements, the maximum number of dwellings in a building, and the relation between the number of inhabitants and the volume of space. 28 The provision for a ordinance was taken up in the Amsterdam ordinance 2 9 "living" but enforcement remained problematic, and the ordinance barely covered the issues which reformers raised consistently: subletting, boarders, the use of the home as workplace, either as a store or for manufacture, the keeping of animals, cleaning habits, laundry habits - all aspects of daily life which had implications for the design of a model housing type. 230 The requirements for a safe and healthy home could be expressed with the relatively objective building requirements to promote air, light, and good sanitation. In addition to these requirements based on hygiene expertise, housing experts turned to the problem of determining less legislatable issues of life style and living habits. lay at their disposal. A number of means They exerted their influence through their advisory positions in government and the housing societies. Through management of housing and propaganda, they exerted an influence on the shape of working class life. However, unlike the influence exerted on hygienic measures which might appear relatively neutral, ideas about appropriate working class life style differed in emphasis with the varying philosophies of the Dutch pillars. That housing expertise should play a role in shaping a new urban civility was not a subject for dispute among the leaders of the segmented society, but agreement on the general goal did not guarantee agreement on the specific content of the reforms. 231 Training the Working Class Several of the means housing experts had at their command to influence working class life style were continuations of reform techniques developed in the nineteenth century: brochures, and classes; training through personal contact, rental regulations and other techniques for managing housing projects; the physical environment itself, either through the general civilizing benefit of improved, hygienic housing, or through the form of housing manipulated as reward or constraint. Whether or not these means had the desired effect of changing working class behavior lies outside the scope of this study. efficacy of such means led to their Reformers' belief in the application, so that it is possible to examine their influence on the physical environment itself, regardless of the success in reforming behavior. The primary impulse toward training the working class had emanated from such liberal reform circles as the Nut whose work encouraging thrift and education through its savings banks and libraries extended to brochures on nutrition, hygiene, housekeeping, and the proper way to arrange a home. 3 0 With the prospect of the increasing production of government and privately subsidized housing, especially for slum dwellers, reformers at the end of the century insisted that the poor needed to be taught how to use their new homes.31 The idea of training the working class how to properly conduct its daily life continued into the first decades of the twentieth century. It was suggested, for instance, in the pages of the Journal for Social Hygiene that instruction to the housewife on how to live in her house should be carried out through brochures, inspection, and classes in household care. 3 2 For some reformers such 232 training was motivated by the assumption that reform of working class If workers were made behavior would contribute to housing improvement. aware of the necessity of good housing, they would leave their slums; that is, they would be willing to pay more of their salary for better housing. They would postpone marriage until they could afford decent housing, and once installed in improved housing, would exercise the virtues of thrift to maintain it properly.33 At the 1913 exhibition De Vrouw which was organized by bourgeois feminists, a display at the Social Work area contrasted two workers' homes, inhabited respectively by Jan Stavast (the model worker) and Jan Salie their two families. (the misguided worker), with Although the families were equivalent in size and income, and the homes were both one-room dwellings at the same rent, Jan Stavast had made wise use of his funds, arranging the house in a proper and hygienic manner. "Jan Stavast also profitted from all the social Jan Salie, out of habit agencies which are a real benefit to the worker. and obstinacy, enjoyed few of these advantages."34 Jan Stavast took advantage of the expertise of Martine Wittop Koning on nutrition, and of the vocational school of the Society for the Improvement of Women's Clothing (Vakschool der Vereeniging voor Verbetering van Vrouwenkleeding) for clothes.35 There was a movement to make such expertise more accessible to working class women-, who could not afford the fashionable middle class cooking schools (kookscholen) by introducing courses in housing and hygiene into schools which offered post-elementary school education in workers' districts at low cost after work hours. "better from a and more systematic" teacher than at to learn scrubbing, home from mother, and "in hygienic ideas were better learned in school." It was washing and polishing particular, necessary A suggested curriculum on 233 housing would discuss siting of the house vis a vis width of the street, wind, cleanliness of the surrounding area, neighbors, proximity of play areas, schools and work. Instruction in hygiene would cover dampness, windows and room arrangement for light, air, water and waste disposal, and the arrangement of the house to make as practical and hygienic use as possible of the rooms, including a budget and inventory of a worker's home. 3 6 Experts were to provide the guidelines for working class home behavior. Reformers had previously called for the lower classes to be educated in household skills by cultured ladies on the model of Octavia Hill's work in England. Hasselt and Verschoor in their 1890 report regretted the absense of such civilizing influence in the Netherlands. 3 7 Social work developed into an established profession for Dutch middle class women after Johanna ter Meulen and Louise Went trained with Octavia Hill in the 1890s and Helene Mercier initiated settlement work in the Netherlands. At the School for Social Work founded by Progressive Liberals, future social workers, including those being trained as housing managers, were taught economics and sociology by Treub, hygiene by Weijerman, and housing inspection by Louise Went. They learned about housing surveys, housing types, housing law, and the private and public sectors of housing reform. 38 Hudig and Hennij of the Amsterdam Housing Council supported the work of these social workers in their handbook for housing societies, noting that it led to better use of the dwelling and taught the housewife about settlement work, child care and hygiene.39 As Johanna ter Meulen described the position, the housing inspector for a housing society or municipality participated in the selection of tenants, introduced the new family to the house, instructed them on its use, collected the rent in 234 person, and was responsible for physical maintenance and keeping peace among the dwellers. Her weekly visits to the family to collect the rent were businesslike, but after she had won the trust of the family, she could exert influence on the housekeeping and housing arrangements.40 In the journal ter Meulen wrote during some of the early days of her work as a housing inspector in the 1890s, she noted the composition of the families, their income and employment, illnesses, marriages and births during the period they were in her charge. and thrift, decried poor housekeeping, She lauded self-sufficiency and threatened the argumentative with expulsion, praising one family with the words "they pay faithfully and do what I say." Her attitudes had little changed in 1913 when she advised a fellow worker who was taking up housing inspection "you will be just and kind to them. understanding. They will find you warm, Your heart will go out to them, supportive and even when their deeds provide many opportunities for criticism. ,42 Management techniques developed by the philanthropic societies of the nineteenth century were adopted by the new housing societies under the Housing Act. A rental agreement from the Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse in 1885 forbade lodgers, doves, chickens, and fourfooted animals in the house. The use of the home for any trade or any manufacture without the permission of the inspector was forbidden, and the sale of alcohol or its misuse was strictly forbidden. The use of a laundry tub was forbidden and laundry could only be dried in the attic. Work was specifically forbidden in the attic. remained standard in societies.43 Most of these restrictions the rental agreements of new-formed housing The philanthropic societies of the nineteenth century screened their tenants for cleanliness, alcoholism, and steady employment 235 before renting to them, although different standards might be applied depending on the aims of the society.44 Selection procedures continued to be a factor where housing societies under the Housing Act were run by reformers rather than cooperative ventures organized by the workers themselves. This was particularly so for subsidized housing such as De Arbeiderswoning and municipal housing where the social workers played a role in the screening and classification of families. 4 5 Some of the earliest discussions of municipal housing led to the establishment of a category of families considered too difficult to be housed with the others. These were the socially "unacceptable" or "asocial", who were first to be specially housed and trained before being admitted to municipal housing. Teaching the working class how to live in the new and changing urban environment became the special task of the new professional field of social work. The preferred means for carrying out the training were continuations of the teaching and management schemes developed by housing philanthropists in the nineteenth century. Many of those nineteenth century attitudes persisted among liberal dominated social work circles. However, other pillars also accepted the idea of training the working class and used similar means to express their varying ideological positions. 236 The Pillars and Reform through Housing Although social work emanated from liberal circles, the usefulness of their efforts to raise working class living standards and educational levels was acknowledged by other groups, in particular the socialists. P. L. Tak supported the School for Social Work when it opened, and considered housing improvement as a means to further the spiritual development of the working class. 4 6 In his autobiography written years later, the socialist housing alderman F.M. Wibaut claimed that he learned through his experiences on the Health Board that "the starting point for raising the civility of the working class is improvement of housing" 47 Wibaut was also an active supporter of the settlement houses operated by Ons Huis. But the socialist perspective differed considerably from that of bourgeois reformers. Tak and Wibaut would hardly have supported ter Meulen's depiction of the most important aspect of social work as the rapprochement of the classes, the mutual acknowledgement of duties and responsibilities of one class to the other.48 The Social Democrats were interested in encouraging the development of an organized and disciplined modern workforce. They would join forces with liberal reformers to combat alcoholism and to promote hygiene and good nutrition, but rejected any overtones of bourgeois paternalism or patronage. Hudig commented on the socialist aversion to even well-wishing and modest intrusion from the bourgeoisie into workers' lives. 4 9 While ter Meulen herself carefully wished to distinguish her work from any form of interfering patronage, she also associated her work with the nurturing qualities of a mother. Remarking that Keppler had told her that he did not want a mother for those dwelling in municipal housing, she countered that if he could say 237 that, he did not know what a mother can be, for motherhood is the incarnation of unselfish love, and it fosters independence.50 Ter Meulen admired the socialists Wibaut and Keppler, "whose dedication to the housing issue, free of any party interests, is unassailable in my eyes," 5 1 but she was unable to work with them to organize De Arbeiderswoning, a socialist housing society which built housing with subsidized rents for the poor. Wibaut was chairman, W. A. Bonger, the socialist criminologist, was treasurer, and the socialist bureaucrat Keppler asked ter Meulen to act as secretary. After several meetings, ter Meulen resigned, disgusted by what she described as their insensitive attitude toward the poor: "they spoke in an amazingly insensitive way about the very poorest, and in just as amazingly an oversensitive way about the workers. ,52 Liberal and socialist attitudes toward the working class were separated by their different political programs. However, in their positive assessment of the role of the expert, the socialists did not differ from the liberal reformers. The improvement of working class life through the application of expertise was acceptable in a way that middle class moralism was not. The socialists had their own ideas about the appropriate organization of daily life. Through the Federation of Social Democratic Women's Clubs (Bond van SociaalDemocratische Vrouwenclubs) and its newspaper De Proletarische Vrouw, the Social Democrats tried to arouse interest among women in bettering their housing.53 One of the means the socialists saw to improve housing conditions were communal provisions such as the creche, public bath, laundry and kitchen. Much of housing could be modernized by the use of collectively owned machines which would eliminate drudgery, and therefore, argued M. Wibaut-Berdenis van Berlekom, the working class housewife had to 238 be educated to appreciate commnunal provisions. For instance, in the case of the creche, mothers were reluctant to accept the superiority of experts' techniques over their own. put it: But as Wibaut-Berdenis van Berlekom "...we do not believe that motherhood in and of itself comprises pedagogical insight and talent. Children will be brought up best by those who have the best pedagogical aptitude. Meanwhile, if, for the moment, we do assume that the mother can provide the best upbringing and that she has been carefully prepared for the task of child rearing, then even so, that mother will be unable to apply the training principles which are necessary for the collective society without help from community institutions.".54 Collective facilities ran directly counter to the family life envisioned by the confessional pillars. The Reformed Church favored a patriarchal family, opposed the working mother, and emphasized the sovereignty of the nuclear family. Amsterdam in 1891, The First Christian Social Congress in sponsored by the reformed workers' organization "Patrimonium," opened up discussion of the social question in reformed circles. Housing was not a focus of attention, but received notice in passing. The potential role of parish philanthropy in the provision of housing for the poor was discussed and J. C. Sikkel in a lecture on "The Household and Labor" praised the benefits of home ownership on family life. The Anti-Revolutionary party looked upon government expansion with distrust, preferred private responses to social welfare issues, and acted to protect property rights. In 1894 Patrimonium laid out its social program which, having acknowledged the medical and moral dangers of bad housing, tepidly supported housing reform through tax relief and condemnation. The program also supported application of municipal land lease to facilitate home ownership. The Anti-Revolutionaries never took 239 up the cudgels for housing reform. Prof. D.P.D. Fabius, representative on the Amsterdam muncipal council and member of the Amsterdam Housing Council, favored individual home ownership, system. In and the Amsterdam land lease Livingroom and Family (Huiskamer and Gezin)he praised the traditional image of home and hearth, citing the living room as the room where a mother's influence dominates, from which emanates the warmth that ties the family together.55 In Catholic circles, the moral influence of good housing was argued by Dr. Schaepman and others. A 1902 article by Alfons Ariens claimed, "the way to heaven is easier to find in a roomy clean home than in a slum." 5 6 The housing question was one of the first agenda items of the Central Bureau for Catholic Social Action (Centraal Bureau voor Katholieke Sociale Actie), organized in 1905 along the lines of the CBSA with Aalberse as its general secretary. Aalberse immediately organized a housing course for heads of diocesan committees to diffuse ideas locally. Attention was extended to the housing of the lower middle class whose problems, it was felt, had been previously overlooked, and who formed an important constituency in the movement.57 Like the Anti-Revolutionaries, the Catholics did not pursue housing reform vigorously in the political arena. At the first Social Week held in Utrecht in 1906, housing did not form a point of discussion, although at the 1908 Social Week on the "The municipality and the Social Question" J.M.A. Zoetmulder, leading Catholic housing spokesman and state inspector of housing, spoke on planning, In addition to the usual blame placed building ordinances, and housing. 58 on poor housing for alcoholism, immorality, contagion, and broken family life, the Catholic Social Action accused poor housing of being "the most powerful propaganda for socialism." 59 240 During the first decades of the twentieth century, all of the pillars had agreed that housing was an important social issue and that experts should be called in to contribute to its solution, but the political and ideological differences between them overrode their agreement. Only the socialists favored a solution based on municipal provision of housing, and centralized provision of other residential needs. Confessionals supported the sovereignty of the family, and harmony between the classes. supported enlightened guidance of working class life style. Liberals Strong internal ties within the separate pillars, especially among the Social Democrats, Anti-Revolutionaries and Catholics, their mutual animosity, and their very different perspectives on daily life, obviated much of their potential cooperation on the housing issue. As we shall see their differing attitudes toward housing reform resulted in the splintering of efforts to carry out the provisions of the Housing Act. 241 The Housing Societies The Housing Act provided that housing societies "working exclusively in the interest of housing improvement" might apply to the government for financial assistance in the construction of housing. By 1920, over twenty housing societies had been admitted as Housing Act housing societies in Amsterdam. 6 0 Almost without exception, they were associated with one of the pillars of Dutch society. An observer at the time put it "in the typical Dutch way, people got off to work in small sectarian groups and in circles made up of practitioners of the same trade or job." 6 1 The housing societies thus formed important vehicles for the potential expression of cultural pluralism in housing. We have seen already that this splintering of efforts was much decried among housing reform leaders who saw the housing problem as a whole subject to neutral expertise. Keppler complained about the profusion of societies in Amsterdam around 1916. The situation was exacerbated at the end of World War I when anticipation of expanded housing production, especially in South Amsterdam, led to a further proliferation of societies.6 2 The tenacity of political and religious affiliations among Amsterdam's population prevented cooperation in the organization of non-partisan housing societies. Keppler even complained that it had become hard to estimate the number of stores necessary when planning a neighborhood because the various religious and political factions wanted their own bakeries, butchers, and groceries.63 Neutrality was required, however, of societies requesting straight government subsidies. Attempts to establish the St. Nicolaarstichting, a housing society for poor Catholic families, foundered on the requirement for 242 neutrality. The socialist society De Arbeiderswoning was only able to receive a subsidy because its housing was open to dwellers of all persuasions.64 When reviewing the proposal for municipal housing in 1914, the Health Board considered as one of its advantages the provision of affiliation. housing regardless of religious or political 65 The specialized housing reformers who had achieved recognized positions of authority within the municipal bureaucracy thus perceived the splintering of housing efforts caused by organization along sectarian lines as an impediment to housing reform. For the housing professionals the validity of housing expertise, and consequently the legitimacy of their own position, depended on the notion that housing expertise had an objective, non-partisan basis. Expertise required a neutral status as a science in order to legitimize it on an epistemological basis, and it required a neutral status in politics in order to maintain the offices created for it in the representative city government. To some extent the experts' distrust of the splintering of efforts was justified. Many aspects of housing design and policy could in fact be decided without reference to political or religious preference. However, we have already seen that even aspects of housing reform which appeared most susceptible to objective discussion, such as hygienic standards to set by the building ordinance, were in fact translatable into political issues. Professionals exaggerated the potential of housing expertise for neutrality. Meanwhile the strength of polarization in the Netherlands made it inevitable that sectarian divisions permeated and influenced housing reform. This occurred in two ways. In the first place genuine ideological differences in orientation toward the new urban environment produced differing policy and design options. In the second place, even 243 when issues were not disputed, continuing political and cultural animosities between the various pillars obstructed cooperation. Thus the Catholics looked upon the socialists as enemies, and even where agreement on housing policy existed, cooperation could only be organized through a third, neutral umbrella organization such as the National Housing Council, rather than a joint organization such as a shared housing society. The pillars thus remained a strong organizing force for the expression of pluralism, despite housing professionals' hopes for a movement dominated exclusively by their own "neutral" expertise. The power of the professionals to control housing reform was also threatened from another, unexpected source of opinion. The lay voices of the workers themselves offered viewpoints which did not always concur with those of the experts. 244 Worker initiated housing societies Reformers had expected the housing societies to improve housing conditions both by acting as models to private developers and by teaching the inhabitants better living habits. 1902, many expected that When the Housing Act was passed in the new housing societies which would be established under the auspices of the Act to follow the example of the nineteenth century philanthropic societies. That is, they expected societies like Salerno and Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse, founded by well to do citizens for the benefit of the less fortunate. housing society The "Oud-Amsterdam" which Johanna ter Meulen had previously started with the support of William Spakler and members of her family reorganized under the Housing Act in 1904. The founders of the Amsterdamsche were in Bouwfonds (estblished 1906) large part those previously involved in the Bouwonderneming Jordaan. These societies founded by leading reform experts planned to manage their housing on a sound financial basis so they could serve as models for private enterprise. 6 6 organizers specifically At early meetings of the Amsterdamsche discussed trying new housing types Bouwfonds, the for projects erected for teachers and better off workers whose steady incomes could guarantee that the venture would be financially sound. This was the form of organization recommended by van Gijn, secretary of the National Advisory Committee for the Housing Act. advantage of the organizational, Housing societies were to take financial, and administrative skills of the privileged classes while providing housing without charity on a sound financial basis.67 Conversely, van Gijn's liberal political economy led him to oppose societies organized by workers themselves on a cooperative 245 basis,68 since these would be societies whose purpose was to advance the material interest of their members, in conflict with the statutory aim of housing act societies to improve housing exclusively. Kallenbach had argued in 1892 that workers were too inexperienced with the massive financing required for large scale construction to manage a housing society themselves. If workers were to organize their own housing societies, he added, only the most intelligent and best positioned would gain any advantage from it. Since most workers prefer their poor but cheap housing, failing to see the advantage of a good home, he argued, it was preferable for reformers from the privileged classes to organize housing for them. 6 9 Hasselt and Verschoor also gave consideration to the form of housing societies, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of worker organized societies. Writing over a decade before passage of the Housing Act, their chief objection to workers' societies was financial instability due to lack of capital and inexperience, but they also acknowledged the advantage of workers' insights into their own housing needs. Nonetheless they doubted that worker organized societies would produce better results. "Gentlemen may not be well enough informed about workers' needs, but generally workers are not well enough informed about business."70 In the first years following passage of the Housing Act, housing societies were slow to form. In 1905 only eleven had been admitted under the provisions of the Housing Act in all of the Netherlands. In that year, the legality of cooperative housing societies became a national issue. In Parliament, Tak, Treub, and Borgesius supported acceptance of cooperative societies. During debates at the 1905 Public Health Convention, Tellegen challenged van Gijn and defended cooperative housing 246 societies as ethically preferable since those directly benefitting from Keppler contributed to the the housing would tend to it themselves. controversy over cooperative housing societies in a polemic in De Kroniek in which he looked askance at the societies initiated with bourgeois capital. "In part they seem to me to be dictating from above, they remind me of hofjes." 7 2 in part The experience workers had garnered over previous decades in organizing mutual aid societies and unions had prepared some organizational talent for new housing societies and, once admitted under the Housing Act, workers' societies could borrow the necessary capital from the government. By 1920 worker based housing societies had proved to be successful and viable. Workers had taken an active interests in housing improvement from the mid-nineteenth century. From the 1870s, when labor first began to organize, the liberal union ANWV called for housing reform. meeting in 1890, At its Easter the ANWV asked the government to empower municipalities But for the most part to condemn slums and build replacement housing.73 the nascent labor movement concentrated first on its basic economic and political goals, which were perceived as essential means to achieve improved material conditions for the working class. During most housing controversies in the Amsterdam municipal council, critics pointed to the failure of wages to keep up with rising rents, and the consequent association between poor housing and low wages. Workers were thus more interested in action to better their economic and political situation and less interested in housing reform than bourgeois reformers who saw the housing issue as remediable without major concessions in social, economic or political organization. As a municipal union member put it soon after passage of the Housing Act, "now the housing question is somewhat 247 peculiarly situated within the social question. aspects of the social question, In contrast to other such as wages, working hours and suffrage, those who have a stake in it do not care as much about the housing question as might reasonably be expected. On the other hand, there are those among the upper classes who don't care about wages and the like, but who feel strongly about the housing question." 7 4 The labor movement did maintain an interest in welfare issues, particularly the Fabian influenced Social Democrats whose program of municipal socialism included government provision of housing. L. Hermans, the socialist journalist, and H. H. Wollring, representative of the (Algemeen Nederlandsche Amsterdam section of the Dutch Carpenters Union Timmerliedenbond), attended the meetings of the Public Health Convention, which adopted their motion for a strong Housing Act in 1898.75 Slums and Alleys (Krotten en Sloppen), Herman's survey of slum conditions in old working class districts in Amsterdam written for the league of Amsterdam labor unions,the Amsterdamsche Bestuurdersbond (ABB), expressed a moral outrage at living conditions and also argued for strong measures. 7 6 ABB established a housing bureau, sent out circulars The on housing conditions, and petitioned the Amsterdam council on housing issues such as the building ordinance. The various representatives of the pillarized labor movement participated in the Nut committee on housing, and organized common petitions on housing issues on occasion, but cooperation was made difficult by the usual sectarianism. When the three Amsterdam labor leagues (Socialist, Catholic and Reformed) petitioned the city council together to pass a proposal for municipal housing in 1913, the Catholic and Protestant co-signers refused to attend a protest meeting organized by 248 the SDAP, was called a "protest" meeting, the former because it because they were calling their own separate meeting.77 the latter This was typical of both organized labor's active interest in housing issues and the limited cooperation between its pillars. In addition to the labor leaders, the rank and file workers grew increasingly aware of housing issues. An indication of this change in attitude can be seen in the observation of a housing inspector at the Vereeninging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse that the time was past when "many applicants considered it a great privilege one of the society's dwellings."78 to be allowed to secure By the time of the Housing Act, workers wanted higher standards than the old housing which philanthropic housing societies had to offer, and those workers who already had experience in organizations, such as mutual aid societies and cooperatives, were increasingly prepared to take housing reform into their own hands. The housing societies thus offered the opportunity not only for expression of the values of the various pillars, but also for worker control of housing. factors. However, worker control was to be tempered by several In the first place only the better educated workers, primarily those in the organized labor movement, had access to the experience, inclination, and resources for organizing housing societies. There was still a role for societies organized from above for the poorest layers of society. Secondly, officially sanctioned housing expertise was replacing bourgeois philanthropy as the source of housing standards. Keppler addressed workers in support of worker organized housing societies: workers struggle for better and cheaper homes. "You Let those who sympathize with you and have the ability, exercise their talents to inform you about 249 building plans, financial arrangements and so forth. right path." 7 9 Then we'll be on the Often, these housing experts were the same people who had previously filled the role of housing philanthropists. Faced with the experts' overwhelming experience, their well-developed perspective, and their advantageous societal positions, it often proved difficult for workers to find ways to develop and express their own perspectives on the housing question. At the Second Public Health Convention, Wollring argued that the unions could and should play an important role in housing reform. As the bodies which take as their task the raising of their members materially and societally, they are the gathering places of the workers' wishes and desires, he pointed out. While there are many practical men ready to work for good housing measures, the doctors and engineers, the unions should not be passed over silently as participants.80 this ideal into practice was a difficult struggle. But to put Housing societies proved to be more effective as vehicles for the expression of sectarian interests than as vehicles for lay participation. 250 The Organization of Workers' Housing Societies In 1905 the first housing society in Amsterdam was admitted under the Housing Act. Over the next two years three of the four Housing Act societies were societies set up for workers by reformers, but in the years following, most of the societies were set up on a cooperative basis, with the workers themselves as members and officers of the society. Most of these were based on existing organizations, unions in particular. ACOB (established in 1904) The grew out of the Amsterdam section of the Dutch Teachers Union (Bond van Nederlandsche Onderwijzers). from a union of municipal workers in 1902. Rochdale emerged Eigen Haard was begun by railroad workers associated with the cooperative store movement.81 Many of these housing societies were organized by workers in government service: teachers, transportation workers, municipal gas workers, who had already generated a strong union movement. When the municipal workers at Amsterdam's southern gas works began the process of gaining government approval for a housing society in 1910, they were asked why they could not join forces with the housing society already set up for municipal workers, Rochdale. There was concern that each separate branch of municipal service would want its own society.82 Many of the societies were motivated to establish a separate existence by differences in political and religious orientation. 8 3 Even within the same municipal service, religious convictions led to separate societies: the same year that the workers at the southern gasworks organized, Catholic workers in the Oostergasfabriek established their own housing society, Het Oosten. As these societies grew they came to admit members outside of their original workplace, but the ideological orientation remained. The southern 251 gasworks' society Amsterdam-Zuid became a socialist society which built in the Spaarndammerbuurt in the northwest as well as in south Amsterdam. Oosten grew into the largest Catholic housing society in predominantly Jewish diamond workers Het the country. joined three housing societies: The the socialist labor society, Algemene, the liberal society Handwerkers Vriendenkring, and the orthodox Jewish society Oholei Jacob. 84 When Keppler received a request from the Amsterdam Musicians Society (Amsterdamsche Toonkunstenaars to set up its Vereeniging) own housing society, he asked the mayor and aldermen to put an end to the proliferation of societies by considering loans only to the existing sixteen societies. 8 5 As they organized, many housing societies were set up reflecting both workers' voices and the voices of the pillars. But whatever their political or religious orientation, most of the The CBSA Housing Committee set societies turned to the experts for help. itself up to help nascent housing societies. The CBSA helped societies to draft their statutes and maneuver through the government red tape required in order to attain Housing Act status. The CBSA also provided housing societies with contacts for trustees from among the corps of housing reformers, and directed societies to private sources of capital. It helped societies locate architectural assistance, and gave advice on establishing a housing societies, Hennij, relationship with the architect. The CBSA's handbook on Handliedingen voor Woningbouwvereenigingen by Hudig and first published in 1912, became the standard work on the subject and was often reprinted. the country about starting While the CBSA answered questions from all over up and managing housing societies, it could provide face to face interaction with the local Amsterdam societies. Between 1900 and 1922' it handled 54 requests for advice from Amsterdam 252 societies.86 The Amsterdam Housing Council, which actively tried to stimulate the formation of housing societies in Amsterdam, offered similar services. After meeting with Henri Polak, leader of the diamond workers union, Louise van der Pek-Went suggested that "you submit your well formulated wishes to the housing council so that it can help you establish a society for the improvement of the housing conditions of the diamond workers. This will be the first step that the ANDB must take, whereupon a 8 request for a subsidy from the city can follow." 7 Municipal bureaucrats also played an important role in organizing and guiding the workers' housing societies. Until the establishment of the separate Housing Authority in 1915, the Housing Act was administered in Amsterdam by the Building and Housing Inspection Office. As director of the BWT, Tellegen was closely involved in housing society affairs. Keppler was in charge of Housing Act activities at the BWT, and in 1915 moved his staff over to the new Housing Authority as its head. Both Tellegen and Keppler advised the housing societies on procedure, worked together with them on land acquisition and housing arrangements. Tellegen was instrumental in setting up the building society of the Handwerkers Vriendenkring; Algemeene, Keppler helped found Rochdale, De Arbeiderswoning, Eigen Haard and other societies. the The housing societies depended absolutely on the cooperation of these municipal representatives. Without their assistance and approval, the societies had little chance of putting through their requests for municipal financial assistance. Keppler and Tellegen were thus placed in a position of considerable influence on housing society decisions. In addition to the expertise offered to the societies by the CBSA, the Amsterdam Housing Council, and the municipal officials, the housing 253 societies generally appointed a board of trustees to review their activities and provide council. These were drawn from the ranks of the housing reformers and leaders of the society's pillar or organization. The input from these experts was for the most part welcomed by the workers' housing societies, for whom organization presented numerous difficulties. This lesson had been learned painfully by the only workers' housing society organized during the nineteenth century, the liberal Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijging van eigen woningen. It had started with the objective of providing its members with housing they would eventually pay off and own individually, but financial disaster led them to alter their aim to collective ownership and appoint a board of trustees to 88 oversee their finances. The challenge of initiating large scale housing projects, even where workers had experience of organizing other forms of welfare activity, should not be underestimated. It required administrative and financial skills, fluency with bureaucratic red tape, and the ability to reach decisions about all aspects, architectural, technical, and political, of the housing project. The challenge was met with widely varying degrees of sophistication, particularly in the pioneer years when all were inexperienced in the new procedures. It was not easy to find good administrators among the members, a difficulty not surprising when it is remembered that during the first years the work was taken on without salary by men already working long hours.89 The letters to the CBSA requesting assistance display varying degrees of sophistication ranging from awkward embarrassment and total unfamiliarity with the business world, to smooth fluency in the special Dutch language of bureaucracy. As a result, not all the attempts to found societies succeeded, and of those 254 that did, not all managed to achieve their goal of building housing. A group of teachers ran into misunderstandings with their architect whose plans overshot their budget, but demanded payment nonetheless. to the CBSA for guidance in finding an honest architect.90 They wrote One society, having looked elsewhere for advice, came to the CBSA contritely confessing that it would not stray again. Hudig at the CBSA tried to help a group of typographers, whom he referred to as "these fellows" ("deze luitjes"), to build two-storey row houses in Watergraafsmeer, but their plans foundered. 9 2 execution. It often took years between the conception of a plan and its Trying to whip up interest among the diamond workers for a housing society, labor leader Polak wrote optimistically but naively in 1905 that once established the society could expect to complete its first project in a year and a half. At the same time Tellegen was warning Kruseman that the reformer initiated housing society Amsterdamsche Bouwfonds could expect to wait several years for any municipal action on its request for aid, and the society decided to build first with private capital. 9 3 As the municipal council grew increasingly progressive, and with the decline of the private building industry during the First World War, the council moved faster on approving housing society projects. But materials shortages and rising construction costs often delayed projects, and housing societies had to master the art of perseverance. The bureaucratic difficulties besetting the new housing societies made expert guidance a necessity. How willing, then, were housing experts to respond to lay input and the varying ideological perspectives of the pillarized societies? In the following section the experience of one society will shed some light on the relationship between lay person and expert, while the effect of these relationships on housing design will be discussed in the next chapter. In general, the expression of pluralism incomplete. participation was limited and 255 Rochdale Cooperative Housing Society The founding of Rochdale, the first workers' housing society in Amsterdam, illustrates the problems facing those trying to organize a cooperative housing venture. In April 1902 as the Housing Act was becoming law, an Amsterdam tram conductor, H.Glimmerveen, suggested in the newspaper of the union of muncipal workers, the Centrale Gemeentewerkliedenbond, that the union take advantage of the act's provisions for housing societies. 9 4 The union, with approximately 1700 members, followed a neutral political line, and was composed of Protestant and Catholic, as well as both socialist and syndicalist members. 1902, Glimmerveen, aided by the tram driver P. Throughout the summer of Roeland, both leading members of the union, carried on propaganda in support of a building society.95 In August a committee to study the proposal was formed of representatives from various municipal departments: phone, waterworks, carpentry, and fire. of the new society in sanitation, tele- But between the actual founding 1903 and the actual building of the first project in 1909, the nascent society contended with a number of obstacles. As the committee progressed in its discussions with the director and the alderman of Public Works, the idea of a cooperative housing society was under attack by union syndicalist elements whose revolutionary politics excluded the cooperative movement. The debate between pro- and anti-cooperators was pursued in the pages of the newspaper De Gemeentewerkman and at union meetings. At a January meeting no less a figure than Domela Nieuwenhuis, leader of the syndicalist movement in the Netherlands, argued that cooperation served the interests of the capitalists and reactionaries, and siphoned off workers' energies from the 256 more important work of the revolutionary struggle. One of the union members complained, "it absorbs the best talents in the union and once they have been made into businessmen not much more can be expected of them." 9 6 The defenders of cooperation pointed out the immediate practical value of housing improvement, and argued that "cooperation is the nursery school which educates workers to be more powerful, self-conscious combatants for the place in society they deserve." 97 whole was also divided on the issue. The membership as a When the organizing committee sent out a questionaire to survey interest, some 800 of the 1700 members responded, and of those, 400 venture. By early 1903, appeared to be interested in supporting the and the committee's report on the feasibility advisability of establishing a society had recieved the approval of Tellegen, but with the outbreak of the 1903 Railroad Strike, all organization came to a halt. The Railroad Strike rent the shaky neutrality of the union asunder. A strike by the union of municipal 8 and radical disagreements over strategy workers was narrowly avoided, 9 within the workers' movement led to the withdrawal of Protestant and Catholic workers. Just as Rochdale was formally established in May 1903, the editorial board of De Gemeentewerkman, which had supported the housing society throughout the controversies, split apart along sectarian lines. By 1904 there were two major unions of municipal workers in Amsterdam, the so-called neutral or independent, but primarily syndicalist, Centrale Bond van Gemeentewerklieden and the Bond van Amsterdamsche Gemeentewerklieden which espoused working class electoral politics and the modern (socialist) union movement, as well as two additional confessional unions. The socialist offshoot provided continued support for Rochdale, but in the course of these upheavals the original leader Glimmerveen was deposed 257 because of his leanings toward the Anti-Revolutionary politics of Abraham Kuyper.99 Despite these political setbacks, at the time of its founding in May 1903 Rochdale had high hopes of building in four different districts within the year.100 This naive optimism failed to anticipate the need first for a long bout with bureaucracy. It took until April 1904 to make the statutes of the new society public, and to initiate application procedures for Housing Act status. Then Rochdale had to wait while the legality of cooperative housing societies was debated. Finally in May 1906, having inserted the required clause in its statutes stipulating that its housing would be rented at market rates to insure that the members were not enjoying unfair privileges, Rochdale was admitted as a Housing Act society eligible for government loans. It was three more years, however, before Rochdale maneuvered through the local Amsterdam municipal system and built its first project, in fact, the first Housing Act project in Amsterdam. The Rochdale organizers were placed in the difficult position of negotiating between bourgeois opponents on the right who saw the workers' building cooperative as a threat to private property rights, and revolutionary socialists on the left for whom their reform efforts represented cooptation. There can be little doubt that at the beginning of the twentieth century an independent, worker-organized drive for the improvement of material conditions was necessarily subordinate to existing, well-developed reform expertise originating among bourgeois reformists. It remains a question how much the reliance of the workers' housing societies on reform experts undermined their own interests or contributed to their economic or political vulnerability. The organizers 258 of Rochdale accepted without question that the experts' perceptions and solutions served the workers' interests. wing scepticism with astonishment. The organizing committee answered one round of attacks with these sentiments: now? They responded to extreme left- "What can the committee expect That shortly, with the valued help of some high placed men striving for a working class cause, it will have to defend that cause against the workers themselves?" 1 0 1 The Rochdale organizers themselves exhibited a deference to the experts due in part to their own lack of self-confidence. In his first article in De Gemeentewerkman, Glimmerveen described his aim as getting the union's support to approach the CBSA with the question how to proceed.102 The organizers worked closely with Treub at the CBSA and Tellegen at Building and Housing Inspection. with Keppler.103 P. Roeland met regularly This help was perceived as indispensable. When grass root support for the housing project was slow to develop, the intervention of the director of the municipal tram service, J. H. Neiszen, gave the effort a new impetus. Glimmerveen interpreted the lack of worker response as hesitation: For we understand exceedingly well what happened with our article. We have no knowledge of The business is too overwhelming for us. such matters and don't know how to proceed. The business appeals And the end result is that to us, but we don't dare to tackle it. nothing comes of it. We don't blame anyone and we admit freely we have often felt the same way. The author, who did not enjoy the privilege of finishing elementary school, personally feels all too well the hindrance of a lack of a decent education to come down too hard on others when, for that reason, they shrink from a job which is probably far from child's play. But fear is a poor teacher! And since we now know that we can Let's overcome that fear. count on the support of a man like Mr. Nieszen and since, moreover we can get advice from the CBSA, let's put our best foot forward. 104 During the early period of Rochdale's organization, it was repeatedly 259 noted that dependency on the knowledge of the more educated was necessary.105 Upon reviewing the statutes drawn up for them by the CBSA the members objected to the article calling for members of the society to serve on the board of trustees, since these "could hardly be more than Similarly, relief was expressed at the idea that non-members puppets."106 could serve as officers of the society. "We understand why. The management of such a quickly developing cooperative is not so easy, and might well go beyond the members' intellectual powers."107 In fact, the Rochdale organizers used the expertise and authority of their advisors to defend their venture against the doubts of skeptics, and reassured potential members that their monetary investment was safe because the society did not take a step without the advice of Treub and Tellegen. 1 0 8 Exactly this reliance on help from the "big shots" ("Hooge Oomes") made the venture suspect to a syndicalist like C. J. de Best.109 Glimmerveen defended their not.'workers', usefulness: But "Even though these gentlemen are no one will want to deny that they have a right to participate in a business like this, and that their advice is valuable." 1 10 Aware of their lack of education, training, and experience, the Rochdale organizers treated the advice of the highplaced experts with an unquestioning deference. Although these workers organized their own housing improvement, their actions were highly determined by the Amsterdam housing experts. independence, However their initial efforts seem to indicate a lack of the establishment of a worker-run society like Rochdale was significant for the potential it offered for learning, growth and eventual greater worker participation in housing. 260 Between Deference and Independence The worker-initiated housing societies were composed primarily of the upper echelons of the Amsterdam working classes, the better paid, skilled workers with steady income and union representation. municipal workers, workers The teachers, typographers, diamond workers, and some construction formed the backbone of the housing society population. workers had demonstrated an interest in These organizing themselves to improve their material and cultural well-being, not only through the housing societies, union, but through their bathhouses, and libraries. pension funds, lecture series, But even this group of reform oriented workers was slow at first to respond to the opportunities offered through the Housing Act. Attendance at meetings on the topic of housing improvement was often scant and the membership numbers remained low until there were signs that the venture was viable.1 1 1 When Henri Polak tried to interest members of the ANDB in organizing a cooperative housing society in 1905, he received only 45 positive responses from a membership of over 8000 and considered it useless to proceed with the enterprise on the basis of so little interest. 112 The opportunity for worker-initiated housing societies among unskilled and unorganized casual laborors was even less. resources, high unemployment, and fewer skills, experience of organization for self-help. With fewer these families had less For some of these slum dwellers, housing societies were established by housing experts on the general model of the philanthropic societies of the nineteenth century. That is, comparatively well-to-do figures, not of the working class, initiated housing societies and built housing to be rented to non-members. 261 The primary difference between these societies and the pre-Housing Act societies was the established status of the initiators as housing experts. In 1913 the Amsterdam section of the STVDIA founded the housing society De Arbeiderswoning for large families unable to afford the space sufficient for the family's size.113 Preference was for families from condemned housing who were permitted to rent at lower than market price. 4 The Amsterdam Housing Councl tried to establish a society to build north of the Ij, and sponsored the Amsterdamsche Bouwfonds which built unsubsidized housing and a lodging house for unmarried men. 115 Oud-Amsterdam continued under the Housing Act the activities it had already initiated in slum clearance and rebuilding in the Jordaan.116 Whereas the housing societies initiated by workers enjoyed the advice of the housing reformers, these housing societies initiated from above were directly under the control of the experts. The two largest confessional housing societies developed with assistance from their centralized hierarchies. Leaders of the Amsterdam section of the Reformed workers' society Patrimonium decided to found a housing society in 1910. The prime mover in the founding and running of the housing society was Bossenbroek, secretary of the Amsterdam section of Patrimonium, aided by a committee of leading members such as the municipal council member D. Schut, Prof. P. A. Diepenhorst, and Ds. J. C. Sikkel. Establishment of the housing society, also called Patrimonium, was announced to the general membership in the pages of its newspaper in 1911. The statutes of the new society called for the appointment of officers and trustees by the parent society, and the first trustees included the members of the preparatory committee, with Bossenbroek as chief officer. Propaganda to attract members occurred only after the society had been set 262 up, and housing plans formulated.1 1 7 Het Oosten, the Catholic housing society was initiated in 1911 by a preparatory committee working in association with Catholic Social Action and Zoetmulder, a Catholic state housing inspector. Trustees included Catholic Amsterdam architect Joseph Cuypers and Catholic municipal councilor J. N. Hendrix. 118 Both the housing experts and the separate pillars were able to exert their separate influences through the Amsterdam housing societies. every society founded in Amsterdam before Almost 1923 turned to the CBSA for assistance and was thereby connected to the largely liberal and socialist network of housing experts. Many of the housing societies, but particularly the liberal and socialist societies, included on their boards of trustees at least one representative of the housing reform establishment. The confessional societies drew primarily on their own housing experts. The housing societies became effective means to put across the viewpoints of the experts and the pillars. As means for working class participation in the planning process, their efficacy was more limited. However, in the worker-run housing societies the relationship between the membership and the housing experts changed over time as the societies gained increasing experience and sophistication in management. In 1917 the Amsterdam societies organized a federation to lobby the municipal of all government. The federation represented housing societies pillars. 1 1 9 Given the rights and responsibilities of building and running such large scale operations, the housing societies soon found an independent voice to further their interests. This became particularly evident during the difficult period just after the First World War when the municipality insisted on raising rents to compensate for the large 263 loan increases which inflated materials costs had forced during the war.120 In Rochdale and Eigen Haard, syndicalists led a rejection of rental hikes which almost led to the municipal takeover of their projects. 121 Most of the housing societies took up as part of their mission the kind of moral and spiritual uplift encouraged by the experts, and with Statutes were written to their encouragement adapted some of their means. include screening of potential members and expulsion of misbehaving members.122 Rochdale's job description for housing inspector included collection of rents, inspection of living conditions, and management of repairs, in accordance with the job as described by Johanna ter Meulen, but gave the job to a labor movement worker, H.H. Wollring, instead of a "civilized and educated" middle-class committees composed of the residents to settle ensure good behavior, Other societies organized themselves (bewonings-commissies) disputes between neighbors, to and organize Workers also appeared alongside "gentlemen" on the social activities. 124 boards of trustees: lady. 123 in the housing society Amsterdam Zuid, the board of trustees was composed of two employees of the the south gasworks, the director of the works, Hudig, and Wibaut. 125 The attitude of the workers toward experts was characterized by both deference and a growing sense of their own power. Housing societies turned to experts because of their developed analysis of the housing problem and their experience in the ways of the financial and political world. As a result, worker run housing societies tended to inherit ideas from housing experts rather than developing their own. However, the organizational arrangement of the housing societies placed them in the positon of potential independence. By 1919 some left-wing organizers saw 264 this potential and drew an extreme picture of lay/expert relations. If for once you objectively examine the power and influence of your building society, you will come to the conclusion that it has almost none, and that it is actually little more than a servant to all. It has to accept whatever the higher authorities decide is right. Everything is organized and decided on high. That's the Must it stay that way? real situation. We believe that the time has come that the working class itself become more involved with housing than it has in the past. For too long the design of workers' housing has been ordained by Certainly, we value the support and guidance given by outsiders. reformers from other social milieus. We do not underestimate what has been accomplished by officials and interested individuals. But we believe that from now on, those who have a stake in it themselves must get involved and act more independently. The working class must be made to look at the housin 72uestion with its own eyes and find for it a fitting solution. While this quote exaggerates the distance between a working class and a middle class solution to the housing problem, it does point up the relative correspondance between the lay and worker perspectives or the expert and middle class perspectives. The housing societies were not victims of a top-down conspiracy to alter workers' behavior in conformity with a middle class vision of social order. But as the author of the quoted passage suggests, neither had they succeeded in accruing the power necessary to operate as effective representatives of the workers' interests. Housing professionals worked through two channels. They worked through the apparatus of representatve government, such as the local municipality, to influence legislation and policy. Official positions as experts within the bureaucracy were predicated on the political neutrality of housing expertise, but discussion of legislation and policy in committees and in the municipal council was openly political. Housing issues were thus subject to the mechanisms of ordinary political discourse. 265 In the second place, housing professionals influenced housing design and policy through participation in the housing societies established to carry out the Housing Act. Experts advised the societies as trustees, consultants, or municipal bureaucrats. The housing societies themselves potentially represented the many voices of Dutch pluralistic society. Their viewpoints differed since most were affiliated with one of the Dutch religious and political pillars. Their perspectives further varied because some were organized by middle class reformers, others by workers themselves. But the extent to which these varied voices participated in shaping housing outcomes was limited by the nature of the relationships among them. The pillars, which organized so many aspects of Dutch social life and had a strong political presence apart from the housing issue, developed partisan positions on housing policy which negated the experts' claim for neutrality. But workers rarely found the means or power to express their preferences, instead deferring to housing experts. In the following chapter we will see that the design of housing plans enabled these relations to play themselves out through a multitude of decisions about the appropriate form of workers' housing. 266 Chapter Seven HOUSING DESIGN AND VALUES Results of the Housing Act Between 1909 and 1919 the city of Amsterdam supported the construction of over eighty housing projects built by housing societies under the auspices of the new Housing Act. (See Appendices.) Just as earlier philanthropic societies were expected to build model housing, the newly constituted housing societies described in the last chapter were expected to generate improved housing design which would provide a model to private enterprise. Enthusiasm for the potentially beneficial influence of the housing societies' projects was fostered in the first place by the reformers who had sponsored the Housing Act of 1901. Whether or not they supported large scale government sponsorship of housing construction, reformers perceived the housing societies as a vehicle for improving housing types. builders Van Gijn, for instance, argued that private lacked the time and money to search for good models themselves, but would follow the new housing types to be developed by the housing societies. Many shared the conviction that builders would be forced by market demands to conform to new and higher standards of design to be established by the housing societies. The societies themselves exhibited a high-spirited optimism about their future role. 267 The basis for the optimism was, however, at best uncertain. Reports had made it clear that the model housing of the nineteenth century housing projects had failed in Amsterdam due to the increasing cost of land. While the provisions of the Housing Act were to some extent a response to that issue, it was equally evident, as pointedly discussed in Hasselt and Verschoor's Nut report, that the old housing societies had failed to arrive at satisfactory new housing types. What guaranteed successful design now? Indeed, who was to be responsible for developing the new housing types? With the passage of the Housing Act and the establishment of new housing societies, design had altered from a private to a public process. Reformers and bureaucrats, social workers and architects, not to mention the inhabitants themselves, all considered themselves valid participants in the determination of appropriate housing form. While housing design in Amsterdam occurred within both the context of local housing tradition and the context of an on-going international movement in housing reform, it also took shape within the context of a dialogue between the various interested parties. Each group developed assumptions about the appropriate design of housing which it expressed publicly. power of the groups varied widely. However, the Housing design itself was thus shaped by the network of relationships between the various parties. As an indicator of social relations revealed in the controversies between these groups, housing design became the locus of issues of authority, patronage and expertise. Rather than dialogue among experts characterized by the internal disciplinary concerns of a profession, dialogue about housing design encompassed a variety of perspectives, and its relative openness permitted the expression of a limited degree of pluralism. 268 The chapters that follow discuss the dialogue about housing design in Amsterdam during the pioneer period of public support. As we shall see, differing class, ideological and professional perspectives were represented. ideals. Working class images of home life clashed with middle class Ideological splits between the political and religious pillars affected design results. The power of various professional groups, relative to one another and to the input of the lay inhabitants, helped determine the public dialogue that defined the new housing production system. 269 The Organization of Housing Design: Separation of Plan and Facade As Amsterdam began to put the provisions of the Housing Act into effect, the development of housing projects came to follow standard procedures which subjected the design to review by a number of public and private institutions. At the start of any project a housing society hired The selection of an architect was often on the an architect. recommendation of a civil servant from Building and Housing Inspection (BWT), Housing Authority, or a reformer from the Amsterdam Housing Council or the CBSA. Architect and housing society officers developed the program for the housing project with the degree of member input varying greatly. Open meetings were usually held for the architect to present the plans to the membership; newsletters. plans would be published in union or housing society From the early stages the relevant municipal civil servants participated closely in the planning of the project in preparation of the proposal for municipal approval. Until 1915 the BWT and subsequently the Housing Authority worked with the housing societies to find land, coordinate architectural efforts, establish a site plan, and choose housing types. The society's proposal as submitted to the municipal council for approval generally included a rough site plan, number and types of floor plans, sketch elevations, and budget including estimated rents. Plans, of course, had to conform to the requirements of the 1905 Building Ordinance. They were reviewed by the municipal council's Public Works Committee (CBPW) (and after 1914 the Housing Committee (CBVH)) as well as the Health Board. Plans for municipal housing projects were also reviewed by the Committee for the Management of Municipal Housing. Elevations were subject to approval by a committee representing the local 270 architectural societies, the Beauty Commission. Council approval signified that the municipality was willing to borrow up to 100% of the cost of construction from the central government. Although discussion of housing project design in the municipal council was usually minimal, occasionally issues arose at the time proposals were submitted to vote or during the annual budget discussions when principle issues on all subjects were debated. Once passed by the council, the proposal was subject to ministerial approval, resulting on several occasions in conflict between national and local policy. Aside from these standard procedures leading to passage of a project proposal, newspapers and architectural journals reported and criticized plans, exerting their influence forcefully, while the housing reform organizations monitored housing design and proffered advice to housing societies and architects. This organization of the review process contributed to the separate discussion of plan and facade design. The plan was viewed primarily as part of the hygiene question, an issue subject to the ideas of reformers in housing and health. The facade, on the other hand, belonged to the domain of the architects problem. it was viewed as an aesthetic and urban design This separation of the two design problems meant that each developed along distinct lines reflecting different professional Facade design generated issues of the legitimacy of relations. professional autonomy, public establishment of competency, and the contradiction between a pluralistic society and unified community expression. With the increased involvement of architects in housing design, particularly the most talented Dutch architects, the architectural profession contributed to the separate development of housing facade design. This is the subject of chapters eight to twelve. 271 Plan design raised different issues. There can be little doubt that the housing society projects introduced better plans to Amsterdam housing. Conformance to the building ordinance alone meant better ventilation and lighting, and an end to the sleeping alcove. introduced new design concepts. choices, more different sizes, But housing societies also Plan types proliferated: and more variations in site there were more planning. However, some aspects of plan design which were considered matters of hygiene also touched on controversial matters necessitating an assessment of working class life style. In these cases, assessments might vary along class lines or the ideological lines of the pillars. The degree to which the public good might be served while experts also responded to the pluralistic constitution of Amsterdam society was worked out in the resolution of these controversies. As we shall see by examining a number of these design decisions, there was neither a full expression nor tight repression of pluralism. Housing design provided opportunities for the various interested parties to express their differing perspectives, but that expression was permitted less by virtue of a representative dialogue, than by means of an openness caused by the failure of professional autonomy. 272 Setting Workers' Housing Standards Pointing in 1909 to the remarkable rise in workers' housing standards over the previous thirty years, the Amsterdam Housing Council projected a continuation of the trend: Naturally we cannnot now ascertain with any certainty what the But that it normal dwelling of a worker will be like in 75 years. will be different from the present appears from the fact that changes are being discussed now which give an indication of the direction in which the development will probably go, even if these are now only carried out as rare exceptions. The Housing Council thinks, for example, of central heating, collective laundries, incinerators, baths, roof gardens and community gardens. 2 This forward-looking vision included features as yet uncommon even in middle class housing, and in a footnote the Housing Council modestly admitted, "the Housing Council does not mean to suggest that all of these are likely to materialize. The examples are only intended to indicate that the standard of housing is changing and will continue to change in the future."3 Even though the Housing Council prudently refused to promise the realization of its vision for mass housing, it is significant that the group considered it appropriate to project the application of the latest modern conveniences for workers. Setting its sights so high was an indication of its assumptions about what was fitting for workers' housing design.4 Discussion about working class housing took place on the basis of such assumptions about standards, sometimes explicit, sometimes tacit, occasionally widely shared, often at great variance with each other. Housing standards were set only in part as a function of technical or economic feasibility. political position. the question, class?," To a great extent, standards reflected cultural or Setting housing standards was tantamount to posing "what design specifications are appropriate to the working and in answering this question housing experts, politicians and 273 the workers themselves drew on values which revealed their cultural and political leanings. Much of the debate over housing policy and housing design can be understood as the debate between those conservatives who construed government responsibility to extend toward the provision of state regulated minimum standards and those radicals who wished to harness the state's powers to create ideal conditions. As the minimum conditions society would tolerate shifted, so too did the vision of ideal conditions. Over time both conservatives and radicals shifted their demands and these shifts were indicators of changes in values, in perceptions of the working class and its life style. Whatever role expertise played in contributing to a public dialogue about housing standards, such shifts were not generated by the disciplines of housing expertise. It was not the advance of knowledge, but changing expectations created outside the disciplines which fueled the shift of standards. In 1852 the Royal Institute of Engineers reported that for the least civilized of the lower classes only publicly shared toilets were appropriate. 5 1873, The Amsterdam Health Board took issue with that position in but their standards had not risen to the point of requiring a "Lack of a toilet does not constitute a private toilet in each home. basis for condemning housing," they stated. Only in 1905 did the building ordinance in Amsterdam require a toilet in every dwelling. Over the course of fifty years hygienic standards had altered dramatically, aided by the advance of medical knowledge linking the spread of disease to inadequate sewage disposal. The sometimes ludicrous spectacle of slops and chamber pots spilled on the steep and narrow stairs of working class slum dwellings was slated to become obsolete. Our awareness of the role 274 of medical insight in this shifting standard should not, however, obscure the equally interesting role played by class perception. After fifty years not only was the chamber pot becoming a sign of the past, but the communal toilet was doomed to extinction as a distinguishing mark between the classes. The class boundaries marked by material culture had shifted. The lines were being redrawn elsewhere. In 1901 a book on housing hygiene directed at the middle class layperson noted that "many still appear to consider a bathroom and baths luxurious items." 8 At a time when the private bath was not yet standard in middle class homes, Dr. Ben H. Sajet, during a 1915 discussion of subsidized municipal housing, argued that a bath in every house was a minimum hygienic standard. 9 Five years later the architect J. C. van Epen, who held that it was necessary for workers to have their own bath, found that housing so equipped was automatically considered middle class. 10 Workers were expected to make use of the public baths erected by the municipality and private organizations. While the nineteenth century saw acceptibility of communal toilets shift to the general expectation of private toilets in working class homes, the twentieth century saw private bathing facilities eventually shift from luxury to norm. The class dimension in assessing suitability of a design feature was sometimes explicit. While back-to-back housing was, for instance, universally condemned by hygienists and reformers, it was on occasion tolerated. Many of the nineteenth century philanthropic housing societies had used the back-to-back solution for the same space-saving reasons that led speculative builders to use it as a guarantee of profit in areas of high land costs. (Fig. 7.1) By eliminating the typical enclosed alcove as bedchamber in their improved version of the back-to-back, reformers hoped 275 to eliminate some of the worst aspects of the poor circulation in that housing type. In fact reformers continued to consider the back-to-back housing option for certain segments of the population into the second decade of the twentieth century. Fin Goudbloemstraat van der Pek had in 1899 designed a variation on the back to back for Oud-Amsterdam which introduced small courts onto which faced kitchens and balcony. ,(Fig.4.2) In 1902 van der Pek working again with reformers (his wife Louise van der Pek-Went, Dr. P.W. Janssen, Helene Mercier and Wilhelmina C. van der Hoeven), van der Pek designed minimum housing on Polanenstraat. These were one room back to back dwellings designed to test the cheapest cost at which dwellings that met minimum standards could be built and still yield three per cent interest on the capital invested. Intended only for families such as the elderly or widows with daughters, this variation of the single room dwelling used van der Pek's characteristic ingenuity in its design. Party walls were constructed with cavities for soundproofing. Air ducts were introduced to the built-in beds and the windows could be opened for ventilation above and below. Later, working out of the Amsterdam Housing Council, a subset of the same group of reformers developed a plan for housing, placing four dwellings on the street side, four on the garden side, and intended for those "belonging to a very broad stratum of simple, mostly casual laborers." 12 This plan never came to fruition, but in 1911 Het Westen, building in the western harbor area for casual laborors, proposed a similar plan on a particularly wide block which made development of low cost housing difficult without recourse to the back-to-back solution. Here, as in van der Pek's designs, a courtyard was introduced and the interior arranged by architect Walenkamp so that only kitchen, stairs and toilets looked out into it.i(Fig. 7.2) The plan 276 nonetheless raised eyebrows in the Health Board which pointed out that even though the kitchens were purposely designed with small measurements to discourage their use for dining, their constant daily use by mother and In a closed children made adequate ventilation and lighting important.13 session of the Health Board, Wibaut and Louise van der Pek-Went, both members of the Amsterdam Housing Council, objected to the plan. Wibaut objected to the idea that such housing was considered good enough for those forced out of their current dwellings by condemnation. Van der Pek- Went pointed to changing standards, admitting that her Oud-Amsterdam society had indeed built back to back dwellings in Goudbloemstraat seventeen years before, but she would not now build such houses. 4 In fact the Amsterdamsche Bouwfonds in which she actively participated did propose back to back housing with an internal courtyard on the Hasebroekstraat in the following year. dwellings, this time subsidized. 1 5 These were again intended as cheap The Health Board rejected the plans and the Bouwfonds wrote to the Board asking under which conditions it would approve back to backs.16 was being drawn: Within the ranks of reformers a new line could back to back housing plans be tolerated for the lowest echelon of society? Or was the back to back below a minimum standard to be tolerated for any group in society? In the case of Het Westen, the first part of the project was allowed to be constructed back to back, but this was considered exceptional. 17 In later discussions of subsidized municipal housing, the back to back was considered and rejected as a design.18 In Amsterdam henceforth the back to back solution was rejected on the basis that it did not fulfill even minimum standards. 277 The Threshold of Luxury Arguments about setting upper and lower limits to standards permeated discussions of working class housing design. Such judgments were assessments of what was fitting to the working class. the private bath really middle class? eliminated for even subsidized housing? Was Should back to back housing be What conditions were so intolerable that even the lowest members of society could not be expected to submit to them? What conditions were so extravagent that the state could not justify applying taxpayers' funds to support them for workers' housing? Answers to these questions varied as much in to relation political position as to an understanding of hygiene. Outside the ranks of housing experts, and on the floor of the municipal council, the political factor was clearly expressed. When the first projects proposed under the Housing Act came up for review in the council, there was still considerable resistance among right-wing members to the policy of state intervention in the housing market. Firm application of the condemnation powers of the Housing Act placed a certain pressure on all members to acknowledge the shortage of housing available for the lowest income levels. Even right wing members voiced a willingness to support housing projects directed at slum dwellers evicted from their homes by the municipality's condemnation measures. 19 housing projects of the housing societies, however, clearly intended for a very different population, with a steady income. The first proposed designs the organized worker State support for improving housing of the well-off worker was justified by liberals on the basis of the presumed "filtering" mechanism, whereby provision of new housing at upper levels would free up 20 housing below, and all ranks below would improve their housing options. But right wing councillors argued against supporting housing projects 278 which directly competed with the private construction industry, claiming that the intent of the Housing Act was only to aid construction of minimum dwellings. 2 1 It was clear that the housing societies were not proposing minimum dwellings. When the housing society Eigen Haard proposed its two storey housing on the Zeeburgerdijk in 1911, the plans as luxurious.22 conservative councillor Sutorius objected to (Fig. 7.3) Council member Fabius in reviewing the plans of Rochdale for Hasebroekstraat in were "workers'" houses at all. 2 3 (Fig. 7.4) 1912 questioned whether they When the housing society Dr. Schaepman proposed plans in 1913 which included two living rooms, the question was raised again whether state support could be expected for 24 housing beyond the simplest type. Within the upper and lower limits set by Amsterdam's implicit standards for workers' housing lay a wide range of housing types serving a range of workers. At one end of the spectrum, the teachers' housing society ACOB built four storey rows of apartments consisting of living room, parlor, two bedrooms and kitchen. (Fig. 7.5) The average dimension of over 90 square meters far exceeded the typical teachers' home, and features like an electric lift for deliveries, wide stairs, bay windows, and well insulated, soundproof walls further differentiated these from the 25 ordinary speculative housing most of the ACOB members had been renting. In contrast the subsidized housing for large families by De Arbeiderswoning provided a large living room, three small bedrooms and a pantry with running water. (Fig. 7.6) Yet this simple arrangement was attacked on the council floor for providing more than the bare necessities. Attacking the Arbeiderswoning proposal Fabius claimed "we will in a certain sense build more beautiful housing than many people 279 need, or would rent, if they could find enough housing. In this way we are placing the people in better homes than they otherwise would have chosen themselves and it is in precisely these cases that the municipality is going to provide subsidies." 2 6 He was answered by Delprat, alderman of Public Works, "It is not the case that we are helping a family to get a home that is better than its financial circumstances would warrant. Rather, it is a case of providing for a pressing need: people who have large families a humane dwelling."27 to give poor The question came down to conflicting attitudes toward the working class which affected the establishment of standards for a "humane dwelling." To understand values at work in determining the upper and lower limits to workers' housing, it must be remembered how great were the differences between the classes in the period up to and including World War I. These differences were expressed culturally through language, clothes, even railroad waiting rooms differentiated into three classes. The notion that there was an appropriate level of display proper to each level of society was widespread. Thus when the new municipal tram introduced cheaper commuter rates for workers it was suggested that those riders be required to use special, less well appointed cars. It was a sign of the new democratic spirit that Henri Polak, first Social Democrat on the municipal council, raised objections to the suggestion.28 The idea of distinguishing working class environs was, however, deep rooted and emerged repeatedly in municipal discussion. Thus, negative attitudes toward working class behavior, in addition to the usual anti-collectivist objections to municipal spending, had to be overcome before the city was willing to invest in trees, grassy squares and playgrounds in working class neighborhoods. In the Public Works Committee, for instance, during 280 a frank discussion of the 1911 budget, councillors considered a proposal for a square with fountain in the Ferdinand Bolplein to improve the monotonous character of that workers' district. Objections were raised: there was no reason to expect respect for a square in that district, the district was unsuitable, it would be a waste of money.29 At the same time reservations were voiced about a proposal to introduce front yards along fifty meters of van Meeuwlaan in the plan for a new workers' district north of the IJ in Nieuwendammerham. The gardens would be misused, peas and potatoes would be grown next to flowers, and the results would never be attractive. 3 0 Similarly, the idea of setting a limit on the height of the dwellings to be constructed in the Volewijk Nieuwendammerham area was disputed in the Public Works Committee. Posthumus Meyjes, who had been assuming that the intention was to create a "city ouvriere" North of the IJ only withdrew his objections to low story developments when told that the inhabitants were likely to be lower civil servants and factory 31 foremen, rather that ordinary factory workers. Such objections as those of Posthumus Locating Workers' Districts Meyjes were losing weight, however, as liberal and socialist influence on the municipal council grew. Plans for new working class districts began to include small green squares. The 1910 plans for Nieuwendammerham included Spreeuwpark, a public square surrounded on all sides by houses. (Fig. 9.18) Berlage's 1910 plans for a large development in the Transvaalbuurt for the Algemeene Woningbouwvereeniging included a square. (Fig. 7.7) However, workers' districts were still eyed with suspicion. In the Public Works Committee, opinion ran against creating workers' ghettos, but 281 there was also concern that workers' housing, if integrated with more expensive housing, would bring real estate values down.32 This negative attitude toward workers' districts was illustrated by municipal reaction when the Algemeene began its negotiations for land in the Transvaalbuurt to carry out Berlage's plans. The city rejected the preliminary plans claiming "the execution of these plans would create back slums, which would lead to pollution and make extra lighting and surveillance necessary."33 The Algemeene's officers took issue with this characterization of a plan which had called for a pair of freestanding groups of two storey dwellings on a small block. As they put it to the mayor and aldermen, "with the epithet 'back slums' one is usually referring to something completely different than what we meant to build."3 4 f5.50, It should be noted that the Algemeene planned rents of f2.50 to a range corresponding to the varied incomes of its members, who were largely diamond workers earning above average wages, and hardly hardcore slum dwellers.35 The Algemene had in fact been forced by the municipality's conservative land policy to develop its plans in an out of the way district. Although fear of creating separate workers' districts had been expressed by council members, the economically motivated pricing policy for leases on municipal land led to the creation of working class enclaves in sections of Amsterdam less desirable because of location and amenity. Council member Perquin, for instance, defended the idea of replacing cheap Jordaan housing in renewal areas with high rental units, while designating the squalid Notweg area of the Spaarndammerbuurt as appropriate workers' housing.36 for With others the Algemeene lent its support to the 1911 petition of the Amsterdam Housing Council which complained to the 282 municipality that the city's land policy was forcing workers to move to the least attractive districts.37 Municipal land priced low enough to allow construction of workers' housing was located behind the Cellular Jail, on Tasmanstraat, in the Indische and Transvaal districts which were cut off by railroad lines, and in Spaarndammerbuurt which was distant from Until the revision of the plan for South Amsterdam and the the center. consequent increased availability of land in the twenties, these were the districts open to workers' housing developments. Even when land in South Amsterdam was being developed, however, workers' housing had to compete with middle class housing for choice sites. In 1918 a dispute erupted over the distribution of land to private developers and housing societies. In the Public Works Committee Hendrix, always defender of real estate interests, objected to the division of blocks along the Amstel such that the river facing side was assigned to private developers while the other side of the block was assigned to a housing society. He argued that placing the better and lesser class of building in one block was inadvisable. 38 A few months later Keppler proposed that the Algemeene build more expensive housing units on the entire block, a plan he had originally not pursued "because Housing Act housing would be less appropriate to the character of the rest of the construction along the Amstel." 3 9 The Public Works Committee opposed this proposal, claiming there was now sufficient land available for housing societies, and the time had come to reserve land for private development. The committee suggested the land along the Amsteldijk be reserved for first class construction and a strip of middle class housing form a transition to the 4 workers' housing to bridge the gap between first and third class. and aldermen decided in 1919 0 to allow the Algemeene to carry out its Mayor plan 283 for middle class housing under the Housing Act, dispute continued. (Fig. 7.8) but the Mayor Tellegen, writing to his Public Works alderman defended the plans, arguing that the area west of the Boerenwetering was attracting higher rents and it was unlikely to shift its attention to the Axstel, given, for instance, that the tram line linking that neighborhood to the downtown carried "a totally different clientele" than those found in first class housing.42 Both Tellegen and Keppler noted that the Algemeene plans by van Epen were highly aesthetically pleasing. Their position won no favor from the conservative Public Works Committee which 4 threatened to take the matter to the municipal council Algemeene built its housing along the Amstel, 3 In the end the but national policy 44 reinforced the committee's position. Such attitudes toward the working class as The Morality of Sobriety those expressed above represented a perspective widespread among the middle class, a perspective also reflected among middle class reformers. Nineteenth century reform literature modesty, In a knowing one's place, typical example, a was filled behaving appropriately reform tract decoration. to class position. thinly veiled as a novel presented the heroine as a model factory worker. her hat was plainly with admonitions to Grietje Klien's apron had no lace, colored and sported no "garden" of flowers for Her modest behavior elicited the following praise from a prospective employer: "you dress according to your place and your incorme. 45 That is better than all the finery that some wear to look like a lady." Reformers carried this emphasis on sobriety and modesty to housing as well. Reporting on the housing plight of the poor in 1903, Johanna ter Meulen projected a minimum dwelling for f1.50 rent consisting of at least 284 one large room with a stove and one or two side rooms. "Let us build solidly, but with thrift and strict simplicity, only considering the threefold requirements of light, air and freedom."4 6 One of the bones of contention over which she broke off her association with the socialist oriented housing society De Arbeiderswoning was simplicity of design. "And no one except Keppler thought about frugality during construction. They were content if only it were beautiful, a lovely facade, something to show off. "47 This distrust of excessive luxury was shared with other liberal reformers, and the attitude was not only applied to housing for the casual laborers emerging from the slums. In 1906, for instance, a pair of typographers came to the CBSA looking for help in developing low rise dwellings in the "open air" outside of Amsterdam. Hudig sent them to architects Vorkink and Wormser who were developing the extension plan of Watergraafsmeer. In 1908 with designs in hand for four two-storey blocks of six dwellings each, the typographers, whose housing society Ons Doel had received Housing Act status, solicited capital from a list of potential donors provided by the CBSA. This list consisted of well-known liberal housing philanthropists and reformers: Dr. C.W. Janssen, Spakler, L. Simons, H. L. Drucker, and Johanna ter Meulen. quest was unsuccessful. W. But their The reformers found the houses too nice, no longer qualifying as workers' housing. 48 Liberal and socialist politicians and reformers split over their orientations to housing reform. The liberals justified government intervention in the provision of housing on the basis of a need created by reduction of the housing stock due to condemnations hygiene by the state. carried out for Slum clearance was the aim, and their first concern, carried over from the first philanthropic housing societies of 285 the nineteenth century, was to provide housing for the lowest echelons of society, the needy casual laborors and the destitute. The liberal position defined housing reform as an extension of charity and poor relief. For the socialists housing was one aspect of a package of reforms intended to raise workers' material and spiritual level. Their first aim was to serve the so-called modern, or organized workers. The socialist position placed housing in a utopian context. These differences in orientation led one group to define housing design as the task of fulfilling minimum requirements and the other to view it as the task of providing the best housing possible. As Wibaut noted, housing for the poor and housing workers were two separate problems. 4 9 While both liberals and socialists acknowledged that there were differences between the two problems, their ideologies led them to different positions. The socialists were satisfied with lower standards for the subsidized housing for the poor than for independent workers' housing societies, but their demands for subsidized housing were higher than those of the liberals. The liberals on the other hand called for a similar differentiation between subsidized and society housing, but made lower demands on housing society dwellings than the socialists. These attitudes, generated from different political values, found expression when reformers began to exert influence on municipal housing design. The proposal for municipal housing was accompanied by a report by Tellegen as head of the BWT suggesting "a possible."50 The Health Board's housing type as simple as 1914 report on municipal housing suggested that there be a clear difference in amenity between the subsidized housing and the housing society developments which covered their own costs. As the board wrote when the first designs for municipal 286 designs for municipal housing were up for review: The design of the plans for these houses poses a difficult task for the architect and the housing authority. On the one hand, he must never forget that these houses must be arranged so that there is a constant incentive for the dwellers to move to more expensive housing as soon as they can afford it, and, he must build so that envy is not aroused in those who live in housing without municipal subsidy. On the other hand, the houses must still satisfy all the requirements of hygiene, and the decrease in attractiveness must 5 1 not be achieved by means of a decrease in habitability. to be translated into design? How was this The board had previously suggested such differences as the absence of a separate kitchen (providing instead a pantry with running water off the living room), or lessening of privacy by increasing the number of dwellings given access from one street They pointed to the three projects of De Arbeiderswoning as entrance. examples. 5 2 (Figs. 7.6 and 7.9) Discussion about the differentiation demonstrated that two positions were represented on the Health Board. On the one hand were those who emphasized that the greatest simplicity should be sought, that is, in the words of one committee member, "as far as possible all the housing should be provided with what is useful and good, but not with what could be categorized as decoration." 5 3 on the other hand others like Dr. Ben Sajet argued that the more attractive a home, the easier it was to keep the dwellers out of the pub and therefore decoration was needed. He also pointed out how difficult between what is' necessary and what is it is to draw a line added decoration. The socialist housing expert and council member H. H. Wollring objected to the board's emphasis, suggesting that rather than making the municipal houses less attractive, the housing society developments should be made more attractive. Political ideology generated the positions of the Health Commission experts. Lacking a disciplinary autonomy because of the nature of their 287 problem, the experts found themselves of necessity open to external political influences. In determining what was a necessity and what a luxury, they became perforce involved in a discussion reflecting contemporary political relationships. The nature of the discussion was thus not dissimilar to those carried out by the politicians on the floor of the municipal council. Whether the issue was the provision of green space, the location of workers' districts, or the necessity of decoration, the debate was characterized by political positions. The Case For and Against the Parlor The injunction against unnecessary luxury was animated by middle class assumptions about working class life that reveal a deepseated distrust of working class judgement. Repeatedly workers were accused of misusing wages on drink, on improper diet, and on extravagant expenditures for fashion and finery. Once incorporated into housing reform, this class based attitude spawned a campaign against the parlor, variously called the salon, mooie kamer, pronkkamer, nette kamer, or kamer aan kant. In the typical middle class flat in Amsterdam, front and back rooms en suite, extending from the street to the garden side of the building, constituted the formal reception room and living room. This was a custom imitated by working class families, albeit under less advantageous conditions. In homes of the most varied size and rental level, it was not uncommon to find a room set aside for only occasional use in company. Here the best furniture could be placed, largely untouched, along with a collection of cherished objects for decoration. In a diamond worker's home in the Pijp during the first decade of the twentieth century, we find a parlor described by one of the members of the family: 288 The furniture in the parlor, which was only to be used for receiving visitors, was mahogany. It consisted of an oval table with. a thick leg in the middle, a sofa, six chairs and a cabinet (for family memorabilia). The upholstery was red plush protected from fading by antimacassars. Above the mantle, a gilt mirror (flaunting a crest), and a gilt clock under a glass dome (which I greatly admired), and a pair of vases. 5 5 This practice of keeping a room aside was much disparaged by reformers who perceived both the space and its contents as wasteful at the expense of more pressing needs. By the end of the nineteenth century the parlor and its contents had been singled out for criticism by Amsterdam reformers. Helene Mercier noted that in the two room dwellings of the Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse, put aside for use as a salon. the smaller room was usually She therefore preferred the designs of the small society Salerno whose two room flats were planned in such a way that both rooms had to be used daily since one room was a kitchen, the other the bedroom.5 6 Numerous voices were raised against the salon. At a national conference on women and work in 1898, Jongvrouw van Hogendorp attacked the practice and Mevrouw Engelbert suggested that workers be forced to give up the parlor either by law or by lease restrictions.57 housekeeping from 1901 condemned the misuse of space: A guide to hygienic "it is not a habit which can be reconciled with the requirements of health to sleep in a small room or alcove while setting up one of the large rooms of the home as a salon or reception room. 58 The compulsion to set aside a parlor was condemned for its health consequences: Even when the dwelling is too small to begin with, there nonetheless has to be a parlor, usually hermetically closed off. Invariably that diminishes the space for sleeping - naturally to the detriment of health. Entire families close themselves up in 59 an alcove at night like a tin of sardines. At the 1913 exhibition De Vrouw, two one-room flats were prepared by the 289 Social Work committee to demonstrate correct and incorrect housekeeping. In the proper home the entire living area was used by the family which spent its days in the well lit and ventilated space by the windows. the contrasting home, the room was divided into two parts. In The family lived between the stove and bed, while the area near the windows was left unused and set up as pronkkamer. 6 0 The socialists, too, joined this campaign. hygiene warned workers against the salon. 6 1 L. Heyerman's book on P. L. Tak described the parlor as an unfortunate space serving no purpose.62 A propaganda brochure published by the Union of Social Democratic Women's Clubs railed against the parlor. The brochure tells the story of a young couple who had just rented a home from one of the housing societies. The wife wanted to dine in the kitchen and keep the front room as a parlor with a new carpet, plush chairs, and heavy curtains on the windows to keep the sun from fading the upholstery. Her husband offered advanced advice: keep the kitchen for washing and cleaning only, use the front room for dining, get simple caned chairs, a woven mat for the floor and replace the heavy curtains with light short ones so the sun can shine into the room. The wife wanted to keep her copper pieces, but her husband suggested she consider decorations that did not require constant polishing, like a ginger pot or an old milk can filled with flowers. Against his wife's objections that visitors would find the room he proposed strange and barren, the husband described the typical parlor as a musty room overcluttered with albums, knickknacks, and portraits. 6 3 This socialist lesson in favor of simple decor and against bourgeois taste coincided with liberal reformers' admonitions against the misuse of wages for unnecessary finery. In the records of her tenants, Johanna ter 290 Meulen complained of one otherwise well behaved housewife that she was "enamoured of finery and buying pretty things."64 Helene Mercier deplored what she perceived as the working class woman's preference for proud display over daily duties: She pays less attention to the polishing of her furnishings were placed furnishings. As a result scrubbing and polishing when they come home. 6 5 to the preparation of the midday meal than copper, but doesn't seem to realise that in this world for people, not people for her husband and children get treated to instead of quiet and cosy togetherness How did reformers hope to combat the parlor? In 1903 as it reviewed the proposed new building ordinance, a minority of the Amsterdam Health Board suggested the requirement for minimum dwelling volume be altered to discourage salons. The article in question provided that every dwelling consist of at least two rooms together containing at least forty cubic meters. A minority wished to reword this provision so that if there is a total space of 40m3 the dwelling may only consist of one room. They fear that if two rooms are allowed in that volume the larger would be used as a parlor, the smaller for a living room, 6 according to the well known practice of our people. 6 The majority on the board believed the disadvantages of the one room dwelling outweighed those of the salon,67 but council members Tak and Polak introduced an amendment to the building ordinance requiring one room of at least 40 m3 council 21 or two rooms of at least 50 m3 which was passed by the to 10.68 Many floor plans constructed by the housing societies and the municipality were designed so that no room could easily be put aside, following the principle Mercier had praised in the Salerno units. housing types were developed which in effect prevented the parlor. Two In the subsidized projects of De Arbeiderswoning, Handwerkers Vriendenkring, and the municipality, a small kitchen pantry was placed directly off the large 291 main room so that the family was forced to use the large room for dining and was thus unable to set it aside as a reserved parlor.69 De Bazel's plans for De Arbeiderswoning were praised because they prevented the living room from becoming "a domestic museum of all sorts of junk."70 many housing society projects the kitchen was kept a distinct In room, usually separated from the dining room by a hallway, but too narrow to be Most of used for any purpose other than cooking and washing. (Fig. 7.10) the housing units (approximately 68%) approved for loans by the municipal council between 1909 and 1919 were of this type and when the housing type used by the subsidized societies is included nearly three quarters 7 of the units were constructed in a way discouraging the parlor. (74%) 1 However, the parlor continued to enjoy popularity among a number of Impractical as its use of space may have been for working class families. those whose small budgets permitted command of only limited floor area, the parlor was an outlet for a pleasure in display and decoration which Helene Mercier, for one, found widespread throughout all layers of working class society.72 One housewife's explanation of her attachment to the parlor was expressed in a letter written in response to van Marken's housing plans for Agneta Park in 1884. She deplored his elimination of the salon from the plans: Why then deprive a woman of her illusions, when she in most cases enjoys so few of the plesures of life any way, especially when she 7 is bound to her home by needy children? Van Marken answered by calculating the weekly cost of adding the salon at f19.00 per year and suggested that this luxury" was too large. "sacrifice for an object of Twenty years later, many workers still wanted a home with salon, livingroom and bedroom. The salon served not only as a decorated area to welcome guests, but also as sick room or study. One of 292 the working class representatives on the Amsterdam city council spoke out for the necessity of increased wages so that workers could afford housing that met these preferences. 7 4 Several of the housing societies did construct housing types that provided a salon. There were a number of variations. In some cases the plan imitated the middle class pattern of two rooms, front and back, en suite. (Fig. 7.11) kitchen-living room, salon. (Fig. 7.12) In other cases, the kitchen was enlarged to become a and the living room proper could then be put aside as Finally, some plans were designed ambiguously; a room designated for sleeping, usually located next to the living room, was arranged in such a way that it could easily serve the purpose of salon. (Fig. 7.13) True parlors were included in only 8.5% of the units, but if the variations are also included in the count, slightly over one quarter of the units (26.2%) permitted the user to create a salon. 7 put up by the teachers' flats "reception" room. (Fig. 7.5) society ACOB included a 5 All of the designated The Reformed society Patrimonium included a salon in over 40% of its units. 7 6 A number of societies chose the option of the living room in addition to the large kitchen-living room, in Het Oosten, particular woningen, the Bouwmaatschappij verkrijging van eigen tot HYSM and the Amsterdam Vereeniging tot het bouwen van arbeiders woningen.77 There was a striking correlation between the ideological identity of the societies and their commitment either for or against the parlor. The confessional societies which catered mostly to highly paid workers, artisans, and petit bourgeois, supported the parlor more than the others: 24% of their units supplied real parlors, 42% and bedrooms are included. if convertible living rooms The neutral societies gave the least support: 293 the figures are respectively 4% and 22%. These societies served a wide range of workers, from low paid casual laborers to well paid municipal workers. But the relatively low figures may not simply be due to lower budgets. Although in general before the war there was some correlation between higher average rent in a project and the percentage of its units which could include a parlor, several projects with low or average rents also included a significant percentage of possible parlors, while during and just after the war there was little relationship between rent and the availability of a parlor. Even those on a limited budget could find housing societies that made it possible to set aside a mooie kamer. 7 8 Another factor also contributed to the rejection of the parlor, even in worker-organized societies where preference for the parlor might be expected. In a number of worker-organized societies, reformers' ideas were met with deference. of municipal workers, Rochdale, the housing society founded by a group had turned to the CBSA for help in legalities of the Housing Act. managing the Early in the planning stages it also turned to experts for advice on the design of its housing type. During a meeting with Tellegen, a member of the workers' committee preparing the groundwork for establishing the society was taken aback when asked what housing type the organizers wanted. common complaints desirable: about workers' It was easier for him to list the housing and to identify what was not the barracks, insufficient sleeping locations, cramped space, too little storage. Dark halls, poor. ventilation and inadequate soundproofing were also common complaints. "But we hadn't formed a sufficiently clear idea of how it should be, how we actually want the dwellings to be arranged."79 Tellegen pointed out that the Amsterdam Housing Council was searching for the preferred workers' housing type, and 294 sent the committee to meet with council architect discuss housing design. J. van der Pek to E. After a number of meetings and consultations, Interestingly, in several housing types were agreed upon for Rochdale. their report on the proceedings, the committee placed the strongest emphasis on the parlor. The committee had added the parlor to its list of undesirable features and committed itself to gradually accustoming others to this improvement. Thus one of the first aspects of housing design communicated to the committee by their design consultant was the wastefulness of the salon.80 Lacking a vision of their own, they deferentially adopted the vision provided by the experts. Rochdale went on to sponsor a competition in 1908 which specified that the housing be so designed that no parlor could be set aside. Of the nine projects Rochdale proposed by 1919, 98% had narrow kitchens and one livingroom, eliminating the possibility of setting a room aside as a parlor. (Fig. 7.10) But if some workers were willing to accept reformers' arguments and see the parlor as an "object of luxury," there were also reformers whose interest in rising standards led them to embrace the parlor. In 1919 Hudig noted, as the Amsterdam Housing Council had ten years before, that the housing standard would rise at an increasing tempo. He encouraged design of housing "too good" for the present, but meeting the standards of the future. Unless building for the very simplest, i.e. for subsidized housing, Hudig wrote, a second living room, the mooie kamer, should be included. Hudig argued in favor of the parlor as a space to keep the good furniture, to serve as study for husband and children, to use as a sick 8 room, a reception room, a hallowed place in the home. 1 Political position was not always the determining source of value in discussions of plan design. In the case of the parlor, class played a 295 more important role. Workers' perceptions of the parlor differed markedly from those of the middle class. The difference often lay in the disapproval by the middle class of workers' class housing amenities. strategies to attain middle Since the constrained economic conditions of the workers usually forced them to compromise in order to achieve the desired effect, ironically the pursuit of the outward signs of middle class respectibility often created specifically working class housing solutions and brought workers into conflict with those they imitated. 296 Housing Type: Responses to Urban Life The housing societies were slated to improve housing types. Dedicated to the betterment of housing, the societies were expected to develop new solutions to workers' housing which would serve as models to the private developers. Housing experts generally agreed on a number of design features related to hygiene. A north-south orientation provided morning and afternoon sunlight to all units. Narrower plots made possible wider housing units with increased fenestration and the shallower permitted easier ventilation. depth These were conclusions drawn from objective conditions, satisfying criteria based on medical assumptions. Other design features which reformers demanded reflected values rather than Like the parlor, these design decisions were based on opinions expertise. about appropriate working class life style. The agenda for housing improvement put forth by reformers did not always coincide with that of the workers for whom the housing was Lay and expert visions of modern urban life were occasionally intended. at odds. Nor did the various pillars of Dutch society embrace similar images of home and community. preferences for housing design. Such differences of opinion influenced The relative independence of housing societies as vehicles for expressing workers' preferences, the deference of the societies to reform influence, and the power of expertise to shape municipal housing policy all combined to determine the variety of housing types developed in Amsterdam. All of the parties involved wished to improve housing, but much of the debate on housing form reflected cultural and political rather than disciplinary bias. The housing problem effected a wide range of workers, from the casual 297 harbor workers to the relatively well-off municipal workers, diamond workers or teachers. As discussed in Chapter Three the nineteenth century saw the creation of both overcrowded slum conditions and new speculative housing districts. With a few exceptions, the housing constructed by the housing societies provided alternatives for the better off workers who could afford their relatively higher scale rents.82 While many of these workers had been forced by severe housing shortages to seek housing in substandard slums, for the most part they had moved to the new speculative districts of the Pijp and Dapperbuurt as they were built. However, late nineteenth century reformers forged their image of the housing problem on the basis of the worst housing conditions, those of the Jordaan, the Harbor, and Jodenbuurt, the traditional working class disticts which housed an increasingly impoverished community. While most worker- organized housing societies tried to improve on the housing of the Pijp, that is, improve on housing for the settled worker, the reformers' first priority was to eliminate the worst conditions of slum dwelling. With passage of the Housing Act, the first action for housing improvement in Amsterdam had been application of the condemnation article. Between 1903 and 1909 thousands of dwellings were condemned. These were primarily slums in the Jordaan and Jodenbuurt. Those displaced were the 83 elderly, the unemployed, and single mothers on welfare. similar housing in their original neighborhood. Most moved to Until housing was constructed by De Arbeiderswoning (1913), Handwerkers Vriendenkring (1917) and the municipality (1915), option for these people. means. there was no government sponsored housing The housing society units were beyond their Rather than the refugees from condemned housing, the population in the housing societies consisted for the most part of well-off workers. 298 Het Algemeene was dominated by diamond workers and other skilled labor, HYSM by railroad workers, Rochdale and Amsterdam Zuid by municipal workers, especially gasworkers, ACOB by teachers, Dr. Schaepman by lower civil servants and skilled laborors. Reform influences on the housing societies' design of housing types thus reflected reaction to the urban life style of a population different from the one actually occupying the housing society projects. The urban poor had developed a number of responses to their economic position which became targets of housing reformers. use their homes as workplaces. Many were forced to Work in the home was prevalent in the form of cigar wrapping, labelling bottles and boxes, food preparation and its sale. Small neighborhood shops run out of the home were not uncommon. Boarders were often brought into already crowded conditions to help pay the rent. ducks. Recent arrivals from the countryside might keep chickens or From the reformers' perspective these were inappropriate uses of the home, from the perspective of the urban poor they were strategies to reduce economic oppression. Reformers also criticized other habits caused by the limited space in homes. The wash left hanging to dry in the livingroom was criticized, but many working class wives feared leaving the laundry in the drying areas located in attics easily accessible to others who might use the opportunity to walk off with the family's only change of clothes. 8 4 Lack of storage space forced ordinary street cart hawkers to store their wares, whether cabbages, potatoes, or carrots, under the bed. Families with limited beds or bedlinen shared the few available sleeping facilities.85 Concerns about these slum dwellers' habits continued when the slums were abandoned for new housing. In a report by the social worker for blocks of De Arbeiderwoning in van Beuningenplein, many of the 299 common problems of the poor were recorded. "The rooms were not regularly cleaned, the floors were usually covered with ragged pieces of carpet and rug. Nothing was done to maintain the stairs, many left the wash too The beds were not immediately stripped in the morning. long. were poorly kept."86 The clothes The same social worker found ducks in one bedroom, and a rabbit hutch in another flat where she later found birds whirling around. shoemaker She found a in cigarmaker using a Apples were stored at home for street carts another flat. and homes sales. bedroom for workroom and a One vegetable hawker had broken into the electrical box and stored his wares there. of illegal roomers. The social worker also ferretted out a number Attics were underutilized for fear of theft; the wash was dried in the house. Many families lacked sufficient bedlinen, using old clothes and rags for blankets, and even in the best families the 8 bedding looked pitiful. 7 As reformers tried to eliminate some of the unhygienic practices of the urban poor, they often appeared to overlook the true economic ills of the poor, engaging rather in a futile battle against the symptoms of that poverty. In their eyes some aspects of the workers' ways of coping with urban life were simply backward and ill-informed. emotionally Workers themselves, attached to means of maintaining self-esteem and self- preservation, perceived reformers' attempts to change their practices as unwarranted interference or as threats to well-loved routines. Many workers would gladly have readjusted their habits given first the necessary economic means, but without the means they clung to coping methods repeatedly attacked by middle class reformers. As a result, the poor were cast in the position of cultural conservatives. 300 The Separation of Functions in the Home One of the progressive campaigns of the reformers urged the increased separation workers' homes. of functions in The degree of specialization in the use of space was considered a measure of civilization. specialization was highly developed: In sophisticated upper class homes, separate spaces for study, cooking, eating, sitting, receiving guests, entering the house, and so forth. Such extremes of specialization could not be expected in small workers' dwellings, but reformers insisted on the separation of workplace from on the separation of cleaning and cooking from sitting dwelling, and eating, and finally the separation of sleeping from any other function. We call civilized living the habitation of the home such that living room, bedroom, kitchen and so forth are separated as much as possible from each other. The less the civility, the greater the tendency to do everything in the same room. This tendency 88 must be opposed as much as possible. Although its use was widespread, few workers deliberately selected the one-room dwelling where the family ate, cooked, worked, and slept in one space. Only the housing shortage and low wages made possible its continued existence. The one-room dwelling was much reviled by liberal reformers and labor leaders alike. 9 Its disadvantages were obvious: lack of privacy, inconvenience, and conflicting uses. No single room dwellings were constructed by the housing societies under the Housing Act. 90, However, several did build units with combination kitchen-living rooms. In these rooms, meals were prepared and eaten, the washing was done and the family gathered to relax. Occasionally one or more members of the family used the room for sleeping as well. The great advantage of the kitchen-living room lay in the ease with which mothers could mind their children while carrying out daily chores. This aspect of life in working class families without servants 301 did not pass unnoticed by the Health Board which observed that: The woman of the house in workers's families does not have help at her disposal for most of her work, especially in families who can only afford housing with low rent. She is thus forced during the preparation of meals, laundering, and other such activities for which the kitchen is intended to keep the children by her side in order to keep an eye on them. She is also forced by the nature of her activities to spend most of the day with her children in that kitchen, and thus to employ the kitchen as a living room. 9 1 Since other rooms served as bedrooms, the kitchen-living room usually avoided creating some of the more obnoxious problems of the one-room dwelling. Nonetheless, it did not win the approbation of some housing reformers. Housing with the kitchen-living room was built in two main variations. Rent subsidized units such as those already discussed were designed as minimum dwellings whose large kitchen with attached pantry was considered by reformers an inferior option to the standard unit with living room and separate small kitchen. (Fig. 7.6) There is some indication that families did experience some inconvenience in such housing units. The first annual report of De Arbeiderswoning objected to the messiness caused by cooking, working and living all in the same room.9 2 This solution was used in both the projects of the rent subsidized societies and municipal housing. While defending the proposed designs calling for the kitchen-living room in municipal housing, Tellegen pointed to the precedent for such rooms in the houses by HIJSM in the Indischebuurt. (Fig.7.12) Investigation of the latter by a subcommittee of the Health Board had resulted in a highly favorable report. But Tellegen failed to mention that all the dwellings of the HIJSM which included a kitchen-living room also included another living room.93 This second housing variation with the kitchen-living room was the one used by the non-subsidized housing societies. The kitchen was enlarged to a size 302 permitting the family to dine in as a sitting room or parlor. it, while a separate living room was used Several housing societies showed a marked preference for this housing type, particularly HIJSM and het Oosten. 9 4 The officers of het Oosten consulted with its members on the determination of their housing type. several existing designs. They uncovered dissatisfaction with They found that the standard type of the speculative builder, the front and back room with alcoves and small kitchen (Fig. 3.12), commonly elicited the following complaint: we want with a front room? "What do It is practically never used, and yet time must be spent dusting it every week." 9 5 While reformers highly praised the recently developed type which was to predominate in the housing societies, the unit consisting of living room, two bedrooms and a narrow kitchen in which there was room only for cooking and washing, het Oosten was sceptical. "We considered it noteworthy that this praise was not fully endorsed by those who had moved into the dwellings." 9 6 They sought a solution which would separate dining and sitting areas, but still allow sufficient room for bedrooms. Het Oosten was grappling with the problem of providing adequate separation of functions within the limited space affordable by its members. While the reformers' solution had favored separation of cooking from dining and sitting, het Oosten's solution opted for separating the dining room from the sitting room. "So that it was decided to make a fine square front room with as large a kitchen as possible which, if so wished, could be used for serving meals. That eliminated the need for everything to take place in the living room because space was lacking in the kitchen. And the living room could become the cozy room so often described in books, but which all too frequently is lacking in workers' homes, since high rents cause them to 303 make do with as little space as possible."9 (Fig. 7.14) Although het Oosten had spoken out directly against the wasted space of the parlor, what reformers feared in the kitchen-living room solution was that the living room proper would in fact be treated as a salon and not as a "cozy" family room.98 Louise van der Pek responded negatively in 1918 to a proposal for housing types with the kitchen-living room put forth by the old worker organized society Bouwmaatschappij tot verkryging van elgen woningen. She noted that "the gentlemen specifically designate the front room as a salon. living room and bedroom. for living and 20m 2 The actual dwelling thus takes place in the Of the 48m2 for salon. of living area, 28m2 are then used This is not a permissible ratio." 9 9 Furthermore, many of the Bouwmaatschappij's units combined kitchen-living room with a living room which included a sleeping niche, a variation on the built-in bed. 100 (Fig. 7.15) Over half (57%) of their units with kitchen-living room also offered this dual use of the living room. Van der Pek-Went joined other reformers in condemning the use of living rooms for sleeping. sleeping: The only proper livingroom was one used daily, but not for "In my opinion, we must continue to disapprove of sleeping in living rooms. Either the living room is not used for living in and then there is too much space being sacrificed, or it is indeed used for daily living and eating, and then sleeping in that atmosphere is unhygenic."101 The Bouwmaatschappij had developed for small families the housing type which consisted of a kitchen-living room, living room with sleeping niche and one bedroom. (Fig. 7.16) Between 1909 and 1914 nearly a quarter (24% or 212 units) of the dwellings built by the society were these small units, 10 2 but in 1918 when the Bouwmaatschappij proposed this type in its plans to complete a block in the Indischebuurt, in a new neighborhood in 304 South Amsterdam, and in Nieuwendammerham north of the Ij, Committee objected. the Health "Sleeping in a living room continually raises dust and during a number of hours of the day it creates a disorderly appearance because of the stripped linens. ,103 Cooking and washing in a room used for sitting were also criticized, and the committee suggested that with a direct connection between kitchen and living room, mothers could keep an eye on their children thus eliminating the usual argument in favor of the kitchen-living room. 104 According to the Health Board, a subcommittee which interviewed two women living in the contended housing type expressed a preference for a living room without sleeping niche and for a small kitchen instead of the kitchen-living room. 105 Wentink, State Housing Inspector, also objected to the continuation of the small version with sleeping niche as almost obsolete. "If this idea does not receive constant attention, I am afraid that the expansion of Amsterdam in the long run will begin to look like a patchwork and we will continue to huddle in barracks which, by their very nature, will set back the improvement of housing one hundred years." 106 In a letter to the Health Board, the Bouwmaatschappij ardently defended its use of the type. It pointed out the need to respond to families of different size and economic strength. It claimed that the sleeping niche was used by some small families primarily in case of illnes or childbirth. applications; Of all its dwelling types, this one recieved the most it was preferred by many of the current members.107 The Health Board decided to permit the society to carry out plans to complete its older Indischebuurt blocks with a block including 24 units with the disputed kitchen-living room and sleeping niche. But plans for the projects in South Amsterdam and Nieuwendammerham had to be revised to 305 eliminate the type.108 Before the war, twelve projects with a kitchenin the year following living room had passed through the municipal system; the war, only the Indischebuurt project for the Bouwmaatschappij was approved. The kitchen-living room had been rejected. Like the parlor, the significance of the kitchen-living room differed in the eyes of workers and middle class reformers. Workers reacted favorably to the advantages of carrying out childcare and kitchen chores in the same space, while finding no special disadvantage to dining in the kitchen. The middle class reformers reacted unfavorably to the potential for abuse offered by a division of space which allowed conflicting uses. The disadvantages of the tiny kitchen they proposed were outweighed by the elimination of possible misappropriation of space. prevailed. Their viewpoint Against the inclinations of many workers, the progressive reform plan of small kitchen, living room, and separate bedrooms became a norm in housing society projects. The Bouwmaatschappij's Indischebuurt project was also the last project approved after the war to include sleeping niches. Before the war eleven of the 35 housing projects approved by the municipality (1009 units) had included living rooms with sleeping niches. In addition to 450 units with kitchen-living rooms, these 1009 units included 559 with small kitchens usable for washing and cooking only, thus making the niche the only sleeping option. This was a housing type applied by het Westen, the Bouwmaatschappij and others, and it represented the multiple use of space rejected by the Health Board. 09 Providing a sufficient number of separate sleeping places was a problem which plagued workers' families. In the attempt to satisfy the need for privacy, families often resorted to options considered entirely unsatisfactory by reformers. These included 306 bedrooms and built-in attic beds of various forms. The sleeping niche was an improved version of the built-in bed closet, a rural tradition in Dutch housing. The original built-in bed was a wooden closet with doors enclosing a space usually large enough for two people to sleep in. With its doors closed, the closet freed up the rest of the room for other uses. Working housewives with no time to make up the bed, those who felt a bed in the middle of the living room looked inappropriate, or those without separate beds and linens preferred this arrangement which allowed them to keep the sleeping arrangements out of sight. The speculative builders' insertion of closed off alcoves for sleeping was a widespread variation on the system. As councillor Smit pointed out during the municipal debate to decide whether the alcove should be prohibited in Amsterdam's building ordinance, workers would be happy to have alcoves eliminated if they had the wages to afford dwellings with a bedroom in addition to a salon and living room. 110 Working class preference for alcoves, bedsteads or sleeping niches was linked to the small one and two room dwellings in which the rooms had to serve both as living room and bed chamber. It was simply a means to increase the number of separate sleeping spaces. But workers' preference for alcoves and bedsteads was brushed aside by those who, like Tak, considered that a "wrongheaded feeling for neatness interfered with hygienic practice."1 1 As he argued successfully for the abolition of the built-in bed or bedcloset during council debates on the 1905 Building Ordinance, Tak noted "above all we must get rid of some old fashioned notions of respectability, which shall probably cause some commotion. 112 In place of the bedstead Tak proposed a sleeping 307 niche, a space enclosed on three sides by walls the size of a two person bed. Here a freestanding bed and mattress could be placed and if a light curtain were hung across the niche, the bed would disappear from view during the day, but would at least be ventilated at night.113 room for sleeping resulted from The continued dual use of the livin the small size of the dwellings built by the housing societies and the naturally increasing size of families. The desire for more places to sleep, or for the separation of sleeping places, led people to use whatever available space they could find. Het Oosten purposely designed the living rooms of its first project so that one corner included two closets which could be removed, leaving a place for a two person bed which 114 could be used if the family increased or as children grew older. (Fig. After the abolition of the alcove and bedstead the municipality was 7.14) alert to the possible misuse of closets for sleeping and moved to prevent it. 1 1 5 The official policy to encourage at least three separate sleeping places led the municipality to approve the designs of Het Westen and Bouwmaatschappij for bed niches in living rooms. But this solution was by 1914 recognized as merely a variation on the bedstead and alcove, and it fell into disrepute among reformers. 1 16 The campaign for three separate sleeping spaces in the home had originated in the nineteenth century from the fear of incest. Ideally reformers wished to provide parents and children of the opposite sex with sufficiently private spaces in which to sleep. The housing societies' dwellings moved far toward providing more adequate sleeping facilities than had been provided either by the free market sector or by earlier philanthropic housing efforts. A 1909 survey of the teachers belonging to the Amsterdam section of the Dutch Teachers Union (Bond van Nederlandsche 308 Onderwijzers) members living gathered information about the sleeping conditions of its in family size was 3.34 The average free market housing. Alcoves while the average number of bedrooms was only 1.6 per dwelling. were used for sleeping in over half in 14.6%, living (52.3%) of the dwellings, attic rooms rooms and salons in 29%. Altogether, over a third (35.6%) of all sleeping spaces were not bedrooms, but rather attics, living rooms, alcoves, bedsteads, or other rooms. 117 The dwellings of the nineteenth century Amsterdam philanthropic housing societies varied from one to three rooms total. Of the 2356 dwellings surveyed in 1899 by Dr. Jenny Weijerman, all used bedsteads, and most were two room dwellings. 118 Whether philanthropic or private sector, the typical nineteenth century Amsterdam dwelling offered a bedstead or two in a room used as kitchenliving room, and another in the salon. 119 (Fig. 7.1 and 7.17) The new housing type developed by the housing societies after the Housing Act consisted of a narrow kitchen, used exclusively for cooking and washing, a living room used exclusively for dining, sitting and entertaining, and three separate small bedrooms. (Fig. 7.18) The functions of the rooms in this housing type were separated as reformers required. There was no salon used only for entertaining, no sleeping in the living room, no use of the kitchen for sitting. Between 1909 and 1919 the percentage of housing society units with at least three bedrooms increased markedly, while the percentage of dwellings with only one or two bedrooms dropped 12 0 from almost one-half to one-third. The attic was one source of space for the third bedroom in ordinary speculative housing and it was tapped by the housing societies as well. Attics were commonly divided into spaces assigned to the dwellings on the floors below. In some cases the space was divided by laths into storage 309 or drying areas, but in other cases rooms were finished off for use as bedrooms. (Fig. 7.19) Attic bedrooms posed problems of access. They were Since this was the reached by the main stairwell of the building. communal stairway which gave access to each of the flats in the building, reformers expressed concern with a practice that permitted close proximity between young people of the opposite sex without parental supervision. 1905 as the municipal ordinance Committee In (Commissie voor de Strafverordening) reviewed the proposed building ordinance, it approved the proposal to require a small locked entry hall in front of each attic room because "such intermixing of bedrooms for people from different families raises In grave moral considerations." 12 1 1915 the Health Board took up the moral issue of attic bedrooms. It investigated the experience of Amsterdam societies asking them if this way of building had lead to undesirable consequences. answered the inquiry but the results were inconclusive. Eight societies The two societies which had built attic bedrooms (HIJSM and Algemeene) had not experienced any difficulties. Amsterdam) 12 2 Three societies (Westen, Bouwmaatschappij, were already convinced of the evil not construct them. of attic Oud bedrooms and did Rochdale provided attic bedrooms only for the third floor flat, rejecting a larger number specifically to avoid undesirable relations. Only the Handwerkers Vriendenkring had applied a solution favored by the Health Board: attic bedrooms accessible floor flat via an internal stairway. (Fig.7.20a) from the third Both the Handwerkers Vriendenkring and Algemeene noted that areas designated as attic storage for each flat were likely to be arranged as bedrooms as soon as the family needed more room, so that it was preferable to design attic spaces that would provide adequate light and air for eventual bedrooms. After 310 reviewing the responses the Housing Subcommittee of the Health Board concluded that the advantage of increased numbers of separate bedrooms offered by attic rooms was outweighed by the impropriety of bedrooms without sufficient guarantee of privacy. They preferred to divide the attic into storage areas designed to discourage or frustrate conversion into bedrooms by limiting direct lighting, lowering ceilings, and using lath and chicken wire partitions. They approved only the attic bedroom drectly connected by its own private stairs to the third floor flat.123 The Board immediately objected to plans by Algemeene to build attic bedrooms on van Beuningenplein and asked them to replace the three attic rooms reached by the main stairs with a storage area and rooms with private stair connection. 124 Algemeene agreed to the experiment in some of its units although it objected to the idea of placing the largest family on the third floor. Since their plans for the project called for collective stairs for six families there was particular pressure for the Health Board to remedy the lack of privacy which could result from attic bedrooms for six different families. Creation of a private, whole and self-contained dwelling unit was the aim. Keppler even argued that Rochdale's solution of a single attic room for the third floor was insufficient guarantee of privacy since there was no way to predict when dwellers of the first and second floor flats might choose to visit their storage area and the shared stair access would not prevent undesirable encounters. 125 By 1917 Keppler had taken the inconclusive results of the Health Board's investigation and interpreted them in sharper terms: An inquiry among the various societies was held to ask whether the advantage of a separate connection within the house justifies the greater costs that are thereby incurred. Many societies appeared to be of the opinion that the necessity of using a communal stair 311 was a great drawback, and that a separate connection offered such great advantages that one simply had to bear the increased costs. 126 In fact the housing societies no longer had any choice: required them to conform to the new design. 12 7 the Health Board Subsequently, internal stairs to an attic bedroom became standard design practice.128 7.20b) (Fig. The Health Board had modified and legitimized the old working class solution of finishing off the attic storage area to get another bedroom while eliminating the do-it-yourself option. In the case of both alcoves and attic rooms, workers' strategies to achieve decency and privacy within the limits of their housing options had been eliminated by reformers. The inadequacy of workers' solutions to the problem of provided separation of functions in the home had largely been a function of economic limitations, Household Privacy not backwardness. The Health Board's general concern about privacy and autonomy for the dwelling was in fact one long shared by the workers themselves. From the time that the first nineteenth century reform efforts turned to a central entrance giving access to eight of more different flats, workers had objected to the loss of privacy and dubbed the housing type "barracks." The housing inspector for a block belonging to the Vereeninging ten behoeve der Arbeiderklasse many workers felt toward the barracks in 1896: observed the distaste "When sixteen families live in one building and thus all gain entry to their homes through the 1 29 same street door, the cream of the working class is not attracted." Helene Mercier remarked on this distaste: The communal stair that one finds in all the Amsterdam housing societies is a nuisance for the dwellers and non-dwellers alike. Every Dutch worker appears to have a deeprootd dislike for anything that even remotely resembles a Parisien cite ouvriere, 312 and a stairway which belongs to so many families can't help but suggest just that. We consider it a right to live in home which is not part of a building whose front door is locked only at night 13 0 and serves eight other families. Reformers were well aware of the unpopularity of the barracks and added their own set of objections to the type. G.A.M. Kallenbach's 1892 dissertation on philanthropic housing described in detail the disadvantages of the barracks. Kallenbach believed the communal use of hall, stairs and attic led to uncontrolled conflicts between neighbors since the lower classes express their feelings and moods in a "livelier, Order and cleanliness were difficult to maintain less inhibited way."131 in the common entry, halls and stairs which were in a sense an extension of the public street. Constant close contact with other families also posed a threat to the moralism of family life. Kallenbach wished to distinguish between the friendly exchanges between neighbors overseen by the head of the family and the continuing, unavoidable contact between those living in the same building which led to theft, backbiting, illicit passion and quarrels. 1 3 2 One of the documented problems of the communal hall and stairs was the often cited issue of maintenance. It was the custom that each family be responsible for cleaning the hall and stairs in their portion of the building, much as the townhouses were responsible for the stoop and sidewalk outside their door. built up. Resentment against shirkers Van de Wijk Groot, municipal social worker, recorded her difficulties in getting housewives to comply regularly to this cleanup. 133 Workers and reformers alike preferred the garden apartment solution: each dwelling with its own front door, at most two families in one house, and no shared hall or stairs. (Fig. 7.3) Late nineteenth century reformers considered this the ideal and the preference remained in force during the early twentieth century.134 Several housing societies 313 organized specifically with the plan of building such housing types. a Zomers Buiten, housing society founded in 1914 by socialist municipal workers, planned originally to build vacation resorts and later a garden city, influenced by the English example of Bourneville. 13 5 Ons Belang had its origins in the 1912 plans of a group of construction workers for a in garden village built through but the society later between Noorlander. Sloten designed by architect 1919 and 1923.136 218 small houses in The plan fell Buiksloterham Reformers like Tellegen, Keppler, and Hudig also played instrumental roles in encouraging housing societies to plan for lowrise projects. When Tellegen first met with the organizers of Amsterdam-Zuid in 1911 he presented them with the idea of building a garden village with recreation facilities, cooperative stores and other features.137 This plan had to be abandoned but the Amsterdam housing reformers continued to push the idea. Eigen Haard began its construction the Indische buurt. with lowrise dwellings designed by Leliman in Het Algemeene's invitation to its founding meeting in March 1910 expressed the hope of building independent lowrise houses, and its first project, designed by Berlage in the Transvaalbuurt, included a row of lowrise units. 138 (Figs. 7.7 and 7.21) Hudig encouraged Patrimonium to follow the 39 and build lowrise housing types. example of Eigen Haard 1 His writings on housing design extolled the virtues of the small scale housing development. 140 - Henri Polak also made propaganda among workers for the garden village idea, describing the "broad curving lanes with large trees, individual houses surrounded by large gardens: of Utopia." here's a marvelous glimpse 14 1 The municipality supported the attempt to bring lowrise housing to workers, although for the most part land near the center of the city could 314 not be priced to allow it. The purchase of the districts north of the IJ, Buiksloterham and Nieuwerdammerham, was seized as an opportunity to In 1912 the provide low priced land suitable for small scale development. 4 Council voted to restrict heights of buildings North of the Ij. Eventually a series of lowrise projects appeared at the edge of Amsterdam's development: municipal projects in Watergraafsmeer, Nieuwen- 14 dam, and Oostzaan put into place by Keppler. 3 Municipal approval of lowrise housing projects by the housing societies increased significantly during and after the war. the dwelling units approved between Only 14.0% of contrast to over a third (35.4%) of those approved in 1919.144 quarter of all the housing society dwellings 1919 were lowrise. in 1909 and 1914 were two stories, approved between Eigen Haard and Het Algemeene, Over a 1909 and the two main socialist 14 5 societies, particularly favored low rise housing in their projects, while all four of Dr. Schaepman's housing projects were two and three storey. The lowrise projects were concentrated in the Indische district, Transvaal district, and North of the IJ. On more expensive land, compromise designs were applied with mixed housing of two, three and four stories. Early projects by Leliman and Berlage for Eigen Haard and Algemeene in the Indische and Transvaal districts introduced dwellings of varying heights adjacent to each other. (Fig. 7.22) Later under Keppler's direction, an experiment was carried out in the Spaarndammerbuurt with an enclosed court design influenced by German and Dutch precedent, housing surrounded by higher construction. low rise This planning idea was later applied to municipal housing in the Transvaalbuurt and Spaarndammerbuurt and was widely propagated in the execution of Berlage's South Plan.146 fact, the number of projects of purely four storey housing declined In 315 markedly over this period, dropping from 68.6% of the projects approved before the war to 20% of the projects approved in 1919. 147 Three storey housing, particularly in the South Plan, grew in importance. As a result of these developments a 14 8 greater number of dwellings could be entered through their own street door without contact with other inhabitants of the building. results priorities, Where workers' desires echoed reformers' could be attained. Because of the land prices in Amsterdam, low rise housing never threatened to replace three and four storey housing, although as we have just seen, it became more prevalent after the Housing Act than before. Of the nineteenth century housing societies, the Bouwmaatschappij alone rejected the barracks entry, and chose to give its ground floor flats a separate entrance and place a maximum of three flats off a common stair. Mercier attributed this decision to the expression of the workers' disdain for the barracks since the Bouwmaatschappij was the only worker-run society. 149 In the four storey buildings put up after the Housing Act various or attempts were made to reduce the number of families sharing halls stairs. The first proposals of the housing societies generally rejected the barracks solution of the nineteenth century, although the 1905 Building Ordinance permitted a street entrance leading to a maximum of nine dwellings and a stair serving a maximum of six dwellings. prohibition originated from the need to control quarantines. The Since the building societies were motivated by the desire to increase the number of self-contained units and decrease the need to share collective access, they were willing to allocate more space to halls and stairs. Most three and four storey buildings provided a steet entry for the ground floor 316 A flats separate from the entry leading to the upper flats. (Fig. 7.23) central stair leading to landings shared by two families (Fig. 7.24) was used much less frequently than a stair whose landings gave access to only one flat. 15 0 After the war, the barracks stair design appeared in half of the projects with three or more stories, but it never became popular among the inhabitants of the buildings. Municipal authorities were not altogether satisfied with the communal stairs in municipal housing: "The system of housing in which a great number of families reach their homes through the same street door and along the same stairway does not appear to be satisfactory." 1 5 1 Some workers and housing societies were outspoken in their resistance to communal stairs. 152 In fact, some housing societies were willing to allocate considerable space to a stair system calculated to decrease the number of families sharing hall None of the three main confessional and stairs. housing societies ever applied the true barracks type of eight families entering through one street door. 153 But they were well represented among the societies which experimented with complex access systems designed to maximize private entrances. The high priority placed on creating self-contained dwelling units reflected the confessional societies' orientation to home and family. The Anti- Revolutionary leader Prof. D.P.D. Fabius defended the proposition that "every father possess his own home." 15 4 Operating under the same financial constraints as the other Amsterdam societies, Patrimonium could not provide each father with his own detached house, but its first project did "strive to attain sovereignty of the individual home" by arranging as many independent entrances as possible. 155 Four of the eight projects by Patrimonium made special arrangements to achieve sovereignty. the so-called portiek entry common in the Hague. (Fig. 7.25) Two used In two of 317 its projects an open, but covered, porch gave access to eight families in a double parcel. Two doors led directly to two ground floor apartments. A stairwell open to the street led to a first floor landing with five doors. Two of these led directly to the two first floor flats. Two doors opened on two separate stairs each leading directly to one of the two second floor flats. The last door opened on stairs which climbed two floors to the third floor entrances of the two top floor flats. In this system the significant break came at the first floor landing where the locked doors divided the public from the private way. Of the eight families in the double plot, only the two on the top floor had to share a stair behind a locked door. Although this system secured individual entries, it also introduced deeply recessed stairs open to the public way which drew objections from the police, Keppler, and the Health Board. 156 The portiek was accordingly rejected as an option when Rochdale and Amsterdam Zuid proposed them in 1918 for projects in South Amsterdam, but other alternatives were found. Two projects by Patrimonium in South Amsterdam introduced three street doors for each set of four dwellings, so that both ground and first floor flats had their own street door, and only those living on the second and third floor had to share door and stairs. (Fig. 7.26) Amsterdam.- Dr. Schaepman also used a variation of this system in South In a project by het Oosten (Fig. 7.27) the deeply recessed stairs of the portiek were replaced by external stairs leading to a first floor landing from which four doors opened, two directly to each of the two first floor apartments, two to stairs leadings to second and third floor flats. space to this Although only few of the projects sacrifice valuable floor degree to achieve greater self-sufficiency, they are indicative of an attitude cogently summarized by Dr. Nederbracht in 1921 318 for the Instituut voor Volkshuisvesting in a passage which clarifies the Dutch hierarchy of preferences. The ordinary Dutchman craves a home which comprises a separate building, an entire house, in which he does not have to encounter strangers either on the stairs or in the hallway. If he is not able to live in a detached house, then he wishes in any case a first floor or second floor dwelling to himself, that is, half of is not If that again comprises a separate entry. a house, that possible either, and he must be satisfied with a flat, then the small portiek apartment is introduced - a smaller portion of a building, but still with a separate entrance. This Dutch tendency the Dutchman wants to be in can thus be typified as follows: command of everything behind the street door. If necessary, he will not object to meeting a neighbor on a stair, but only one that leads to the street from outside his own street door. The entry and stairs inside his front street door must be his own 157 turf, which no one can dispute with him. Collective Facilities In direct contrast with the confessionals' strong inclination toward sovereignty of the dwelling, the socialists inclined toward collective facilities. Here the tradition of utopian social experiments such as the Fourier familistere formed a counterpoint to the reform tradition which emphasized the separation and autonomy of family life. Nineteenth century bourgeois reformers in the Netherlands viewed collective facilities such as shared water pumps, diningrooms, or laundries as potential threats to morality and good conduct. They justified the self-sufficiency of each housing unit on the basis of the requirement to minimize contact between neighbors.158 But the socialists perceived collective facilities as a means to improve the material wellbeing of workers. M. Wibaut-Berdenis van Berlekom argued for the advantages of collective housekeeping, following the arguments of American feminists such as Charlotte Perkins Gilmore. Public laundries, creches, collective dining facilities all might contribute to freeing the housewife of housework, yet maintain intimate family life. She praised the one- kitchen house in which every family has separate quarters, but shares 319 9 common rooms for dining, recreation, reading, playspace and garden. 1 5 The movement for collective facilities displayed a private and public aspect. The cooperative movement, heavily supported by the socialists, originated in consumer and producer cooperatives, but also gave rise to societies like De Dageraad, Adamste'rdamsche Cooperatieve Keuken and Samenwerking which had impact on the housing movement. The city itself, influenced by the municipalism of the SDAP, also expanded its service to areas formerly controlled within the private household: creches, baths, school lunches, public libraries, and vacation clubs. At the second Public Health Convention in 1897, the socialist Wollring had called for municipal laundries. The SDAP municipal program of 1899 drafted by P. L. Tak also called for municipal baths, laundries and housing. Such programs were carried out as the municipal council gathered more socialist votes, so that by 1920 the city ran municipal baths, laundries, kitchens and a housing program. 1 6 0 Several of the socialist housing societies proposed extensive provision of collective facilities. garden village included gardens, recreation hall. 1 6 1 Amsterdam-Zuid's original plans for a laundry, bathhouse, library Zomers Buiten made similar plans. 162 and a The preference of socialist societies for collective facilities extended to the gardens within the perimeter housing blocks. of three ways: These gardens were arranged in one all the available open space was divided among the ground floor occupants, the open space was left undivided for collective use, or small gardens for the ground floor occupants were combined with a large central garden for collective use. (Fig. 7.28) between 1909 and 1919 Most projects approved (49 or two thirds) elected to split all the open space for the benefit of the first floor flats. Collective gardens were 320 distributed unevenly among the housing societies. Twice as many socialist (40%) as confessional (22%) included collective gardens. projects 16 3 Although the socialists carried out a continuous campaign in favor of collective facilities, there appears to have been a consistent resistance from some workers to the services which took activities out of the home and into shared public space. Reformers had long protested the hygienic disadvantages of hanging the washing out to dry in the home, and workers themselves experienced- the unsatisfactory and unhomelike atmosphere caused by the clothesline rigged in the living room. But municipal laundries Even in the largely socialist housing were not greeted enthusiastically. society het Algemeene, dominated by diamond workers who were well acquainted with collective action, a 1915 survey on municipal laundries elicited only 14 responses out of 1000 forms.164 Housewives hesitated to use the municipal laundry for a number of reasons, all stemming from economic causes. Some found the timing of the service inconvenient, since a family with few or no changes of clothing and linen could ill afford the week long wait for the return of the laundry. the belongings by the laundry staff. privacy Others reacted to the invasion of and disliked having strangers see their supplies. home. 165 Some feared mishandling of limited and ragged A number claimed it was less expensive to do the laundry at Social Democratic propaganda in favor of the laundries suggested that workers' resistance could be overcome by education and enlightenment. In a society where doing the laundry at home was a deep-rooted tradition,166 resistance was not surprising even in the face of persuasive practical arguments. In 1920 Keppler asked various housing societies to find out whether their members preferred to have the laundry in or out of the house. All but Eigen Haard responded in favor of the laundry out of 321 the house. 167 By 1920 the municipal laundry was reaching its maximum capacity and was slated to expand. But de Miranda the socialist alderman wrote with concern that too many workers' wives were not taking advantage of the facilities, either because of shame, the expense, or the misguided belief in the impropriety of sending the wash out. People wanted the wash out of the house but the collective system did not answer everyone's needs. It was not until 1925 that the municipality built the first municipal laundromat which allowed the housewife to do her own wash, a solution which protected privacy, turnaround. reduced expense, and eliminated This semi-private solution, like the public baths, took out of the home an activity inadequately served by contemporary dwelling standards. Socialists' conviction in the practicality of collective solutions hid an ideological commitment to such solutions. Workers dealing with their daily life problems were happy to embrace solutions which were both practical and met their life-style requirements. Socialist disappointment in the failure of some workers to embrace collective solutions unquestioningly is apparent also in the initial reactions to a proposal by Henri Polak to establish a housing society for the diamond workers' union. housing society in Polak began his campaign for a cooperative the pages of the ANDB's Weekblad in 1905. Polak described the beautiful, healthful, well-built and well-organized houses the society could build to replace the cheap speculative housing in which most diamond workers resided. He suggested a plan for 80 families which might include not only a collective garden, but collective laundry, bath, and so on. In calling for 80 participants, from 1% of the ANDB's membership.168 posed hesitating inquiries. he was soliciting response Only 41 replied and of those most Many expressed the desire to participate only 322 if guaranteed a home independant of neighbors; others rejected the collective garden in favor of separate individual plots; refused to share common stairs with other families. still others Polak criticized the respondants for their lack of community feeling and for their "narrowminded individualism." He gave up altogether when only four more letters came in. 169 The ideological differences between the pillars led them to embrace differing design options. However, socialist leaders encountered resistance to their progressive ideas not unlike the resistance of workers to some of the progressive changes in habit and design proposed by middle class reformers. 323 Control of the Housing Design Process There can be no doubt that the housing societies which built under the auspices of the Housing Act succeeded by 1919 in raising housing standards beyond those of the nineteenth century philanthropic societies. The changes were numerous and significant. size, more variation in housing type. and accordingly there were more There was more variety in Low rise housing was more common, gardens and greenery. Inside the house there were more bedrooms, and the size of the units were larger.170 dwelling usually was hooked up to gas, electricity, The running water and had its own water closet. Although standards had improved markedly, the previous housing types left their mark on housing form. The four story perimeter block was still the norm. Even with elimination of the alcove, the floor plan generally remained oriented to a front stair, side entrance, front and back rooms. Housing improvement did not necessarily mean housing innovation; by and large the floor plans were simply variations on past patterns. The result of housing reform in the pioneer period of the housing societies was improvement of the nineteenth century housing types. 171 The driving force behind changes in the dwelling plan was the reaction of reformers against nineteenth century slum conditions. Convinced as they were that standards should keep pace with the times, nonetheless they did not search for newly conceived modern solutions. Their position in reaction against the past did not provide clear avenues of exploration for the future. Rather, a set of concerns based on observations of slum conditions generated the agenda of the nineteenth century. for reform by the end No new vision emerged in the early twentieth 324 century. Rather the housing societies in Amsterdam were made to carry out reforms based on persistent nineteenth century attitudes and opinions. In 1865 the rental contract on the Vereeniging ten behoeve der arbeidersklasse specified no lodgers, no trade, no work in the attic, no doves, chickens or four-footed animals. 172 In 1899 Dr. Jenny Weyerman identified his housing concerns as the boarder, the home as store, home as workplace, animals in the home and overcrowding.173 While the root of these problems lay in the wage question, which led to these working class strategies to make their housing economically sound, for reformers like Weyerman the answer lay in eliminating the misuses through legislation or design. Moral and hygienic issues could be attacked through adjustment of housing design; of behavior. workers could be educated or legislated to alter patterns Working class adaptation to modern urban conditions was at odds with the adaptation of the home projected by reformers. Twentieth century housing expertise took the moral and hygienic issues noted by the nineteenth century reformers and translated them into new housing requirements. The main issues and their resolution remained constant. questionnaire developed by the CBSA in A 1908 for housing societies once again took up the issues of the parlor, the living-kitchen room, communal stairs and separation of sleeping spaces. 74 That these questions display concern primarily for the correct use of the dwelling is borne out in further questions about the role of the housing inspector as an influence on the family and its life style. The Catholic Social Action also placed emphasis on the parlor question, lodgers and the separation of sleeping places. 175 Reformers proposed changes in housing design and worker behavior that meant changes in urban working class life style. The conclusions about 325 housing type which reformers drew from hygiene and morality resulted in changes which challenged working class accommodations to the poor housing choices of the nineteenth century. The reformers proposed to civilize workers through the separation of functions in the home. The dwelling was to be the self-contained center of family life with residential functions only, separate from workplace. Within the home, sleeping, eating, cooking and washing were to occur in specifically designated locations. Through the Health Board's review process, the influence of Keppler and Tellegen in the BWT and Housing Authority, the advice of reform organizations like the Amsterdam Housing Council and CBSA, the standard dwelling type shifted from two rooms, back and front, to the model of living room, small kitchen, and separate bedrooms. The Extent of Worker Participation in Design housing type with varied responses. Workers greeted this new The small kitchen required changing the habit of eating where the cooking occurred. Members of the muncipal workers union visited new housing by Rochdale built on this scheme in 1909. They reported favorably about it, but still felt an obligation to explain the unit and particularly the kitchen to workers.176 Others, as we have already seen in the case of Het Oosten, rejected it. The single living room, with no option for a separate parlor, eliminated a nicety many workers considered an important part symbol of respectibility of their and an object of pride. living environment, a The small separate bedrooms answered a heartfelt need, but sometimes proved futile for those without sufficient beds or linens. The reformers strove to introduce this type as norm and succeeded through efforts of the Health Board, Keppler's influence, and advisory positions as housing society trustees. Through 326 these means, the housing societies did become vehicles for housing change. It is less difficult to assess how housing societies acted as vehicles for reform than to assess the extent to which housing societies reflected working class pluralism. Although workers' preferences for housing cannot be easily documented, it is evident that, like reformers, workers reacted against nineteenth century conditions. They wanted bigger and better housing, but were hampered by economic conditions from the former and by lack of expertise from determining the latter. Instead, we find workers developing the kinds of strategies already discussed to make the best use of their meagre housing to serve pressing needs of economy and comfort. Old customs, ignorance, and economic necessity led workers to adapt strategies of keeping animals, closing out light, and working at home. For reformers the answer was to change working class behavior, not the conditions which gave rise to the behavior. 177 Van Gijn and others blamed workers for their poor housing conditions, suggesting they could pay more for rent if so much were not taken out for luxuries, or that they could postpone marriage. They believed workers could improve their housing conditions through improved behavior and proper use of the house. 178 to change behavior. In some cases workers had little choice but During the first decades of the twentieth century, changes in social and urban structure wrought changes in working class behavior from the outside. The old working class neighborhood, with its generations of inhabitants, its old customs, its proximity to work, was being replaced by purely residential areas far from work. The custom of taking the main meal at midday at home was being replaced by the early morning commute to work with a box lunch. Of the 390 families remaining 327 in the renewal area Uilenburg in 1912, 160 wanted to stay on and 100 of those cited work and habit as their reasons for wishing to stay. 179 Gradually changes in economic conditions, social structure, education, and legislation eliminated the small sweated industries and shops that provided some families with their livelihood and others with extra pennies. But this involuntary modernization took place gradually, and the small dwellings of the Housing Act societies continued to give rise to behavior reflecting workers' accommodations. For the modern union members, better educated and organized, it was more natural to accept new ideas about life style. For those closely identified with confessional convictions, life style was strongly influenced by the assumptions of their own ideology. And for many workers, the old way remained a safe option, given a lack of clear vision for the future. That the housing societies for the most part carried out the middle class reform agenda, and therefore contributed to the urban accommodation proposed by reformers, can be understood as the result of several factors. Many of the societies were direct and indirect creations of the reform tradition. Middle class reformers determined the policy of those housing societies they set up themselves, but also played a crucial role in guiding worker initiated and organized housing societies. accepted a number of reforms earmarked by the reformers. Workers Although it is difficult to find evidence that accurately reflects housing preferences of the various segments of the working population, certain aspects of housing design were commonly castigated: the lack of soundproofing, absence of sufficient sleeping places, the overcrowding and lack of privacy. reacted against nineteenth century slums and speculative reformers, but their Workers housing as did reaction was primarily against the cramped quarters 328 and poor construction. Reformers accepted the economic conditions which forced large working class families into small flats, and tried to develop ways in which the family could lead a civilized existence within those confines. Since even the dwellings constructed under the Housing Act were small, workers sometimes simply transferred the strategies for economic survival and comfort developed for the nineteenth century conditions to the new, still cramped but improved housing. This meant reformers turned to efforts to teach workers how to use their new homes, whether through brochures, propaganda, inspector. courses, or the friendly visits of the housing However, we find housing societies like the Bouwmaatschappij continuing older practices such as the kitchen-living room and we find workers clinging to the system of the alcove, bedstead and sleeping niche. Occasionally there are glimpses of other attempts by workers to mould housing conditions to meet their economic conditions. Sometimes the society established a building committee consisting of members to review the housing types. As we saw in the case of Rochdale, the committee often served primarily as liaison to communicate the architect's ideas to the membership at large. In Het Oosten and the Bouwmaatschappij, the building committee influenced decisions to build kitchen-living rooms. When Handwerkers Vriendenkring presented Leliman's plans for the Transvaalbuurt to the membership at a meeting, members suggested the need for storage sheds for the street merchants' carts and stock. 180 requirement, one common to many streetsellers, This simple tended against the direction of home independence from work and was resisted by some reformers. Others, like Kruseman or van de Wijk Groot, recognized the necessity of acknowledging workers' needs.181 Building committees usually set the preferred rental levels, the types of housing and its location. 329 Plans were presented by the architect to the general membership in newletters and meetings. But worker participation in the design process remained severely limited and the reformers' agenda was paramount. Responses to Special Housing Needs From the discussion above, it is clear that a variety of plan types were built by the housing societies between 1909 and 1919. These varied building height, number of bedrooms, kitchen type, entry and hall arrangement. Within any general housing project, more than one plan type might be applied. Between 1909 and 1919 the average number of different housing types in a single project increased from 5.5 in 1909 to 7.3 in 1914 and 8.2 in 1919. Although the housing reformers strove to impose a number of specific design reforms, plans reflecting preferences of the housing societies might also be constructed. In some cases, such as the tendency of given societies to provide more bedrooms and others fewer, we find variations compatible with reformers' requirements, merely reflecting different assessments of members' family size. In other instances, such as continued interest in the parlor or kitchen-living room, we find housing societies resisting the reform agenda. Discrepancies between the emphasis on collectivity and self- containment indicate ideological splits between the societies. Some societies, such as Algemeene, Eigen Haard or Rochdale, tended to embrace reformers' ideals such as the new small kitchen and garden suburb. Others, such as the Bouwmaatschappij, het Oosten, HYSM and Patrimonium, followed their own priorities, preferring their own stair, own door, salon and kitchen-living room. The Bouwmaatschappij, an independent workers' society from the nineteenth century, resisted turning to the Housing Act for financial support because it did not want to tie itself to the 330 requirements of government reformers.182 When it did seek Housing Act assistance, it had to leave sleeping niche and kitchen-living room behind. Only to some extent then did the societies operate as vehicles for pluralism. Reformers were aware of the need for variety in workers' housing and Mercier, some also encouraged the workers participation in its planning. writing in 1905, rejected uniformity of house plan, indicating the necessity of fit between the home and workers' needs: level, the size of the family, and their kind of work. their financial Even differences in level of education might effect needs, she noted, pointing to the increase in club and society life among some workers which led to the need for a study in which to keep files and papers.183 awareness of fit to selecting families. as suitable only for certain families. Reformers applied their Given housing units were viewed Some of the Amsterdam Bouwfonds units in the Indischebuurt were earmarked for large families. The small housing units on Polanenstraat were reserved for young couples, the elderly, or widows with daughters. The housing societies responded to a range of family sizes and incomes. Between 1909 and 1919 there was an overall general shift toward a greater number of rooms per dwelling. Fewer projects included small units of three rooms, -while an increasing percentage of projects included larger units with more than three bedrooms. 184 Most significant was the sharp decrease in units which could not provide three separate designated bedrooms - from almost half of the prewar units to a little over a third of the postwar units. The unit with three separate bedrooms predominated throught this entire period, but certain housing societies also provided a higher than average percentage of larger units: particularly Dr. 331 Schaepman and HYSM. 185 Although societies did take into account variations in size of families when developing plans, they did not consider variations from the nuclear family pattern. of single men; women. Only the Amsterdam Bouwfonds took up the question none of the housing societies built for single working The ATVA house, designed by J. E. van der Pek for the Amsterdam Bouwfonds, provided single dormitory recreation rooms - rooms and a large dining hall with collective facilities considered inappropriate for nuclear families.186 Reformers also debated how to respond to the different life styles to be found among workers. The life style of the harbor worker, his family life, education and values, differed markedly from that of the well paid, well organized and well educated diamond worker. and requirements differed. Their housing demands Their expectations of neighborhood and street life varied as did the many varied neighborhood traditions of the old city. The assessment of family background and life style, which had played a role in the selection of renters for the reformer run philanthropic housing of the nineteenth in the twentieth century. century, continued to play a Reformers were aware of potential role clashes of life style and also feared for the negative moral influence of certain families. From the nineteenth century practice of sifting out respectable and well-behaved families as suitable renters evolved a more sophisticated sifting process in the twentieth century. The first division occurred between those paying full rent and those whose rent was subsidized. While this separation depended on the simple economic criterion of weekly wage, it also tended to sort out the casual laborers and street hawkers from the skilled, organized laborers, muncipal workers, and lower civil servants. 332 Among those subsidized, reformers made further differentiations based on living habits. This differentiation became an issue in the management of the Arbeiderswoning and municipal housing. From the first, the managers of the Arbeiderswoning noted two kinds of dwellers: those on whom the housing might have a good "civilizing" effect and poorly behaved families This experience was who brought standards in the housing project down. 187 brought to bear on the management of municipal housing whose committee began its first meeting with an agenda including separation of passable from unacceptable families. 188 meeting on 9 May These issues came quickly to a head at a Harmsen, also secretary treasurer of De 1916. Arbeiderswoning, noted that De Arbeiderswoning had suffered difficulties because of a failure to take into consideration the difference between workers. De Arbeiderswoning had mixed families indiscriminately without thought to whether they came from a rougher or nicer neighborhood. Bonger similarly warned that it was better to place workers with somewhat similar life styles together.189 There are indications that the so-called respectable workers themselves did not wish to mix in what they called "a wooden shoe warehouse," "civilized" families. reference to the rural origins of the less This was not always an issue of separating families by income, for Keppler pointed out that income had little to do with how well a family lived. Rather the type or worker dictated life style: harbor workers were less "proper" than tram conductors. The municipal housing north of the IJ was a special issue since unlike most of the municipal units in the Transvaalbuurt and Spaarndammerbuurt, these would be primarily lowrise. Here the committee felt preference should be given to the more educated and respectable workers with low incomes rather than those emerging from the worst 333 slums. 190 The original 1914 proposal for municipal housing had addressed the issue of housing for "those who through their lifestyle appeared to be unfit to live in the same building with other families." 1 9 1 22 June As early as 1916 a subcommittee on unacceptable families suggested that these cases be placed in a special complex with a central entrance and guard.192 The municipality developed a system of retraining these families, eventually providing them with specially designed housing complexes where inspectors trained them to change their habits and encouraged them to move as soon as their living habits had improved.193 Even with the sifting process the postwar housing shortage led to mismatches of neighborhoods and dwellers. A 1923 investigation of privately built housing in the Amstelkwartier reported dissatisfaction among the middle class dwellers for whom that housing was intended because many of their working class neighbors displayed living habits with critical differences from their own. But these interlopers were dissatisfied as well, since the neighborhood lacked the typical appurtenances of the working class neighborhood: street festivals. market, 94 pub, active street life, pawn shops, stores and Reformers were sensitive to some differences among workers, but their housing requirements were not flexible enough to accommodate differences which ran against their reform agenda. Participation and Standardization Reformers responded to the variety of working class life styles with corresponding housing needs as long as the response did not contradict their reform agenda. Sensitivity various sizes of working class families posed no problems. consideration the persistance of work and trade at home did. to the Taking into The housing societies managed to provide a variety of housing types and express the 334 varying viewpoints of their membership only within the limits imposed by reformers. With the end of World War I, interest in responding sensitively to workers' needs led some reformers to call openly for working class consultation in the design of housing. We have already seen that van der Pek and Tellegen encouraged the organisers of Rochdale to make their living requirements known. After the First World War the potential of the housing societies as vehicles for democratic expression was recognized increasingly both by reformers and by the workers themselves. projected a role for housing society members Hudig in developing social programs and leisure activities to enhance the social development of housing complexes with sports and recreation facilities. 195 Where previously philanthropy, reformers, and the municipality had provided the impetus for creation of bathhouses, libraries and playgrounds, Hudig saw workers taking more active and participatory roles in such programs. in his G. Feenstra 1920 work on garden cities and housing predicted a larger role for workers' participation in setting standards for housing design. Feenstra recalled the objections to the parlor as ostentatious and to eating in the kitchen as unhealthy, and described these as the reactions of people who decided about the interests of workers without asking for their participation. Noting the success of modern workers' organizations and unions, he predicted that the workers would soon be determining their own house plans.196 This position corresponded with that of some more radical workers who, in the postwar period, vociferously renounced the pattern of top-down housing design. In 1917 the socialist municipal workers housing society Zomers Buiten remarked on the failure of nineteenth century reform dwellings: 335 Often we hear surprise expressed in architectural circles that the construction of workers housing by housing societies elicits so little enthusiam among the workers, even though it means that a piece of land and a number of houses have been removed from the predatory system of private ownership. This lack of enthusiasm Housing design has been shaped does not seem so strange to us. all too often by the opinions of well-meaning ladies and gentlemen or by architects who know little or nothing of the peculiarities of the working class family. They believed it incumbent upon themselves to give the workers homes they considered appropriate for workers but which in fact did not satisfy the workers themselves. The Social Democratic architect Z. Gulden, who designed for Amsterdam Zuid and Zomers Buiten, called for input from working class wives in a propaganda leaflet for the SDAP, appealing for their practical advice. 198 And the socialist League of Workers' Housing Societies (Bond van arbeiderswoningbouwvereenigingen) underlined a growing sense of the potential power of the housing societies. It called for the housing societies to reject their powerless position and take a more active role in housing design. 199 Although some workers and housing reformers favored increased worker particpation in housing design by the end of the war, most encouraged the continuing influence of expert authority. Even the League acknowledged the aid and support of reformers from other social classes. Housing society annual reports and commemorative reports regularly praised the efforts of housing reformers. While discouraging decisions by outsiders on such profound issues as housing plans without workers, in fact, Feenstra too emphasized the role of expert leadership.200 As we have seen the nature of housing expertise was problematic. Aside from some hygienic requirements, most of the design features specified by reformers derived from judgements about lifestyle and morality rooted in the reformers' values and their assumptions about appropriate working class behavior. No disciplinary dialogue was 336 established, but the positions of power accorded reformers in committees and government gave sufficient clout to the reform agenda that working class imput to the design process was limited. The reaction after World War I, when voices were raised for the overthrow of the bureaucratic determination of housing design, was to some extent a reaction against the increasing imposition of standards from above, and the harnessing of expertise for the design of housing plans. Plans for government imposed standardization brought the reaction to a head. Throughout the pioneer housing efforts, the search for housing types had been fostered in part by the assumption that ideal and uniformly applicable types might be At the first developed to replace the standard speculative housing types. Public Health Convention in 1896 Dr. Menno Huizinga suggested publication of a "housing book," 201 a compilation of small dwelling plans. This position was reiterated a few years later by Dr. Jenny Weyerman202 and by P. L. Tak, who called in 1902 for the collection of housing types designed 203 by experts from other countries. Reformers were seeking means not only to improve housing plans, but to set norms. In 1917, citing German and English opinion, Keppler wrote to Wibaut "that I will try as much as possible to apply standard housing types so that the preparations can take 204 place as quickly as possible." In fact, only in the municipal housing projects of Amsterdam was much uniformity of housing type achieved. The housing societies gravitated toward a limited number of plan variations, but never arrived at any standardization. Meanwhile the Health Board wished to enourage continued exploration of housing types. In 1918 L. van der Pek-Went wrote that the Board must continue to strive for better and larger dwellings. "Recently a great deal of consideration and cost has been bestowed on the exterior of worker's housing, but improvement of the 337 dwelling place has not kept up at the same pace. If we wish to help housing along, we should concern ourselves first of all with the interior, 5 and take care that it is not too cramped." 2 0 Both Keppler and the Health Board pushed for higher standards in housing society dwellings. Two reports from 1920 attest favorably to the standards achieved by housing societies in comparison to private developers. Explaining the higher cost per square meter of housing society dwellings, Keppler pointed out the many ways in which private builders failed to meet the demands for quality placed on housing societies, noting that private builders had only to meet the requirements of the 1905 Building Ordinance, while housing societies had to meet requirements set by the Health Board, Housing Authority and the state Keppler pointed to the various corners cut by the housing inspector. private builder: using the cheapest bricks, poor carpentry, low or no attic, minimal balconies. Against this, the Health Board required that housing societies build living rooms at least four meters wide and connect attic bedrooms with the third floor by a separate stair. The Housing Authority required high quality materials and workmanship.206 Board made similar arguments. better: The Health In many details the housing societies built more and deeper closets, more painted doors, more gardens, higher and stronger roofs, sturdier balconies, better quality finish to window sills, and so on. 2 0 7 interior doors, higher These comparisons between private builders and housing societies were based on the study of some fifteen projects around 1913 and 1919. A comparison of the plans indicates the higher quality of the housing society designs. 208 (Fig. 7.29) Investigation of the relative costs of private and housing society 338 construction grew out of a controversy sparked by the director of the BWT, van der Kaa. In a meeting of the Health Board in April 1920, van der Kaa accused the housing societies of building more expensively than private developers. Reactions both in defense of the housing societies and in support of van der Kaa's accusations appeared in major newspapers and journals. Borne at a time of acute housing shortages, the issue reflected the national government's renewed interest in encouraging private industry to reassert its dominance over housing production in the aftermath of the war. At the national level, ministerial steps began to cut into the relative municipal independence which had characterized the first ten years of housing society construction. A series of ministerial circulars attempted to rein in costs by imposing rigid standards for Housing Act loans. At the same time the government proposed subsidies to the private 9 construction industry.2 0 one by one the circulars began to designate new national norms for workers' housing. The circular of 30 July 1920 attempted to regulate the relationship between the spatial area of dwellings and the percentage costs to be covered by rent, with a maximum allowable volume of 300 cubic meters. The circular also underscored the necessity for the greatest sobriety possible in housing types and castigated the variety of types of houses, their facades often marked with "whimsicality and affectation," even in plans of limited extent. The minister of Labor also announced plans to present municipalities with a collection of housing types as a basis for their further construction plans. 210 Although reaction against the circulars was widespread, particularly among the reformers in the National Housing Council but also in Catholic, Protestant, and socialist workers' circles, the objections focused on the 339 lowering of the housing standard, not on the imposition of norms from above. Hudig in 1919 had himself proposed that a general minimum housing standard be set nationally, as in England.211 such an idea stirred up controversy. the National Housing Council, J. But attempts to execute In 1918 at the yearly convention of van der Waerden proposed the standardization of housing plans and incurred dramatic resistence from architects, housing society officials and workers. 212 In 1921 when the government published an album of fifty housing types, consisting of sketch plans for countryside, village, town and city, the press and professionals again reacted strenuously against it. 213 Between 1909 and 1919 Amsterdam worked out its own system of housing standards. Housing reformers in positions of authority in civil service and on government advisory boards took the lead in establishing local norms, and in setting limits on the permissible degree of deviation. Housing societies operated in a limited fashion as vehicles for the expression of variable requirements, reflecting the ideals of home and community current among their members or organizers. The setting of standards by reformers occurred primarily in reaction to the slum conditions of the old city and the speculative housing of the new districts, but also reflected discrepancies between the reformers' vision of appropriate worker adjustment to urban modernity and the workers' accommodations to modern conditions. of complex political official own The emergent norms were the result and cultural interaction, although couched in the language of the bureaucrat and thereby given the aura of an authorized reality. When national housing policy shifted, an inevitable clash resulted between national and local standards. Once again political and cultural discrepancies in values determined the parameters of the 340 dialogue. Neither at the local nor at the national level did discourse become the rational dialogue of a well defined discipline. setting Rather, the of housing standards remained a function of class and political ideology. 341 Chapter Eight HOUSING AND THE ARCHITECT The Collectivization of Aesthetics During the second half of the nineteenth century when laissez-faire liberalism dominated Dutch economic policy, the doctrine of minimal government was also applied to other aspects of social life, including art. The potent phrase "art is not a matter of state," often attributed to Liberal statesman Thorbecke, proclaimed the principle that government had no say in matters of aesthetics. Thorbecke advocated the liberal doctrine that government must restrict its activities to those necessary for the maintenance of public order. As for art, Thorbecke had in 1862 refused to comment on a London exhibition of Dutch art, saying "it is not a government matter. The government is not a critic of science and art."1 By the end of the nineteenth century, two attitudes toward civic art had been voiced in the municipal council of Amsterdam, one following Thorbecke's lead in favor of government abstention from aesthetic issues, the other advocating a renewal of collective responsibility for civic beauty. The issue was debated regularly in council meetings, particularly in relation to the rapidly expanding real estate development of the city. In 1890 during council discussion of a developer's plan for the former site of a gas works, one council member argued against the proposal. He 342 took pains, however, to point out that his objections were not aesthetic. True, he considered the lines of the whole plan to be especially ugly, but the plan's aesthetics were the developer's business, he said, and the municipality had no right to demand beauty.2 council member pleaded the opposite case. The very next year another Objecting to the gardens proposed by a developer for a street in the Vondelpark district, he argued "the public way serves not only those living along it, but the entire city, and the municipality must not give permission to something which is 3 in conflict with the universal laws of beauty." Between the two positions represented by these quotes lay a gulf of disagreement. One side held that individual property rights, and by The extension individual taste, must be protected by the government. other held that government must bear the responsibility to protect urban aesthetics for the public good. By the first decade of the twentieth century, the second proposition had gained widespread support. Just as legislation extended government regulation to social aspects of the public good, so too aesthetic control came to fall under government auspices. Writing in 1914 the distinguished artist R. N. Roland Holst remarked, "Although some sixty years ago Thorbecke could say that art is not a 4 matter of state, no statesman would dare still make that claim today." In the new century the community's right to urban beauty equalled individual property rights, and the government mediated between the two. As the socialist council member Z. Gulden put it, "The beauty of the city belongs to every inhabitant and pedestrian, and in order to protect it, the rights of the building owners must be slightly limited."5 The limitation to be imposed on property owners could be justified only by assuming the existence of a public consensus about urban beauty, a beauty 343 defined by "universal law" above all particular taste. In practice, however, the impetus for government action to protect urban aesthetics was based more on a consensus about what was ugly than about what was beautiful. A widespread desire arose for the government to inhibit developers from imposing their plans and buildings on the city without check. This desire grew from a general dissatisfaction with the developments of the last quarter of the nineteenth century: the monotonous, straight rows of colorless housing filling the Kalff plan of 1877. Economic renewal brought with it more pressing demands for transportation, large scale offices and new construction. Although the economic prosperity was welcomed unstintingly, modernization of the city posed problems. Council members took pride in the re-emergence of Amsterdam as a world class city, but they refused to pay for that status with the loss of Amsterdam's much vaunted urban heritage. By the turn of the century the era when all proposals for urban improvement could be approved without question had ended. Amsterdam, following other European cities, participated in the movement for public art. 6 political spectrum. Support for the movement came from across the The meetings of the municipal council record a steady stream of objections to unaesthetic planning during the first decade of the twentieth century. As often as the old Liberal Sutorius attacked the destruction of Amsterdam's beauty, the Social Democrat Henri Polak or the Anti-Revolutionary Fabius took up the cudgels as well. Repeatedly these council members attacked municipal plans to build streets on filled canals which were to improve the congested traffic of commercial Amsterdam. They objected to construction of massive buildings out of proportion to nearby 344 clusters of characteristic Amsterdam buildings. They called for better street plans, the provision of parks and greenery, as well as the buildings. preservation of cherished historic The beauty of Amsterdam was largely associated with the half-moon of This core of canals and gabled the seventeenth century development. houses represented to Amsterdammers the last period in which Amsterdam had flourished as an economic and cultural center of world significance. Along with the urge to compare current economic and cultural advances with those of the illustrious Golden Age, came the hope that Amsterdam might match in the twentieth century what was perceived as the perspicacious planning of the seventeenth century.7 general consensus on civic beauty: Here then lay the grounds for a a rejection of the late nineteenth century developments, and a call to equal the urban aesthetics of Amsterdam's more glorious era. However, seeds of dissent also lay within this framework, for it was possible to construe two very different solutions. In meeting the aesthetic standards of the seventeenth century, contemporaries might choose either to return to the expressions of the past, or they might alternatively seek an expression purely of the present. Both liberals and socialists shared a distaste for the gray districts, the Pijp, the Dapperbuurt, the Kinkerbuurt. The burger houses of the old canals had a meaning for the liberals which the socialists could not share, while the image of a new form of collective expression based on the rising hopes of the proletariat had an import for the Social Democrats which held little value for the Liberals. 345 The Call for Aesthetic Expertise To support the efforts of council members on behalf of Amsterdam's civic beauty came civic organizations such as Amstelodamum or Bond Heemschut, clubs of prominent citizens joined together in the fight to preserve and promote Amsterdam's beauty. Founded in 1907, Bond Heemschut was modelled after a similar German society as a watchdog organization composed of interested laymen, artists 8 and architects. Artists and literary figures also raised their voices to protest the disfigurement of Amsterdam by modern development. Jan Veth's famous jeremiad against the filling of the Reguliersgracht is but one example. The pages of P. L. Tak's journal De Kroniek were filled with commentary on the city's development.9 issue. These examples all give evidence of the broad appeal of the It was apparent to those concerned with Amsterdam's future, however, that the efficacy of amateur lobbies was limited and that the services of experts were required in positions of authority. P. L. Tak, commenting in 1904 on the newly published plans by Berlage for Amsterdam's southern extension, pointedly asked, "Who shall build the new city? Will 1 it be bunglers or architects who expand Amsterdam?" 0 In the Amsterdam municipal council, the call for expertise to aid the future extension of Amsterdam was two-pronged. In the first place doubts were expressed from the end of the century about the aesthetic capabilities of the department of Public Works. The rejection of the Lambrechtsen plan for South Amsterdam came amid accusations that the civil engineers of that department were insufficiently aesthetic aspect of city planning. prepared to handle the We have already looked into the struggle between architects and engineers for this professional turf. The 346 council began from the time of the South Amsterdam controversy to castigate the "pen and ruler" planning emanating from the Public Works Department and to call instead on assistance from architects for public commissions. Secondly, the council openly expressed the generally held opinion that the aesthetic results of districts designed by contractors and speculative builders left much to be desired. So in both public and private spheres the council prepared to support aesthetic expertise in the service of the community. Over the years this support proved fruitful as leading architects were hired into the Public Works Department to assist the design of plans and public buildings. The council turned from advice on important aesthetic issues to the local architectural societies. And the government took a lead in securing architectural talent to tackle the housing question. In 1916 Z. Gulden summarized the shift in Amsterdam's public patronage of architecture. Only a few years ago Public Works was still a department whose architecture was the laughing stock of Amsterdam and the rest of the country. The nature of Public Works' output at that time was such that it was published in the architectural press to show how things actually should not be done. Over and over complaints about Public Works came into the council. Happily, at this time, it is noticeable that Public Works has started off in a new direction. I wish to point out the gratifying fact that Public Works is no longer a laughingstock as far as architecture is concerned, so that Amsterdam will now lead in architecture as it 11 already does in other matters and as it should do. As elected representatives and civil servants took on the conscious stewardship of Amsterdam's development, they explored new relationships with the aesthetic experts they called upon, the architects. Just as an increased sense of public responsibility had evoked a change in bureaucracy and legislation regarding hygiene, so now new public institutions and regulations had to evolve to carry out the civic 347 government's responsibility toward urban aesthetics. this mandate posed a number of difficult questions. The execution of As a representative government for the splintered society of Amsterdam, on what basis could the municipality take on the role of art critic? followed? Whose taste was to be What jurisdiction would the government maintain for itself, what powers would it delegate to the architectural profession? Granted the city's responsibility for the preservation and promotion of its urban heritage, to what degree would that responsibility advance of the architectural discipline? Amsterdam to lead architecture? coincide with the Just how, in Gulden's words, was These questions were not easily resolved. In the following five chapters we will look into the way Amsterdam developed its public patronage of the urban extensions which were planned between 1900 and 1919. This chapter will examine the nature of architectural expertise and its application to housing. In Chapter Nine we will look into the governmental institutions which emerged to handle aesthetic control, and in Chapters Ten to Twelve we will see how Amsterdam resolved the discrepancy between the partisan commitment necessary for architectural advancement and the neutrality required by representational government. 348 The Identification of Architectural Expertise By 1919, just ten years after the first Housing Act housing project was built in Amsterdam, the scope of professional tasks undertaken by architects in Amsterdam had altered considerably from the pattern of largely private commissions which had characterized late nineteenth century practice. Popular demand for improved urban aesthetics, supported by government policy, had put planning and especially housing in the forefront of architectural tasks. This broader scope of professional activities necessitated a number of changes in professional organization and it fostered a number of changes in the discipline. Writing in the most widely circulated Dutch architectural journal in 1919, J. P. Mieras looked back over the changes already wrought in the profession. He commented on the number of projects which only ten years before would have been carried out by carpenters or contractors but which now were handled by the architect. He attributed this change to more stringent government requirements for aesthetic expertise and the general increase in public awareness of aesthetics. In particular architects had become dramatically intertwined with the housing problem. This new involvement posed a number of problems for the profession, he felt: how to organize large scale offices to handle the voluminous drawings necessary for the large scale housing projects, how to master the technical aspects of housing, particularly new building materials, and how to distribute commissions among architects. Mieras stressed the need for the application of appropriate technical, social, and aesthetic expertise.12 The clamor against the inadequate city extensions of the late nineteenth century led to an increased public interest in architectural 349 expertise and the services it could provide. More confident in public support for their efforts, some architects even called for all buildings, however insignificant, to be designed and executed by expert architects. 1 3 Still left unsettled was the question of identifying these experts. The Dutch language uses three words with different architectural expertise: art), emphases to refer to architectuur (architecture), bouwkunst (building and bouwkunde (building technique). to architects was confusing and inexact. titles, only the initials b.i. In common parlance, reference Aside from foreign degrees and (bouwkundige ingenieur, loosely translated as construction engineer) indicated formal university training in architecture, designating a degree from Delft. was on construction and technical expertise. The emphasis in that title Architect, a title which anyone could claim in the absence of a system of registration, emphasized design and aesthetic expertise. Bouwkundige was a general term used for those involved with the construction of buildings from the contractor to the architect. Nor did education provide a convenient benchmark for architectural competence. century. Architectural education had been neglected in the nineteenth Although architects had petitioned the government in 1841 to remedy the decline of Dutch architecture by establishing an academy for architectural instruction, it was not until 1861 that architecture courses were introduced at the Royal Academy in Delft (founded 1842), primary responsibility for training civil engineers. Academy became the Polytechnic School in which had When the Royal 1864 it introduced a degree in architecture, but this differed only slightly from the civil engineering curriculum. By 1895 the program had graduated only 38 students, and new enrollments were negligible. A clamor for reform arose. Even after 1901 350 when the law regulating instruction at the Polytechnic allowed architecture to become independent of the civil engineering curriculum, training at Delft was largely academic and technical, rather than aesthetic and practical. 1 During the nineteenth century the issue had been repeatedly raised if architecture might not better be taught at the Academy of Fine Arts (Ryks-Academie van Beeldende Kunsten) in Amsterdam where instruction in architecture had ceased in 1870.15 In the absense of such instruction, many had instead received their training in architectural offices, following drafting courses at night, or sometimes travelling abroad for higher education. Eventually daytime work in studios could be supplemented by a more complete curriculum of course work evenings at the VHBO (Voortgezet en Hooger Bouwkunst-Onderricht, Advanced and Higher Architectural Instruction), set up in 1908 under the auspices of the architectural society Architectura et Amicitia. Here the pedagogical technique lay in the combination of practical and academic training with an emphasis on aesthetic instruction.16 Since there were many educational tracks, no single academic title could be used to designate architectural competence. With the rise in demand for architectural expertise to serve the community for planning and housing, the need to be able to distinguish competent architects became apparent 2 Although architectural registration remained a controversial goal, other means developed to provide such distinctions. Paramount in this process was the role of the Dutch architectural societies. 351 Architectural Societies The two major architectural societies were products of the nineteenth century. The Society for the Advancement of Architecture (Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst, founded in 1842) published architectural periodicals, sponsored competitions, lectures and exhibitions, and administered examinations for architectural surveyors and draftsmen. Given its role as leading organization for those interested in architecture, its membership was open and included architects, surveyors, draftsmen, building contractors, real estate developers, carpenters, and only in 1888 did the society take on some of the character of amateurs. 17 a professioal society when it introduced a table of fees for architectural services. The other major architectural society, Genootschap Architectura et Amicitia (A+A), founded in 1855 by a group of young architects moving in different stylistic directions from the older establishment, similarly published periodicals, sponsored competitions, and opened its membership to a mixed array. But A+A's specific mandate was to serve the interests of rising architectural talent. From the nineteenth century the two societies differed in orientation: the Maatschappij more involved with the protection of the profession, A+A with the furthering of the discipline. goals were stated in their statutes. Their primary The Maatschappij's first goal was the representation of the architect's professional interests.18 The first goal of the A+A was "to further the flourishing of the art of architecture." 1 9 The extension of Dutch urban centers at the end of the nineteenth century caused the interests of architects and builders to separate and so 352 precipitated a change in the membership structure of these societies. As we have seen, the reaction against the aesthetic misdeeds of speculative building in the cities led to a clamor for competent architectural involvement in urban expansion. Architects began to understand that they must strengthen their professional lobby if they wished to influence urban design. As one architect put it, "Architects have too little professional consciousness because there are still too few actual, architects among them. ,20 ranks. As a result the architectural societies began to close their They did so, In the however, on vastly different principles. 1890s discussion began about forming a single architectural society, a fusion of the existing societies in order to further their common intellectual and financial interests.21 These were the first rumblings of a tendency to form a separate society for architects alone, which would primarily represent the social and economic interests of the profession. The path to the establishment of such a society was intricate, and took place over a number of years. Fusion between the Maatschappij and A+A failed to materialize, but both societies considered means to purify their In 1908 a crisis membership from within. over the direction of A+A and ongoing discussions about reorganization within the Maatschappij led to the creation of a separate and distinct organization, the League of Dutch Architects (Bond van Nederlandsch Architecten, BNA). prominent architects The BNA was founded by a group of including De Bazel and Berlage. It explicitly as its goal the furthering of the interests of the architectural profession. Membership was limited to those "practitioners of architecture who represent their patron with the works under their direction, who further the patron's interests and who do not act as took 353 competing contractors, tradesmen or agents, either independently, as a member of a firm, or as a managing partner." 2 2 The BNA established an honor code which specified that architects not be involved in any financial gain from their work apart from the officially recognized fee It also proscribed advertisement, plagiarism, and conflict of schedule. interest. 2 3 Although after much debate the BNA included the study of artistic issues within its goals, it was primarily a professional organization established to provide the public with safeguards that architects would behave honorably and to provide the architects with safeguards that their economic rights would be protected. After establishment of the BNA, the Maatschappij began to consider a series of changes in membership qualifications intended to move it gradually further toward operating as a professional society.24 The Maatschappij, which as oldest and largest architectural society considered itself to be the leading architectural society, had recognized its own moribund state from the turn of the century.25 With particular anguish it noted its loss of membership among younger architects against A+A's gains.26 That its status as chief architectural society was threatened became all too apparent after the embarassing episode in Parliament in December 1907. Victor de Stuers accused the society of incompetence on architectural matters because its membership included "brickmakers and perhaps even cake bakers." 2 7 In 1911 it changed its statutes to differentiate between architect-members, extraordinary members (aspiring architects, engineers, draftsmen, surveyors), architects had voting rights. and subscribers. Only Architects were defined as those holding a diploma as construction engineer or architect, or those who could show sufficient evidence of practical work. 2 8 These distinctions in membership 354 attempted to establish a recognized cadre of professional architects on the basis of academic attainment and practical experience. It was immediately apparent that the ultimate aims of the BNA and the reorganized Maatschappij coincided. fusion of the two societies. organizations merged in 1919. From 1911 a committee worked on the After considerable struggle the two One of the chief obstacles to overcome was the attachment of the Maatschappij to its traditional function as an umbrella organization representing all the building trades, and thus the general interests of building. The BNA, for instance, had preferred to eliminate membership of architects working in the civil service. As salaried workers, their social and economic status was perceived as different from the independent architects. The Maatschappij, however, had long been a stronghold of civil servants, and they were finally permitted membership in the new fusion, but no right to become officers. Developers and others with commercial interests had already been excluded from membership, while salaried employees such as draftsmen and surveyors were now excluded with the exception of those working toward the rank of architect. The merger kept for the resulting society a number of the functions of the old Maatschappij, including its main publication, Bouwkundig Weekblad, which continued as the newsletter of the profession. In the end the combined society formed the primary professional organization of Dutch architects. 355 Architecture: Profession or Art? The reorganization of A+A took a somewhat different route. The traditional stance of the society pitted progressive young talent against a conservative architectural establishment. During the disputes of 1907 which led to the formation of the BNA, Kromhout and others had reconfirmed the society's repugnance for professionalization and had insisted on the status of architecture as art.29 A+A, no less that the Maatschappij, saw the necessity of separating out the builders and developers from the architectural experts among its members, but it sought to do so along lines radically different from those of the Maatschappij and BNA. Rather than objective criteria of architectural training or evidence of social and economic position, A+A turned to aesthetic talent alone as the criterion for full membership. This was an idea first proposed by Kromhout in 1893 when he suggested the formation of a society composed solely of outstanding architects which would serve aesthetic interests In in much the way the Chamber of Commerce served commercial interests. 1917 a group of young architects and artists, led by Jan Gratama and H. Wijdeveld with others, challenged the existing structure of the society and suggested a new organization which would grant voting membership on admittance after review by jury. of aesthetic talent. 3 0 The jury would base its decision solely on the evidence In modified form this proposal was adopted. From the old mixture of elements from the building world, there remained a large number of members without aesthetic pretensions. These had no voting rights. Only the delegated members, whose work had been approved by the society's admissions committee and who showed sufficient evidence of aesthetic talent, could vote and take positions on the editorial boards, in the society's governance, or on committees. Since the society's aim was the furthering of 356 the art of building, it had to guarantee that its members were accomplished artistically. By avoiding any requirements related to academic training or practitioner's status, the society left open to membership the ranks of salaried draftsmen and surveyors as well as artists in fields related to architecture. dedication to art magazine run by with the publication in The society proclaimed its 1918 of Wendingen, a lavish Amsterdam School architects, artists, and craftsmen. contrast to the dry official pages of Bouwkundig The Weekblad illustrated in graphic form the difference between the two main architectural societies. Both societies sought to establish a cadre of architectural experts distinguished from the developers blamed for the incompetent urban extensions of the past fifty years. The fused Maatschappij and BNA represented the definition of architectural expertise on the basis of professional status. Academic qualifications and independent professional practice defined the legitimate architect. other societies members established to protect the economic interests such as the Union of Contractors for salaried The society stood parallel to employees, Teekenaars Bond). 3 1 the ANOTB (Aannemers Bond), (Algemeene Nederlandsche fine art architectural profession Opzichters en It emphasized architecture as and accordingly opened membership to related practitioners reflected differing or the society A+A represented the definition of architectural expertise on the basis of aesthetic talent. a of their of all ranks. artists and to These two orientations emphases on the twofold character of architecture as and discipline. On the one hand, academic qualifications suggested a general minimum standard to guarantee professional competence. Such a minumum standard of admittance to professional form the basis of a professional closed shop. ranks could then By monitoring admittance to 357 the ranks, the group could safeguard its economic well-being. Dependence on proofs of aesthetic ability, on the other hand, emphasized disciplinary content as the basis of competence. The general tendency of the first two decades of the twentieth However, two distinct approaches emerged for the identification of this group. The century was to identify a body of architectural experts. first emphasized objectively verifiable evidence such as academic qualifications, the other emphasized demonstration of aesthetic ability. The first modelled its society on those established for professions such as medicine; the second on artists' societies. These differences of approach would feed directly into the discussion of the qualifications of architects for public service, particularly housing design. 358 Architecture and Housing In 1915 when Amsterdam announced its plans to establish a Housing Authority and construct housing under its own auspices, both the BNA and A+A petitioned the municipality to give private architects the opportunity to design the housing, rather than the architects in civil service. The BNA petition claimed that architects had given full attention to the housing problem since it first became an issue.32 These petitions were indicators of the shift that had taken place throughout the profession. Mass housing, a task which until only a few years before had been left entirely to the developers and speculative builders, was now perceived as a task not only appropriate to architects, but one in which they could be expected to bring expertise. But in 1915 the expectation that architecture might contribute to the solution of the housing problem was still based more on a promise than on a record of achievement. The potential for an architectural contribution to housing had been recognized from the nineteenth century. Kallenbach's 1892 study of housing made a distinction between rural cottages and urban kazernes; the former could be built by journeymen, but the latter required the services of an educated builder. 3 3 In 1901 the architect H. J. M. Walenkamp told Amsterdam architects they could accomplish much for urban beautification if they became involved in housing.34 chapter of the Maatschappij In 1906 at a meeting of the local in Amsterdam, the national housing inspector Schaad urged that housing not be left to the speculative builders and the director of the BWT J. W. C. Tellegen underlined the importance of architects becoming more involved with mass housing.35 Mels Meijers, housing inspector in Amsterdam, claimed in 1913 that the only way to 359 assure hygienic design in housing was to hire good architects. 36 But when the Housing Act was passed in 1902 few architects considered housing to be an architectural problem. Tellegen, speaking at the 1902 annual meeting of the Maatschappij, tried to urge architects to see the Act as opening an entire new field for experts, that is, for architectural endeavors. It has been a noteworthy, but deplorable practice, said Tellegen, that most houses have been built by prople who have little understanding of sound construction and that too few houses have been built by capable architects. If this can be changed, better housing conditions will also result. The more architects try to accomplish something in this direction, and the more incompetent builders fade from the scene, the better the situation will be. 3 7 But there was little- enthusiasm for the task on the part of architects, and ten years later Arie Keppler, then head of the housing section of the BWT, took the profession to task for its lackluster response to the opportunities opened by the Housing Act.38 only the dramatic increase in the number of loans to housing societies, especially during World War I when the private building industry collapsed, pushed architects into the mainstream of the housing problem. The impetus to engage in the housing issue may have come from outside the profession and outside the discipline, but both professional organization and disciplinary problem solving were gradually brought to bear on the issue. We will look first at the way the profession reacted to the housing task and then consider the more difficult question of the disciplinary adjustment. 360 Professional Adjustments As architects grew more involved with the housing issue, they incorporated it into existing structures within the profession. architectural journals began to handle the subject more often. The During the 1890s few articles discussed housing, and those were largely limited to With the preparations for the Housing Act, the aspects of hygiene. journals turned to the legal side of housing, planning, and building ordinances. During the first decade of the twentieth century, many of the articles on housing -were written by civil servants. F. van Erkel, W. C. Schaad, D. E. Wentink, and J. L. B. Keurschot were all municipal or state inspectors of health or housing who contributed regularly on the technical, social, legal and economic side of the housing issue. Mels Meijers, another housing inspector, In 1916 wrote an extended series of articles on architects and the housing problem. He examined the first housing designs which had been carried out for housing societies under the Housing Act. 3 9 One of the more graphic illustrations of the increasing importance of housing for architecture during the second decade of the twentieth century was the number of drawings and photographs devoted to housing projects. In 1898 a plate of J. E. van der Pek's housing project for the Bouwonderneming Jordaan had been an exceptional inclusion in the Bouwkundig Weekblad. In 1920 Wendingen published an issue dedicated 40 exclusively to housing, lavish in its illustrations. Housing also became a frequent subject for architectural competitions. In 1892 on the fiftieth anniversary of the Maatschappij, the subject of the main competition was a princely residence near a large city, typical of the monumental subjects usually chosen for competitions. 361 In 1901 the society's workers dwellings, secondary competition was for a block of eight one up, one down. 41 There were only nine entries. A more successful competition for single family rural housing was sponsored by the Maatschappij in 1908 with the express purpose of interesting architects in the housing problem. the Hague and Amsterdam, Its 230 entries were exhibited in both and the best designs were later book accompanied by the jury's report.42 composed published in a Here the fact that the jury was largely of municipal directors of public works and state health inspectors led inevitably to an emphasis on the social and hygienic aspects of housing. Maatschappij, Simultaneously in Amsterdam, the local chapter of the with the assistence of the builders' organization Amstels Bouwvereeniging, sponsored a competition for a plot with eight workers' dwellings, the typical Amsterdam condition. However, none of the nine entries was premiated.4 3 The most controversial housing competition was sponsored by the first housing society to build successfully in Amsterdam, Rochdale. Rochdale's 1910 competition was the first to move beyond the design of a housing prototype to the design for an actual site. The society hoped to build the winning design on the site already designated to it by the municipality. However, all the major architectural societies objected to the conditions of the competition. Both the prize money and the promised architectural fee were too low, they claimed. The problem was simply that the existing table of architectural fees was based on a direct percentage of the total building costs. the fact that There was no way to take into consideration the designer of a housing block would only design a number of housing types for repetition. limited A series of meetings did nothing to resolve the matter, and the jury44 insisted on retaining Rochdale's 362 original conditions. Two entries There were few entries as a result. were -premiated, but no first prize awarded. 45 The first competition to place the aesthetic aspect of urban housing in the forefront was A+A's 1917 competition which specifically limited the design to the facade. This was a realistic response to the methods of private builders in Amsterdam who brought their plans to a projectenmaker to fill in the facade.46 Aside from hygiene and facades, a few competitions examined other aspects of the housing problem. STVDIA sponsored a major competition for a garden city.47 1913 the In Ons Huis, the settlement house society, sponsored a competition for the furnishings of a worker's flat. 4 8 The Rochdale competition raised the issue of architects' fees for housing society projects. If architects were to be brought in to work for housing societies, and the housing societies were to rent at levels competitive with or lower than private builders, then some adjustment needed to be made in the schedule of fees. The architects agreed to a fixed fee for the design of facades for builders in Amsterdam. 4 9 Hudig, writing for the Amsterdam Housing Council, asked the Maatschappij to clarify its position on housing society projects during the Rochdale controversy, but the Maatschappij was unwilling to make any concessions at that time. 50 However, the following year the Maatschappij submitted a revised fee schedule for housing blocks which created a new category of work type and reduced the percentages to be applied to the construction costs. 5 1 By 1919 architecture had incorporated housing into the profession and had extended its activity. own organizational After the First forms to accommodate the new area of World War a number of architects in Amsterdam 363 even formed a specialized Club of Amsterdam Housing Architects (Club van Amsterdamsch Wonigbouwarchitecten).52 The assumption of these profess- ional arrangements was that the architectural discipline could offer expertise relevant to housing. expertise? What then was the nature of that 364 Architectural Expertise and Housing As we saw in Chapter Five, at the time of the passage of the Housing Act, housing was viewed primarily as a branch of hygiene. Housing never matured into a self-sufficient discipline, but remained rather an issue taken up first by medicine, then law, engineering, social science and architecture. When architects first became involved with housing in the nineteenth century, they dealt with the moral and hygienic aspects of the problem, which doctors and reformers had already defined. The most As a pressing question was how to build a healthful and cheap dwelling. consequence of this orientation, the first architects to design workers' housing in Amsterdam, largely for the philanthropic housing societies, did not view their task in aesthetic terms. Although well known architects designed these projects, and sometimes explicitly expressed their intention to produce a pleasant effect with the housing,53 housing design an outlet by no means became for architectural exploration. The impression is of a search for the appropriate level of sobriety: neither so plain that the building lost the aspect of domesticity altogether, nor so decorated that it lost the quality of "workers'" housing. The architects treated the large scale blocks of housing either as single units, dividing the block into central and end pavilions like a Renaissance palace, or as a series of row houses on the model of canal houses, but with a repetitious character antithetical to the original. The hygienic aspect of building dominated early discussions of housing among architects. to its members in been taken locally The Maatschappij raised questions about housing 1895 and again in 1898: first asking what measures had to respond to the hygienic requirements of housing, 365 then asking the best ways to ventilate and heat housing.54 in articles Housing the Bouwkundig Weekblad dwelt on such topics as ventilation, heating, sewage, the Housing Act, building ordinances, and the proper arrangement of the floor plan. The first calls on architects to lend their advisory expertise to the solution of the housing problem quite naturally drew on their knowledge of sound construction. We have already examined architects' involvement in the study of Amsterdam slums initiated by the temperance society in 1890.55 its In 1898 the Maatschappij was invited by the Nut to particpate in committee on housing, later to become the housing committee of the CBSA which offered technical advice to housing societies and others. In the Amsterdam Housing Council, H. P. Berlage and J. E. van der Pek studied housing in relation to fire hazards, provision of parks, and the layout of extension plans. 5 6 In 1905, the Amsterdam Health Board, which already had two architectural members, wished to strengthen its architectural representation for the task of surveying slum housing to designate condemned dwellings. 57 The hygienic aspect of housing was also the first to be incorporated into the architectural curriculum at Delft, albeit after decades of lobbying for its inclusion. As early as 1892 D.E.C. Knuttel had argued 58 for instruction in hygiene at the Polytechnic School. curriculum in A study of the 1895 reached the same conclusion, suggesting that Delft add planning and art history as well as hygiene to the prescribed course of studies. 5 9 The Polytechnic, later transformed into the Technical Institute, was envisaged as the training ground for civil servants who would carry out the new social laws including the Housing Act. Instruction in such fields as hygiene and planning, it was argued, was 366 essential to the preparation of experts to guide urban expansion. In 1905, we have seen, the progressive society of architects and engineers, the STVDIA, called for instruction in housing hygiene, and planning at Delft, and their call was seconded by the students themselves.6 0 In their annual report on the architectural curriculum, the students belonging to the academic club Practisch Studie advised the addition of courses on hygiene and planning because they felt the architect should be competent to design workers' rental housing and city extensions. They asked for instruction in housing types, city blocks, street profiles, street plans, parks and squares, and monumental buildings. In 1906 the STVDIA arranged to offer L. Heyermans' course on hygiene, which included topics relevant to housing. But this was inadequate and Keppler among others deplored the 6 fact that there was no instruction in workers' housing or planning. 1 Meanwhile instruction on the Housing and Health Acts, building ordinances and other legal and sociological aspects of urban planning were taught by C. A. Verrijn Stuart from 1907 and J. H. Valckenier Kips from 1909.62 While this evidence shows that architectural expertise applied to housing was largely construed at the turn of the century to mean building expertise and hygiene, the low number of architects participating in the Dutch Public Health Convention indicated the limited interest most architects took in that aspect of the problem. The perception that aesthetic questions were secondary to the housing problem dampened architectural ardor. Even those involved in encouraging greater architectural participation in housing design cast the problem in hygienic rather than aesthetic terms. F. van Erkel, for instance, writing in the Bouwkundig Weekblad in 1901, tried to show that a study of the floor plan was worthy of the greatest architectural consideration. 367 Remarkably enough, it appears from a variety of books and journals that in foreign countries the study of the floor plan is currently Professors at universities do very much the focus of attention. Indeed, in not consider it beneath them to enter into that area. our opinion, to study that issue is more practical than delving, to the detriment of that prerequisite, into the aesthetic side of planning, or for that matter into extensive courses on church or Greater attention should also be other monumental building types. paid in this country to that important question, one might almost say the most important of all building questions, the economic 63 construction of "mass housing" in the most general sense. Important as the housing problem was generally perceived to be, the hygienic nature of the problem and the limited availability of housing commissions combined to diminish architectural involvement before the Housing Act had been put to steady use by local politicians. Eventually, as architects applied the lessons of hygiene to the design of housing plans, the plans undoubtedly improved, as we saw in the last chapter. But solving the design problems posed by hygienic considerations did not stimulate architectural creativity. Rather, architects accepted the limitations of the perimeter block, the four-storey house, and the multiplication of street entries. Plan design became a simple manipulation of existing types to accommodate the requirements of separate bedrooms, separation of functions, and the other features discussed in the last chapter. There was little scope for architectural inventiveness given the way the problem was defined. of the hygienic Conditions did not produce a retranslation requirements into the architectural language of space and form. Until the housing problem could be perceived as an aesthetic problem, it did not in fact receive the architects' full attention. In other words, a shift in the perception of the housing problem was necessary before the promise of architectural expertise in housing could be fulfilled. 368 Housing as an Architectural Issue The treatment of housing as an aesthetic issue, that is, the incorporation of housing into the heart of the architectural discipline, occurred as a byproduct of the architectural treatment of urban design. Berlage exerted the greatest influence on this perception of housing as the Dutch architect who contributed the most to the Dutch assimilation of German urban design. With his lectures in 1892, Berlage had begun to introduce to the Netherlands the new discipline of urban design or stedebouw, but the placement of the topic into the Dutch architectural curriculum did not occur immediately. In 1908 Berlage began teaching 64 urban design to students of the newly established VHBO. In 1912 the Maatschappij petitioned the Minister of the Interior to 65 establish a chair in planning and city extension at Delft. The Maatschappij's address was seconded both by the students of the Delft club Practische Studie and their instructors in the Architecture Department. Both groups argued that instruction at Delft in the technical, hygienic, economic and legal aspects of planning was adequate, but that instruction in the aesthetic and architectural side was lacking altogether.66 Later in the same year, in a reaction against this position, A+A petitioned the minister to establish a chair in planning and city extension at the 67 Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. forthcoming from the minister, When no immediate response was Practische Studie in 1913 invited Berlage to give four lectures in Delft on "The Aesthetic Aspect of City Planning."68 In the following year J. A. G. van der Steurs was appointed professor of architecture at Delft, introducing a course on the aesthetic principles of city extension and incidentally defending the consolidation 369 of the architectural curriculum at Delft rather than at the academy.69 By 1913 then, both the students at the aesthetically oriented VHBO and those at the technically oriented Technical Institute were exposed to the teachings of Berlage on urban design. More than the hygienic approach, this was the one which was responsible for exciting the architectural treatment of housing. In a previous chapter we saw that Berlage defended the architect's right to lead urban planning because of architecture's monopoly on aesthetic expertise. Berlage's own approach to planning matured from the emphasis on the picturesque expressed in his 1892 lectures on planning art and influenced by Sitte to an emphasis on the monumental expressed in his 70 lectures to the Delft students and influenced by Walter Curt Behrendt. This aesthetic between his In the latter development was reflected in the well-known contrast 1905 and 1915 plans for the southern extension of Amsterdam. plan Berlage fully espoused the unified treatment of the building block as a basis for urban expansion. Berlage held that harmonious urban development could only be achieved through the aesthetic unification of the block. chapter in housing design. This vision of urban design opened a new The blocks of residential development became the raw materials for shaping the city and housing became pure architectural form. 370 Aesthetics and Housing As long as housing continued to be perceived as a problem external to the architectural discipline, it did not receive aesthetic treatment. The movement for urban aesthetics and particularly Berlage's influence on urban design changed the definition of housing design. The view derived from philanthropy and hygiene that government supported housing could not be permitted the luxury of aesthetic treatment was gradually deposed. In its place came the architectural perception of the street facade as an aesthetic entity which could be manipulated as a whole. The large scale projects of the housing societies came to be seen as ideal opportunities for architects to create streetscapes. As we shall see in the next chapter, this perception of housing design fuelled the development of a new government control of housing design and eventually led to the creation of vast and harmonious residential neighborhoods. The treatment of housing in purely architectural terms permitted housing to assume a new meaning by virtue of its status as artistic medium. Until its aestheticization, housing's cultural significance was economic, political and social. Its forms signified a monetary investment, a collectivist strategy, and a moral force for the reform of working class life styles. These were the provinces of the politicians, doctors, and social workers who had defined the housing problem. Once housing was defined in architectural terms, however, its forms became the channels for communicating architectural ideas. The forms of housing became representational. The vision of harmonious and unified urban extension provided the means to represent the community. However, there was a fundamental 371 difference between the architectural representation of the community and the political reality. This discrepancy would prove to be a constant irritation as architects struggled to win more control over the design of housing in Amsterdam during the second decade of the twentieth century. The unified design of the housing block connected closely to Berlage's vision of architecture's representation of the community, since it required the shared architectural conventions which Berlage posited as the expression of shared values in the community. Berlage adhered to a historical determinism which directly linked society and style. He espoused this historicism consistently and recorded it particularly clearly in 1910 and 1919.71 Periods of great culture occur only when the people hold in common a set of religious or philosophical beliefs, he argued. The role of art is to manifest those commonly held beliefs in mature form. art is the visible reflection of spiritual life. That is to say, Without commonly held beliefs, great art cannot occur, because only their existence allows art to express the general and universal rather than the specific and individual. Greatness in an artist lies in his ability to manifest that which all hold true, rather than revealing only that which is merely a personal truth. The artist differs from others only in that he can express in tangible form the deeper feelings shared by all. Great art is objective in the sense that it expresses universal truths which exist independently of the particular artist. Such art expresses a beauty which the society as a whole shares. As such, great art rests on shared conventions. It cannot be created by a single artist, but must spring from agreement within society. two great cultural periods, ancient Greece and the Middle Ages, The 372 demonstrated the translation of universal ideas into the shared conventions of art, but when the Renaissance broke the spiritual unity created by the Church, it began a movement toward cultural deterioration. Individual freedom was gained at the cost of communal unity. The deterioration of culture reached its lowest point in the nineteenth century when the age of bourgeois capitalism created a society of competing individual interests, with no shared religion or philosophy, Without shared ideas, there could be no shared no shared moral idea. conventions, and the liberation to express personal ideas resulted in a period without style. Compared to the other arts, architecture is most closely tied to society and therefore most limited by the post-Renaissance turn to individualism and the deterioration of community. Berlage claimed that architecture, as the most social art, also served as a barometer of culture. the past. He foresaw the re-emergence of a great culture to equal those of This modern culture would take historical materialism as its base of shared values. Marx, while seemingly purely materialistic, embodied the moral idea that all men are created equal. Herein lay the kernel of a shared spiritual base which could play the central role religion had played in the formation of Greek and medieval culture. Historical materialism would provide the collective idea from which a shared definition of beauty would be generated, and once again develop an expression of society, a unified style, on an objective basis. To summarize, Berlage defined architecture as the art whose development was tied most directly to that of society, an art which could only achieve greatness at times when stylistic unity was made possible by the existence of shared ideals. At such times architecture not only 373 served the community in practical material terms, it also expressed the community's ideals: that is, it represented the spirit of the community. When Berlage claimed that "architecture is for and of the people, for and of the community," he referred to the dual, material and spiritual, functions of architecture. Every building is a social deed, a service for 72 the community, and also the expression of the soul of the community. In his 1913 lectures on urban design, Berlage applied these ideas to One of the conclusions he drew was that in a period the design of cities. of chaotic stylistic conflict, such as the present, the desire for harmony could only be satisfied by enforcing aesthetic unity. While waiting generations for the eventual natural attainment of a general culture, society could take measures to achieve harmony by imposing a certain normalization. housing. In particular, Berlage referred to examples of uniform Quoting the eighteenth century theoretician Abbe Laugier, Berlage defended the imposition of unity by artificial means: 'If one wishes a city to be well built, then one most not leave the facades to the discretion of individuals. Everything along the street must be stipulated and subjected to the judgement of the public authorities in agreement with what has been established. Not only must the location where one is allowed to build be fixed, but also the way in which one is required to build.' "It sounds to us rather despotic, in a sense even intolerable, yet at that time the art.of urban design reached a high level," In added Berlage. the absense of a general style, the individual architect must bow to norms imposed by the community, that is, its appointed representatives. But not only the architect must suppress his individualism. The dweller must also give up his pretension to the external expression of an individual dwelling. The individual dwelling unit must disappear into the communal housing block. Housing must become a collective entity, a single 374 organism creating a general, pulsing rhythm along the street. Berlage thus introduced to Dutch architectural discourse a new conception of housing design, placed directly into the mainstream of architectural debate. Once housing was viewed as part of the aesthetic problem of urban design, it became a subject of the contemporary debate over the proper architectural forms expressive of the times and the community. Housing, no less and perhaps more than any other building type, could become a vehicle for exploring the creation of a collective style. The emphasis of the architect's task in housing design would then shift from the translation of hygienic requirements to the translation of the collective experience of society. This placed the housing designer squarely within the role of the artist, defined by Berlage and others as the interpreter of society. The professional profile of the housing designer as artist differed markedly from that of the housing designer as social engineer. In the first place, the architect-artist participated in an ongoing discourse which had its origins outside the housing question. Or conversely, one might say that the architects' involvement in housing design shifted from a focus on the problem as it had been defined by disciplines external to architecture (primarily hygiene) to a focus generated by the internal that is the problem of generating a needs of the architectural discipline, modern, collective style. Housing became a specifically architectural problem. This transformation of focus signalled the addition of a new model of expertise in service to the comunity. Alongside the social engineer, artist now took up a position in the public arena. the We have already seen that the social engineer failed to live up to his promise of objectivity 375 and neutrality. The issue of neutrality also proved intractable for the artist in public service. In the tumultuous climate of competing architectural positions which characterized the start of the twentieth century, there was no basis for a collective style, and certainly no agreement on what constituted the objective, universal ideals of beauty. Nor did a unified community exist; the society to be interpreted by the architect was, as we have seen, split by deep religious and political divisions. Among the architects themselves, there was not only disagreement about style, but even divisions over the proper way to define architecture. Finally, the objectivity which Berlage called upon to raise architecture from the lesser achievements of individual and personal taste did not correspond with the objectivity that the government called for in its experts. Berlage's aesthetic objectivity rested ultimately on shared convention, or dogma. Not only is every religion and every philosophy founded on dogma, but also art. For what is the art form of a particular style other than a dogma, the artistic dogma which all the artists of the same period accept as a collective notion? And it is precisely through the acceptance of such a dogma that the artists are capable of 74 manifesting the highest aesthetic thought. But the embracing of a dogma ran counter to the cultural pluralism embodied in the Dutch political and cultural system. Thus Amsterdam faced the difficult task of reforming its method of urban expansion and satisfying the general desire for an aesthetic urban development while making public use of artistic expertise. In the next chapter we will look at how it achieved government control of aesthetic development. 376 Chapter Nine THE INSTITUTION OF PUBLIC AESTHETIC CONTROL When Amsterdam embarked on a new period of aesthetic stewardship and patronage at the turn of the century, both the public and private sector. it had to contend with design in As public sentiment shifted to support a more active involvement of the government in fostering urban beauty, the search began for means to secure competent aesthetic expertise for both public and private sector design. Not only the profession and discipline of architecture had to adjust to the new public response to housing, but the government itself had to generate procedures and institutions of aesthetic control. This chapter will discuss the first efforts at that control. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, Amsterdam's municipal architecture was as undistinguished as the vast majority of Dutch architecture, lapsing as it did into a rehash of Dutch Renaissance style. At the national.level, official architecture took the form of the repetitious and uninspired work of the civil servants of the Waterstaat; so too in Amsterdam the police stations, schools, hospitals and other civic structures showed little architectural inspiration. In 1895 J. E. van der Pek criticized the Stedelijk Museum, the last major work designed by A. W. Weissman as city architect. He complimented Weissman's craftsmanship, but denied him status as an artist. Weissman, accused van 377 der Pek, lacked any sense of composition, contour, lines, colors, details, or truth. 1 Weissman's museum displayed the stolid and safe references to the Dutch Renaissance that its more pioneering neighbor, Cuyper's Rijksmuseum, In avoided with its fresh thoughtfulness. 1895 Amsterdam abolished the time honored position of municipal architect when Weissman was dismissed for misrepresenting the materials he used in the museum. 2 Instead, the city's building department was placed under the authority of the director of Public Works, a civil engineer. This act elicited a protest from the Amsterdam chapter of the Maatschappij, which feared for the future of the city if new municipal buildings and street plans were to be treated as unimportant matters shoved under Public Works. 3 In fact Amsterdam's dismissal of Weissman indicated a willingness to turn outside the civil service to private architects for major commissions. The controversial Stock Exchange commission to Berlage in 1896 was followed by his appointment in 1900 to replace Lambrechtsen van Ritthem, director of Public Works, for the design of the major southern extension of Amsterdam. Thus the two most important public commissions in Amsterdam at the turn of the century, one for building, the other for planning, were placed in the hands of one of the most progressive figures of Dutch architecture. Berlage proved to be a brilliant master of his craft in both instances. But the controversy over his selection caused some to complain of favoritism. G. van Arkel, a city councillor and architect, responded in 1902 with the proposal that the city hire a leading architect for Public Works. Van Arkel envisaged the re-creation of inspired architectural service such as Hendrick de Keyser had devoted to Amsterdam in the Golden Age. Favoritism would be avoided, and the special aesthetic 378 requirements of Amsterdam would be met. Both architectural societies supported the re-establishment of the city architect's position,5 but the mayor and aldermen held that van Arkel's objections would not be met by the appointment of an aesthetically competent architect. Since architects can never agree on what is beautiful or ugly, the accusation of impermissable patronage could still be made if only one architect were given responsibility for the city, they argued. 6 For these representatives of the city, the commitment required by the expression of taste exceeded their official neutral position. Their argument reflected an inability to take an open policy position on matters of taste. now a matter of government; responsibility Art was the government had acknowledged its to maintain the city's beauty. But the bureaucratic apparatus was conceptually unequipped to deal with the intrinsically partisan nature of taste. The clearest voice of reason in the argument over the appointment of a municipal architect came from P. L. Tak. Tak handily threw aside the question of "favoritism" as one of little import for the public interest. "The only question worth answering is how we can get the best for Amsterdam," he wrote.7 Over the course of the next two decades, as Amsterdam erected an institutional apparatus for public aesthetic control, this question provoked endless controvery. 379 Design in the Public Sector The issue of the aesthetic inadequacy of civil service planning simmered in the municipal council at the start of the new century. Sarcastic remarks and accusations multiplied, particularly about the neighborhood street plans for districts at the edge of the city. The clear that they did not want to repeat the mistakes of councillors made it the nineteenth century. In 1900 Berlage had been called in extension of the city, to redesign the major southern but the execution of those plans was to be delayed repeatedly and finally replaced in 1915, not to be executed until after the First World War. Meanwhile pressure formed to develop a number of smaller districts to the west, north and east. Berlage was called in twice as an outside expert in plan design. In the first instance, a small corner of land by the Cellular Jail was redesigned by Berlage, after complaints that Public Works had mishandled the design. In the second instance, a developer's plan of 1881 for the Transvaal district east of the Amstel was inherited upon its annexation from Nieuwer-Amstel. (Fig. 9.1) The developer's plan, which was submitted to the city council for approval to build in 1903, divided the area into a simple east-west grid without distinguishing features or differentiation 8 between the streets. The Health Board objected to the psychological 9 impact that the square, monotonous plan would have on the inhabitants. In the council the plan was attacked aggressively. Polak decried the long narrow straight streets new districts such as the Oosterpark area.10 Social Democrat Henri already so common in the Anti-Revolutionary Fabius took the argument further and declared tha the plan was unacceptable in 380 its current form. Not a moment's consideration should be given to building in this way. What is this plan? A few lines drawn horizontally and a few drawn vertically; that is the linear system. There can be no talk of allowing such a plan here, because we have already had far too much of the like. A large part of our new city is in some sense spoiled and blighted by building in this way. If fact, no one will disagree that construction has been carried out in a terribly ugly way.11 Referring to the council's previous rejection of Lambrechtsen's South Plan and Berlage's previous comments to the city on planning, Fabius noted that this plan displayed no planning expertise, something from the old school, straight lines so well." 12 "for this is once again from that bureaucratic type who could draw The plan was rejected by a vote of 18 to 14 and the developer, seeking assistance from Berlage, resubmitted a new plan which was approved.13 The new plan was in the Sitte influenced style Berlage was to apply to his 1905 South Plan. the district, A wide main street bisected twisting angularly through the center of the neighborhood, and opening at two points onto squares designated for public buildings. (Fig. 9.2) Another district east of the Amstel provoked some council disapproval in 1908. Across the railroad lines from the Transvaal district lay the Indische district, one of the neighborhoods laid out by Kalff's plan of 1877. The Indische district, stretching from the railroad along the Zeeburgerdijk to the Nieuwe Diep, had already been laid out as a workers' district in its north west quadrant according to a plan of 1897.14 The dominating feature of the plan was a series of slightly bowed streets, crossed at an acute angle by the main street. When the proposal to prepare the land for layout of the streets was put to the council in 1908, Social Democrat Wibaut denounced the plan and the dreary view along the long curving streets. He objected to carrying out the plan: the 381 council's ideas about city layout had progressed since this plan was first proposed twelve years before, he said. 1 5 The last legacy of nineteenth century planning with ruler and pen came with plans for completion of the Spaarndammer district, a harborside neighborhood in northwest Amsterdam. district had been established in concentric curving blocks. 16 1885. The original layout of this workers' (Fig. 9.3) It laid out long In 1911 the city wished to clean up the neighboring caravan settlement in the Notweg and the Public Works Department prepared a revised plan for the area defined within the railroad lines and the Spaarndammerdijk. (Fig. 9.4) Although the plan was a marked improvement over the original, and included both a green square and a playground, it became the subject of controversy. Wibaut complained that the plan could have been designed by a mediocre draftsman with a ruler, and that it should have been designed by someone expert in the field of city planning. 18 Fabius took the occasion to launch a general attack on the absense of aesthetic feeling in the Public Works Department. 382 The Aesthetic Advisor The controversy over the competence of Public Works designers was in the case of the Spaarndammer district fueled by the claim of Public Works Alderman Delprat that this plan was designed in consultation with the architect J. In M. van der Mey. 1910, the Public Works Department had hired J. M. van der Mey, the brilliant young architect who had already won two major prizes, the Prix de Rome and the competition for the re-design of Dam Square in Amsterdam. Van der Mey's title was aesthetic advisor; department from 1911 to he worked part time in the 1919, designing a bridge, a number of municipal building facades, and several plans. responses of scepticism and applause. 9 His appointment had drawn mixed The conservative architect and city councillor Posthumus Meyjes objected to van der Mey's youthful lack of experience.20 precursor But van der Mey proved to be a capable designer, the of series of gifted architects to join Public Works in a bid by the department to overcome its poor reputation. Van der Mey's involvement in the Spaarndammer plan was strictly advisory, although he was accused by Keppler among others of gross incompetence in its design.21 He had in fact designed an alternative plan which had been rejected by Public Works because it reduced the amount of buildable land. He had exerted little influence on the Public Works plan which displayed the typical chamfered corners and underlying grid common to most of its plans. 22 Although the Public Works Department had not helped its reputation with the plan for the Spaarndammer district, and had deceitfully tried to cover its own aesthetic awkwardness with van der Mey's name, the fact 383 remained that it had appointed a young and talented architect. On several other occasions van der Mey was given a free hand and repudiated the Public Works' poor reputation. His appointment signalled the official acknowledgement of a break with the engineer's planning of the nineteenth century. In 1913 van der Mey prepared a plan directly engineer's approach. at odds with the Several land developers had submitted a plan in 1912 for the southern half of the Indische district, where the long curving street in the older, northern half had already been the subject of council criticism. 2 3 (Fig. 9.5) The proposed plan repeated the monotonous narrow blocks of the northern half and in accordance with the city council's new found aversion to such planning, the developers were encouraged to find a more competent designer. but his The developers turned to van Niftrik, design elicited objections from the Health Board which insisted on a north south orientation for the housing blocks. 24 Even after van Niftrik revised his plan, (Fig. 9.6) the city took upon itself to provide the developer with a plan designed by an urban design expert. van der Mey to redesign the area in It appointed 1913.25 Van der Mey's solution divided the area into two sections, organized symmetrically along a north-south axis in the western half and an eastwest axis in the eastern half. (Fig. 9.7) It not only satisfied the hygienic requirements for orientation, but also created a main avenue, separate residential streets, and neighborhood focal points. It was a distinct aesthetic improvement over the plans proposed by the developers. 26 Van der Mey, however, was pessimistic about the execution of his plan, anticipating the likelihood that the blocks would be filled with 384 incompetently designed housing. As "oases in the mostly dreary blocks" van der Mey proposed well-designed public buildings such as schools, police and fire stations. As he wrote in his explanatory notes, he tried to "design an arrangement of blocks that would guarantee as reasonable a complex as possible, given that plans exert little influence when building 27 commissions are in the hands of the aesthetically inept." With its hiring of Berlage and van der Mey, the city of Amsterdam chose to rid itself of the nineteenth century legacy of unaesthetic planning. But it soon discovered that this was not enough to secure an aesthetic cityscape. To achieve beauty in its urban expansions it would have to contend with the design of the buildings as well as the plans. 385 The Beauty Commission The concerns van der Mey expressed about the Indische district echoed those of the municipal council itself. The council had repeatedly complained about the tasteless construction which spoiled the aesthetic potential of even the best plans. To remedy the situation, the government had searched for means to encourage tasteful design. best facade, a method tried 1890s architects boards. in Germany, Competitions for the did not prove fruitful. began to discuss the feasibility 28 of architectural At a meeting of A+A in Amsterdam in April In the review 1896 local architect Jonas Ingenohl suggested establishment of a committee of architectural experts. that Later year a group composed of architects, lawyers, and hygienists suggested that municipalities step in with both aesthetic and hygienic experts to oppose the incompetent design of speculative housing. When granting building permits, municipal governments could place designs in the hands of competent judges to make suggestions for changes and improvements in form and color. For the general good, in any case, plans should also be judged by the local firechief for fire safety, and by a practical hygienist for dwelling hygiene.2 9 Their suggestions implied that plan and facade be judged separately, one by hygienic, the other by aesthetic experts. In June 1897 Ingenohl's proposal for an architectural review board was taken up in addresses to the municipality by the Maatschappij and A+A with the result Its that the municipality allowed a mandate was to protect the development the Rijksmuseum. in committee to form in the luxury district behind The architectural societies appointed five members; Mayor and Aldermen appointed one. From the start this committee, informally called the Beauty Commission, limited its comments to facade design. May. Just as the new, the 386 independent Building and Housing Inspection and the Building Ordinance of 1905 were intended to maintain standards of construction, so the Beauty Commission was to monitor and maintain standards of architectural beauty. Over the years its jurisdiction gradually increased. In 1903 Berlage's plan for the Transvaal district carried the requirement that all construction in the district must submit proposed facade designs for approval by the Beauty Commission. The municipality could also request advice from the commission on buildings to be erected on other municipal lands. In practice, however, the municipality did not always exercise that option, and changes in the constitution of the executive branch of 30 municipal governent led to neglect of the Beauty Commission. The commission itself grew frustrated in its limited, passive role. It lobbied to extend its powers and regularize its legal standing. 1911 In the commission began four years of negotiation with the municipal government.31 The commission emerged reorganized in 1915, with a new mandate from the municipality to judge facades proposed on all land leased or owned by the city. It was no longer an advisory committee to Mayor and Aldermen, but a committee appointed by the Council. 32It could also initiate comment on matters it considered of import to the city's beauty. Even with this new, sounder status, the commission tried to expand its powers further in order to gain control over public as well as private design. It asked to review all Public Works designs, industrial buildings, and extension plans, but the request was rejected in the Public Works Committee. The scope of the Beauty Commission was limited to the private sector. 3 3 The Beauty Commission through the years launched a campaign to bring more private building commissions into the hands of architects. It 387 repeatedly rejected inept designs of conventional character and little architectural merit, hired cheaply by developers. In 1918 Hendrix, one of the councillors representing real estate interests, bitterly complained of the commissions's procedures: Anyone who submits a building design and does not belong to one of the favored architectural societies is blacklisted. No design of his will be approved, while designs of those from certain groups, whether they are experienced or green, will pass the committee 34 without any objections. Hendrix' remarks exaggerated the commissions's actions, but in fact designs were often repeatedly rejected until the developer was forced to go to a decent designer in order to secure a passable facade. Nor was it true that membership in an architectural society guaranteed success. Non-membership indicated non-professional status, and the designs of non-professionals were looked at askance. But the commissions's task was expanding from the promotion of architectural commissions to the review of architects's designs. As Amsterdam began to exercise the Housing Act more assiduously, the Beauty Commission also increasingly reviewed architect's designs for large housing complexes designed for the housing societies. Its activities embraced then not only the developers it was trying to reform, but fellow colleagues as well. Eventually this area of activity became the commissions's most controversial. 388 The Regulation of the Street The influence which the Beauty Commission could exert was limited, even after its jurisdiction had been officially expanded to cover construction on all municipal lands, that is, in effect, on all housing The commission could only reject proposed facades, sending construction. Even with the advantage of better them back for redesign, one by one. street plans, the impact of this system on the emerging cityscape was disappointing. Both council members and architects remarked on the failure of better plans and aesthetic performance. review to bring about adequate Keppler claimed that exercise its right district.35 In architectural the Beauty Commission did not even to review proposed buildings in the Transvaal 1915, Gulden voiced his scepticism about the results anticipated from the reorganization of the commission, since it had so far accomplished nothing, in his opinion. He pointed to Staringplein and the Transvaal district as examples of the failure of the commission to create beauty in the city even where there were good plans and approved facades. 36 Other council members picked out de Lairessestraat as a favorite example of the disappointing results of new construction carried out with the commission's approval. The fear that the measures devised for aesthetic control might still allow new districts to arise in the form of the much despised Pijp led to concerns such as those expressed by van der Mey about the Indische district. To secure better architecture, the government would have to move to more intrusive measures. The Beauty Commission reviewed isolated facades, a procedure which left no room to consider the aesthetic relation of the facades one to the 389 other. street Coordination was impossible. patterns dimension, Extension plans merely established and gave no indication of the design of the third no standards for the street profile or planting. Under the current system, the Beauty Commission could do nothing to promote harmonious, coordinated construction on the plan, so that even where architectural talent was employed, the results might be at odds. G. Versteeg spoke to this issue when he criticized the carefully reviewed Museum district. One is struck with the surfeit of contradictions here. You have buildings by the most prominent and pace-setting architects, and when they are put together they create the most completely ridiculous overall effect. This ensemble distresses me more than any incoherent collection of speculative building would have the power to do. The Beauty Commission, he insisted, would have to be more restrictive. Not only will it have to watch that what is built meets aesthetic requirements, but moreover, until we once again possess a general artistic expression emanating from the spirit of the time and culture, it must see that the overall image of the street and square display an aesthetic unity or a harmonious interplay of 38 form and color. According to Versteeg, government should actively step in and participate in art, not simply to protect urban beauty, but to provide, through legal enforcement, an artificially created unity in the absense of a natural collective artistic expression. Versteeg suggested that government can "act to regulate and assuro that different blocks are treated with architectural unity." 3 9 Politically such action implied a higher level of control from above. It also accorded a new role for government in the development of aesthetic standards. For Berlage, as we have seen, the unified building block provided the key to a harmonious and monumental city plan. His 1913 planning lectures at Delft promoted the concepts of Walter Curt Behrendt, who had taught him 390 to consider the art of city planning as the shaping of the streetscape. 40 Following Behrendt in his lectures, Berlage traced to the eighteenth century the conscious effort to combine separate facades into a unified block by setting cornice heights, roof profile and fenestration. He pointed to princely regulations which established standard facade types in France and Germany. Such ordinances, which have become an impossibility in our time, indicate a sound insight into artistic effect. At the same time, they also indicate a goal, given the not unfounded fear that subjectivity, which always destroys unity, might prove dominant upon the weakening of the general style, a weakening which was 41 certainly quite likely in the Renaissance. Berlage went on to conclude that the need to control the individual for the sake of the collective thus stood behind the inception of such institutions as the beauty commissions. The realization that limits must be placed on personal taste, unrestrained by tradition, said Berlage, gave rise to necessary controls. With nine-tenths of all building in the hands of speculative builders, that is, incompetent designers, it was not unusual that well designed street plans were spoiled by the buildings. It was only natural then to turn to the earlier building restrictions which had achieved unity between street plan and construction he argued.4 2 Berlage stressed that the beauty of a city lay in the organic unity between the buildings and the spaces: them. the streets and squares between "A beautiful city is not a collection of beautiful entities, but rather one single large beautiful entity." Such architectural unity could only be achieved by overcoming destructive subjectivism so that the city might become a single great living organism, moved by a general rhythm and filled with a great spirit.43 The entire city becomes a work of art only when both the plan and the grouping of buildings have been designed together as a whole.44 391 The street becomes the passageway between squares, which are the room-like stopping points)where great public buildings may be placed. Along the streets themselves, housing lines up without distinction between the individual units. The facades on these streets, or blocks, form a cover to the houses behind them, and powerfully unify the space along the street.45 But, Berlage went on to reason, such unity cannot be achieved in a period such as the present which lacks a general stylei a style animating all artists who in turn express it through their -individual abilities. The coordination of plan with the third dimension marked those eras which achieved a general style representing their culture. The only way to achieve unity under the current stylistic circumstances was to have one 46 person design an entire street. Nowadays we is assigned same result same street should arrange things so that the design of a street to a single architect or else, which can lead to the with a little good will, to a team to build on the and thus shape the cityscape.4 7 Finally, there must be an overall coordination between the blocks, and between the plan and its third dimension. The designer of the plan must therefore indicate the nature of the building to be placed on his planj With this vision of a city built of unified blocks, guided by the planner, Berlage gave the program for Amsterdam's further attempts to achieve architectural quality in its new districts. His translation of the German planning theory of Brinckmann and Behrendt together with the urban commentary of Scheffler gave Amsterdam the impetus to undertake a new involvement of government control in shaping the city. 392 The Implications of Design Coordination The public discussion of Berlage's planning concepts in Amsterdam began with the publication of his revised plan for South Amsterdam in 1915. There, after restating the main points of his Delft lectures, he made the case that the government must take the initiative to promote the treatment of housing on a large scale. Building permits should be granted only for entire streets or squares, and where several builders construct on the same site, they should cooperate to create a unified whole. Such large scale construction could, of course, only be undertaken by large developers.48 Next to the developers, the housing societies formed another institution for large scale construction of housing. The building proposals of the housing societies, like any others, were subject to the approval of the Beauty Commission. Here then lay open an obvious avenue for controlling the design of new residential districts in Amsterdam. The housing societies, already building at large scale, would receive blocks to be designed by one architect. Then the architect's designs for the various housing societies could be coordinated. This was the path Amsterdam attempted to follow in reaction to the early inadequacies of the Beauty Commission. The ideal of unified plan and facade became the impetus behind the growth of a strategy to use municipal authority to harmonize the cityscape. In 1915 van der Mey, referring to his plan for the Indische district, proposed to the director of Public Works that the designer of a plan also influence the nature of what was to be built upon it in order to achieve a unity of plan and architecture. approval, of facades Requiring the Beauty Commission's did not guarantee unity of the construction, he 393 argued, and so it was necessary for an aesthetic advisor to take on some control.49 However, van der Mey's participation in the construction of his plan was vetoed in the Public Works Committee where council members did not want to impose restrictions on the private developer. it case, was the Maatschappij In this voor Grondbezit en Grondcrediet which wished to proceed quickly with construction.50 The private developer and his financial interests wielded too much power to be summarily controlled from above. It was far easier to exercise control over the semi-public housing societies, which worked with public monies and under public supervision, and which were expected to build most of the workers' housing in South Amsterdam. Arie Keppler had already been working to coordinate building among the housing societies from his original position in efforts as supervisor of the housing societies' activities. In the BWT 1913 he began a series of experiments to improve the design of workers' residential districts. Keppler started with a section of the Spaarndammer district, the plan which he and others had earlier castigated for its old-fashioned design. As Patrimonium and other housing societies began to apply to lease land in the Spaarndammer district, Keppler began to consider ways of bringing more contemporary urban design ideas into the neighborhood.51 Keppler was impressed by the successful application in Arnhem and Leipzig of the hof, that is, a large perimeter block pierced with openings leading to housing lining an interior courtyard. 5 2 Keppler roughly sketched such a block with low two storey houses and a school on the inside, surrounding an open playground, and higher three and four storey houses on the exterior rim.53 He then engaged van der Mey's help in developing the design.54 The 394 resulting complex, the Zaanhof (Fig. 9.8), was the first application in Amsterdam of a design concept which was to be used repeatedly in the 1920s in South Amsterdam to bring light, air, and green space to mass housing. Although it bore some relation to the older hofjes, established for the most part as philanthropic housing for the elderly as early as the sixteenth century, the Zaanhof differed in design. The hofies usually formed a single rim of low housing directly on a small courtyard, whereas the Zaanhof formed a double ring of housing around a accessible by a narrow road. large courtyard The two building types shared a quiet village atmosphere. Keppler arranged for the architects of the housing societies Het Westen, Patrimonioum and HIJSM to meet with him and van der Mey to coordinate their designs on the plan. The interior court was lined with H. J. M. Walenkamp's village-like complex for Het Westen: double units with simple details. (Fig. 9.9) high-pitched Tjeerd Kuipers and A. Ingwersen created for Patrimonium a medieval fortress for their rim of high, four storey housing. housing block for HIJSM. porch (portiek) entries (Fig. for the four storey housing.color, or style, Although the three the whole complex formed by virtue of van der Mey's design of a penetrated by passageways. 5 5 municipal authorities and it W. Greve designed a plain Both the Patrimonium and HIJSM designs used designs did not share materials, a unified entity 9.10 and 9.11) in strong enclosure The Zaanhof was the first attempt by the Amsterdam to foster received considerable praise. harmonious residential 56 Within the municipal civil service it was Keppler, supported by Tellegen, who worked hardest to use municipal authority to demand aesthetic conformity. The creation of blokbouw, the unified block design 395 described by Berlage, depended on the harmonious treatment of the street facade. From 1915 Keppler used his new position as head of the Housing Authority to achieve that. 396 Keppler and Aesthetic Control Soon after the Housing Authority had been established, Jan Gratama, then editor of the Bouwkundig Weekblad and a member of the Beauty Commission, suggested that a special committee be appointed to lead the architectural coordination of municipal housing projects.57 Keppler and the new Beauty Commission went to work at once to create the kind of leadership Gratama suggested. Keppler raised the issue of coordination between housing architects building within the same block when he wrote to the Beauty Commission in November 1915 about several projects to be built along the Krommeniestraat in the Spaarndammer district. (Figs. 9.12, 9.13 and 9.14) These were housing society projects connecting to an existing row of housing by de Klerk on the Spaarndammerplantsoen. De Klerk's project Hille had created a unique effect in Amsterdam: new spirit in for the developer the first expression of a housing design using the flamboyant brick work already applied in a fresh way at the Scheepvaarthuis by van der Mey in collaboration with de Klerk and Kramer. housing. But here it was applied to The flow of material and the rhythmic accents of stairwell and windows appeared to realize called for by Berlage.58 the organic nature of the street facades Because of the extraordinary nature of the design, Keppler was most anxious that the adjacent construction adequately complete the block.5 9 participated in Keppler, the Beauty Commission, and the architects lengthy debates about how to combine the designs. But repeated discussions only underlined the difficulty of combining radically 60 different styles in one block. De Klerk had also designed a block of housing for Hille parallel to 397 When inflation and the first block and across the Spaarndammerplantsoen. shortages cut off the private building sector with the onset of World War I, Hille was forced to abandon the project, but Keppler was able to convince the building society Eigen Haard to take on de Klerk's project, so that the unity of the square could be preserved. On the third side of the square Gulden and Geldmaker made plans for a project for the housing society Amsterdam-Zuid (Fig. 9.15) which de Klerk felt would not disturb his design. As a result, a stylistically unified square was created, not altogether unlike the image de Klerk himself had envisaged.61 (Fig. 9.16) The incident of the block on the Spaarndammerplantsoen triggered the Beauty Commission to propose to the mayor and aldermen that entire blocks be assigned to a single project in the future. 6 2 Few private developers might be expected to undertake construction of entire blocks, but it was apparent that the housing societies might be the vehicle for the large 63 scale development necessary to realize blokbouw." His experience in the Spaarndammer district spurred Keppler to initiate further experiments in neighborhood planning north of the Ij and in South Amsterdam. From the end of the nineteenth century Amsterdam had been planning an extension into the polders north of the Ij. produced by the Y-Commissie of 64 The plan 1903 designated several residential districts surrounded by industrial development.65 (Fig. plans drawn up by the Public Works Department in neighborhood in Nieuwendammerham. (Fig. 9.18) 9.17) Street 1910 designed a low-rise The southern portion of the district, Spreeuwpark, was one of the first areas constructed by the housing societies. Low-rise, two and three storey projects surrounded the plain central square of this rather inept plan. 6 6 (Fig. 9.19) At the same time that Public Works prepared the plan for Spreeuwpark, 398 it designed a provisional street plan for the northern half of But approval of the plan was postponed until the Nieuwendammerham. general extension plan for North Amsterdam could be approved. the general plan neared completion in 1914 (Fig. 9.19), By the time Spreeuwpark had been built up and housing societies had begun to request land in the northern half of Nieuwendammerham. Under new regulations, the housing societies applied to the BWT for land, rather than to the Public Works Department, normally the procedure. Keppler, as head of the housing division of BWT, hoped to parlay this new empowerment into an opportunity to take over some of the plan-making functions of Public Works. Long distrustful of Public Works' plans, he attempted to bring modern planning concepts to bear on the housing plans for which he was responsible. the beginning of 1914 he asked Public Works if the new district. At he could make a plan for In collaboration with several architects working for housing societies which had requested land in the area, he drew up a street plan for the northern half of Nieuwendammerham. 6 7 The plan consisted of a diagonal traffic road separating two courtyard complexes designed like the Zaanhof with a rim of housing on the exterior and a quiet courtyard lined with low housing on the inside. (Fig. 9.20) Schools placed in the courtyards and along the street formed focal points, a reaction against the prevailing custom of hiding schools inside ordinary perimeter block.68 However, Keppler's bid to influence neighborhood planning was curbed by the director of Public Works Bos. The fiscally motivated Bos was infuriated by the attempt of the socially conscious Keppler to take over Public Works' planning functions. aesthetic adviser van der Mey to redesign the plan. Bos called on his 69 When Keppler and Tellegen saw that the new plans sent to them in July 399 1914 did not make use of the hof concept that they were so actively promoting, they protested to the alderman of Housing.70 Although Bos did not favor the procedure, van der Mey, who had previously worked with Keppler in the design of the Zaanhof, once again began coordinating a joint plan between housing society architects. Keppler specifically asked him to alter his plans to facilitate the assignment of entire blocks to single architects in order to better the aesthetic treatment. 7 1 After numerous revisions van der Mey's plan finally met the approval of all parties. (Fig. 9.21) The plan set up two main axes intersecting at an oblique angle with a church as the pivot point. The side streets were narrow and short, giving the area a village atmosphere. Although van der Mey did not use the hof, the housing was grouped around green spaces and playgrounds to form intimate, quiet enclosures. 7 2 Keppler supervised the division of van der Mey's plan among the six participating housing societies.73 Then he began the second part of his experiment in creating unified neighborhoods. He brought the architects of the six housing societies together to discuss the architecture of the neighborhood.7 4 He requested the Beauty Commission to consider the six projects all together, rather than following the customary procedure of reviewing the facades individually. Working in coordination with one another, the architects prepared perspectives and bird's eye views. (Figs. 9.22 and 9.23) During review the Beauty Commission made recommendations 75 for the coordination of materials and roof lines. The neighborhood in Nieuwendammerham made a striking contrast to earlier housing developments in Amsterdam. When Berlage's plans for South Amsterdam came up for approval in the council in 1917, Housing Alderman Wibaut displayed sketches of Nieuwendammerham in the council to stifle 400 The following objections that blokbouw necessarily meant dull monotony.76 year Keppler applied the same planning system to the Cooperatie district in South Amsterdam. 7 7 Keppler's experiments in aesthetic control could have very little impact on private developers, since government interference in enterprise was sharply limited. But the public financial footing of the housing societies lent itself to further controls in aesthetic matters. case of municipal housing, which the council authorized in In the 1915, Keppler was able to exert total control as director of the Housing Authority. For the first three housing projects by the municipality, three experienced and well respected private architects were selected: Pek, de Bazel and Berlage. van der In each case Keppler was able to arrange the innovative coordination of plans and buildings. For de Bazel's project in the Spaarndammer district, Keppler took over the area of the Zaandammerplein, originally intended for housing societies. (Fig. 9.24) Once again engaging the services of van der Mey, the neighborhood was redesigned to form another hof, just north of the Zaanhof. Although de Bazel's severe facades, with their small, thinly spaced entries leading to collective entries for eight families, did not evoke the intimacy of Walenkamp's design, the Polanenhof did achieve a sense of neighborhood identity, in striking contrast to the dismal rows of housing on the original streets of the 1887 plan. (Fig. 9.25) Berlage engaged the assistance of Jan Gratama and G. Versteeg for the municipal housing in the Transvaal district. Here Berlage's street plan of 1903 was altered to form a series of courts influenced by Unwin's planning ideas. (Fig. 9.26) The result owed much to the idea of the protective hof with high four storey buildings forming a rim around low 401 two story housing facing small courts. The lively colors of the brick facades were further enhanced with colored tiles and wood trim to form a charming ensemble. Van der Pek's project, the largest of the three, was placed in the eastern half of the extension north of the Ij, 9.27) Van der Pek designed the plan as a patterns of short curved streets in Buiksloterham. (Fig. garden suburb. Symmetrical intertwined with ample green space. Solidly constructed, pleasantly grouped two story units lined the street. Keppler, the socialist civil servant trained at Delft, worked hard to realize Berlage's vision of coordinated design for residential areas. Using the control given him as head of the Housing Authority, he pushed for better street plans and housing designs. It appeared that a new level of government involvement in planning had been reached. A leading architect, attached to the Public Works Department designed street plans and acted as aesthetic advisor to the construction with the cooperation of the Beauty Commission. The housing architects, supervised by the director of the Housing Authority coordinated their efforts. Keppler's experiments took municipal aesthetic control far beyond the passive procedures of the original Beauty Commission. 402 Chapter Ten THE BEAUTY COMMISSION Just after the First World War, an visitor to Amsterdam could find clusters of workers' housing rising in a number of new districts. The housing shortage after the war was acute and recourse had even been taken to erecting temporary shelters, but at many locations around the city new districts recently constructed or under construction illustrated the distance Amsterdam's public control of aesthetics had come in twenty years. On the eve of the major postwar building campaign which would fill Berlage's South Plan during the 1920s, Amsterdam had set new standards of housing design. In the Spaarndammer district, for instance, little remained of the much reviled plan of 1912 by Public Works. replaced the dull western blocks of that Two hofs by van der Mey plan. At the Zaanhof, housing society projects combined to form a single block. Polanenhof, de Bazel planned a municipal housing project. three In the To the east of these on the Spaarndammerplantsoen, the Beauty Commission had worked with Keppler to create a unified square graced with the architecture of de Klerk. Nearby, plans had been made for the most outstanding project to be erected in Amsterdam, the triangular block of housing for Eigen Haard by de Klerk. (Fig. 10.1) Yet Arie Keppler, the man most closely associated with these 403 aesthetic improvements, took little satisfaction from his own accomplishments. In 1918, as Amsterdam prepared for the expansion of South Amsterdam, Keppler expressed his doubts about the aesthetic quality of future developments, based on his experience so far. His attempts to lead architects to cooperate had not produced aesthetically pleasing results in either the Spaarndammer district, Nieuwendammerham, or the Cooperatie district, he complained. Only where he had exerted his influence to have de Klerk appointed to build in the Spaarndammer district did Keppler feel he had achieved a good result. I achieved a good result by making the demand at the Spaarndammerplantsoen that the design must be done by a particular architect. 1 Elsewhere Keppler placed the blame for unsatisfactory results squarely on the choice of "second-class" architects. 2 How far could government go to secure a beautiful city? We have traced the growth of Amsterdam's aesthetic intervention from the decision to improve plans by hiring experts, to the veto power of the Beauty Commission, and finally, Keppler's efforts at coordination between plan and construction, between one architect and another. Could the public authority now move to determine the choice of architect or the choice of style? How else could the government guarantee that housing would be designed only by competent experts? Such a move threatened the government's position of neutrality. required an official position on matters of taste. It The government would support selection of architects on the basis of professional identity or ability, but it could not support selection on the basis of taste. the internal discourse of architecture, however, the judgement of competence could not easily be separated from taste. The difference Within 404 between the bases on which the government and architects defined expertise accounted for many of the design conflicts that emerged in related to workers' housing Amsterdam. As we saw in Chapter Eight, identifying aesthetic expertise. opinions differed on the methods for Within architectural conflicting tests of architectural competence emerged. circles, two One test was based on evidence of profesional position, such as educational attainment or non-commercial practice. The other was based on disciplinary expertise, that is, on aesthetic competence. kThese two bases, professional and disciplinary, reflected different attitudes toward the architect's role in society. 4 From the viewpoint of the government, however, the role of the architect was strictly that of expert in service to a common good. Public aesthetic control was legitimated by the principle that the beauty of the environment was a collective good, and the maintenance of its quality a public right. Recourse to experts in order to protect the public right to an aesthetic environment differed in no way from protection of other aspects of the collective good. The government itself could not pretend to exercise the appropriate knowledge and must turn to acknowledged authorities in the field whose judgement was to be trusted on the basis of their expertise. In selecting experts for guidance, the government could not display any bias, but rather must maintain a neutrality. working for the government were to base their Experts judgements on knowledge alone, that is, on the knowledge which legitimated their selection as experts to begin with. The government itself was basically indifferent to the distinctions raised by the architects. Whether an expert derived his authority from his command of the discipline or from his practise of the 405 profession was immaterial. What did matter, in the absense of any form of architectural registration, was the role of the architectural societies as acknowledged legitimizers of expertise. Since these societies differed in their attitudes, the public discussion of architecture perforce became involved in the conflict over the definition of architectural competence. In this chapter, we will examine this conflict as it manifested itself in the public patronage of architecture. 406 Procedures of the Beauty Commission Before the reorganization of the Beauty Commission in commission 1915, the attempted to improve Amsterdam's development by using its to veto unacceptable designs. power The veto was applied primarily to the builders who hired draftsmen to draw up their building facades. While the commission might-occasionally make suggestions for improvement of the facade designs, it usually refrained from giving design advice. If the proposed facade were totally unacceptable, it would simply be returned without comment. Builders whose facades were repeatedly returned were usually advised by the commission to find a "competent" designer for the work. The builders often turned to the Bouw- en Woningtoezicht (BWT) for recommendations of architects who might design a facade likely to pass the committee. The BWT always refused to give out names.3 In 1911, BWT Director Tellegen turned to the Beauty Commission for help in advising builders how to select designers so that their chances of rejection would be minimized. neutrality: Both Tellegen and the commission held to the principle of their advice should not unfairly advantage any architect. Therefore the Beauty Commission decided to request architects willing to engage in such work to send in their names for a list to be posted at the BWT. The builders could then make a choice freely without the slightest outside influence. In September 1911 the commission published an open letter to that effect in the Bouwkundig Weekblad, Architectura, and the Telegraaf.4 Meanwhile Tellegen had already asked the Maatschappij for a list of Amsterdam architects willing to design facades and the society had sent him a complete list of its Amsterdam members while asking A+A to do the same.5 To be placed on the list at the BWT only required professional 407 status as conferred by membership in the architectural societies. 1911, By of course, these societies had established more stringent divisions It among their members. was totally congruent with the government's position on expertise that a differentiation be made between professionals and non-professionals. But the Beauty Commission was not long satisfied with the results of this passive attempt to improve the cityscape. After 1915 its aim shifted from negatively trying to prevent construction of the worst unsightliness to positively advancing the best possible urban architecture. The commission began to discuss ways to influence the choice of designer. J. F. Staal, a talented and progressive architect on the commission, suggested that the commission appoint an architect when the submitted design indicated total incompetence. 6 The commission submitted a modified version of this proposal to mayor and aldermen. Whenever a builder gave evidence through his submissions that he lacked the insight or will to select a competent designer, having no knowledge of the architectural world, the commission would then force him to choose a designer from a list of six architects whom the commission considered competent The list would comprise young gifted architects rather than established ones.7 This proposal was soon rejected by the director of Public Works who objected that the builder might start by spending time and money on an incompetent designer to no avail and then be forced to hire an inexperienced young architect. He preferred a system which allowed the builder free choice, but required him to submit his designer's name to the Beauty Commission for approval upon applying to lease land from the city. In this way, the builder would not be forced to hire a designer from a limited category.8 Wibaut, as alderman of Housing, also contributed to 408 this discussion by suggesting that the Beauty Commission apply two standards of competence when considering the builder's choice of architect. For ordinary sites, where no special aesthetic requirements need apply, Wibaut proposed that the commission accept as competent any designer with a degree from Delft or membership Maatschappij, A+A, or BNA. in But for a site where, either the in the opinion of the commission, high aesthetic requirements should be set, in addition to the degree or professional society membership, the commission would also determine whether the designer was an architect of recognized abilities, capable of handling the commission. 9 These proposals went too far toward limiting freedom of choice to be acceptable to the municipal government. The government supported the Beauty Commission's aim to increase the extent to which professional architects prepared the design of facades in Amsterdam's newest districts only as long as the commission left the patron free to chose his designer. As soon as the Beauty Commission moved toward limiting that freedom, the government's principle of neutrality was threatened. The Beauty Commission had begun its task of protecting Amsterdam's beauty by distinguishing between the non-professional designer. The 1911 and professional In this endeavor, it used professional status as a benchmark. lists at BWT naming local architects represented an erstwhile attempt to create a closed shop. It served the professional interests of all architects to see a procedure imposed which encouraged the hiring of architects. The Beauty Commission operated at that stage to protect the profession and made no statement about taste or style. However, the commission later moved beyond merely testing for professional status. one of the first meetings of the new commission in At 1915, Jan Gratama made 409 the point that even architects of established reputation should be put to the test by the Beauty Commission, rather than being given carte blanche as had been the practice in the past.10 He and other members agreed that the commission should not reject a design because it was not in the commissions's taste, but they did not plan to exclude an architect, whatever his qualifications, from the commission's scrutiny. Thus in addition to its task of protecting the profession, the Beauty Commission set itself up to monitor architectural practice. It had moved from judging non-professionals to judging professional colleagues. Such judgement was to remain unprejudiced and neutral, based only on ability, not taste. The shift in procedure occurred after a four year period of intense debate within architectural circles about the nature of the Beauty Commission as it was being reorganized. 410 The Beauty Commission Debates The debates on the Beauty Commission centered around several issues. Should the commission merely prevent ugliness with its actively advance beauty? Should it veto, or should it advance beauty by encouraging the commission of only professional architects or by directly influencing architectural selection? Would the discipline of architecture be furthered by a commission fostering a taste or style, or by being permitted to develop freely? Architects aligned themselves in different camps on these issues. Behind the debate loomed the question of professional registration. Many architects viewed the commission as an evil, necessary only because it was impossible to introduce an ordinance requiring that all construction be designed by a registered architect, since there was no registration act. On the other hand those who saw the commission as more than a device to guarantee minimum design competence, and who wished the commission to become a vehicle for furthering the level of discussion within the architectural discipline, wanted the commission to do more than indicate those with professional standing. commission by the architectural the municipal government For them the authority invested in the societies (on behalf of architecture) (on behalf of the community) and could be wielded to encourage the positive development of architecture in Amsterdam. Thus the Beauty Commission might be a vehicle for channelling professional service to the community through advance of the discipline. Naturally this would mean that the Beauty Commission would have to take a position on disciplinary issues, including taste and style. Therein lay the crux of 411 the potential conflict, since the necessity of partisanship in order to further the discipline contradicted the .neutrality required by the government. The problem lay then in the question whether the community was better served by the preservation of freedom or by commitment to an aesthetic ideal. Equally important for architects was the question whether architecture was better served by aesthetic commitments made freely or under constraints. Not all architects agreed on the idea that the Beauty Commission would serve the discipline by taking a Some feared the misuse of such power. camps. stylistic position. The doubters hailed from three Progressives, noting the close relationship between the Beauty Commission and institutions such as Bond Heemschut dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture, feared the Beauty Commission might hinder modernism. Conservatives feared the Beauty Commission might be harnessed to enforce the adoption of modernism. And finally, narrow professional interests feared the use of the Beauty Commission's powers to limit free access to commissions in favor of certain architects.12 Many architects and members of the government shared the wish to avoid the creation of any official architecture, whether progressive or conservative. The ongoing reorganization of the Amsterdam Beauty Commission between 1911 and 1915 led the Maatschappij to raise the issue for discussion among its membership in 1913. The architectural community debated the issues throughout the year and the society published a final report in 1914. That report supported the need for Beauty Commissions as long as the architectural profession remained unprotected by a registration act. 13 suggested separate procedures for handling submissions by architects and it 412 non-architects. Rejected plans by non-architects would either have to be redrawn by a private architect or submitted for revision to a public architectural advisory bureau to be set up by the architectural societies. While the advisory office could exert direct influence on the designs of non-architects, architects were to be guaranteed their artistic freedom, and need not follow the notations of the Beauty Commission. 1 The major architectural society thus supported the notion that the Beauty Commission create a closed professional environment in which architects might compete freely both for their ideas and for their profit. One of the most vocal defenders of artistic freedom was J. E. van der Pek. In 1912 he argued against the further Beauty Commission's task. expansion of the Amsterdam He objected to the way the committee had already moved from trying to improve the designs of builders to judging the work of other architects. It would harm architecture, van der Pek warned, if members of the commission were asked to judge works by colleagues at the same or higher level of ability. Van der Pek feared that a Beauty Commission no matter how representative would never guarantee an objective judgement of new ideas. Berlage's Stock Exchange would never have been allowed its fresh expression of new ideas, he claimed, had it been subjected to the judgement of a committee of architects. Van der Pek feared a conservative Beauty Commission would become a "spiritual tourniquet," and he suggested that the commission continue to influence the speculative builders, but leave the architects free. 15 Modifying his position slightly during the 1913 debates, van der Pek argued to great applause that certain architects, judged outstanding aesthetic leaders, be exempt from the Beauty Commission's judgement. He 413 traced the notion of beauty through history to show that the avant garde in every age was a harbinger of the following period, warning of the danger if 16 the avant garde were stifled. Socialist and modernist van der Pek saw the commission's control as a potential danger for the free development of architectural ideas. The notion that architectural development needed the free interplay of ideas appeared also in the words of the more aesthetically and politically conservative architect and politician C. B. Posthumus Meyjes. May the development of architecture never be shifted from architects to some committee. That would deaden art rather than advance it. 17 Since many shared van der Pek's fears, supporters of the expanded task of the Beauty Commission took great pains to point out the potential for objective judgement from the commission. J. Ingenohl admitted the difficulty of putting aside personal preference and taste, but insisted that this was a matter of sensitivity and ethics. Herein lies precisely the subtle, ethical side of the institution: personal taste may not count. No preference for any school may turn the scale. The greatest possible respect for the outlook of one's colleague should be asserted, even it it runs diametrically opposed to one' own opinion. 1 8 In a stormy period of dramatic contradictions in architecture, it was natural that conservatives and progressives each shared the fear that the other might assume control and force a contrary stylistic policy. Both sides feared the installation of an official art and wished to underline that neither the government not the architects should use the Beauty Commission to impose or create a style. 19 Thus van der Pek, a modernist of the rationalist school and C. B. Posthumus Meyjes, a conservative historicist, both could agree that the Beauty Commission should be prevented from imposing stylistic control. Posthumus Meyjes wrote: 414 Does a beauty commission have the right to try to lead architecture along the paths it believes to the only true and beautiful ones? The institution of the beauty commission was most certainly not created for that purpose and these committees are surely not authorized to do so. They are only supposed to judge the submitted designs objectively and decide if a design is or is not in conflict with the general and fundamental requirements of aesthetics. They must abstain from prescribing a particular style with which the designer must comply. In 1891 a councillor had also invoked the universal laws of beauty to justify a public limitation on individual freedom. The invocation of such objective laws removed the question of aesthetic taste from a subjective plane to a neutral plane above partisan position. perfectly fit the government's requirement It was a concept which for an official committee. It allowed the commission to function as much as an extension of the government, based on rational, impassive, objective expertise, as an extension of the profession, based on expertise authorized by the societies. As long as the committee did not operate on the basis of taste and did not promote a specific style, it could enjoy the status of official expertise. But the level of architecture would not be raised and the development of architecture would not be furthered by neutral, objective, non-partisan committees, argued progressive artist R. N. Roland Holst. A jury compcsed according to political, aesthetic considerations, in which for every man on the right a corresponding man on the left is selected, inevitably places the deciding balance in the hands of a pallid middle of the roader, lacking in conviction. His taste in art turns toward the tame and insipid, toward art which you can't hate, but which you can't love either, because it leaves you pretty much indifferent. 2 1 For Roland Holst, and many others, the idea of neutral objectivity in aesthetic matters negated the aesthetic commitment which was necessary for the advancement of the discipline. A committee on the government's model was useless to promote architectural improvement in Amsterdam. As the 415 Beauty Commission altered its scope through the years, the essentially partisan nature of architectural conviction and the commitment of government to official neutrality caused misunderstandings between the commission and the government 416 The Beauty Commission and the Municipal Government As early as 1902, the architect and council member G. van Arkel had called for the removal of the Beauty Commission and the reinstatement of the position of the city architect. One advantage, he argued, would be that the private architect would not have to depend on the judgement of colleagues who could not possibly be non-partisan.22 The architectural societies defended the objectivity of the commission, but subsequent events proved van Arkel correct. 2 3 Over the years a number of disputes arose between the government and the Beauty Commission stemming from a difference of opinion over the basis on which the commission should exercise its power of refusal. 2 4 In 1914 the Beauty Commission tried to prevent acceptance of the design for the Koloniaal Instituut (now the Troppenmuseum) by J. J. van Nieukerken. The conservative historicist design met the disapproval of the commission, but mayor and aldermen would not permit a stylistic basis to play a role in the decision. The Beauty Commission resigned when the city government 25 overruled its recommendation, but later resumed its duties. After 1915 when the commission came to be dominated by progressive architects, the tensions heightened. In 1916 mayor and aldermen once again overturned a Beauty Commission recommendation. The insurance company Koninklijke Hollandse Lloyd planned an office building by Evert Bremen in the harbor area. Since a small portion of the site fell on government held land, the approval of the municipality was required. approval of the Public Works Committee, With the municipality went ahead and passed the proposal without taking into account the Beauty Commission's recommendation to reject the design. 417 The rejection stemmed from the commission's conviction that the historical nature of the design was inappropriate in modern times. As one member, J. F. Staal, put it, the question of whether or not one can build in an old style is as ridiculous as asking if one may speak Celtic in Holland. 2 6 If the commission interpreted its task as furthering the beauty of Amsterdam, he argued, it had to take upon itself the responsibility to further the development of architecture. A building such as that proposed "was a specimen of outlandish style imitation, such as that perpetrated thirty or forty years before, and was a total negation of the development of architecture since that time." 27 Just as in other social matters, the individual's wishes must yield to the general interest in matters of building constructicn. Presumably this idea is accepted for all technical requirements, but surprisingly when it comes to aesthetic requirements, the most anarchistic notions reign, and a great many building patrons believe that just because they pay the bills, they have the right to force the products of their taste(lessness) on everyone and in this way dominate the environment in which thousands must lead their lives years after they are gone, instead of subordinating their personal ideas to the general artistic insights and desires 28 of their age. In other words, the Beauty Commission as a panel of experts was in the position to interpret the community and the times, and then protect the environment from those works which ran counter to their spirit. From the commission's viewpoint, the good of the community and the development of architecture were congruent; Therefore individual taste to serve one was to serve the other. had to defer to the general collective taste of the time. This argument was a logical extension from the collectivist conclusions reached by the municipal council in the 1890s, individual must defer to the collective good. in that the But the thesis had now been maneuvered in service to a historical determinism which not only 418 identified architecture as a direct expression of society, but also considered viable the forced elimination of all that was not in tune with that expression. This historical perspective differed sharply from that of Berlage and such followers of his as van der Pek who embraced the concept of a link between style and society, but believed that style developed naturally and unforced. Although the Beauty Commission was accused of using its powers to enforce its own taste, the commission's historical argument made its own claim to objectivity, albeit one different than either the government's ideal as embodied in the social engineer or the notion of universal laws of beauty. According to their viewpoint, a style of the times is not a function of individual taste, but rather an expression of the community at large. Far from being a subjective phenomenon of taste, the correct style is rather an objectively verifiable fact. These were arguments familiar from Berlage's of art discussions of the relation to society. The difference was that the commission believed it could use its "objective" identification of art as a basis to reject non-conforming styles. J. B. van Loghem answered Posthumus Meyjes' objections with the following statement: Even though the Beauty Commission cannot create art, it can certainly contribute to the pure understanding of art, if it continues to reject the dull products resulting from an antiquarian spirit.29 Of course other architects, and in particular conservative historicists, did not share this viewpoint. They used the controversy to point out once again that the function of the Beauty Commission was to prevent bad architecture, not to further architectural development. 30 These voices recalled that the commission could prevent bad architecture best by keeping design in competent hands, that is, in professional hands. 419 In essence, the Lloyd incident dramatically pitted those who saw the commission as a means to protect the profession against those who saw it as a means to further the discipline. viewpoints of the architectural expert: It also put into perspective two one as objective interpreter of universal laws of beauty, the other as objective interpreter of the "Zeitgeist." But in the end both the Koloniaal Institute and the Lloyd crises also brought into perspective the question of responsibility for the common good of public beauty: or with the experts? did the final authority rest with the government J. H. W. Leliman posed the question during the 1914 controversy: This is the question in which the greatest public interest lies as long as we still may call the beauty of our city a public interest: can we under the current circumstances consider Amsterdam's urban beauty to be safely protected by the 3 government? 1 In 1917 succinctly: builder? the councillor Gulden put the problem ironically "Who will determine how the city will look? Mayor and aldermen? Or Public Works?" and The individual 32 Officially the government, no matter how far it had moved in the direction of lending public support to the protection of urban beauty, was unwilling to take a stand on what it perceived as an internal matter of the architectural discipline: architectural development. the question of taste and the direction of But many architects believed that the only way to further Amsterdam's architectural quality meant public stylistic commitment. The city remained committed to freedom of choice. In the mayor and alderman's letter to the Beauty Commission explaining their rejection of the commission's advice in explicit. 1916, this principle was made 420 The municipality can prohibit the freedom to erect buildings which disfigure the city; but in our opinion a municipal government or other governmental body does not have the authority to force the choice of a particular architectural style. 33 It remained to be seen whether the city's commitment to freedom could be squared with the intention to achieve the best architecture for Amsterdam. 421 Chapter Eleven WORKERS' HOUSING AND AESTHETICS The demand for architectural quality for Amsterdam drew its strength from the desire to preserve Amsterdam's old urban architecture and the wish that the new extensions be worthy of that heritage. But the cold truth was that the extensions consisted primarily of low cost housing, which hardly boasted a tradition of outstanding architecture. applying the best architectural justify talent to workers' In order to housing, not only for hygienic purposes but also for aesthetic treatment, a shift first had to take place in the perception of what was appropriate to workers' housing. Consequently, the conflicts over architectural expertise just described could take on a political color. In the discussion of changing living standards, we already touched on the political differences between conservative and progressive attitudes toward raising workers' living standards. On the issue of housing aesthetics, strongest support for the best architectural talent came from the Social Democrats. The liberals also favored aesthetic improvement in the form of tasteful design, but in liberal circles the nineteenth century attitude toward "decoration" as a luxury inappropriate to the lower classes proved persistent. There were many signs of this Calvinistic attitude. The admonition to dress according to one's social position combined public display of the 422 social hierarchy with an injunction to thrift. The separation of first, second, and third class waiting rooms in railroad stations translated the Similarly this attitude notion of class differences into material form held that the facade of a worker's home should hit the right note of modest but tasteful domesticity without undue or expensive embellishment. When architect Leliman and doctor-hygienist Colonel called for a varied treatment of facades in the philanthropic housing of the midnineteenth century, achieve the effect. 2 they assumed that simple means would be used to At that time architects still interpreted their Beauty primary contribution to housing as hygiene and solid construction. and decoration were considered applicable to the simplest housing, but to 3 be sacrificed in favor of usefulness and hygiene when finances required. Even those who placed more emphasis on the outward appearance of housing warned against inappropriate overdecoration: Although Mr. Cuypers spoke disapprovingly about the exaggerated decoration of workers' housing, he still thought that the worker has the right to live in a home which meets all the requirements 4 of architecture just as the housing of the more affluent does. At the start of the twentieth century, an increasing spirit of democracy infused the belief that workers' housing no less than upper class housing should satisfy "all the requirements of architecture." But these requirements were to be satisfied through modest means appropriate to the workers' social and economic standing. Workers' housing, it was felt, should somehow look like workers' housing. Just as young women had been warned in the nineteenth century not to dress up to look like their betters, workers' dwellings should not try to ape upper class villas. Architect van Loghem and others warned against trying to transfer villa into the worker's dwelling. the Such an approach would simply create useless versions of the parts of a middle class house and its many 423 specialized rooms on a diminuative scale. This was also an architectural 5 argument against the parlor. The imagery of workers' housing had to be appropriate to the workers' status. When the Amsterdam Beauty Commission reviewed Walenkamp's design for the Zaanhof in 1916, it questioned what it called the luxurious treatment. The judgement of the committee on the Walenkamp design is that it in no way displays the character of workers' housing with its luxurious intentions, particularly the towers and the numerous gables which will greatly increase the cost of construction and maintenance. Walenkamp defended his design by referring to its attempt to create rural character.7 Rural imagery for urban workers was acceptable because it evoked their lower social and economic position, if not their current geographical location, and suggested that the evils of urban pollution and congestion might be remedied by housing design that evoked the healthy outdoor life of the farm.a Against the notion of art used to express the fixed place of the worker in the social hierarchy, socialist artists called for new proletarian art forms to indicate the historical place of the working class. This reasoning had in common with the liberal view only the notion of an art specifically appropriate to the worker, but in this case the admonition to avoid bourgeois art forms stemmed from the desire to avoid the tainted imagery of the class enemy, not from the wish to suppress inappropriate material aspirations. Bourgeois art was associated with the past, with the historical forms that evoked the era of Dutch-mercantile glory. A new art, appropriate to the coming age of the proletariat would have to draw on new forms to express class consciousness. In this Marxist view, the best architecture could not be interpreted as too good for the 424 worker, not only because the worker deserved such a reward for his toil, 9 but because the best talents available should be tapped to serve him. Socialists in the Amsterdam bureaucracy and city council supported the call for excellence in workers' housing design. Keppler argued vociferously for the aesthetic side of housing as a legitimate and prominent part of the housing problem. Wibaut encouraged aesthetic exploration and repudiated bad design. He complained in 1915 that the designs for a housing project for het Oosten showed no new thought, that is, he expected workers' housing to reflect the latest stylistic innovations. 10 Berlage wished to see art arise for the worker which created a new, simpler aesthetic in contrast to the false pretensions of bourgeois luxebouw (sumptuous construction). In his 1896 review of van der Pek's Goudbloemstraat housing, he praised the work not only for its solution to the social and hygienic requirements, but specifically for its architectural achievement, which signified to Berlage the possibility of a meaningful architecture in a workers' district. What is gratifying about this possibility is that the worker will now slowly begin to see that art can exist for him, too. And if, as I hope, what we usually call "showy" architecture begins to discard its parvenu trappings of false beauty (which the worker with a taste that could not conceivably be otherwise in these time mistakes for real beauty, since it appears rich and pretty) and if instead architecture becomes simple, then will arise an artistic and democratic accommodation which will bring a salutory unity to architecture, without the necessity that we must make workers' housing into sho architecture, or make showy architecture into workers' housing. Thus Berlage defined at the turn of the century the problem which preoccupied the architects who worked for the housing societies in the early twentieth century: aesthetic and appropriate. how to design workers' housing which was both 425 Adequate or Excellent Housing Design The urge for architectural excellence in workers' housing did not manifest itself in the Beauty Commission until after 1915. If Walenkamp could be accused by the Beauty Commission for designing housing too luxurious for workers in 1916, in 1917 the commission reversed itself and called Leliman to task for his monotonous designs for the Handwerkers Vriendenkring in the Transvaal district. This was the primary housing for the urban renewal project in the old Jewish district, and nearly half of the dwelling units were rent subsidized. Leliman's defense that he did not wish to enliven the facade more than he had, given the subsidized character of the building, no longer carried weight.12 The Beauty Commission now wished to make greater demands for the aesthetics of housing. This new attitude among some architects appeared in its most articulate form in the jury report of the facades in Amsterdam. 1917 competition for housing The jury squarely faced the question whether a worker's dwelling had to express itself as such architectonically. It set its criteria for workers' housing as follows: The architecture must be powerful and simple, the incarnation of Yet the the coming class consciousness of the worker. architecture must not be too harsh and the exterior must reveal his often hard livingroom where the worker, after the 'friendly' must display a color overall The family. his labor can rest amid continue to always will and it need people the liveliness since 13 it. need It was most undesirable, stated the committee, that appear similar to better housing if it carried a petit workers' housing bourgeois stamp. Thus workers' housing was to be specifically expressive of its nature, but in a positive, empowering sense, not a restrictive, repressive sense. 426 The positive architectural expression of the working class took two forms. Berlage's own designs for workers' housing in Amsterdam displayed a restraint and dignity produced by a simple, straightforward composition of parts and materials. 1 4 the socialist His intent was well expressed by the defense housing society Het Algemeene made for his 1910 designs: these would raise the quality of the external appearance and would be more presentable than what could be expected from a private builder, but without unnecessary trappings.15 The trappings were unnecessary here not because workers should be denied such signs of wealth, but because the workers themselves presumably rejected such false, tasteless pretensions. But Berlage's proposal for a working class aesthetic of simplicity was countered by another, more expressive aesthetic which posited a richness as luxurious as that of bourgeois taste, but in forms specific to workers' housing. The second prize in the 1917 facade competition went to Michel de Klerk, whose brilliant treatment of the problem showed exactly the kind of talent the jury wished to encourage. (Fig. 11.1) De Klerk's facile draftsmanship illustrated a brickwork facade whch appeared to gather force at the vertical shafts of the double stairwells and to pull tautly across the horizontal stretch of the adjacent living rooms. De Klerk brought a vigorous animation to the treatment of mass housing which galvanized the conception of what such housing could be. 16 His work raised the standards to a new level of excellence. Naturally, this tour de force did not proceed unopposed, particularly as de Klerk's vocabulary of forms made use of brick to create textures and sculptural forms hardly justifiable by function alone and often disregarding the expression of construction. The work of de Klerk and his 427 followers lay open to accusationsof frivolity, overdecoration, and willfulness. If Johanna ter Meulen could accuse De Arbeiderswoning of showing off with the clean functionalism of Berlage's designs in 1914, how much more likely that de Klerk's expressionism would offend those liberals clinging to a Calvinistic notion of the sobriety appropriate to workers' housing. The council's advisory committee on housing called de Klerk and Kramer's Dageraad housing in the Cooperatie district too whimsical. 17 Members of the committee objected to the costs incurred by de Klerk's last housing block in the Spaarndammer district for Eigen Haard, with its dramatic, but merely symbolic, tower and its elaborate masonry. 18 Liberal councillor Carels invoked the old argument about workers' housing when he insisted that "the exterior of the building should still take into consideration its function." Both liberals and Social Democrats agreed on the requirement that workers' housing be designed by architects. Liberals were content to see housing in the hands of professionals; the Social Democrats wanted to place housing in the hands of the best aesthetic talents. Once again, the standards for competence split between those for whom professional status was adequate and those who demanded aesthetic excellence. 428 Aesthetics and the Workers' Housing Societies The primary aim of the housing societies themselves was not architectural; it was to secure improved housing conditions. Naturally, aesthetics might contribute to that improvement, but it formed only one part of the societies's interests. Housing reformers encouraged the housing societies to hire competent architects, although in fact the Housing Act made no specific requirements about the nature of the building designer. Hudig and Henny stressed in their handbook for housing societies that an architect would not merely help with the appearance of the housing, but, in their view more importantly, would improve the layout, hygiene, and solidity of construction. 19 In their positions in the Building and Housing Inspection Office (Bouw- en Woningtoezicht) and as trustees to a number of societies, Keppler and Tellegen exerted some influence on the choice of architect. For instance, the Jewish artisans society Handwerkers Vriendenkring met with Tellegen and Keppler to discuss their choice of architect. Tellegen and Keppler presented the officers of the housing society with eight names and helped them chose from the list. The society's choice was based on 2 political affilitation, not aesthetics. 0 Reform organizations such as the Central Bureau of Social Information (Centraal Bureau voor Sociale Adviezen, CBSA) and the Amsterdamsch Housing Council offered advise to housing societies assistance. in search of architectural One group of workers wrote plaintively to the CBSA for advice when their architect demanded a fee for plans which could not be carried out due to the fact that the cost estimate far exceeded the society's budget. "Can your agency possibly recommend to our society a competent, 429 and more to the point, a sincere and honest architect?" they inquired. 2 Their story indicated both the difficulties 1 housing societies could encounter when dealing with architects and the secondary importance of aesthetics in the choice of architect. By and large religious or political affiliation, not style or taste, remained the paramount consideration of the societies in their choice of architect. A shared affiliation offered a guarantee of trustworthiness and a likelihood that the ideological preferences of the group would be understood. Thus Kuipers and Ingwersen, already known for their design of Reformed Protestant churches, were a natural choice as architects for the Reformed Protestant housing society Patrimonium. Similarly Amsterdam- Zuid, the housing society initiated by socialist municipal workers, turned to the socialist architects Gulden and Geldmaker. As one architect complained: In our little country with its hundred or so shades of politics and religion, there are as many cliques, with the result that Catholic housing societies chose Catholic architects, Protestant housing societies chose Protestant architects, and Social Democratic housing societies chose Social Democratic architects, each according to their own party. 22 The requirement for affiliation with the same pillar, combined with the societies' unfamiliarity with the architectural world, at times led to choices among lesser known and less talented architects. However, in Amsterdam the relationship between a society and the architect it selected for its first project was usually stable. It was exceptional for the 23 societies to switch architects for later commissions. Housing societies architectural did not express much interest style they desired. in defining the All hoped for an improvement over the dull monotony of the speculative builders' vocabulary. But the newsletters, annual reports and journals of the societies gave little 430 indication of stylistic preference. Het Oosten specifically expressed the desire for a facade which would identify the society's projects throughout the city.24 its architects Patrimonium, on the other hand, expressed satisfaction that had avoided uniformity and monotony in designed for the society's first project.25 the facades they As clients, the housing societies provided their architects with few or no guidelines to aesthetic treatment. 431 The Reform of Working Class Taste Working class taste was more likely to be the object of reform than a guide to architects. At the start of the twentieth century many architects and artists took the view that the public needed to be educated to understand art and to develop good taste. For the working class in particular, who had not previously enjoyed much exposure to high culture, architecture might prove uplifting intellectually and morally, it was held. Elementary and high schools had failed to teach the lay public how to look at art or consider aesthetics,26 and so the public was now unable to appreciate the modern crafts movement. The products of industrial processes, the argument continued, had debased the quality of everyday articles so that the consuming public were victims of the manufacturers. If only the workers had available to them works of art, examples of good taste, and the training to understand them, they could begin the intellectual and spiritual development for which they themselves yearned. 2 7 The movement to reform working class taste emanated from both progressive liberal and Social Democratic circles. It became part of the same Toynbee social work that carried out other forms of training. urban workers could be taught to adjust their life styles If to the modern city, why not their tastes? Progressive liberals and socialists shared an interest in bringing aesthetic enlightenment to the working class, but despite a similarity of messages and methods, they differed in emphasis and aim. The liberal attitude, which we have already encountered, wished to rid the working class of its desire to ape the middle class, as if it were applying 432 sumptuary laws. Helene Mercier's shock at finding imitations of expensive furniture and knickknacks in the homes of the indigent slum dwellers of Amsterdam echoed into the twentieth century. Rather than viewing this as a sign of an unstoppable aesthetic impulse, reformers took the interest in decoration to be uneconomic and disfunctional, a sign of indecency. I have to my surprise found well maintained bureaus and cabinets, shining copper, prints on the wall, large colored glass balls, porcelain dolls and the like even on the top floors of dwellings in the side alleys of "Hol" and "Hemelrijk." And what is particularly remarkable is that nearly everywhere, even in the homes of housing societies, it was noticeable that the less cultivated the dwellers appeared to be, the more their room was decked out with this so-called "finery."2 8 Often held up to ridicule in Amsterdam were the poor taste and gaudy display of the diamond workers who earned quick fortunes in the so-called "Kapers." 1880s, the Condemnation of their use of the money on fancy clothes, furniture, and jewelry typified the reformers' attitudes toward workers' taste. Socialist union organizer Henri Polak described the "Kapers" in 1896. The money had to be spent and it went for the most tasteless, insipid things...Right away new furniture was acquired...mahogony abominations, chairs and sofas (called loveseats) covered with red velveteen,...silver chests (called bonheur du jour, Heaven knows why) decorated with ridiculous carving, linen chests "of massive oak" for the family linen and the damask tablecloths which, with their woven landscapes, hunt scenes, and arabesques, constituted the pride of the diamond workers' wives. The colors of the flowered carpets were blinding, the gilt clocks with candelabras, the gilt frames around the lithos "in the style of Koekoek," and 29 the gas chandeliers shone with a glaring glitter. Here the sharply critical description reveals as much about the author's dislikes as it does about the workers' preferences. Socialists like Polak were as likely as the liberal reformers to offer injunctions against working class imitation of middle class interiors, just as progressive liberals were as likely as socialists to condemn ostentatious bourgeois taste. Mercier remarked: 433 Many is the one-room dwelling whose furniture displays a strong relationship to the modern salon of the nouveau riche bourgeois both of them accumulations of bric-a-brac. 3 0 But the socialists replacement pushed for an anti-individualist, for bourgeois taste, pro-collective while the liberals inappropriateness of extravagant expenditure. emphasized the For the socialist the alternative was design that could serve the aims of the class movement, distinct from bourgeois taste. For the progressive liberal, aesthetic reform would offer the worker a modern, more up-to-date version of bourgeois taste. 434 Art for the People Both socialists and liberals gave out similar advice to workers, and both used similar means to shape working class taste. standards all manner of propaganda was enlisted: articles, lectures, exhibitions, and competitions. To raise aesthetic newspaper and magazine In October 1903 Social Democratic circles in Amsterdam gave birth to the society Art for the People (Kunst aan 't Volk), an organization which took as its goal "the advancement and enjoyment of art by the working class." 3 1 One of the first projects it planned was an exhibition of cheap but artistic home interiors. 3 2 The 1905 exhibition displayed good and bad examples of living room interiors. In 1908 Kunst aan 't Volk presented an exhibition 33 of wall decorations, good and bad, arranged and introduced by Berlage. The most publicized of these exhibitions was Kunst aan 't Volk's 1910 exhibition on poor taste at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; widely reviewed in the press.34 this was Once again a lecture by Berlage introduced the exhibit, which displayed good and bad examples of everyday objects. Furnishings for workers' dwellings formed an important category of concern. The Ons Huis competition of 1912 asked designers to provide all the furniture for two workers' families, one set for 300 guilders , the other for 450. (Figs. 11.2 and 11.3) When the two winning entries were exhibited, they were accompanied by a counter example. 3 5 Kunst aan 't Volk held a competition for the design of furniture for a worker's livingroom in 1916. The prizewinning furniture was displayed in a flat in de Bazel's housing for De Arbeiderswoning on van Beuningenplein.3 6 The housing societies became a vehicle for instruction in taste and 435 The teachers' society ACOB invited Henri Polak and architect furnishings. 3 van Epen to give their thoughts on how to build and arrange a good home, 7 and van Epen subsequently furnished a model room of the housing he (Fig. 11.4) designed for het Algemeene in 1910. The housing society Amsterdam Zuid had the department store De Bijenkorf furnish a flat in its 38 first housing project in order to attract more tenants. The message of these many examples and counterexamples was in general the same. Influenced by the arts and crafts reform movement, the architects and artists truthfulness. preached the modern gospel of simplicity and They encouraged the unity of style, color, and the reduction of elements. harmony of form and Logical forms, reflecting function, convenience and usefulness were encouraged. They promoted simplicity and clarity of form, and materials used according to their nature. brochure accompanying Kunst aan 't Volk's The 1910 exhibit systematically laid out the sources of bad taste, categorizing them under the headings of material errors, construction errors, and decorative errors. 3 9 exhibition, "crimes" against good taste In the were displayed and labelled: false and inappropriate materials such as chocolate busts of royalty, false construction such as animal shaped pen boxes, kitsch resulting from current events such as a series of prints on the Zeppelin flight, inappropriate towels.40 decoration such patriotic sentiments expressed on hand The exhibition contrasted tawdry prints with tasteful lithographs, hard to clean, overdecorated furniture with simple, easy to maintain pieces. A socialist brochure described the way the worker should furnish his home. In carpet, place of the standard clutter, the fancy lamp and flowered overdecorated chairs and gilded picture frames, dust collectors 436 such as table runners and heavy curtains which kept out the sun, the brochure suggested plain and practical mats for the floor, simple chairs with cushions, and curtains that hung only half way down the window and could be left open during the day.4 1 The working class was expected to learn to prefer plain colors over printed wall papers and carpets, simple furniture rather than false mahogony and imitation Louis XIV. The simple, practical, undecorated and logical was to replace the fussy, overelaborate and awkward. 4 2 437 Workers and Aesthetic Expertise Despite efforts at reform, the workers themselves did not easily give up their own preferences and on a number of occasions commentators noted that exhibition visitors felt more at home in the counterexamples than in the model rooms. Many workers rejected the unfamiliar forms of modern design, or as one reviewer commented critically, "the workers still place too much value on ostentatious forms and illogical display." 43 A socialist wrote impatiently: It will be hard work to convince workers that they cannot get really good furniture for the money they have to spend, and that instead of filling their homes with poor, imitation furniture, they would do better to limit themselves to the most essential household effects.4 4 De Bazel's subsidized housing at van Beuningenplein with its sober, clean lines was dubbed the "Lutheran Old Age Home" by the local populace. 4 5 (Fig. 7.9) Berlage's light bricked and corbelled housing on the Javaplein was called the beehive. (Fig. 7.6) Workers found that their furnishing and decorations fit poorly in the plain interiors designed for them. Bazel designed easy to clean interiors: De walls painted in flat colors, floors of tinted concrete, but these proved unpopular with workers accustomed to do-it-yourself improvements such as colorfully patterned 46 wall-paper and cheerful carpets. It was difficult for the aesthetic reformers to empathize with the preference for imitating "hopelessly" middle class taste. A reporter at a 1920 exhibition of workers' rooms furnished by J. C. van Epen jibed: If the less well off cannot bring themselves to want to live in an interior characterized with as much liveliness, intimacy, and inventiveness as the inexpensive creation of this architect, then they deserve to sit pretty among their teatables and chests for all eternity.4 7 438 Working class obstinacy in the face of attitudes more logical, more economic, and more tasteful in the minds of the reformers, led some to disparage the attempts to "educate" the working class.48 the workers did not want to change, and that the reformers appeared unjustifiably to assume a monopoly of knowledge. At times the reformers rather than the reformed became the objects of ridicule. argued against the campaign to bring art They argued that Cornelius Veth to the people, citing "the pretention of setting oneself up as a sort of intellectual and aesthetic guardian over the people as if they were minors. "49 The paternalism applied by architects and artists to alter working class taste was not dissimilar to the paternalism applied by social workers to alter working class life style. attention. In neither case did the workers' opinions receive much J. P. Mieras criticized that implicit paternalism in his review of the 1921 exhibition of home interiors. "The attempts to raise the worker's dwelling to a satisfactory practical and aesthetic level will fail to achieve results as long as the workers themselves do not participate more in the attempts than they have up until now. It is simply a fact that everyone prefers, when decisions are being made about him, that some consideration be taken of what he himself wishes and feels."50 Such paternalism permeated attempts to bring art to the people. When Kunst aan 't Volk was first set up, Social Democrat W. H. Vliegen commented: "whoever wishes to bring art to the people must fit the people's capacity for understanding."51 problem of taste art to But even those who viewed the as the problem of finding an aesthetic language both pleasing to the people and reflective of modernity assumed that would take the lead in they should like. that the expert showing the working class what they liked or what 439 Workers and Modernism When Keppler urged architects to pay attention to housing and contribute to its aesthetic solution, he specifically required that the architects must "understand what the working class needs and what it considers attractive. ,52 Jan Gratama designed the cozy village-scale municipal housing in the Transvaal district to respond to his interpretation of working class preferences. The design sported red tile roofs, yellow, mustard, white, and green woodwork for mullions, doors and fences, and red, yellow, black, and brown brick and stone. (Fig. 11.5) Movement and color, Gratama stated, were a requirement for a happy worker's home. We feel that our primary duty is to make cheerful workers' dwellings. There is no type of dwelling which is more offensive to the worker than institutional housing, with its endless, monotonous rows of cells. Moreover, the drab pessimism, which comes from a lack of enthusiasm for life among the intellectual bourgeoisie, in no way forms an important element in the psyche of the modern worker. He has the right to enjoy life and he yearns to do so. Cheerful houses! Colorful and lively!r3 Gratama's success in creating a pleasant domestic setting at minimun cost somewhat excused his pretension to unveil the working man's psyche. Still others pretended to know better than the workers themselves what they should prefer. In socialist circles, modern aesthetic reform represented a reaction against capitalism. P. L. Tak, whose weekly magazine De Kroniek covered progressive aesthetic movements as well as socialist politics, identified this political side of art when he supported Kunst aan 't Volk. Among artists such as architects and decorative artists there is a growing need for simplicity and truthfulness that is a clear reaction against the demands of capitalism, which is so often in 440 conflict with both simplicity and truthfulness. 5 4 Thus modernity's break with historic styles could also signify the proletariat's break from the oppression of bourgeois art and taste. Socialist artist R. N. Roland Holst stressed the division between the bourgeois philanthropists who wished to share with the workers their own high culture, and the Social Democrats who predicted that the future would The new culture bring forth for the people a new proletarian culture. would break with the individualism of the bourgeois past and generate a period of art argued, animated by the concept of community. "Surely the proletariat beauty of bourgeois art In lacks even the capacity and its deepest meaning."55 fact, Holst to understand the While Holst idealized a working class incapable of understanding bourgeois culture, other socialists took the position that the working class failed to understand its own interests. Unthinking, the worker naturally holds up the bourgeois dwelling as the ideal for the worker's dwelling. The worker can only speak up on the issue of his own housing with the language of the bourgeoisie since he has not yet arrived at either an insight into 56 his own interests or a translation of them. Thus political enlightenment must proceed aesthetic enlightenment. Before the people could embrace new art forms, they must be aware of the political significance of those forms. The application of this argument to housing occurred in the defense of housing standardization. On the occasion of the 1918 National Housing Council Convention, J. van der Waerden, head of the Amsterdam BWT, proposed a radical solution to the critical postwar housing shortage by means of government organized and centralized housing production. The state would purchase and distribute materials for construction and local authorities would erect the housing. To maximize efficiency and cost 441 effectiveness, housing plans would be standardized throughout the country. 5 7 A number of Architects and workers alike protested the proposal. labor union and housing society members objected to the prospect of a nation of similar houses, without regional variation, and without room for The solution appeared to them to suggest a return individual expression. to the monotonous nineteenth century townscape. 5 8 But architect H. P. Berlage arose in the convention not so much to defend the particular strategy put forward by van der Waerden, as to respond to these objections. To the architects he pointed to the historic precedent for repetition in housing forms, citing aesthetically successful examples from the Rue de Rivoli and Place Vendome Street in London. in Paris to Regent The representatives of the workers he chided for seeking that individualist form which was the very expression of the workers' class enemy. The fact that individualism is bourgeois should be sufficient to lead the workers to embrace the collective townscape with enthusiasm, he claimed. Berlage said that he had least expected objections to standardization from the side of the workers. be," "But it must he reasoned, "that the workers lacked the insight and knowledge of building history that would teach them that the uniform row house had always existed and that it was the appropriate contemporary means to aesthetic expression."59 According to Berlage, the workers' historic role meant they must embrace a collective aesthetic. No one trusted the worker's voice on aesthetic matters. accused him of extravagance. Liberals Socialists accused him of ignorance. Modernists accused him of illogic and fantasy. Everyone assumed that the worker's own taste was misguided and required education. Some claimed to 442 know better than the worker himself what his own interests were. In the climate of aesthetic reform, liberal and socialist advocates of modernity agreed that the expert alone might provide the worker with the appropriate environment, be it the interior or exterior design of housing. case of the housing plan, benevolent paternalism. both liberals and socialists As in the subscribed to a Both wished to see workers move from their desire to copy bourgeois taste to accepting instead the modern high culture designs by experts who could interpret the workers' needs. 443 Chapter Twelve PUBLIC ARBITERS In OF TASTE: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN NEUTRALITY AND COMMITMENT with the aesthetic 1919 when Keppler expressed his dissatisfaction results of his experiments in architectural cooperation, he blamed the failure on the choice of "second class" architects. His reaction and analysis came as a response to a particular pair of projects for one of Amsterdam's oldest housing societies. The specific incident was indicative of conditions that had annoyed Keppler for some time. In the summer of 1919 the mayor and aldermen asked the municipal council to approve plans for two housing projects proposed by the Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijging van eigen woningen. (Fig.12.1) One project proposed three and four storey housing in South Amsterdam, the other laid out a neighborhood of low rise housing in the northern tip of Nieuwendammerham. (Fig. 12.2) Weissman, former city since 1908. Both projects were designed by A. W. architect of Amsterdam, and architect to the society In putting the projects up for approval, the mayor and aldermen had moved contrary to the recommendation of the Beauty Commission. The Beauty Commission had decisively rejected them both. The Bouwmaatschappij began its work in organized housing society in Amsterdam. 1868 as the first worker Since it pre-dated the Housing Act, its history differed somewhat from the other workers' housing societies operating in Amsterdam. By 1900 the society had already built 444 940 housing units. Like the old philanthropic societies, the Bouwmaatschappij could not point to a distinguished tradition of excellent architectural design. (Fig. 12.3) In fact, it had not even hired the well known architects of the day as had the other societies. supervised by an in-house drafting office. Its building was The Bouwmaatschappij prided itself on its independence, and after the passage of the Housing Act, it explicitly avoided using the provisions of that act so that it could remain as free of bureaucratic constraints as possible. But it did lease land from the city, and so in 1908, when it proposed its first project in twelve years, the design had to be approved by the Beauty Commission. The design was by L. van Buuren, chairman of the socity's Building Committee, and it Bouwmaatschappij: differed little from the standard designs of the drab, repetitious blocks with Dutch Renaissance gables. The Beauty Commission rejected the design at once and instructed the society to find a more competent designer for the facade. A. W. Weissman, then chairman of Bond Heemschut and member of the Beauty Commission, took on the job of directing changes in the facades so that they would meet the objections of the Beauty Commission. Weissman was consulted for the next project and was hired to design the facades for the society's subsequent housing. In 1918, when the society published a history in honor of its fiftieth anniversary, it proudly presented its two latest projects by 2 Weissman, the projects for South Amsterdam and Nieuwendammerham. The projects were grim and dull, especially in comparison to recent brilliant facades by de Klerk and others. treat the housing block as a plastic mass. Weissman made no attempt to Repeated elements, such as gables, bays, and windows, appeared irregularly, without rhythmic emphasis. The surface of the facade was unadorned. In both the low- and 445 the high-rise projects, Weissman merely prepared an updated version of the stark, utilitarian facades of nineteenth century philanthropic housing. When the Beauty Commission reviewed Weissman's plans for South Amsterdam in May 1919, it commented on their "exceedingly barren character." 3 After the designs had been rejected once by the commission, Weissman presented his drawings and indicated his willingness to follow the committee's suggestions for adding a few gables and bays. However, the commission rejected the plans once again, refusing the possibility of corrective measures. It gave a detailed explanation of the rejection in a scathing letter addressed to the mayor and aldermen. Having learned from its previous experience that the municipality would not accept style as a basis for rejection, the committee presented its judgement of the facade in South Amsterdam against the standards of strong, massive simplicity to which Weissman apparently adhered. It did not state that it required an expressionist style in the manner of the Amsterdam school. demonstrated that the design lacked all the qualities of a It then logical, thoughtful, and aesthetic expression of power on its own terms. In the low rise housing, the commission judged the designs against the standards of English garden city design. It noted that the architect had taken little advantage of the open setting, transposing the very same door, window and roof details he had applied to the large blocks in South Amsterdam. The commission absolutely rejected the possibility of improving the facades. It claimed that the designs showed no evidence of aesthetic capability and recommended that the designer be required to get aesthetic assistance. 4 Not a little of the animosity expressed in the commission's letter must have been due to the enmity between Weissman and 446 supporters of the Amsterdam school who filled the Beauty Commission. 5 Keppler concurred with the commission's recommendation and he was certain he could convince the Bouwmaatschappij to hire an aesthetic advisor, even going so far as to suggest that the blocks be given to another society if the Bouwmaatschappij refused to cooperate.6 As they stood, the plans were unacceptable, he wrote. I would deeply regret approval of these plans. Amsterdam has achieved a reputation at home and abroad for its attention to new workers' districts. The execution of the plans by architect Weissman would harm that reputation severely. 7 Weissman answered the Beauty Commission's charges by noting that the commission assumed that an architect was given the freedom to create art with his housing designs, but in fact he is constrained by practicality, economics and the building ordinance. 8 society's defense of its architect. More interesting was the housing Dismissing the commission's report as "nice generalities and principles" the society petitioned the mayor to override the commission's advice. It explicitly abdicated its ability to judge the architecture, but it justified its choice of architect, recalling that Weissman was a publicly recognized architect, one who had carried out responsible commissions for the city, was long a member himself of the Beauty Commission, and was an expert on the history of architecture.9 From the society's point of view, it had hired a competent architect of good repute, someone who had originally been brought in to respond to the Beauty Commission's aesthetic requirements. It would deeply regret postponement of its plans merely because of "a difference of opinion about architecture between the Beauty Commission and the architect Weissman." The incident was an embarrassment to all. Mayor and aldermen crossed their commission's recommendation and quickly moved to approve the 447 designs, citing the extraordinary postwar housing shortage.10 But in the aftermath of this decision, Keppler and the Beauty Commission hardened their conviction that collective control of housing design needed to be further strengthened. Specifically, they began to insist that the choice of architect should not be left to the housing societies. 448 The Collective Control of Aesthetics Many factors contributed to the conviction that the collective control of urban aesthetics in Amsterdam should by strengthened to the point that the clients, that is, the housing societies, should entirely lose their right to select their own architect: belief in the collective right to an aesthetic environment, commitment to the aesthetic side of the housing problem, a desire for Amsterdam to take a lead in architecture, and the perception that no amount of coordination by the Beauty Commission or any aesthetic advisor could compensate if the designs to be coordinated were inferior. Finally, distrust of lay judgement of architectural competence sealed the notion that both the community and architecture would be better served if architectural choice were placed in the hands of experts. The idea of expert control was not new, but it had previously been considered as a remedy for the ills of speculative building. Weissman himself had complained in 1912 about the Beauty Commission's limited control over the builders, noting that even if it repeatedly rejected a design, it could not insist that the commission then be given to a good architect, "which would be the only guarantee for a decent design." 11 Weissman's statement implied that the architects themselves, represented by the Beauty Commission, were the only competent judges of architectural ability and that non-experts could not make sound judgements, a position sustained by the architectural societies themselves. 1 2 Furthermore, argued others, the choice of style could not be left free to builders. Berlage's plan for South Amsterdam offered a large scale opportunity for harmonious construction of neighborhoods, but the 449 harmony could only be achieved if the nature of the construction. style in the government stepped in to determine Gulden argued for government control over the council. Must we leave the construction of this new city to the building owners, when the plans have been made by Berlage who has his own views of architecture? This is a freedom which Mr. Fabius defends, however reluctantly. Or must the council set limits to the type of construction? I believe that we cannot refuse to regulate the construction so that it will be in the same style as Berlage has designed his city. 1 3 We have already seen that the Beauty Commission tried in 1916 to gain some influence on the choice of architects for private construction by forcing builders to choose architects from a limited list of approved architects. J. F. Staal wanted the city to go even further and allow the Beauty Commission to appoint specific architects to take over unsatisfctory designs. The builders, he argued, could not be expected to make good choices themselves. For such a choice it is necessary to have a broad insight into the architectural world, something which can be expected from the Beauty Commission itself, but not from some builder who has a more or less broad interest only into his own advantage. A developer prefers to chose a designer for the sites he plans to build from cheap second hand or underaged workers, from the sons of brick dealers, from assessors or mortgage bank agents, from relatives and the like. 14 Thus interest in the Beauty Commission securing control over architectural and stylistic choice was already brewing in Amsterdam. In the case of the housing societies, of course, the situation was somewhat different because every housing society, unlike the private builders, engaged the services of a recognized architect. Nonetheless, the experts doubted the housing societies' abilities to make good selections. As housing inspector Schaad put it, "It can hardly be left to the members of a housing society to decide what is beautiful and what is ugly in architecture." 1 5 450 Controlling the Choice of Architect In 1919 Keppler's involvement with the plans to construct South Amsterdam, and his disappointment with the workers' districts already built, led him to initiate a discussion with the Beauty Commission about possible measures to achieve as harmonious as possible a new Amsterdam.16 The Beauty Commission shared Keppler's incident over the summer of officers concerns. The Bouwmaatschappij 1919 reconfirmed the members' belief that the of the housing societies were not competent to judge the aesthetic value of their architects.17 In many instances, they noted, the chosen designers were unable to handle the large housing commissions. Poor massing, lack of rhythm and other failings gave evidence that many architects lacked the fundamental architectural necessary for the design of mass housing, ability felt and talent the committee. 18 Keppler saw as the ultimate solution to this problem the forced assignment of good architects to the housing societies. He feared that any method short of assignment, including his further experiments with coordination among architects, would not deliver satisfactory results. Keppler proposed a radical solution. When building sites were assigned to housing societies, he suggested, the architect should be assigned too. The construction must be designed by the best architects of this country, while the execution can be assigned to other architects. This will mean that not every housing society will be able to appoint a designing architect. The architects who do the designing will have to be designated by the government, the caretaker of an aesthetic urban design. 19 Keppler carried the vision of municipal responsibility for urban aesthetics to its individual's mayor, right most complete extension: of choice. total denial of the "A new time has come," he wrote to the "old forms of organization will now no longer suffice. ,20 Service 451 to the community through selection of "the best architects in the country" justified the radical step. From Keppler's socialist perspective, in the heat of European revolutionary politics, the centralization of power in the government offered the greatest guarantee of service to the community. His commitment to providing the best architecture for the workers who composed the majority of that community led him to propose a form of collective architectural patronage which excluded the workers' direct participation. In his view, the goal of providing architecture appropriate and pleasing to the working class did not require invocation of the workers' own taste. Rather, the role of the architect, the expert, was to fulfill the workers' aesthetic needs. Thus the community would be best served by centralizing architectural patronage in the civil service which could guarantee selection of excellent architects. Not unlike the vision of collective living arrangements to be organized by experts for workers whether or not they preferred the new arrangements, here the selection of the best architects was to take place removed from consideration of workers' preferences. The guarantee that the community was being served well resided in the government's command of expertise. However, Keppler's view left open the question how government was to exercise its control. His position assumed enlightened governmental patronage. For architect J. F. Staal, the greatest guarantee of service to the community lay in control by the architects themselves. experience serving on the Beauty Commission, dissatisfaction with its results. After four years he shared Keppler's Caught up in the postwar fervor for a new society, he envisaged a new role for the architectural societies which would counter once and for all the inadequate aesthetic choices of the lay 452 patron, particularly the housing societies. Staal contended that the greatest responsibility of the architectural societies should be the appointment of architects to all building commissions. aesthetic control to the architects alone. He favored giving The aesthetic preferences of the municipal government, the private developers, and the housing societies were not to be trusted. Even among the architects only those who had passed the test of A+A's jury should be granted aesthetic authority. Bourgeois sentiment for freedom of competition had to be overcome, he claimed, and as for the freedom of the patron to chose his architect, Staal's experience on the Beauty Commission had convinced him that their incompetent choices had severely hindered the development of architecture. In Staal's vision, architectural advancement and service to the community coincided when the experts were given control. The architectural societies will only be able to exercise their right to assign the architects for all architectural commissions if the democratic view that the community is best served when each of its members serves his own interest gives way to the communist view that personal interests are served when the interests of the community are well served. 2 1 According to Staal, the worker no less than the bourgeois must sacrifice individual taste for the benefit of the collective. Like Keppler, Staal sought means to provide the community with the best architecture through the centralization of aesthetic control and removal of choice from the people themselves. However, his conviction that the development of architecture could be fostered only by autonomy led him to cut out government patronage as well. Architecture was to be left in the hands of the architects because only they could guarantee its advancement and, as staal assumed, the advancement of architecture would serve the community. In the climate of 1919, even the "bourgeois" liberals called for collective control of architecture by the architects. After the war Theo 453 Rueter launched a campaign to redress the unequal distribution of large housing commissions among architects. His point of view stemmed from the position that all architects deserved an equal chance at being hired. Rueter did not espouse Staal's vision of aesthetic control by an aesthetic elite. Rather he envisaged as a solution to the housing problem a cooperative association of architects which would control design and construction, sharing the architects' organizational, technical, and aesthetic talents. profession. The point of Rueter's vision was the protection of the His organization of architects would render both private builders and the housing societies obsolete, leaving architectural control in the hands of the profession itself so that all architects might benefit from the new commissions. Since housing, Rueter reasoned, was built by the community (as owner) for the community (as inhabitant), it followed that its solution could not be by means of private institutions, but must also be connunal. The collaboration of many architects in a cooperative architectural office would bring a collective solution to the ethical and aesthetic side of housning, as well as the social and practical side. 2 2 For Rueter, housing was best served by serving professional interests in a new form of collective organization. Keppler, Staal and Rueter each agreed that the housing societies themselves should not be allowed to dictate what was built, and that a centralized authority, based on expertise, should step in to control design decisions. Their aims differed markedly, however. Keppler's ultimate goal was to serve the working class. discipline of architecture. architectural profession. Staal's was to serve the Rueter's more prosaic goal was to protect the Keppler and Staal shared a desire for excellence in architecture which for Rueter was secondary to the need to 454 offer equal protection to all members of the profession. three, Keppler and Staal's positions were compatible. Thus of the Both equated architectural advancement and community service, although they reversed each other's priorities. By 1919 there was an alliance between powerful civil servants and a group of architects who envisaged extreme intervention in the design of Amsterdam's urban expansion. The individual taste of the client, whether profit-seeking developer or working class housing society, was to yield to the aesthetic authority of duly appointed experts. fulfill The opportunity to Berlage's vision of urban design appeared imminent. If the design of the city plan could be coordinated with its architectural realization, if incompetent designers could be eliminated and the best designers put to work, and if the individual taste of the client could be sacrificed to a general style, then Berlage's vision might be realized. 455 Stylistic Control Mayor Tellegen raised the question which proved to be the most controversial stumbling block to the realization of Berlage's vision. When Keppler sent his memorandum to the mayor describing the city as the "caretaker of an aesthetic urban design," and suggesting that housing must be designed by "the best architects of our land," the question "Who are they?" 2 3 Tellegen responded with In other words, Tellegen recognized that agreement on their identity could not be taken for granted. democracy should determine architectural quality? Who in a Was the government to serve as the public arbiter of taste? Dominated by those sympathetic to the younger, more progressive architectural talents, the Beauty Commission after 1915 took up the task of providing a stylistic direction to Amsterdam's construction. It exerted what influence it could to encourage the housing societies to adopt the style of the Amsterdam School. In so doing, it attempted to pre-empt a democratic system for deciding public taste. But because of its methods, it exerted its pressure under the rubric of the non-partisan criticism for which it was authorized by the municipal government. Under the guise of controlling architectural competence alone, the Beauty Commission tried to control architectural style. Proposals by de Klerk and his followers were almost invariably passed by the commission without comment. 2 4 projects were sent back for revisions. reviewed these revisions, architect repeatedly. But the vast majority of housing Month after month the commission often sending the same design back to the In some cases, it rejected the design altogether. As it did with private developers, the commission then tried to convince 456 Because of the close the housing society to find another designer. relationship between designer and housing society, the designer was rarely For Instead, the society would acquire an aesthetic advisor. replaced. instance the Catholic housing society Dr. Schaepman was forced to find assistance for its C. chosen designer Rijnja in one of Berlage's disciples. van Epen, 25 1917. But in was J. The assistent 1920, rejecting after Rijnja's designs for six consecutive months, the commission had to request Dr. Schaepman once again to find assistance for Rijnja. At this time the assistent was the architect Kuyt whose style closely matched the Amsterdam building in School architects the neighborhood.26 (Fig. 12.4) Rijnja had no reputation and the commission's action was no more unusual than its requests to developers to find adequate architectural assistance. The commission did not hesitate to request established architects to hire aesthetic assistants as well. In 1919 rejected plans by het Oosten's longtime the committee totally A sketch plan for his Zeeburgerdijk architect J. J. L. Moolenschot.27 project in the Indische district convinced the Beauty Commission that the architect needed the assistence of an architect "who could be expected" to 28 produce a reasonable aesthetic solution for the facades. The case of het Oosten raised a question of principle in the commission. asked if such a nondescript design, Gratama which was not good but was not so bad either, should be approved or if it should be rejected in order to further Amsterdam's beauty. override their After the experience of seeing the mayor and aldermen rejection of Weissman's designs, outright rejection. the commission was wary of It decided that the municipality's possible reaction should not influence its decision. 29 The design was rejected. At the same time, het Oosten was working with architects M. J. E. 457 Lippits and N. H. W. Scholte to design a housing project in South Lippits enjoyed a reputation as a housing architect for his Amsterdam. 1912 for the private middle class housing society designs of Samenwerking,30 (Fig. 12.5) but the firms's plans for het Oosten (Fig. 12.6) were rejected. The Beauty Commission called them designs of low quality which could not be improved.3 1 rThis rejection proved embarrassing to the Beauty Commission when it came to be known that Lippits and Scholte had already submitted their designs to Berlage, who, as aesthetic advisor to the city for the South Plan, had approved of them.3 restrained Lippits' style was naturally more acceptable to Berlage than to the commission. Followers of the rationalism of Berlage, earlier considered so appropriate for workers' housing, were regularly required to revise their schemes. The commission had scant value for the designs by J. W. L. Leliman, editor of his own architectural journal De Bouwwereld which was openly critical of the Amsterdam School. Leliman was also one of the architects who took an early and lasting interest in the housing issue.33 His projects for the Handwerkers Vriendenkring (Fig. 12.7) had to be submitted and resubmitted numerous times to the Beauty Committee before final approval was granted. His design for the building society Eigen Haard in the Spaarndammer district (Fig. 9.13) was definitively rejected by the Beauty Commission in 1917, but the decision was overturned by the mayor and aldermen, because of the housing shortage. In its memorandum justifying the rejection to the mayor and aldermen, the Beauty Commission clearly expressed its support for the new conception of the housing block as envisaged by Berlage and carried out by de Klerk.1 In the first place, in the opinion of the commission, the only correct aesthetic solution for such a complex (serving a single 458 use and designed by one person) is a single block (blokbouw), and consequently an architectural composition such that the aforementioned unity of function is expressed externally.3 4 But Leliman's design, consisting of a string of units, varying heights, bays and stairwells, totally lacked the unified block treatment required by the commission.35 After the Beauty Commission's rejection of Leliman's design, Eigen Haard, which had worked with Leliman since its first project in 1910, turned to de Klerk. Keppler took credit for this appointment. 3 6 The Beauty Commission rejected designs by Weissman and Leliman only to see the mayor and aldermen override their objectives. Since Leliman and Weissman were both vocal enemies of the Amsterdam School, it is easy to interpret the commission's rejection as revenge. In general, rejection was a radical step, applicable only where the commission saw no way to work for improvement of the design. Since both Weissman and Leliman were widely acknowledged as competent architects, there was no reason for the commission to eliminate the possibility of improvement if the commission were operating on the neutral basis which the government authorized. Instead, the fact that their designs did not conform to the commission's stylistic preferences became the primary motivation for rejection. However, the bias of the commission was not so readable in the cases of Leliman and Weissman because neither made any contribution to the aesthetic solution of housing. architectural Despite his contributions to the profession and to the cause perceive housing in aesthetic terms. of housing, Leliman did not His works were simple and utilitarian, expressing the meagre origins of the dwellers. The bias of the commission is easier to observe in the case of architects of established aesthetic prowess. to the commission's criticism. FEven Berlage was not immune When it reviewed his Tolstraat housing for 459 het Algemeene, the commission was "surprised to receive a design of such low quality from this designer."3 7 Most telling was the commission's treatment of J. C. van Epen, one of the most gifted of the Amsterdam housing architects. His designs in the western and eastern portions of South Amsterdam for the housing societies Algemeene, Rochdale, and ACOB, provided Amsterdam with some of its most lyrical passages of housing architecture. (Figs. 12.8, 12.9 and 12.10) The simple manipulation of alternating bays and battered buttresses created a rhythmic street facade both lively and humane. animated by orange and green woodwork. The facades were The fact that van Epen used little more than the raw materials of construction to create his aesthetic effects separated him definitively from the playful, decorative craftsmanship of de Klerk favored by the commission. Although van Epen did not create housing which stimulated the imagination and fantasy, his housing created a citadel of security and hominess. The flat roofs and uncompromising simplicity did not please the Beauty Commission, openly disagreed with his design. which It grudgingly approved his project in Krusemanstraat with the comment that in the future it would not look favorably on such sober architecture. 3 8 Van Epen, chafing from the ignominy of the commission's public rebukes, angrily accused the commission of destroying the artist's initiative, because it forced the artist to sacrifice his individual search for art. Beauty commissions, he wrote, made art into fashion, and 3 had a negative impact on artistic development. 39 After World War I it became increasingly difficult for housing societies to build in Amsterdam unless their designs in some way reflected the aesthetic ideas of the Amsterdam School. Thus Kuipers and Ingwersen, 460 the architects of Patrimonium, were forced in both their plans for the Cooperatie district and near the Stadium to revise their gabled facades for a more plastic treatment of the facade with flat roof and a decorated surface. (Figs. 12.11 and 12.12) The commission's attitude persuaded housing societies to turn to the Amsterdam School for their architects. One by one the housing societies were encouraged to hire architects working in the fresh new style. 461 Creating Harmony The concept which bore fruit, and through which the Beauty Commission was most positively able to exert influence, was the guidance of harmonious development under centralized aesthetic leadership. Here the neutral goal of aesthetic harmony could be used as leverage to secure adherence to the Amsterdam School treatment of facades. The experiments Keppler had begun in the Zaanhof led eventually to more ambitious attempts to coordinate development of neighborhoods in the 1920s. At a meeting of the Beauty Commission in May 1919, Keppler warned the committee of the consequences if they continued to limit their judgement to separate facades, especially given the rapid rate of construction expected in the postwar years. He commented that his own attempts to achieve aesthetic coordination in the Spaarndammer district, Nieuwendammerham and in the South Plan had proved unsatisfactory because he personally could not appoint architects or group those selected by the housing societies. He wanted to see a change in the rules of the Beauty Commission. Together, Keppler and the commission discussed a variety of methods which might achieve harmony more effectively, but which fell short of outright appointment of architects to the housing societies.40 For instance, the commission might assign groups of architects, matched by stylistic preference to specific districts. If a housing society wished to build it would have to go to the district where its architect was assigned. Staal suggested that the lessee of the most prominent site for each district select an architect with the approval of the Beauty Commission. This lead architect would then give each of the other housing 462 societies planning to build in the district two candidates from which to chose their architect. Hulshoff wished to see one of the members of the Beauty Commission assigned as district aesthetic advisor and Keppler suggested that Berlage draw up a list of architects for a particular district in the South Plan." These ideas all shared the common concept that a district should be constructed by architects of similar stylistic inclinations. Berlage commented that ideally in his South Plan, which was F based on grouped blocks, each group of blocks would be designed by one architect.' Short of that he approved of a list of related architects to be assigned to a group of blocks. 4 1 Developments by both private developers and housing societies applied several of these methods over the following years. Eventually, the organization of the Beauty Commission changed to institutionalize this emphasis on coordination As a result of style. of the May 1919 meeting of the Beauty Commission, the Public Works architect Hulshoff, himself a proponent of the Amsterdam School, became the advisor for the- development of the northern portion of Buiksloterham, north of the IJ. 4 2 Hulshoff was to consult with the designers of the various housing societies building in the district as they planned their project. This was a marked increase in involvement over the previous experiments in coordination where the Beauty Commission simply judged a themselves. group of facades after the architects consulted among Yet it was still not considered a complete success, "since the combination of architects was too arbitrary, given that the selection was made by the housing societies without any consultaton about the choice 4 of architects among themselves." 3 In the Stadion district in the South Plan, public aesthetic control 463 increased still further. Jan Gratama, architect for the Algemeene housing society, assumed aesthetic leadership of the district. Gratama provided guidance in the selection of architects and the assignment of blocks to the eight participating housing societies. largely reflected the Amsterdam School. first time to new architects. The choice of architects Some societies turned for the took on C. J. Blaauw. The Bouwmaatschappij Dr. Schaepman hired Jan Kuyt, Wzn. Ingwersen took on E. A. C. Roest. Patrimonium's architects Kuipers and Control was incomplete: het Oosten still worked with J. J. L. Moolenschot whose designs had so frequently been rejected by the Beauty Commission. Together with the Housing Authority, Gratama revised the street plan for the district and provided the street sections, the silhouettes of street facades, the planting plan, the color of the brick and woodwork, and the flat roof line. 4 4 (Figs. 12.13 and 12.14) After the accusation of willful excess expressed toward de Klerk's work in the Spaarndammer district, Gratama was careful to justify his towers as storage area. The result of his endeavors was a stripped down, simplified Amsterdam School brickwork which created a strongly unified district. Nowhere did Gratama explicitly refer to a stylistic preference, but this system clearly gave the aesthetic coordinator control over style. In the publication describing the district, control was justified by the failure to achieve harmonious development when the housing societies were left on their own.45 Private developers also attempted similar cooperation among architects. seventy The Amstel's Bouwvereeniging, a composite of approximately local builders, illustrated Berlage's contention that large scale development companies could carry out the plan of South Amsterdam. 464 Amstel's Bouwvereeniging planned a district of two thousand middle class housing units with government subsidy in 1921. The developers provided the housing plans but appointed A. R. Hulshoff to provide a centralized aesthetic leadership. With architects Jan Gratama, J. de Meyer, and J. F. Staal, Hulshoff formed a committee appointed by the municipal council. The committee revised the site plan, set building heights, divided the site into architectural units, established the aesthetic standards, and selected seventeen architects to design the facades with the approval of the builders. (Fig. 12.15) The result was a remarkable example of stylistically unified housing and some of the most interesting of the Amsterdam School facades. Although in his account of the aesthetic leadership, Hulshoff made no mention of the stylistic preferences of the committee, the power of this neighborhood came from the consistent application of the fresh insights of the young and talented architects of Amsterdam's new expressionism.46 A similar coordination of facade design under centralized guidance occurred in the private development of Amsterdam West, on privately owned land. A committee was set up consisting of the developer, three architects and several civil servants. The committee divided the site into architectural units and proposed architects for each. Here again. the builder, van der Schaar, provided the plans, while the architects designed only the facades. This arrangement proved awkward because the facades had to pass through two stages, first the special committee and then the Beauty Commission.47 Such duplication of work was avoided in the Indische district, where a special subcommittee of the Beauty Commission was formed in 1922 to foster harmony and judge the facades of the eastern half of the 465 district.48 This was the origin of the system which was finally applied to the entire city. The new system evolved with the reorganization of the Beauty Commission in 1924. The city had embarked on a reorganization of the Beauty Commission when the building ordinance was changed in 1922 to include a general regulation protecting Amsterdam's urban beauty.49 One implication of the new regulation was the expansion of the Beauty Commission's jurisdiction from buildings on municipal property to buildings on any land within the city. The 1924 proposal reorganizing the Beauty Commission extended its jurisdiction, altered its composition, and expanded its tasks. 5 0 long sought. The Beauty Commission received powers which it had Mayor and aldermen could consult the Beauty Commission on the design of extension plans, and on the nature of the construction on the plan. The committee could coordinate specifications (schemas) for the architectural realization of plans, establishing in sketch form the standards which future building proposals would have to meet. 5 1 After its reorganization, the Beauty Commission set up a subcommittee for a district in South Amsterdam. The subcommittee worked with Berlage, Public Works, and the Building Inspection Office to coordinate the plan and its construction. It produced sketches and silhouettes of the blocks, indicating height, number of storeys, roof type, and the locations for architectural emphasis.52 Thus it made official the kind of coordination of plan and construction which van der Mey had called for in 1916. 466 The Preservation of Neutrality Although the Beauty Commission managed with Keppler's assistance to achieve stylistic unity in Amsterdam, it did so by means which skirted the government's requirement for neutrality. At all times, the injunction to design in a style which would coordinate with the Amsterdam School was couched in neutral language. The Beauty Commission rejected non- conforming designs on the basis of a failure of campetence or harmony. The experiments in neighborhood design coordination never explicitly referred to the chosen style of building, but rather placed the neutrally acceptable goal of "harmony" in the hands of the "aesthetic expert." Harmony was a goal Mayor and Aldermen could safely espouse. They supported it in a 1926 proposal to control aesthetics in the South Plan. The separate judgement of each facade cannot lead to a result in which the aim of beauty is achieved. A facade may possess worthwhile characteristics and still not correspond with what surrounds it, so that buildings put up according to separate plans may not form a coordinated whole. In spite of the care given to the external appearance of the separate facades, the whole area then produces an unsatisfactory impression. In our opinion, unity and harmony must be present between the various buildings in each 53 city district, even when they are of varied architecture. This was a stance which on the one hand supported the architects' requirement for architectural unity, while at the same time it permitted different styles. The innovative style and the consistency of Amsterdam's new districts, which resulted from the municipality's support, drew praise internationally. At home it also drew accusations of unfair prejudice against those who did not share the penchants of the Amsterdam School. Wrote one architect, "Our Beauty Commission has lowered itself to pedantry, to acting as if it were an exam committee testing for a diploma 467 in the architecture of the day." 5 4 Brushing these objections aside, the proponents of aesthetic control pressed the municipality to take the final step toward total aesthetic control by assuming the power to appoint architects. In a meeting of the Public Works Committee in 1925, Z. Gulden proposed that the city appoint the architects to build on municipal land. 5 5 The architectural society A+A petitioned the city in the same cause. The municipality rejected these proposals and held to the principle of neutrality. In 1926 mayor and aldermen issued a clear statement about the policy of aesthetic control in Amsterdam. They admitted that the current system of setting aesthetic specifications could not prevent facades which "barely harmonize with each other as a result of the completely different ideas of the designers," and that architects might lead to the greatest possible harmony. appointment of Nonetheless they rejected the intervention in freedom which municipal appointment of architects required.5 6 The most extreme measure the executive branch would support was the setting of design specifications. Accepting the notion of unified street facades and the need to assign entire blocks to one architect, the municipality proposed to establish a standing subcommittee of the Beauty Commission to designate specifications and to judge proposed facades. This subcommittee would also institute the proposal made years before that builders requesting land from the city should submit a sketch of the proposed building for approval before the lease could be granted. Like the subcommittee previously set up for a district of the South Plan, this subcommittee was to be composed of civil servants and architects.57 architects would carry out the business of the subcommittee: The advising on 468 the street and building plan, setting the widths of facades, making up silhouettes, dividing.the construction into architectural units, judging preliminary sketches for lease applications, and giving final approval to all proposed facades. 5 8 With this organization to achieve aesthetic harmony, the municipality felt it had reached the limit of its possible intervention, short of designating an official style. The introduction of an "official architecture" might result from the deadening influence of a system in which the municipality appointed architects. This will be avoided now that those building will be able to chose their architect freely, as long as that choice falls on an architect of sufficient competence. Indeed, we believe that the system we propose, addressed to the achievement of harmony in construction, will not curtail anyone's efforts, but will give full scope to everyone's talents. The land to be built will be divided into a relatively large number of units so that various architects will be able to make their facade designs according to their own ideas. The committee of architects can make sure that incompetent architects are excluded, but, should the wish to do so arise, it may not suppress any expression 59 of personal opinions. Within a year aesthetic subcommittees of architects had been set up for south, north, east and west Amsterdam. Thus by 1926 Berlage's vision of Amsterdam's extension had not only been brought to fruition in a number of districts, the municipality's acceptance of the precepts enunciated in his 1915 plan for South Amsterdam had led to the creation of legislation and institutions to guarantee the continuing application of those precepts. The 1926 proposal implemented many of the proposals for aesthetic control discussed since 1916. The municipal assumption of responsibility for Amsterdam's aesthetics was complete. The municipality allowed far-reaching aesthetic intervention to take place, but it also set limits to the powers given the experts, because of the irreconcilable differences between total aesthetic control and the freedom guaranteed in a democratic society. The government had to 469 negotiate a position which satisfied both its commitment to the community for an aesthetic environment and its commitment to the protection of individual rights. This double commitment on the part of the municipal government had proved to be the source of unending controversy throughout the development of Amsterdam's system of aesthetic control. The development of municipal aesthetic control in Amsterdam illustrates the contradictions of the public patronage of architecture. The example of van Epen demonstrates the foresight with which van der Pek viewed the Beauty Commission in 1913, when he argued it might stymy the architectural discipline. On the other hand, the success with which Amsterdam, in contrast with most other modern cities, created harmonious residential districts during the 1920s provides some justification for J. F. Staal's insistence that the architects control design commissions. Had the Beauty Commission not exerted a positive influence on the choice of architect, that unity so admired throughout the world would never have been achieved. In the end, the Beauty Commission operated less as an avenue to foster architectural creativity and innovation, and more as a public instrument to enforce stylistic uniformity. Staal's image of the commission as a channel for excellence proved less accurate than Berlage' image of an artificial substitute for a natural style of the times, the Beauty Commission as a modern equivalent of the eighteenth century ordinances for design control. 470 Conclusion During the first decades of the twentieth century the city of Amsterdam took decisive and dramatic steps to prevent the continuation of the dreary urban expansion it had permitted during the late nineteenth century. To that end, the municipality created institutions and agencies to control urban design, intervention. gradually increasing the level of its It hired aesthetic experts to design extension plans and ensured that qualified designers were hired to design housing for private developers and housing societies. The municipal government was both democratic and representative. Its increased intervention in aesthetic control was justified only by the fact that securing good urban design provided service to the community at large in accordance with the dedication of the government to the public good. The desire to achieve an aesthetically pleasing city was apolitical, favoring no special interests, although the strongest commitment to realizing that aim came from Progressive Liberals and Social Democrats. Architecture, however, is a field in which decisions are neither democratic nor representative by nature, even when it is practiced with the intent of serving the community. There are no universal and objective laws of aesthetics which can be invoked neutrally and above partisan interests. Architecture does not advance by means of proportional representation of taste. Like other disciplines of skill and knowledge, architecture advances by means of an internal discourse whose logic is dictated by its own terms. The competition of ideas within architectural discourse depends upon a protective autonomy. not a pure discipline of knowledge. However, architecture is Since it is also a profession, and 471 because it serves clients, the purity of its autonomy is limited. The nature of architecture, its dual aspect as discipline and profession, creates special problems when architecture is called into public service, because disciplinary autonomy is then especially threatened by the responsibility to the public client. In Amsterdam, where the municipality was committed to excellent design, the dual nature of architecture spawned a set of controversies Foremost was the question whether which raged into the 1920s. disciplinary autonomy necessarily benefitted the community. How much power should the expert be given at the expense of community, that is, client control? How far can a democratic government go toward controlling the individual for the sake of the community? Amsterdam succeeded remarkably well at resolving these issues. It provided a public patronage of architecture which permitted the creation of architectural forms that interpreted society, and it established harmonious and unified residential districts. a purely architectural in unity, split Nor had architects split into rival image. as it The social reality was into rival The unity of expression was of Amsterdam was lacking religious and political factions. arrived at agreement about style; cliques. architects were Yet the empowerment of architectural expertise was made possible by the conviction that the interests of the architectural discipline and the community coincided. That is, enlightened patrons such as Keppler assumed that the community would be best served by serving architecture well, just as architects themselves believed the advancement of architecture would be served by serving the community well. elite disciplinary These assumptions prepared Keppler and others to grant an group extended powers. 472 These powers could be officially maintained only as long as they appeared to be wielded disinterestedly and objectively. The Beauty Commission achieved this by appearing to judge facades on the basis of architectural competence alone, and by harnessing the laudable and neutral goal of harmony in order to control design. The only way the municipality achieved the unified expression of architecture for which it became so famous was by according to architectural expertise a position of power based on a false supposition of stylistic neutrality. In reality, a small architectural elite was empowered to impose a particular architectural style. The municipal government lent power to its Beauty Commission, based on the professional authority of the architectural societies. The limits of that power were made clear during the Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd incident described in Chapter Ten. The commission had the power to pass judgement on architectural competence; it did not have the authorization to pass judgement on taste. The government officially supported the restriction that only competent professionals be permitted to design and it considered the limitation to professionals a sufficient guarantee of the quality of design. It assumed that architectural expertise could be judged by general and neutral laws of aesthetics, free of taste. To a number of the most progressive architects, dedicated to the advance of architecture, this formulation was unacceptable. guarantee of aesthetic ability. Professional status was an inadequate Universal laws of beauty applicable equally to all styles were hollow. The only aesthetic objectivity manifested itself in the true style of the age, and in the absense of agreement on that style, stylistic harmony had to be imposed. Rejecting 473 the Beauty Commission's old method which amounted to the attitude "I eliminate ugliness and whatever remains is beautiful enough," J. F. Staal wrote, "It is possible that in the eyes of the interested parties, this method entails the greatest objectivity, but the aim of the commission's activities is not to be objective, and still less to appear so, but only to encourage beautiful construction on the land leased from the municipality. 6 0 The disputes over aesthetic control in Amsterdam lay in a principle difference on the nature of architecture, not simply a difference of politics or taste, progressive or conservative. On the one hand were those who justified community control of architectural style because they believed architectural style is determined historically by the development of society. On the other hand were those who identified architectural advancement with the evolution of ideas which emerged naturally from individual architects expressing themselves freely. Van der Pek and van Epen defended this position against the controls exerted by the Beauty Commission. Freedom of expression would also mean variety of expression. The Social Democrat Loopuit, fearing monotonous results from Berlage's plan for blokbouw in South Amsterdam, argued on several occasions for a variety of architectural expression in Amsterdam. We shall have to have differing architects with differing talents, differing views, and differing styles for the building of this 6 1 city. The defenders of aesthetic control claimed that such a pluralist position excluded excellence. To the objections by such architects as Leliman that the Beauty Commission was too one-sided, architects like Staal answered, "the equivalence of many-sidedness with mediocrity is too well known . Delft architect Granpre Moliere parodied artlovers who found beauty in the 474 arts of all times; he rejected such relativism in favor of historical determinism. Those who try to "appreciate," as they say, all the expressions of art, forget that for each era, each group 3and finally for each person, there is only one kind of beauty. In 1914, the socialist artist R. N. Roland Holst announced the "beginning of a new non-individualistic culture for Holland, the collective spirit that is now striving for new expression, and is moving toward a new beauty."6 4 The search for a gemeenschapskunst, an art of the community, inspired architects its time. Those who were most vocal about the service architecture would seeking the expression of the community in provide for the community were in favor of the greatest control by experts. Staal and others argued that only a self-selected architectural elite could identify the beauty of the age. To manipulate architectural function of expression required the trained expertise of the architect, so that in the very search for an expression of the community, the community itself had to be excluded. was to be representational: representative. Thus the ideal architecture for the community that is, expressive rather than% Reinink has written of these architects: They were committed to furthering a future "community art" in service to the people, but still without the voice of the people. At the same time, we find that this intellectual superstratum, precisely through the furthering of a future "community art," 65 to an elite. paradoxically elevated itself With their acceptance of the special privileges of expertise, the architects and their patrons created an architecture which was a product of societal conditions. It was the architecture of the technocratic elite, the architecture of the period when the helping professions were called upon to serve collective needs. 475 CONCLUSION Housing Design in a Pluralist Society Workers' housing design in Amsterdam has long enjoyed an international reputation. Individual projects have rightly been singled out for their remarkable architectural style, while entire districts, particularly those developed in the twenties, have been praised for their visual harmony. Less spectacular, but nonetheless noteworthy, was the improvement of housing type and neigborhood planning. Scholars have interpreted the accomplishments in Amsterdam in light of several factors: the socialist movement to improve the material conditions of working class life, the role of enlightened public patrons such as Keppler, and the individual genius of an architect like de Klerk. factor: This study has attempted to demonstrate the importance of another the professionalization of housing design. During the pioneer period of Amsterdam's public housing policy, housing design entered the province of those helping professions brought into existence to serve the public interest. As such, it became subject to the dual, and sometimes contradictory nature of expertise which has been put into public service, that is, its claim to autonomy and its simultaneous responsibility to the community. As the Amsterdam municipal government turned to the experts for help in carrying out social laws, it relied on two models for that expertise: the doctor to cure society's ills, and the engineer to fix society's breakdowns. Both images suggested the existence of an objective body of expertise whose 476 neutrality would rise above the sectarian differences of pluralistic Dutch society. However, these models proved inadequate when applied to the problem of housing design, since neutrality could not be sustained when confronted with either competing aesthetic positions, or conflicting ideas of how the working class should live. Housing plan and facade design were made subject to different governmental controls and different kinds of expertise.' The plan became the province of doctors, technical hygienists, and social workers. It was regulated by the building ordinance and reviewed by the Health Board and Housing Authority. The facade became the province of architects. patronized by the Housing Authority and reviewed by a It was Beauty Commission comprising representatives of the professional architectural societies. In both cases, officially sanctioned expertise became the vehicle for bringing modern reforms to the working class. Supported by the Liberals' and Social Democrats' faith in expertise, the experts undertook to provide workers with environments designed to change their life styles and raise their cultural level. With official sanction the experts worked to introduce improved standard housing types and visual harmony into workers' housing districts. Today we may well envy the self-confidence and authority of the Dutch housing experts. Their modernization projects brought them directly into conflict with a portion of the group they were trying to aid: workers clinging to old life- styles developed to cope with the problems posed by urban life, ideological groups espousing values contradicted by the experts, and all those rejecting the modernism of the new architectural styles. While these conflicts can be interpreted simply as the struggle between progressives and conservatives, the role of professionalization suggests another interpretation as well. Central 477 to the success of the project to modernize plan and facade design was the legitimization of essentially partisan positions with the mask of officially sanctioned neutral expertise. This process took a different course and produced different conflicts in the areas of the plan and facade. In the case of the plan, the image of social repairman influenced the self-perception of social workers and technical hygienists, rendering them less able to respond openly to the But failure to establish a well pluralism of the community they served. defined discipline which might serve as the basis of a strong professional organization of housing experts made total imposition of standards impossible and opened the door to a broader representation of lay opinion. No such disciplinary weakness encumbered the architects, who during the period under study purified their professional organization, thus strengthening the protection of their disciplinary autonomy. The essentially partisan nature of the discipline and disagreement over the social roles of the architect, resulted, however, in conflicts among architects over the status of public architectural expertise. The uncertain objectivity of architectural assessment placed the government in an untenable position as well. On the one hand, the authority invested in the official review board, the Beauty Commission, was derived from the government's assumption that selfregulating professional organizations represented an autonomous discipline which earned its privileges on the basis of its objectivity. But when the review board exercised its natural preferences, it upset the government's assumption of disciplinary neutrality. The government's model for the helping professions, the social engineer, was not appropriate for public architecture. In both the case of the facade and the plan, modernization was to be achieved by standardization of housing type and style. The motivations 478 supporting standardization were complex and were rooted to some extent in the Dutch strategy to reconcile its commitment to democracy with the reality of its pluralistic society. In order to avoid or minimize conflicts about values, the Dutch took refuge in the apparent neutrality of expertise. For many architects, this definition of their social role coincided well with their self-image as the objective definers of community expression. Without questioning whether a unified community existed to be represented, these architects saw themselves as the providers of meaning for the community. When they tied the expression of community to a purportedly objective expression of the spirit of the times, the architects' objectivity appeared to coincide as well with the government's notion of neutral expertise. Thus the expression of a unified community was linked directly to the supposed neutrality of the discipline. It would be a mistake to view these efforts at standardization simply as a form of social control, an elitist conspiracy to control workers. There can be little doubt that the housing reformers were sincere in their aim to improve workers' housing standards and their success in meeting that task cannot be doubted. It would be equally mistaken to accept the reformers' own views of their actions. They perceived themselves as determining the best for the workers, and there is every indication that they attempted to do so. But their professional identitities prevented them from turning to the community itself as a resource and as an active participant. In the event, as we have seen, the public discussion of housing design was permeated by lay voices. The pluralistic nature of Amsterdam impressed itself on the variety of housing types and styles built between 1909 and 1919. Yet that discussion was never completely open to the representative expression of the many voices of Amsterdam society. Amsterdam's public housing'design 479 was dominated by the government experts, and they dominated through a complex set of social interactions which only partially suppressed plural views. The value of the approach followed here, the analysis of housing design through the course of its professionalization, does not lie in its ability to explain the genesis of housing forms, but rather in what it reveals about the social processes enabling and enabled by that genesis. Professionalization was a social process which changed the conditions of housing design. Once professionalized, the design process provided the occasion for the expression of relations between the classes, between expert and lay person, between government and profession. Accordingly, the subject of this study has been the sociology of the design process, not the interpretation of form. However this approach is not without its implications for interpreting architectural form. This is not the place to discuss these implications in full, but some suggestions of the relevance of the approach may be suggested. Twentieth century public art and architcture, particularly housing design, has been characterized by the professional dichotomy described in this study. Architecture has performed in society both as an autonomous discipline whose products are served to a largely passive audience and as a profession offering services to its clients, the public authorities, in the manner of medicine and law. Fortunately or unfortunately, architectural taste is subject to neither the laws of science nor democracy. Public architecture in pluralistic democratic societies will always face the dilemma of its dual service to its own development and to its community clients, a duality which cannot be resolved by either the application of objective criteria or representative political means. Many of the formal responses of recent times take on new meaning when viewed in the light of this duality. One reaction has been to retreat within the discipline, treating architecture like an 480 arcane science which advances under the ministrations of practitioners building for their own delight. Here the question how architecture can also serve the community will be defended with the answer that whatever advances the discipline must also serve the community. On the other hand, architects have also responded by emphasizing the public nature of their calling and by developing means to adjust professional boundaries in order to introduce lay input. In practice, the first form had placed response above community, while the second has sacrified form for the sake of community. The autonomy of the discipline may be misused if it is allowed to isolate architecture from the community, but it can also be misrepresented as an elite privilege when there is failure to recognize the necessity of autonomy for disciplinary advance. The resolution of this dilemma appears to reside in an analysis of the discrepancy between the meaning form deserves within the context of disciplinary discourse, and the meaning it assumes in the life of the community, or between the purely architectural expression of community and the political reality. This is a problem of how form is invested with meaning and it cannot be separated from the problem of the institutions which create the context for that investment. In Amsterdam, the pluralism of the society stood in stark contrast to the aims of standardization and collective expression. Investigating the role played by the housing expert raises questions about his relationship to the state, the working class and the layperson which are still unresolved today, since architecture continues to be practised under the same conditions of duality as it was in the early decades of this century. Amsterdam serves not only as a historic model of housing reform, but as an example of the dilemmas inherant in professional service to the community. 481 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Housinq Projects Approved by the Amsterdam Municipal Council from 1909 to 1919. Date of Approval 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 13 13 7 30 13 13 13 1 17 26 13 3 3 12 13 20 20 8 8 19 19 19 19 19 19 2 2 21 21 21 21 Mar Mar Apr Jun Apr Apr Jul Mar May Jul Dec Jan Jan Feb May Nov Nov Jan Jan Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Apr Apr May May May May 1908 1908 1909 1909 1910 1910 1910 1911 1911 1911 1911 1912 1912 1912 1912 1912 1912 1913 1913 1913 1913 1913 1913 1913 1913 1913 1913 1913 1913 1913 1913 Housing Society Rochdale ACOB *Bouwmaatschappij Rochdale Amsterdamsch Bouwfonds Rochdale Dr. Schaepman *Bouwmaatschappij Rochdale Eigen Haard Patri'monium Algemeene Algemeene ACOB Westen Rochdale HIJSM Amsterdam Zuid Algemeene Eigen Haard Oosten ACOB Amsterdamsch Bouwfonds *Bouwmaatschappij *Bouwmaatschappij +AV Patrimonium Arbeiderswoning Arbeiderswoning Arbeiderswoning Dr. Schaepman Location van Beuningenstraat 1e Helmerstraat 1eHugo de Grootstraat Balistraat Balistraat van Beuningenstraat Meeuwlaan Borneostraat Jacob van Lennepstraat Zeeburgerdijk Vaartstraat Tolstraat Transvaaistraat Pretoriusplein Tasmanstraat Hasebroekstraat Madurastraat Trompstraat Spreeuwpark Zeeburgerdijk Balistraat Pretoriusplein Hasebroekstraat Javaplein Zaagmolenstraat Barentzplein Laingsnekstraat Javastraat van Hallstraat Zaagmolenstraat Meeuwlaan Dwellin Units 28 48 220 88 83 20 45 472 188 160 220 48 178 12 340 322 84 88 179 94 123 12 101 132 40 237 27 169 70 302 102 Architect van der Pek van Epen Weissman van der Pek van der Pek van der Pek Rijnja Weissman van der Pek Leliman Kuipers/Inqwersen Berlage Berlage van Epen Walenkamp Noorlander Greve Gulden/Geldmaker Berlage/van Epen Leliman Moolenschot van Epen van der Pek Weissman Weissman Waal Kuipers/Ingwersen Berlage Berlage de Bazel Rijnja tJ Housing Society Date of Location Approval 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 19 19 10 29 29 29 21 30 30 14 5 5 22 22 22 22 12 12 18 18 13 27 25 25 28 28 28 24 24 4 4 4 29 Nov Nov Dec Jul Jul Jul Jun Jun Jun Jul Jan Jan Mar Jun Jun Jun Jul Jul Oct Oct Jun Jun Jul Jul Nov Nov Nov Apr Apr Sep Sep Sep Jan 1913 1913 1913 1914 1914 1914 1915 1915 1915 1915 1916 1916 1916 1916 1916 1916 1916 1916 1916 1916 1917 1917 1917 1917 1917 1917 1917 1918 1918 1918 1918 1918 1919 Eigen Haard Rochdale #Amsterdamsch Bouwfonds Patrimonium Westen Oosten HIJSM Westen Patrimonium Algemeene &HVK &HVK Amsterdam Zuid Municipal Housing Municipal Housing Municipal Housing Eigen Haard Oosten Eigen Haard Algemeene Patrimonium Rochdale Eigen Haard Oosten Amsterdam over 't IJ Dr. Schaepman Algemeene Eigen Haard Amsterdam Zuid Algemeene Rochdale xEigen Haard xOosten Meeuwlaan 1 eAtjehstraat Marnixstraat Nachtegaalsstraat Nova Zemblastraat Nachtegaalstraat Oostzaanstraat Oostzaanstraat Oostzaanstraat van Hallstraat Retiefstraat Retiefstraat Krommeniestraat Buiksloterham Polanenhof Transvaalbuurt Polanenstraat Krommeniestraat Zaanstraat Tolstraat Zwanenplein Bellamystraat Zwanenplein Fazantenstraat Meeuwlaan Eksterstraat Havikslaan Zaanstraat Polanenstraat Pieter Lastmankade Pieter Lastmankade Zeeburgerdijk Molukkenstraat Dwelling Units 65 43 330 41 283 87 104 118 264 161 144 188 44 560 629 650 52 90 102 35 150 23 224 75 165 86 140 102 106 295 360 299 144 Architect Leliman Gulden/Geldmaker van der Pek Kuipers/Ingwersen Walenkamp Moolenschot Greve Walenkamp Kuipers/Ingwersen van Epen/Berlage Leliman Leliman Gulden/Geldmaker van der Pek de Bazel Berlage/Gratama/Versteeg Leliman Moolenschot de Klerk van Epen/Berlage Kuipers/Ingwersen LaCroix Gratama/Versteeg Moolenschot Walenkamp Rijnja van Epen de Klerk Gulden/Geldmaker van Epen van Epen Leliman Moolenschot #P:- Date of Housing Society Location Eigen Haard Algemeene Patrimonium Oosten Patrimonium Amsteldijk Amsterdam Zuid Amsterdam Zuid Ons Belang Onze Woning Ons Huis Rochdale Patrimonium Onze Woning Onze Woning Dageraad Protestantsche Eigen Haard Dr. Schaepman Rochdale ACOB Algemeene Algemeene Watergraafsmeer Watergraafsmeer Polanenstraat Ruysdaelkade Amstelveenscheweg Josef Israelskade Polanenstraat Josef Israelskade Mosveld Meeuwlaan Cornelius Krusemanstraat Josef Israelskade Lutmastraat Molukkenstraat Josef Israelskade P.L.Takstraat Mosveld Lutmastraat Burg. Tellegenstraat Cornelius Krusemanstraat Pieter Lastmankade Amsteldijk Cronjestraat Approval 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 29 29 26 28 28 28 28 18 18 18 18 18 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Jan Jan Feb May May May May Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 Dwelling Units Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijging van eigen woningen Amsterdamsche Vereeniging tot het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen ATVA - housing for single men Handwerkers Vriendenkring Project later cancelled 562 532 87 318 273 318 52 274 218 352 120 378 180 80 423 292 68 169 150 43 43 204 18 Architect Gratama/Versteeg Gratama/Versteeg Kuipers/Ingwersen Lippits/Scholte Kuipers/Ingwersen Stuyt Gulden/Geldmaker Gulden/Geldmaker Noorlander Weissman Warners Gulden/Geldmaker Kuipers/Ingwersen Weissman Weissman Kramer/de Klerk Wamelen Hamers Rijnja van van van van Epen Epen Epen Epen 02h $Ph. Appendix 2: Locations of the Projects Listed in Appendix 1 W0 OD 113 487 488 A7 ;*.'- Ul.. e c-i-- ]5 Ip wo A4 al 7P 0% 490 FIGURES 491 Fig. 2.1 Employment Sectors in Amsterdam, 1899-1920 Source: Stat. med. #101, Table 4 number employed 1899 Ceramics, glass Diamonds Printing Construction Chemicals Woodworking Clothing Crafts Leather, rubber Ore Metal Paper Textiles Gas,electricity Food preparation Agriculture Fishing, hunting Commerce Transportation Banking Insurance Professions Teaching Domestic service Casual labor Religion TOTAL 446 9842 3266 15457 1269 3858 15371 118 3224 16 11395 993 415 934 13461 861 18 31892 17447 2363 1255 8176 3562 23993 6222 462 176320 1909 528 9683 4637 17237 1801 4874 19691 189 3113 33 14645 1561 .498 2408 16358 1204 57 41019 27993 4215 2983 12422 4548 30649 4014 579 226941 percent of total workforce 1920 521 10132 5283 19150 3543 5198 25263 178 3034 163 22777 2381 604 3723 17045 2437 141 51577 44471 11227 4953 23012 6704 26342 5838 741 299264 1899 0.3 5.6 1.8 8.8 0.7 2.2 8.7 0.1 1.8 .01 6.5 0.6 0.2 1 0.6 5.4 0.5 .01 1 18.1 10.0 1.3 0.7 4.6 2.0 13.6 3.5 0.3 1909 1920 0.2 0.2 4.3 3.4 2.0 1.8 7.6 6.4 0.8 1.2 2.1 1.7 8.7 8.4 0.1 0.1 1.0 1.4 .01 0.1 7.6 6.4 0.5 0.8 0.2 0.2 1.2 1.1 5.7 7.2 0.8 0.5 .05 .02 18.2 17.2 12.3 14.9 3.8 1.9 1.7 1.3 7.7 5.5 2.2 2.0 8.8 13.5 2.0 1.8 0.2 0.3 492 300 ------Civil servants Total population 00 - 250 z 200 I Q- Ep 150 100 1891 1896 1901 1906 1911 1916 YEAR Fig. 2.2 Increase in the number of municipal civil servants in relation to the increase in population in Amsterdam, 1891-1916 Source: Stat. Med., no. 56, Table 7 493 Fig. 2.3 Working Population of Amsterdam, 1899-1920 1899 1920 1909 number number number 11.4 20040 9.9 22476 6.4 18909 Commerce and retail 8.6 15070 7.2 16319 4.9 14455 Professional and technical 6.9 12200 7.7 17549 10.3 30457 73.2 129006 75.2 170595 78.5 232617 Independent entrepreneurs Workers TOTAL 100 176320 100 4 226939 Reworked from Stat. Med. #101, Tables 3 and 4 100 296438 Fig. 2.4 Social Structure in the Netherlands around 1850 Amsterdam Grand bourgeoisie Petit bourgeoisie Small independents Shopkeepers Millers Ind. craftsmen 4.6 37.1 5.9 34.5 26.4 Netherlands 3.0 22.7 25.4 12.9 0.3 13.3 Intellectuals and officers 18.4 12.9 0.3 12.2 10.5 7.6 0.5 10.3 9.2 4.3 Semi-professionals Artists 7.3 0.9 5.3 0.8 2.5 .0.2 Lower foremen 2.4 3.0 1.6 Farmers Workers labor aristocracy Crafts Skilled induscrial 0.2 56.9 1.4 57.5 38.6 11.5 Domestic service Lompenproletariat 100 TOTAL 10.8 0.3 8.6 30.2 18.8 13.7 2.5 0.1 2.0 1.3 19.8 14.4 18.3 ' 23.9 49.9 38. 7 23.3 1.0 25.0 2.2 Workers Casual Farm Fishermen Unskilled factory From: 20 Cities 8.6 6.7 0.5 2.9 0.7 100 J. Giele and G. J. Oenen "Theorie en Praktijk" TSG #5 (May 1976); 183-4 3.5 22.0 0.9 3.7 0.5 100 POPULATION (1000's) o o 1622 1630 1750 0 0 e (D e c, 0 e 1795- _ _ _ _ 1830 - 1840 1849 o 1859 1869 ----- 1879 1889 1899 1909 1920 1930 96t, _ 496 ------- - - - - - -- 30 -- - - -- -- - - - - - -- - - ---- - - - - 20 --K------- z z _ Q ~t1 10 P-1 ---- 1~~ 0 i it o o - -o t oc oo F c co N YEAR Fig. 3.2 Population Increase (expressed as a percentage increase over the previous census) Source: Stat. Med., no. 67, p."l 4LLV iji4ag 40- -4-t FFFi+HF -H-i±I±I~"IIEFiH3HTh 4z~-!zt uH+ P FL 4 30- kR+C # ---- T11 1 - i-E /xI1z~I 14 L. 0 711--i 7tY 20- 7 --4 -I tzL-L ~---A-- z Births Marriages Deaths ~L. 10- - '77 _ -lit 0 TI U 1850 .-A -hHI-t 1-I-I' 1860 1870 - hr -t 4L -, r i-i-- -j - 1890 1880 1900 -- 4 - HijTU -1-- 1910 1920 YEAR Fig. 3.3 Births, marriages and deaths per thousand population in Amsterdam 1850-1920 Source: Stat. Med., no.67, p. 14 30 ,1 I 20 LI - P4 -1 F- C) 7- 0o Pq 10- H H H-4 '00 N 0 * - - - - -t-.-- 1" ! - 0 H C) T-IC 10 -I -1 -11 0 =1 I -- - y - --- --- -- - --- - --- - - t - -- --- -- - - -- *- -- H H. CD C0 Lfn 0 -- I -4i YEAR Fig. 3.4 Excess of births over deaths in Amsterdam over five year periods, 1700-1920 Stat. Med., no. 67 Source: r-4 T1TFF[TTITFF ill I- I *vl~ I 4 z - 20 0 - - - - - ~-~ --- . 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 YEAR Fig. 3.5 In- and out-migration from Amsterdam per 1000 inhabitants 1850-1920 Source: Stat. Med., no. 67, p. 24 9 1910 1920 V J hi !~\ ~ ~, le,' 1 .. '4' ,~, .~r I / ,40 4k- 4.i ,44 4K't :1 Ii Fig. 3.6 Amsterdam in 1857, showing the seventeenth century boundary of expansion U, 0D C0 LnT Fig. 3.7 van Niftrik Plan for the Extension of Amsterdam, 1867 502 , ,Iar 4 a a ,~4ii#',./ dr-Jig d'~/i 5 7 Jb,~P I h74 -*f-~--~ :~ A,,. .. Fig. 3.8 Partial 0/"y plan f or the of Amsterdam, 1876 southern extension 00 r-j -r4 4) 4-1 0 0 U) r (Y) 0) LC) 4-) *44 0 r-iaH ed 14 504 Fig. 3.10 Plan of a Typical Seventeenth Century Amsterdam House Source: Zantkuyl, Bouwen in Amsterdam 505 Fig. 3.11 Housing Type, Funen Source: Amsterdamsche Woningraad Verbetering, 1913 Fig. 3 Fig. 4.. I Fig. I Fig. 2 > 6 pi S r A t a h n r V b r /191 Fig. S Fig. 6 Fig. 3.12 Source: 0 I.> Typical plans of the 'New City' Amsterdamsch Woningraad Verbetering 0 1913 507 Fig. 3.13 Rent in Relation to Income in Amsterdam UNSKILLED LABOR Year 1855 1880 1886 1906 1910 Income Expenditure (f/wk) (f/wk) 9.67 10.23 11.64 15.79 Rent (f/wk) Rent as a % of Expenditure No. of Families 10.00 10.08 10.23 12.00 15.72 1.10 1.88 2.58 2.50 2.69 11.0 19.2 25.7 20.8 17.2 5 3 3 1 9 11.68 14.64 19.82 2.35 2.70 3.20 20.0 18.4 16.5 2 3 14 SKILLED LABOR 1880 1889 1910 10.80 14.49 19.61 Source: 1855 1880 1886 1889 1906 1910 Verdoorn, Volksgezondheid Welker, Heren en Arbeiders Bijdragen Statistisch Instituut, 2, no.3 (1866) Bijdragen Statistisch Instituut 7, no.3 (1891) Amsterdamsche gemeentewerkman (29 December 1906) Arbeidersludgets, 1912 Fig. 3.14 Rent in relation to income in Amsterdam 1882-1883 Income per year Income per week Range of rents Ave. 6-700 11.54-13.46 1.33-2.88 11.5 700-800 13.46-15.38 1.33-3.37 11.7 800-1000 15.38-19.23 1.29-4.33 16.2 1000-1200 19.23-23.08 1.29-5.29 15.6 1200-1400 23.08-26.92 1.29-6.25 15.1 1400-1600 1.92-7.21 15.8 1600-1800 1.92-7.21 14.0 1800-2000 1.92-8.17 13.8 2000-2200 2.88-11.54 17.9 3500-3800 5.29-16.35 15.4 6200-6800 9.62-25.00 13.9 10-11000 12.50-28.85 10.3 24-26000 17.31-44.23 6.14 56-62000 23.08-61.54 3.7 Source: rent ratio to income Bijdragen tot Statistiek Range of ratios 11.1-12.5. 12.5-16.7 (YR 16.7-20 14.3-16.7 11.1-14.3 6.7-11.1 5.0-6.7 509 %Lz'idewwon I infet e~ouw< doooe -:w77t Fig. 4.1 1:0tviaulCmeAwm a Mo': O 'oL PLC mno 0 SuXYner0 13w. O Amsterdamsche Vereeniging tot het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen Mercier, Het Tehuis van Amsterdamsche Burgers, p.151 510 ARBEIDERSWONINGEN. BOUWONDERNEMING JORDAAN. PLATTE GROND VAN DE EERSTE VERDIEPING. i. Portaal. . Fig. 4.2 Keuken. s. Balkons. Kamer. 3. Slaaoruimte. 2. - 6. Kast. 7. Glazenkast., 8. Stookplaats... 9. Woningdeur. Bouwonderneming Jordaan, Lindengracht, J. E. van der Pek, 1896 Source: BW It _(W - V& N 3-W)f% i R M 10 \-_FFT% ~O <; 4 ~ IL I l(.J ~ &~I T~L[YU IJji-Jjh [AJ 4LJ1Z1i-TJ. Lk ft I 1i- r-31,U f JI f~ 1~ ~i ~[~I~1~t i1l IFr! If~i __ 1r -i FUh- [11__ ,LEITIVnM n * Fig.4.2Bouondenemng ordan, indngrahtJ Source:tB Evan er ek,189 7,7 9 A. T!. i\I %,ijJL [JJ Ln - Fig. 4.4 Housing Projects of the Vereeniging ten behoeve den Arbeiderklasse BLOCK DATE BUILT Oostenburg Passeerderdwarstr. Planciusstr. Houtmanstr. Willemstraat I Willemstraat II Willemstraat III Palmstr. I Huidekuiperstr. Lijnbaansgracht Palmstr. II Willemstraat IV Jacob v. Campenstr. Willemstr. V 2e Jan v.d.Heydenstr. Hemonystr. van Woustr. Palmstr./Lijnbaangracht Willemstr. VI TOTAL Source: 1852 1852 1854 1854 1861 1864 1864 1866 1870 1872 1873 1873 1876 1878 1887 1887/90 1887/90 1894 1899 DWELLINGS AVE. RENT DEC. 1901 42 15 48 64 38 33 6 24 72 42 12 12 103 64 125 12 8 12 11 1.82 1.91 2.20 2.20 1.75 2.03 2.26 2.28 2.94 2'. 10 2.69 2.38 2.37 1.89 2.59 5.54 5.88 2.96 2.89 742 2.40 GAD, PA 297 #56, Dec. 1901 survey U, 513 Fig. 4.5 Occupations of teads of household in the dwellings of the Vereeniging ten behoeve den arbeidersklasse, Dec. 1901 No occupation, retired 14.4% White collar 15.4 Skilled 28.1 5.2 Shopkeeper 37.0 Unskilled Comparison of Heads of Household of VA, Dec. 1901 and Results of the Census of 1899 VA 1901 State and municipal workers 14.0% Census 1899 3.5% 11.1 8.8 Diamonds workers 2.9 5.6 Transportation workers 9.3 Casual labor 0.8 Construction 10.1 3.5 Compiled from GAD, PA 297, #56 and Stat. Med. #67, Table 32, p6 9 514 Fig. 4.6 Production of Housing in Amsterdam by Housing Societies and other Philanthropic societies, 1852-1902. Derived from Schade, 225-229 Start of Project 1854 1865 1869 1877 1879 1880 1888 VA: AV: % of units on old sites % of units on new sites 1852-61 320 67.5 32.5 1862-71 756 52.0 48.0 1872-81 1583 10.1 89.9 1882-91 1016 0.0 100.0 1892-1902 703 34.6 65.4 Fig. 4.7 Year Number of Dwelling units Cost of construction of housing society dwellings. 173 Compiled from Hasselt and Verschoor, Price (f/M2 ) 19.10 26.40 25.80 34.00 35.75 32.00 28.00 Location Planciusstraat Palmstraat Huydekoperstraat Marnixstraat Funen Funen J.v.d.Heydenstraat Society VA VA VA AV AV AV VA Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse Amsterdamsche Vereeniging tot het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen Fig. 5.1 Members of the Dutch Public Health Conference Year Total Doctors Lawyers Engineers Industrialists Architects Organizations Other 1896 1 263 100 31 27 21 5 1 78 1900 328 118 33 23 15 4 44 91 1903 1 476 149 41 26 14 7 135 121 1913 512 126 39 17 12 8 198 112 1916 1 489 106 41 11 6 6 192 110 Compiled from Tijdscrift voor Sociale Hygiene, 1899-1917 01 -A 516 eii ~I~7zarsft~LT/ 6 ~ Fig. 7.1 jyA~JI7aaki~ 3 Back-to-back housing of the Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidende klasse, Planciusstraat. Source: Hasselt and Verschoor 1< 517 .............. ................................. m fz n z 4 1' l l I I I -11 .ill 9 1 Il 03 _1z a 2 .1 1 1 a2I Il s3 TAsrurTT 3 5Cr -r~ -LF.AAT3.4 -50 A. AA -m -n W,'AARVAM. - 1 TUKG MU. EKZ f lF H UIZ r - -4 M. Source: Het Westen, Tasmanstraat, architect Walenkamp, 1911 BWT 2 II ilI 1 C It ; l 0 H. A. A. A. A A- A A A H O50 TYPE:A- e.rm A Fig. 7.2 23~ .I E.l - ' i A~AL II T A LAA 2 I :-l EI_. II3ji U 10 L If IiM - :1 1 Il 2 31 i 2 1E J1 ai 1 A'OAM. 1912 U _ Elevation .i . .. a 2 First Floor Second Floor Fig. 7.3 Eigen Haard, Zeeburgerdijk, Leliman, 1911 Source: BWT Souce BWT gig -- al or u law VEEE H'sbrektrat U va IBMdle deriPekm 1912 Fig. 7. Fig. 7. 4 Rochdale, Hasebroekstraat, Sour ce : BWT van der Pek, 1912 M se a E 520 il iliilL 111 I~ F, WHR~f3~ iniss -- ;E Seod -Q7 tird, fout floo ;n. ;04 -Ate.! !sit Elevation Second, third, fourth floors Fig. 7.5 ACOB, 1e Helmersstraat, van Epen, 1909 Source: BWT 521 - -- Fig. 7.6 amsRam OLa= De Arbeiderswoning, Javastraat, Berlage, 1913 Source: BWT a 522 - -~~~i - .K - Z.-- - * - - - LoK h BLOK - - 80 -:, cDC C A -6 Fig. 7.7 - sA C - - - Algemeene Woningbouwvereeniging, Transvaalstraat, Berlage, 1910 Source: BWT 523 r-i O 4-i 0 p-I 0 -4 Ci 0 co 60 524 .~ .- .~. . .e ~~~~~ \~ ___ _____________ T - -- IL WIN__ :A Lai.a tow . . ._..__..____SV4 1U * 6;Lb -- a 13 15 LED U A "Hilt _3 n * ~ - iQV MANA -a -- *~ oil~ Fig. 7.9 ~ De Arbeiderswoning, Zaagmolenstraat, de Bazel, Source: BWT - 1913 525 Fig. 7.10 Rochdale, van Beuningenstraat, van der Pek, 1909 1 - hall, 2 - Source: BWT landing, 3 - living room, 4 - kitchen, 6 - bedroom I, e II REMB~m43 E hr" In T-1F WeMMMI"MAWrr Fig. 7.11 WsiNu "VI Algemeene Woningbouwvereeniging, Spreeuwpark, Berlage and van Epen, 1913 Source: BWT Fig. 7.12a Het Qosten, Nachtegaalstraat, Moolenschot, 1914 Ij Fig. 7.12b - : ir- PAN HYSM, Madurastraat, Greve, 1912 1 - living room, 2 - Source: BWT kitchen-living room, 3 - bedroom LAJ o Wi o H- rt 0 (D 5 0 N w S H0 (D (. p. N (D rift pq I-. CD Wn D 0 80 01 i is IMM aw --. M mae dessa Fig. 7. 14 Het Oosten, Balistraat, Moolenschot, 1913 Source: BT l 14-l";nill i - I fllll 41".1"1 Fig. 7.15 I .4"Ial Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijging van Eigen Woningen (Onze Woning), Molukkenstraat, A. W. Weissman, 1918 a - hall, c g - bedroom Source: BWT - entry hall, d - living room, e - kitchen-living room, f - kitchen, K Nt VrA - A ground floor Fig. 7. 16 Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijging van Eigen Woningen, A. W. Weissman, 1908 Sour ce : BWT upper floors 1e Hugo de Grootstraat, 532 tfr 6?elfraaks 1.2 Fig. 7.17 $tt f 3?rup'. Vereeniging ten behaare der Arbeidende klasse, Jan van der Heidenstraat Source: Hasselt and Verschoor 533 Fig. 7.18a Algemeene, Tolstraat, Berlage, 1912 Fig. 7.18b i~u~m~OmE Ii Fig. 7.18c I Algemeene, van Hallstraat, van Epen, 1915 Source: BWT Eigen Haard, Zaanstraat, 1912 Ul wA * Fig. 7.19a Rochdale, Hasebroekstraat, Noorlander, 1912 Source: BWT Fig. 7.19b & V Algemeene, van Hallstraat, van Epen and Berlage, 1915 4IJ 73 PAM y - Ally lip J FOR I .... ......IT Iq- t4 4J (1) 44 .1-4 LO 4-i 0 0 .44-i ~d E-4 0 44 U) 4 -4 0 C) N 0 536 na -i Fig. 7.21 Algemeene, Transvaalplein, Berlage, 1912 Source: BW --. ,w w m i l m a-m _____~~W1 iu1 Fig. 7.22 tno * - Eigen Haard, Zeeburgerdijk, Leliman, 1913 Source: BWT 1111111 111 Il ft) 0 (i D (D P1) N P) rt U, CD %D -A 03 L4.) 00 trzj k)- 0) (D ~ (D U, (A3 elevation ground floor fourth floor Fig. 7.25 second floor third floor attic Patrimonium, Vaartstraat, Kuipers and Ingwersen, 1911 Source: BWT 541 g i ~& - a 6 - p - - ;41: I - C- ON xON - - -i -E4 s p r -p -it - - * - a .a :.W) ana 104 .~'4e -..... W N a) 3 3 -4 tc--a -~ toa 4J N 0 EN APER Fig. 7.27 Het Oosten, Ruysdaelkade, Lippits and Scholte, 1919 Source: BWT A,. , 'P M, LJ Fig. 28a Municipal Housing, Transvaalbuurt, Berlage, Gratama and Versteeg Source: NDB Fig. 7.28b Rochdale, Balistraat, van der Pek 545 a. van Bossestraat 8-54, 1913 -I c. van Woustraat I -- 171-, 1919 Fig. 7.29 Commercial housing plans Source: b. Kempenaerstraat 8-18, 1913 GAD d. Lutmastraat 85-, 1919 546 ~ - AP - P I~/ 1 Fig P.jctdpa foTrsaabut Fig. 9.lRejected plan for Transvaalbuurt, Proposal No.544, Amsterdam, 1903 Ve2aLaz i;,-,..J. . '.I, A. .~ I." A - L -- Fig.9.2 - -- - - - -- - -- - -- ....- -.---------- - Approved plan for Transvaalbuurt, Proposal No. 1000, Amsterdam, 1903 ~ ( %, \ U, 4.. Fig. 9.3 Extension Plan for the Spaarndammerbuurt, 1885 Source: GAD III I'ji IVllijl 29 %an 1 -13 1 ''Ilia MMI dolor van n j\) F-ig. 9.4 Plan of Spaarndammerbuurt, 1913 Source: GB 1913 4-1 157 - a, "VI Fig. 9.5 1912 Plan for Indische district south of 2 e Atjehstraat Submitted by the developers Maatschappij voor Grondbezit en Grondcrediet and other developers ,t---.- a A t lR~ is 4, ~ t. A ~ 77 t 'r I.- *- - . -. - 0" .4 01 .3 N 'if I To - '~i 7.I § A%4 --- %vo-wl (a, U, CD ~1 A N<~24~. tktT~JA~c .' .Fig. 9.6 7 _ t '-. T Revised plan for Indische district Submitted by the developers Maatschappij voor Grondbezit en Gronderediet. Source: GAD -0 * '4 4, S M4"" # It 4, . '4'r ~. 4..'.,.. V. 4, 'I' 444/ '4' r U, L, * 'W4 t4). ~ ri A t.;tv~ Fig. 9.7 1913 Plan for Indische district, J.M. van der Mey for the Public Works Department Source: GAD U1 Ln N Fig. 9.8 Sketch plan for Zaahnhof, J.M. van der Mey, 1913 Source: GAD *i~L~:~ hi H. J. M. Walenkamp Fig. 9.9 Het Westen, Zaanhof, U' 0 oD Od 0 : (DC 0< Ul Ul (lD nrt (D D ~0 t rt 00 I. V.' A I . . t .' T it,. I rft I qm I? - r r ,~ I.' (31 Th U' L' IlL Ut III 11l I, ~ts" ijiw fl~( IA WI,'. 1'4 1I r~ .Fig. 9.11 Patrimonium, Zaanhof, facing Spaarndammerdijk, Source: Woningdienst U0 4 iipers and Ingwersen J3 Ii iii uL (3' 0) Fig. 9.12 Site plan, Spaarndammerplantsoen, M. de Klerk Source: Architectura UU All nu ins Ron as si] [ull a ~l Mi e ma ss H Cne Fig. 9.13 Eigen Haard, Spaarndammerbuurt, J. H. W. Leliman Source: BWT all e - sa. LI' - t sa Fig. 9,14 Il ~u-. a Het Oosten, J. J. L. Moolenschot, 1916 Source: BWT 74.! e. ''- * - er *- ' tx- -< - 0 - '. ~ -,, --- 74. - j '.Qm Jy?3j 74~r'rt.. rC".4-1W- 'se:A r - i~r.?4?'t r-- -i I 3- a"s u aq Fig. 9.15 , . -- - -, - 2 . p . -, ~W . % A 3 IV . .~ g .8"Ct-cNt -h- fr""' J . t -l.e -Aq'~- sa - U -. ~j~~j)"3 I e g 4 4iZu - . M *.'-.s ' 4k4 T -1 -: 1i . .. 4 -* ~ ~ 46z, Q!rIi -t;n -.- . vaV P~ - - - w>v~~'t2 K -- r 4 ;I - Allt - . -k. - ,- U1 952flC- ra_ 63UJitPa a LJ C3 tva - D' CC t - - - L ]YU V . c S0 Mn 11MR-' t3 .qrserS.Jas fstririgG. fls;'AJM.Ea Amsterdam Zuid, Spaarndammerbuurt, Gulden and Geldmaker Source. BWT J - -- I- A -r 7 - oftN I- M. ILA.A- - Fig. 9.16 Spaarndammerplantsoen: Left foreground, Housing for developer Hille, M. de Klerk, 1913 Right foreground, Housing for Housing Society "Eigen Haard," M. de Klerk Left background, de Klerk illustrates appropriate style for adjacent housing Saurce: Architectura vol 23, no. 41 (9 October 1915), p. 260 t -- Fig. 9.17 IJ-Commissie Plan for North Amsterdam, 1903 Source: GAD "ygg Fig. 9.18 1910 Plan for Amsterdam North of the Ij River, Public Works Department (Nieuwendanmmerham is east of the North Holland Canal; Buiksloterham is west) Source: GAD GlFrvc- - N. 0' 0) Fig. 9.19 General Plan of North Amsterdam, 1914 4 Fig. 9.20 Collaborative Plan for Nieuwendammerham, Housing Authority, 1916 Source: GAD *.~-l~~' 'f (~. ~1 *'-'~ H * ,~. ;~1~~$ ~ 4 ~I' LO '.0 LO) ~Y* 0 r-4 :J P.4 a) o VAN 1I' 1 ~ Y V ~ 4k 4 a) U ~~4 -4 cJ 0 C,) 41U, Source: ND 567 11 r-i Fig. 9.23 Eigen Haard, Nieuwendammerham, Gratama and Versteeg Source: NDB A... ~.*~*'..~A --- 'A KABASTER 5EETIE X_'"1 5CHAAL 1 A b-3 ( A*Is 6 , -.. .It 0 #n v 1 K on 0i NA 3r. 7 MI 4i .4 '.t . 44 Fig. 9.24 Revised plan of Spaarndammerbuurt including Polanenhof Source: GB 4 4 ~ '*'~** j. .- - -___ - .c- . - - --- - - 2f - -X - - -.. - r ___I -.--- . c.t-- - I~ N_ . --- 1.* ----- - { - .V. Municipal housing, Polanenhof, de Bazel, 1919 Source: ~ _ n -- b3 Fig. 9,,25 - RI] - BW T.I ETIi , 570 7 _eeura.n . v-u Fig. 9.26 ; - Municipal Housing, Transvaalbuurt, Berlage, Gratama and Versteeg Source: BW 571 Fig. 9.27 Plan of Buiksloterham, J. E. van der Pek Source: GAD 41- II p Fig. 10.1 e Eigen Haard, Zaanstraat, M. de Klerk Source: GAD C/2 0 I-I OQ 1-1 0 ('I -J L46) C) Cl~ '-1 Hl. 0 Cl. ti 574 Fig. 11.2 H.J. Arnolds, Kunst aan 't Volk Competition, 1916 Source: BW 575 Fig . 11.3 H. van Dorp, Kunst aan 't Source: BW Volk Competition, 1916 1, 0': E~i~ Ln f ~~~~~.1 0 ~.I1 I I I 1 h~1 Fig, 11.4 Algemeene, Transvaalbuurt, J. C. van Epen Source: BW . C > - - - ; ,t a ? - -, -A - -. . Municipal Housing, Transvaalbuurt; Berlage, Gratama and Versteeg Source: NDB amtan -* .4 V 11.5 _ -- -. Flig. _ - - * -- 77 - --- - .. V In _ [E~fJGo FE FP,- II 4 HMO' Fig., 12.1 Bouwmaatschappij tot Verkrijging van Elgen Woningen, Cooperatiebuurt, A. W. Weissman, 1919 Source: BUT - I_ Fig. 12.2 I__ Bouwmaatschappij tot Verkrijging van Eigen Woningen, Nieuwendammerham III, A W. Weissman, 1919 Source: BWT LJ I w~V~lQn~nje41l", 4 tv c4 Lngatzia va, t , (51 ma [&u"Ltv 0.001,"014OU ___ I fCT~4),~t4,LCA31(iII door , L~4 __ __ __ t~~atXn~ ____r 7-7-M- _ _ m _ _1 Ul 0 7 Fig. 12.3 I Bouwmaatschappij tot Verkrijging van Eigen Woningen, 1886 Source: Mercier, Over Arheiderswoningen 581 I-1 40) n4-- 4w,) tit Mg 4.1 71C jrIEEM I j~A~/ iA.4.~ L ~ J Yr~A ~ .L I~ijt _ I I I. y 5 -JA, Fig. 12.5 Samenwerking, Frans van Mierisstraat, t4.J.E. Lippits 7~ ~~'1~~' ".t'.( ,P,7,'4 ,Y!Ry i A?1.I~3~ , !*~ ...-. A. 1 AlIt 4A'A rm5 IND?_ nj I"APl -C i - il % a-.t. . , . --i cpiv 14__ C -r 1N -,? .~ -t, *.wh - - 6 ITN.. r pe. _ r A t 'L livu n jz ,?.$~~ it.~J 1W*OO- __ * *~ _ q -! , V Y1 ~. .#: -- :41Ui 1I, _ '".. - -. N.. 0 -__ - - '.~~.~dS_ NIT 137 'W i . .. "1Z M . 'I.; 'y -~r ".-T'~. . riij~~rvL{ 38II~ -,,j ;iIIM % z #%* ~ *. A L-eM 7e .ZI .Z E ~ 4 ~ L ~ma toa -~~~~i f -. h -. ~ 3 gor . t_ 4i ~ 1T .4 Fig RtOme, 126 R ydekae Souce BWT ~ ~ ~ 7- b' t- LE if x-. n cot P_F.'- t,~~ Jr. 91~~) --- ipt _ ,~ U1 VO AM Fig. 12.7 Handwerkers Vriendenkring, Transvaalbuurt, J. H. W. Leliman Source: BW 4,00 J% - N / L~~j~f/. jfr / Is~( .. . uL U1 .44 _ / I .Fig. 12.8 Rochdale/Algemeene, site plan, Krusemanstraat, J. C. van Epen, 1919 Source: BW - - *- -}" *1-s d- - - -r!- - - - - - on 00 Fig. 12.9 Rochdale/Algemeene, Krusemanstraat, J. C. van Epen, 1917 Source: BW 1~ L, Fig. 12.10 ACOB and Rochdale, Amstelveenscheweg, J. C. van Epen 588 Original Facade Revised Facade .Fig. 12.11 Patrimonium, Lutmastraat, Kuipers and Ingwersen, 1919-1921 Source: BWT '0 Fig. 12.12 Patrimonium, Lutmastraat, Kuipers and Ingwereen 17l Fig. 12.13 V7 Stadionbuurt, Site Plan Source: GAD 591 Fig. 12.14 Stadionbuurt, Gratama and Versteeg Source: BW 592 7 5A- G1EI 7t:t C -L CKRUX zf z _ _ -'IL r X,~ Su/ B i -- Lj Cf ~ (k /T 77=-1 'I '-'I T M YNmeta I ___ CLL. Fig.__12.15 Fi.121 Amsl ml s1L Boweeeiig oweeniig Sit Pla iePa SourFr: B) F~E L 593 NOTES 594 Chapter One: PROFESSIONAL AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL SERVICE 1. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). 2. Polanyi, 146-51. 3. Ibid. 4. A. M. Carr-Saunders and P. A. Wilson, The Professions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933). 5. The following discussion is based on Margali Safatti Larson, The Rise of Professionalism, a sociological analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977) and Eliot Freidson, Profession of Medicine, A Study in the Sociology of Applied Knowledge (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1970), 335-382. 6. Larson, 2-65. 7. Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding, vol. 1 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972), 359-61. Toulmin, 142. 8. 9. For an excellent discussion of the derivation of professional autonomy from a mastery of knowledge and a commitment to a service ideal, see William J. Goode, "The Theoretical Limits of Professionalization," in Amitai Etzioni, ed. The Semi-Professions and Their Organization (New York: The Free Press, 1969), 291-2. 10. Larson, xiii. 11. Larson, xii. 12. Larson, 48. 13. Toulmin, 168. 14. Toulmin, 295-6: "Just because the establishment of interdisciplinary boundaries and the delegation of authority to distinct reference-groups results in the isolation of specialized professional niches, it is possible for conjectures to be put forward, tested, and judged in a selective, discriminating way, with an eye to the well-defined requirements of a correspondingly specialized problem-situation." "the production of new needs, or the direction of 15. Larson, 58: largely unrecognized need toward new forms of fulfillment, is a civilizing function, to the extent that is does not obey first to the profit motive, but seeks first to improve the quality of life." 16. Larson, 157. 17. Toulmin, 265. See also his discussion on pages 143, 154, 166-7, and 306. 18. Freidson, op. cit. and Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982). 19. Joseph Ben-David, The Scientist's Role in Society, A Comparitive Study (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971), 143. 20. The conditions required to conduct rational discourse are openness to innovation and criticism, with a degree of consensus on the means to judge either. 21. The different terminologies appear in the works of Ben-David, Toulmin, Etzioni, and in Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). 22. Not only may the profession control access to the disciplinary forum, control may be used to shape the lay perception of a disciplinary problem. See Freidson, xvii and below. 23. A similar problem is cited by Freidson for medicine and by "While the professions' autonomy seems to implication other professions. 595 have facilitated the improvement of scientific knowledge about disease and its treatment, it seems to have impeded the improvement of the social modes of applying that knowledge." He makes a more radical avowal of the necessity for pure autonomy in the disciplinary dialogue, and attacks only autonomy in the application of knowledge. Freidson, 371. 24. For example, universities bank on their claim of scientific neutrality while in fact remaining dependent on the state and in some cases supporting state policy. See Ben-David, 136; Terry Nichols Clark, Prophets and Patrons, the French Universities and the Emergence of the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973); and Carol S. Gruber, Mars and Minerva: World War I and the uses of higher learning in America (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975). 25. Larson, 169. 26. Larson, 144. 27. On the role of the intellectual elite, see Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971) and Alvin W. Gouldner, The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). 28. Larson, xiv. 29. If the profession becomes too isolated or interests do not coincide, there is of course always the danger of conflict with the state or the loss of social support: "an account of the process by which professions emerge illuminates the fact that professions gain autonomy; in this protected position they can develop with increasing independence from the ideology of the dominant social elites. The production of knowledge appears to play a more and more strategic and seemingly autonomous role in the dynamics of these special occupations. If professions obtain extended powers of self evaluation and self control they can become almost immune to external regulation. The fact remains, however, that their privileges can always be lost. If a profession's work or actual performance 'comes to have little relationship to the knowledge and values of its society, it may have difficulty surviving.'" Larson, xii. 30. Freidson, xvii: "In developing its own 'professional' approach, the profession changes the definition and shape of problems as experienced and interpreted by the layman." Larson, xiii: "Professional autonomy allows the experts to select almost at will the inputs they will receive from the laity. Their autonomy thus tends to insulate them: in part, professionals live within ideologies of their own creation, which they present to the outside as the most valid definitions of specific spheres of social reality." 31. Larson, xiii. 32. Larson, 40-1: "Validity of this knowledge appears to transcend the particular circumstances and subjective preferences of the groups that produce it." 33. Larson, 41. 34. Larson, xii: "Particular groups of people attempt to negotiate the boundaries of an area in the social division of labor and establish their own control over it...Conflict and stuggle around who shall be included or excluded mark the process of internal unification of a profession." 35. Studies of architecture as a profession include: Martin S. Briggs, The Architect in History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927); Barrington Kaye, Development of the Architectural Profession in Britain, A Sociological Study (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969); Frank Jenkins, 596 Architect and Patron (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961); Raymonde Moulin, et. al., Les architectes, metamorphose d'une profession liberale (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1973); Spiro Kostof, ed., The Architect, Chapters in the History of the Profession (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977); Judith Blau, Architects and Firms, A Sociological Perspective on Architectural Practice (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1984). Chapter Two: AMSTERDAM THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BASIS OF CULTURAL PLURALISM IN 1. Joel Mokyr explains cogently why Landes' thesis is inapplicable to the Netherlands in his Industrialization in the Low Countries, 1795-1850 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976). 2. J. A. de Jonge, De industrialisatie in Nederland tussen 1850 en 1914 (Amsterdam: Scheltema en Holtema, 1968), 344. A brief but excellent introduction to the nineteenth century economic history of the Netherlands is Theo van Tijn and W. M. Zappij, "De negentiende eeuw," in J. H. van Stuijvenberg, De economische geschiedenis van Nederland (Groningen: Wolters-Nordhoff, 1977), 201-308. 3. de Jonge, 385. 4. An excellent description of Amsterdam's urban and economic conditions at midcentury can be found in Theo van Tijn, Twintig Jaren Amsterdam, de maatschappelijk ontwikkeling van de hoofdstad, van de jaren '50 der vorige eeuw tot 1876 (Amsterdam: Scheltema en Holkema, 1965). 5. Helen Searing has pointed out Amsterdam's central importance as the cultural and economic capital of the Netherlands, and thus its particular interest for the genesis of Dutch housing design in her study "Housing in Holland and the Amsterdam School" (Ph. D. diss., Yale University, 1971). 6. In the last decades of the nineteenth century Amsterdam provided the home for such journals as De Nieuwe Gids and De Kroniek which shaped cultural and political opinion nationally. Newly founded institutions such as the national museum the Rijksmuseum, the symphony hall the Concertgebouw, the municipal university and the Free University allowed Amsterdam to exert a considerable cultural influence. 7. van Tijn, Twintig Jaren, 17, 24. 8. Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, "The Harbor of Amsterdam, 1907, 77-79. Amsterdam," 9. de Jonge, 183. 10. Bureau van Statistiek der Gemeente Amsterdam, Statistische Mededelingen, no. 42. 11. Theo van Tijn, "Berusting en beroering, aspecten van amsterdams sociale geschiedenis in de negentiende eeuw," Ons Amsterdam 26, no. 2 1974), 34-42. (February, 12. de Jonge, 233. 13. Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, "Report on the Condition of Trade, Shiping, and Industry in 1900," Amsterdam, no date. 14. de Jonge, 50. 15. Onderzoekingen naar de toestanden in de Nederlandsche huisindustrie, vol. 3 (The Hague, 1914), 157. 16. Onderzoekingen, vol. 2, 6. 17. Statistische Mededelingen, no. 101, Table 2, Table 4. 18. For an introduction to Amsterdam's banking history see the 597 chapters in I. J. Brugmans, Welvaart en Historie, Tien Studien (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950) and J. G. van Dillen, Mensen en Achtergronden (Groningen, 1964). 19. The categories used in the compilation of the labor statistics "Independent shown in Fig. 2.3 reflect occupation rather than class. entrepreneurs" comprise both large manufacturers and small artisans, "commerce and retail" includes owwners of both large department store and small shops. "Professional and technical" includes doctors, lawyers, "workers" encompasses white collar workers, foremen nurses and the like; and supervisors, as well as rank file worker. 20. Theo van Tijn, "Voorlopige notities over het ontstaan van het moderne klassebewustzijn in Nederland," Mededelingenblad, Nederlandsch Vereniging tot beoefening van Sociale Geschiedenis (May, 1974), 37-39. 21. The figures for 1920 refer to men only and have been derived from Table 12 of the "Resultaten der volks- en beroepstelling 31 December 1920 Mededeelingen, no. 72 (Amsterdam, 1924). van Amsterdam," Statistische With women included the percentages are, respectively, 11.1, 23.2, ad The figures for 1850 are taken from Jacques Giele and Geert Jan van 65.6. Oenen, "Theorie en praktijk van het onderzoek naar de sociale structuur," Their Tijdscrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, no. 5 (May, 1976), 183. "De sociale structuur van de methodology is described in the article, Nederlandse samenleving rond 1850," Mededelingenblad, Nederlandsch Vereniging tot beoefening van Sociale Geschiedenis, no. 45 (May, 1974), 231. For another perspective, see I. J. Brugmans, "Standen en klassen in Nederland gedurende de negentiende eeuw," in his Welvaart en Historie, 140-160. 22. Ger Harmsen and Bob Reinalda,Voor de bevijding van de arbeid Most of the gifted students could get higher (Nijmegen: SUN, 1975), 103. training through subsidized teacher training. But since the schools for the working classes were not usually good, the best students were given special instruction, for instance by the head of the school, so that they Ine could pass the examinations for admittance to the normal school. sociale en arbeiderszonen, dochters Meyers and Peiternel Rol, "Rijkluis afkomst, opleiding en organisatie van onderwijzers en onderwijzeressen rond 1900," Jaarboek voor de geschiedenis van Socialisme en 88-118. Arbeider-sbeweging in Nederland 2 (1979), 23. A detailed study of unemployment, specifically the policies developed in Amsterdam, is to be found in Pieter de Rooy, Werklozenzorg en werkloosheidsbestrijding 1917-1940, landelijk en Amsterdams belied (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1978). 24. A. J. C. de Rueter, De spoorwegstakingen van 1903, Een spiegel Tony der arbeidersbeweging in Nederland (Leiden: Brill, 1935), 226-227; Jansen, "De wil der bazen regelt het werk, Havenarbeiders rond 1900 in Rotterdam en Amsterdam," Jaarboek voor de geschiedenis van Socialisme en Arbeidersbeweging 2 (1979), 7-87. 25. de Rueter, 226-227. 26. De Gemeentewerkman 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1902). 27. The groundbreaking sociological research by D. Lockwood on working class images of society spawned considerable research into the ways in which workplace experience affects the worker's interpretation of class structure. See D. Lockwood, "Sources of Variation in Working Class Images of Society," Sociological Review 14, no. 13 (November, 1966), 249Subsequent research into the opinion of contemporary British workers 267. has failed to corroborate Lockwood's original thesis, and suggests the 598 the importance of other factors outside work, such as religion and community, as major influences on the image of class identity. For the Netherlands, research on class identity and class consciousness includes the work of Theo van Tijn, "Voorlopige notities," and J. Giele, "Arbeidersbestaan. Levenshouding en maatschappijbeeld van de arbeidende klasse in Nederland in het midden van de negentiende eeuw," Jaarboek voor de geschiedenis van Socialisme en Arbeidersbeweging (1976), 21-91. Also relevant to these issues is the introduction to Giele's collection of workers' autobiographical statements in his Arbeiderslevens in Nederland 1850-1914 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1979). This is the first collection of Dutch workers' autobiographies since the socialist journalist J. F. Ankersmit published Arbeiderslevens (Amsterdam: Ontwikkeling, 1919). 28. Staatsenquete 1890 (Enquete, gehouden door de St-aatscommissie, benoemd krachtens de wet van 19 januari 1890, Staatsblad, no. 1) Derde Afdeling, Amsterdam, 30 October 1891, testimony of Cornelis van Buuren, 326. 29. "Het huissmederijbedrijf te Amsterdam, Rapport uitgebracht door de Commissie voor het onderzoek van arbeiderstoestanden en de Kamer van Arbeid voor de Metaal en Houtbewerking te Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1903. 30. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, Bedrijfstelling 31 December 1930, vol. 3 (The Hague, 1936), 170. 31. This system of payment is described in Jansen, op. cit. 32. Van Dam describes the typical story of his father who lost his position as baas in the diamond industry because he kept paying his assistants even when business was bad. J. C. van Dam, Sociaal Logboek 1900-1960, Spiegel van vooruitgang (Amsterdam: De Brug-Djambatan, 1960), 11-12. 33. Staatsenquete 1890, testimony of Maria Wilhemina Froger, 16 October 1891, 221-22. Tien Jaren Arbeidswetgeving, verzameling van aanhalingen uit de verslagen der arbeidsinspectie 1890-1900 (Amsterdam: Nationale Bureau van Vrouwenarbeid, 1903), 48-49. 34. For a general history of the union movement, see Ger Harmsen and Bob Reinalda, Voor de bevrijding van de arbeid, op. cit. Also helpful is the bibliography on socialism and the workers' movement in the Netherlands by Ger Harmsen, Idee en beweging, bekommentarieerde bibliografie van de geschiedenis van socialisme en arbeidersbeweging in Nederland (Nijmegen: SUN, 1972). For the early history of the ANWV, see B. H. Heldt, Algemeen Nederlandsch Werklieden Verbond 1871-1896 (Leeuwaarden, 1896). 35. The workers' movement within the confessional pillars has been treated by Erik Hansen and Peter Prosper, "Religion and the Development of the Dutch Trade Union Movement, 1872-1914," Histoire Social 9, no. 18 (November-December, 1976), 357-383. The standard histories of the Protestant workers' organization are R. Hagoort, Patrimonium, Gedenkboek bij het Gouden Jubileum (Kampen, 1927) and R. Hagoort, Het beginsel behouden, Gedenkboek van het Nederlandsch Werkliedenbond Patrimonium over de jaren 1891-1927 (Amsterdam, 1934). The Catholic movement is described in L. J. Rogiers and N. de Rooy, In vrijheid herboren: Katholiekj Nederland 1857-1953 (The Hague, 1953). 36. E. J. van Det and F. L. Ossendorp, "Arbeid van schoolgaande kinderen te Amsterdam in 1913," Amsterdam, Bond van Nederlandsche Onderwijzers, afdeling Amsterdam, 1913; C. Thomassen and W. Post, "Arbeid van schoolgaande kinderen. Enquete ingesteld door de afdeling Amsterdam van de Bond van Nederlandsche Onderwijzers," Amsterdam, 1903. 37. P. de Rooy, Een revolutie die voorbijging, Domela Nieuwenhuis en 599 het Palingoproer (Bussum, 1971). 38. Theo Thijssen, In de Octend van het Leven (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1962), 141. 39. Ger Harmsen, Historisch overzicht van socialisme en arbeidersbeweging in Nederland, Van de begintijd tot het uitbreken van de eerste wereld oorlog (Nijmegen: SUN, 1971), 12. 40. Giele, Arbeidersbestaan, 36-37. 41. Martin Schouten, De Socialen zijn in aantoqt, De Nederlandse arbeidersbeweging in de negentiende eeuw (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1974), 79. 42. De Gemeentewerkman, op. cit. 43. H. Heertje, De Diamantbewerkers van Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1936), 57. 44. de Jonge, Industrialisatie, 280. 45. Ibid., 283. 46. Theo van Tijn, "De Algemene Nederlandsche Diamantbewerkersbond: een succes en zijn verklaring," Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de geschiedenis der Nederlanden 88 (1973), 404-405. 47. Heertje, 39ff. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid., 57-59. 50. Ibid., 72-75. 51. Ibid., 79-132. 52. Ibid., 82. 53. van Tijn, "Diamondbewerkersbond," 410-414. 54. Heertje, 84. 55. van Tijn, "Diamondbewerkersbond," 414-417. 56. Heertje, 70-71. 57. Ibid., 274. 58. For a general history of the NVV, see F. de Jong, Om de plaats van de arbeid, een geschiedkundig overzicht van de ontstaan en ontwikkeling van het Nederlands Verbond van Vakverenigingen (Amsterdam, 1956). 59. J. M. Welcker, "Een ongemakkelijk bondgenootschap, De SociaalDemocratische Arbeiderspartij en het Nederlandsch Verbond van Vakvereenigingen tussen 1906 en 1913," Heren en arbeiders in de vroege Nederlandse arbeidersbeweging 1870-1914 (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1978). 60. The early history of the SDAP is recounted in V. H. Vliegen, Die onze kracht ontwaken deed, geschiedenis der SDAP in Nederland gedurende de eerste 25 jaren van haar bestaan (Amsterdam, 1938). 61. Heertje, 258. 62. P. Hoogland, Vijf en twintig jaren sociaal democratie in de hoofdstad (Amsterdam, 1928). 63. A recent work which refers to the Dutch experience as a model for third world countries is Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), 527. 64. A clear and helpful analysis of the political segmentation which took place at this time is to be found in I. Lipschits, Politieke stromingen in Nederland, Inleiding tot de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse politieke partijen (Deventer: Kluwer, 1977). The changing political platforms of the various parties and societies at the turn of the century are collected in N. Oosterbaan, Politieke en sociale programmas (Utrecht, 1897-1909), 5 vols. 600 65. Arend Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). Chapter Three: LAISSEZ-FAIRE URBAN GROWTH IN AMSTERDAM 1. De Jonge discusses the relationship between economic expansion and population growth during the industrialization of the Netherlands. He remarks on the ususal pattern of increase in marriages per capita during periods of economic prosperity, but notes that industry made little impact on Dutch demography before 1880. He points out that the process of economic expansion in the Netherlands was not initiated by the pressure of population growth, but that once industrialization had begun, entrpreneurs made use of an increased workforce to expand industry. J. A. de Jonge, De industrialisatie in Nederland tussen 1850 en 1914 (Amsterdam: Scheltema en Holkema, 1968), 267-273. 2. Bureau van Statistiek der Gemeente Amsterdam, "Statistiek der Bevolking van Amsterdam tot 1921," Statistische Mededelingen, no. 67 (Amsterdam, 1923), 13-14. Amsterdam survived a number of epidemics in the second half of the nineteenth century: 1855 cholera, measles; 1858 scarlet fever, smallpox; 1859 scarlet fever, measles; 1866 cholera, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria; 1871 smallpox, measles, scarlet fever; 1875 diphtheria; 1880 measles; 1883-84 measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria. 3. J. A. Verdoorn, Volksgezondheid en sociale ontwikkeling, beschouwingen over het gezondheidswezen te Amsterdam in de negentiende eeuw (Utrecht, 1968). Ibid. 4. 5. Statistische Mededelingen, no. 67, 13. 6. Ibid. 7. "De bevolking van Amsterdam, Deel 1: Loop der bevolking tot 1932," Statistische Mededelingen, no. 97 (Amsterdam, 1933), table 20. 8. Statistische Mededelingen, no. 67, 117, 166. 9. Theo van Tijn, "Berusting en beroering, aspecten van amsterdams sociale geschiedenis in de negentiende eeuw," Ons Amsterdam 26, no.2 (February, 1974), 37. 10. Writing in 1905, van Nierop viewed rural depression as the only cause for immigration to Amsterdam, as there was no great industry to attract workers, and the employment opportunities in the harbor, small shops and sweated labor would not attract workers. L. van Nierop, De bevolkingsbeweging der Nederlandsche stad (Amsterdam, 1905). 11. Between 1900 and 1909 58% of the out-migration to North Holland was to the suburbs, constituting 20% of all out-migration from Amsterdam. Statistische Mededelingen, no. 97, table 171, 195. 12. Statistische Mededelingen, no. 67, 13. 13. The best analysis of the sixteenth and seventeenth century expansion of Amsterdam is Ed Taverne, "De mythe van het Amsterdamse grachten plan," in In 't land van belofte, in de nieue stadt. Ideaal en werkelijkheid van de stadsuitleg in de Republiek 1580-1680 (Maarssen: Gary Schwartz, 1978), 112-176. 14. This district, the Plantage has been the subject of a history by Richter Roegholt. 15. A brief account of the nineteenth century planning for Amsterdam is to be found in Francis F. Fraenkel, Het Plan Amsterdam Zuid van H.P. 601 Berlage (Alphen aan der Rijn: Canaletto, 1976). 16. On Amsterdam's nineteenth century planning, see Theo van Tijn, Twintig Jaren Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1965); Commissie van onderzoek benoemd door de Gemeenteraad 30 januari 1897, "De toestand der werklieden in de bouwbedrijven te Amsterdam," Amsterdam, 1898; Rein Geurtsen, "Sociaal ontbonden, cultureel verbonden, aspecten van woningbouw- en stedebouwpraktijk in de negentiende eeuw, " Ons Amsterdam 26, no. 2 (February, 1974), 50-58. 17. Ibidem. 18. The Kalff plan was filled with a series of discrete plans by developers. In the west and east harbor areas (the Redeker Bisdom concession of 23 March 1879) Barentzstraat was built in 1878, the Spaarndammerbuurt started in 1883, and Funen (Blankenstraat) in 18841887). The greatest amount of construction took place in the Kinkerbuurt, the Pijp, and the Dapperbuurt, whose long, dull narrow streets contrasted sharply with the pleasantly curving streets of the Willempark villa district and the monumental plans for the Museumbuurt. 19. An interesting contemporary description of a middle class Amsterdam house is given in D. S. Meldrum, Home Life in Holland (New York: Macmillan, 1911), 10-47. On the evolution of the Amsterdam town house see, A. W. Weissman, Het Amsterdamsche Woonhuis van 1500-1800 (Amsterdam, 1885); H. J. Zantkuyl, Bouwen in Amsterdam, Het Woonhuis in de Stad (Amsterdam, 1973-75); R. Meischke, Het Nederlandse Woonhuis van 1300-1800 (Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink, 1969); and C.J.A.C. Peeters, "Het negentiende eeuwse woonhuis in Nederland," Jaarverslag Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser 53 (1971). 20. In the Staatsenquete of 1890 the witnesses make many references to these housing conditions. A widow's fear of being sent to live in the charity home for old women is poignantly recorded in the account of Amsterdam slum life written in 1901 by the socialist journalist Louis M. Hermans, Krotten en Sloppen (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1975), 51. Statistische Mededelingen, no. 67, Table 11, 46. 21. 22. Ibid., 44. 23. Of 971 houses investigated in the Jordaan by the Bouw- en Woning Toezicht in 1896, 64.8% of the inhabitants lived in one or two room homes, and 24.1% lived in a one room dwelling with more than two occupants. The occupancy rate was highest for one room dwellings, decreasing as dwelling size increased: 1 room 3.5 people per room " " " 2.0 2 rooms " " " 1.5 3 rooms " " " 1.2 4 rooms Figures derived from AG 1 (1897), Appendix 9, Gemeentelijke Gezondheidsdienst, table 4. Subsequent investigations in the Jordaan (331 dwellings in 1898 and 335 dwellings in 1899) produced analogous results. In the Jodenbuurt in 1898, the investigators found occupancy rates of 3.9 people per one room dwelling in the Jodenhouttuinen and 5.11 per one room dwelling in the Valkenburgerstraat. "Verslag van de werkzaamheden van der Gemeentelijke Gezondheidsdienst," Gemeenteverslag, 1899 and 1900, Appendix 9. 602 24. City Population Density (per hectare) Amsterdam 647,427 445 The Hague 354,987 223 Berlin 2,072,000 388 Hamburg 945,000 248 J. H. Faber, Sprekende cijfers, Woningtoestanden in Nederland (Zwolle, 1904). 25. Louise van der Pek-Went, "Woningtoestanden voor de Woningwet," in Beter Wonen, Gedenkboek gewijd aan het werk der woningbouwverenigingen in Nederland (Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 1938), 13-33. 26. A study of urban renewal effort in one block of the Jordaan traces ownership of the slum dwellings. Clara Brinkgreve, "Wonen onder toezicht, De Bouwonderneming Jordaan van verschillende kanten bekeken, 1894-1914" (Masters thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1978). 27. The process is described by H. Heertje, De Diamantbewerkers van Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1936), 39, and in Helene Mercier, Over Arbeiderswoningen (Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink, 1885), 128. 28. van der Pek-Went, "Woningtoestanden." 29. "De bevolking van Amsterdam, Deel II: De uitkomsten der tienjaarlijksche volkstellingen van 1830 tot 1930," Statistische Mededelingen no. 100 (Amsterdam, 1934), table 39. 30. In 1903 in a class of 48 children, 28 (58.3%) slept with two others or more in a bed or mattress on the floor. De Volksschool 2, no. 10 (27 May 1903). 31. van der Pek-Went, "Woningtoestanden." 32. The difficulties of sewage disposal are reported in both contemporary accounts and in memoirs: Volksbond tegen Drankmisbruik, Verslag van een onderzoek naar den toestand der Arbeiderswoningen te Amsterdam (oude stad) (Amsterdam: de Bussy, 1893); C. J. Smitz., "Memorie van een 85-jarige Amsterdammer," 1877, manuscript, Amsterdam Municipal Archives; Leendert Harmsen, "Acterom kijken naar brokje Jordaan 2," Ons Amsterdam 27, no. 5 (May, 1975), 147-8. 33. Mercier, 124, note 1. 34. Volksdrank tegen Drankmisbruik, 29. The cost was six cents per bath. 35. The relationship between income, rent, and family size is taken up in the last section of this chapter. 36. Accounts of these frequent moves and the reasons for them are given repeatedly by the witnesses of the 1890 Staatsenquete and in the autobiography of C. J. Smitz. and J. C. van Dam. 37. Mercier, 128. 38. The process of finding a new home and furnishing it is described in detail in the novel by Jan Mens, Er wacht een haven (Amsterdam: Kosmos, 1951), 50ff. 39. See J. D. Swarte, "Uit Krotten en Sloppen," Volkshuisvesting 1, no. 11 (25 Feb 1920), 141-2, which describes a renter repairing his flooring and covering his windows with paper. 40. Mercier, 118-9. "Treedt men de lage deur van een gelijkvloersche woning binnen, dan staat men meteen midden in het vertrek dat de woning uitmaakt en dat ongeveer de grootte heeft van wat in een burgerhuis een spreekkamer wordt genoemd. Hoe donker het hier is kan men nagaan, als men bedenkt dat men een hoogen muur op nog geen el afstands tegenover zich heeft en dat het weinige daglicht, dat op die wijze door het eenige 603 venster dan binnenvallen, door drie zwarte wanden en een dito zoldering wordt opgeslorpt. Voor het venster een tafel met drie stoelen, daarnaast een stookplaats, waaronder een kacheltje (tevens kookkachel), dit begrensd door een vooruitspringende bedstee met een donker gordijn, op twee schreden afstands aan den wand daartegenover een latafel, waarop en waaromheen eenig keukengerie - ziedaar de woning met haar inventaris. Van waterleiding, gootsteen, privaat, kolenhok, muurkast, of tweede bedstee geen spoor, maar sporen, van vocht in overvloed." 41. Pek-Went describes the custom of splitting a single room so that the half receiving light could be put aside as a parlor for Sunday use. The attitude of reformers toward the parlor, and the subsequent effect on housing design, is discussed in Chapter Seven. 42. Mercier, 120-121; Hermans, 77; Pek-Went, "Woningtoestanden." 43. Amsterdamsche Woningraad, De Verbetering der volkshuisvesting te Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1913), 26. This is an excellent analysis of housing conditions and housing reform in Amsterdam from the mid-nineteenth century to 1913. The origins and work of the Amsterdamsche Woningraad are discussed in Chapter Five. The book was produced for the international housing conference held in the Hague in 1913. 44. H. T. Dijkhuis, "De Jordaan, de Ontwikkeling van een volkswijk in een grote stad," Economisch-historisch Jaarboek 21 (1940), 1-90. This is a classic study of the Jordaan district; its chapters three and four discuss the housing problem from 1813 to 1914. "De hoofdwegen in de Jordaan, de niet onaardige grachten en de lange, smalle, onvriendelijke straten zijn elken Amsterdammer bekend, maar minder bekend is, naar ik meen, wat zich achter deze straten verschuilt, de talloose gangen en binnenpleintjes waartoe veelal een poortje in de hoofdstraat toegang geeft. Is men zulk een gang ingetreden, dan gaat het schier geklem tusschen twee muren voort, tot men op een tweeden gang stuit, die even smal, maar soms iets korter dan de eerste, een rechten hoek met dezen vormt. De vuile muren zijn aan eene of aan beide zijden vol deuren en vensters en op en rondzittende wordt men schier achter ieder venster een vrouwen- of kindergelaat gewaar. Ook ziet men hier en daar (hoewel het pas even in den namiddag is) een brandend petroleumlampje, waarbij een armoedige gestalte over naaiwerk zit heengebogen." 45. C. W. Janssen, et. al., "Doel en werken van de Bouwonderneming Jordaan," Amsterdam 1900; Pek-Went, "Toestanden"; Brinkgreve, "Wonen." 46. AG 1 (1897) Appendix 9, p. 62. "Er zou melding moeten worden gemaakt van woningen, waar de houten vloer in zulk een slechten toestanden verkeerde, dat hij op verschillende plaatsen vergaan was en men den boden er door heen zag, terwijl eene onaangename grondlucht zich door het vertrek verspreidde; waar de buitenmuren diepe scheuren vertoonden, die tot in de kamers toe doorliepen; waar de muren zoo vochtig waren, dat het behangselpapier bedekt was met schimmels en voor de helft had losgelaten en er bij neerhing. Van woonvertrekken, zoo donker, dat de opzichter bij kaarslicht zijne notities moest maken, ofschoon het buiten helder weer was; woningen die buitengewoon verwaarloosd en vervuild waren, die krioelden van wandgedierte en waar het geene moiete kosten dozijnen dezer insecten uit oude kleedingstukken te voorschijn te brengen. Van overbevolkte woningen, waarin de slaapplaats der kinderen zich bevond in eene belendende tochtige schouur, waar tevens het "stilletje" werd aangetroffen, waarin het geheele gezin zijne excrementen deponeerde; of waar de ouders des nachts met een of meerder jongere kinderen in de bedstee sliepen, terwijl de oudere kinderen, jongens en meisjes door 604 elkaar, op den vloer der (eenkamer-) woning een ligplaats kregen. Van zolderverdiepingen, waar die pannen open lagen, waardoor de hemel zichtbaar was, een onophoudelijke bron van vochtigheid voor het perceel; of waar de dakramen zonder deuren of vensters waren en de kozijnen door en door vermolmd; waarheen trappen leidden zonder leuning of touw en treden hier en daar zoo vergaan, dat zij door middel van turven gestut werden. "Van woningen waarnaast vervuilde snijdingen of waarvoor verstopte goten en zindputjes en hoopen vuilnis zich bevonden, wier toegang dikwijls was een vervuilde gang. Van woningen met verstopte leidingen voor afvoer van hemel- en huiswater; in eene woning werd zelfs eene bedstede aangetroffen, waardoor de defecte leiding voor den afvoer van het gootsteenwater liep van de bovenwoning, die door lekkage af en toe den slapenden allesbehalve aangename oogenblikken bezorgde, enz., enz." 47. Amsterdamsche Woningraad, 28-31; Commissie van onderzoek, "Toestand van Werklieden,"; Frank van Wijk, "Volkshuisvesting te Amsterdam, tussen 1850 en 1914" (Masters thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1974). The housing types constructed in the new developments of Amsterdam are analysed by the Amsterdamsche Woningraad, "Rapport over de Volkshuisvesting in de Nieuwe Stad te Amsterdam," Amsterdam, no date. The report was prepared by Johanna ter Meulen, D. Hudig, A. Keppler, J.E. van der Pek and H.H. Wollring. 48. Staatsenquete 1890, 30 September 1891, testimony of Jacob Johannes van Veelen, age 26, p. 22. Commenting on the quality of construction in the new districts, van Veelen states, "doch daar zijn zij door den bouw op winst bejag zoo luctig, dat men, waneer men het sexueele verricht, door den buurman kan worden gehoord. 49. The annexation of Nieuwer Amstel in 1896 swelled the percentage of residents living outside the Buitensingel, but the growth of the new districts (Kinkerbuurt, Dapperbuurt, Pijp, Staatsliedenbuurt) made the greatest contribution to the increase. Amsterdamsch Woningraad, 18. Percentage of Amsterdam's population by area Year Center Old City New City 1879 14.7 75.0 10.2 1889 10.7 65.6 23.7 1899 7.3 51.7 41.0 1909 5.2 42.1 52.7 50. Good sources for the cost of housing in Amsterdam at the turn of the century are Hermans' study, already cited, and the pioneering work by Johanna ter Meulen, Huisvesting van Armen te Amsterdam (Haarlem: H.D. Tjeenk Willink, 1903). 51. "De Gemeentelijke Inkomstenbelasting in de Belastingjaren 1894-5 en 1895-6," Statistische Mededelingen, no. 44 (Amsterdam, 1899), 24; Statistische Mededelingen, no. 57, 4-5. 52. Dijkhuis, 46-7. 52. Ter Meulen, 29-70. A general source for Dutch housing statistics is Sociaal-Technische Vereeniging van Democratisch Ingenieurs en Architecten, Woningtoestanden in Nederland, Cijfers en grafische voorstellingen bewerkt naar de woningstatistiek van 31 December 1899 (Rotterdam, 1906). 53. Ibid. 54. van Tijn, Twintig jaren, 282. The figures are based on the increases in rent for housing of the Vereeniging ten behoeve der 605 Arbeidersklasse. A one room dwelling increased from between f1.10 and f1.30 to between 1.55 and f1.75; a two room dwelling from between f1.40 and 1.60 to between f1.85 and 1.95. 55. van Tijn, Twintig jaren, 115. 56. J. M. Welcker, Heren en Arbeiders (van Gennep, 1978), 52. 57. Volksbond tegen Volksdrank, 8. 58. Mercier, 119, 129. 59. "Verslag omtrent de heffing der plaatselijke directe belasting naar het inkomen te Amsterdam, over het dienstjaar 1883/4," Bijdragen van het Statistisch Instituut 2 (1886), 12-13. 60. Hermans, 46, 53, 62. ter Meulen, 34-47; Hermans, 96. .61. 62. Hermans describes several instances of mutual aid among the slum dwellers he studied, including an old woman who received hand-me-down furniture from her neighbor, 29. 63. Amsterdamsch Woningraad, 23-25. 64. ter Meulen, 38. 65. "Arbeidersbudgets, Jaarbudgets van zeventig arbeidersgezinnen in Nederland. Rapport eener enquete der Sociaal Democratische Studie Club te Amsterdam," no.69 (Amsterdam, 1912), 20-24. 66. AG 1 (1897), Appendix 9, table 6: 1 room, f2.14; 2 rooms, f2.02; 3 rooms, f1.82; 4 rooms f1.79. Chapter Four: THE SHIFT TO COLLECTIVISM 1. For the history of Dutch liberalism, see E.H. Kossman, De Lage Landen 1780-1940, Anderhalve eeuw Nederland en Belgie (Amsterdam, 1976) and G. Taal, Liberalen en Radicalen in Nederland, 1872-1901 (The Hague: Martinus-Nijhoff, 1980). 2. See Potgieter, "Jan, Jannetje en hun jongste kind," Oudejaarsavond-overpeinzing, 31 Dec. 1841. 3. Kossman, 186-7. 4. C. W. Opzoomer, De grenzen der staatsmacht (Amsterdam, 1873), 71. 5. J. R. Thorbecke, "Narede," quoted in Taal, 527: "hetgeen zijne roeping als regersvereeniging te buiten gaat." 6. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston, 1957). 7. Polanyi, 146. 8. B. H. Pekelharing, "Herinneringen aan een tweetal comites," Vragen des Tijds 2 (1895), 368-69. Of the 35 members of the committee, twenty were professionals, (7 lawyers, 8 in education), four industrialists, two in government, and nine workers. 9. Pekelharing, 354-369. 10. Taal, 118. 11. Taal, 20-22. 12. Taal, 284-285. 13. Taal, 463-463. 14. H. P. G. Quack, "Sociale Rechtvaardigheid," De Gids 50, part 3 (July, 1886), 78. 15. Taal, 157. 16. Taal, 118-119. 17. Taal, 187. 18. Taal, 453. 19. Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs, "De inrichting van 606 Arbeiderswoningen," 1853. 20. Helene Mercier, "De volkshuisvesting te Amsterdam," De Gids 69, part 1 (1905), 96-136. 21. S. S. Colonel, Middelburg voorheen en thans; bijdragen tot de kennis van der voormaaligen en tegenwoordigen toestand van het armwezen aldaar (Middelburg, 1859). Colonel was an active propagandist for improved workers' housing. See, for example, S. S. Colonel, "Het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen," De Economist, second part (1894), 704; and "De invloed van betere arbeiderswoningen op de gezondheid der bewoners," De Economist (1875), 659. 22. J. A. Verdoorn, Volksgezondheid en sociale ontwikkeling (Utrecht, 1968), 176-179. 23. Verdoorn, 44-47; H.F.J.M. van den Eerenbeemt, Arts en sociaal besef in Nederland in historisch perspectief (Tilburg, 1969), 33-34. 24. van den Eerenbeemt, 18-19. 25. Verdoorn, 112-115, 172. 26. van den Eerenbeemt, 21. 27. Quoted in Verdoorn, 122. 28. "Verslag over de bewoonde kelders in de Gemeente Amsterdam," AG 1 (1874), appendix A. 29. Verdoorn, 306. 30. H. L. Drucker, "Het woningvraagstuk," De Gids 62, part 1 (March 1898), 444-84. 31. The study noted that of the 1151 residents of Amsterdam who died in the 1886 cholera epidemic, 12.3% lived in cellars, while only 7.94% of the total population lived in cellars. 32. Journals which published on the housing issue included De Economist, Sociaal Weekblad, Sociale Kroniek, Gids, Staatkundig en Staathuishoudkundig Jaarboek. 33. Helene Mercier, Over Arbeiderswoningen (Haarlem, 1885); Johanna ter Meulen, Huisvesting van armen te Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1903). 34. Taal 119, 138. 35. "Gedenkboek uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het 25 jarig bestaan der Centrale Commissie voor de Statistiek 1892-1917," The Hague, 1917. 36. Drucker, 448-450. 37. Verdoorn, 226. 38. "Verslag van de eerste Nederlandsch Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling," The Hague, 21 September 1896 (Amsterdam, 1896), 38. 39. I. J. Brugmans, De arbeidende klasse in de negentiende eeuw (The Hague, 1925), 157. 40. H. T. Dijkhuis, "De Jordaan," Economisch-historisch Jaarboek 21 (1940), 40. 41. Quoted in J. A. v.d. Veer, "Volkshuisvesting voorheen en thans," Volkshuisvesting 1, no. 15 (24 April 1920), 207. 42. Carel Schade, Woningbouw voor arbeiders in het negentiendeeeuwse Amsterdam (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1981), 19. This is an excellent survey of the activities of the philanthropic housing societies in nineteenth century Amsterdam. The author has also studied a specific project in "104 woningen in het Plantsoen, Woningbouw voor arbeiders in Amsterdam 1851-1856" (Masters thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1973). 43. J. van Hasselt and L. Verschoor, Beoordelend overzicht samengesteld door de commissie van onderzoek naar hetgeen in verschillende gemeenten des lands gedaan is ter verkrijgen van verbeterde arbeiderswoningen (Amsterdam: Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen, 1890), 6. 607 44. The reasoning parallels the policy followed in England during this period by the Charity Organization Society. 45. For a detailed discussion of the philanthropic housing societies, see Schade 19-28, also Mercier (1887), Hasselt and Verschoor 6-43, and J. Kruseman, "Woningbouwvereenigingen voor de Woningwet", in Beter Wonen (Amsterdam, 1938), 35-45. 46. The Amsterdam Housing Council put the number at 3689; Schade places it at 4041. 47. An outstanding discussion of housing reform in London is to be found in Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London, A Study in the Relationship between Classes in Victorian Society (Oxford University Press, 1971). 48. Dijkhuis, 48. 49. The Prince Albert Dwellings are described in John Nelson Tarn, Five Per Cent Philanthropy; An account of housing in urban areas between 1840 and 1914 (Cambridge University Press, 1973), 20-21. 50. Hasselt and Verschoor, 50. 51. Schade, 22-24. 52. Schade, 52. 53. The van Eikstichting houses used the hofje plan. These were dwellings in the tradition of the old philanthropic foundations of the seventeenth century, which gave food and fuel to the inmates and stipulated rules of conduct. They were usually open only to the elderly or to widows of a given religious persuasion. 54. For example, the housing by the Bouwkas, which was soon demolished after it was built. W.F.H. Oldevelt, "De Pijp," Jaarboek Amstelodamum 44 (1950), 119-127. 55. Plans of these housing projects are illustrated in Hasselt and Verschoor and in Bouwkundig Bijdragen 20 (1873). 56. C.J.A.C. Peeters, "Het negentiende eeuwse woonhuis in Nederland," Jaarverslag Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser 53 (1971). 57. Schade's history of nineteenth century philanthropic housing in Amsterdam makes sensitive reference to the aesthetic efforts of the housing architects. 58. In a study published in 1899 of a survey of housing societies in which the three largest societies in Amsterdam participated, all of the 2264 dwellings were provided with water, all had built-in beds, 90% had toilets off a room, 82% had one stove and 18% had two. One room dwellings without alcoves accounted for 14% of the dwellings, one room dwellings with an alcove for 7.5%, two room dwellings 73.5%, and three room dwellings 5%. The societies were Vereeniging ten behoeve der arbeidersklasse (710 dwellings), Bouwmaatschappij ter verkrijging van eigen woningen (780), Amsterdamsche vereeniging tot het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen (774). Dr. J. W. Jenny Weijerman, Overzicht van de door verschillende woningvereenigingen oE aanvrage der Tentoonstellingscommissie verstrekte statistische gegevens (Amsterdam, 1899). 59. For example, J. H. Leliman (1828-1910), G. B. Salm (1832-1897), I. Gosschalk (1838-1907), A. L. van Gendt (1835-1901), C. B. Posthumus Meijyes (1859-1922). 60. "Kort Verslag van het verhandelde in de sectien van het Nationale Congres voor Bouwkunst," BW 12, no. 24 (11 June 1892), 141. Dr. E. Wintgens presented the discussion of the question, "What can be done in the interest of the worker toward the fostering of good housing?" Prof. B. H. Pekelharing was chair of the session. 61. "Arbeiderswoningen," BW 15, no. 48 (30 November 1895), 306-7. 608 62. F. W. M. Poggenbeek, "Arbeiderswoningen (Bouwonderneming Jordaan) 1," BW 16, no. 41 (10 October 1896), 249-250. 63. van Tijn, Twintig Jaren, 115-117. 64. Schade, 74. 65. Mercier (1887), 144-5. 66. Hasselt and Verschoor, 25. 67. Hasselt and Verschoor, 29. 68. Dijkhuis, 46. 69. Mercier (1887), 138. 70. Louise van der Pek-Went, "Woningtoestanden voor de Woningwet," Beter Wonen (Amsterdam, 1938). 71. The Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse was pleased with the gradual improvement of the quality of its tenants, Hasselt and Verschoor, 11; Archives of the Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse, PA 72, MAA. 72. van der Pek-Went, "Woningtoestanden voor de Woningwet;" Clara Brinkgreve, "Wonen onder toezicht" (Masters thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1978). 73. C. W. Janssen, et. al., "Doel en Werken der Bouwonderneming Jordaan," Amsterdam, 1900. 74. See the list of housing projects built in Amsterdam between 1852 and 1902 in Schade, 225-229. 75. In the end the society did go ahead and build 144 dwellings in the Pijp in 1885. 76. Hasselt and Verschoor, 12-13. 77. An earlier plan of Helene Mercier to buy a block in the Jordaan and build small dwellings failed since land costs were too high. Hasselt and Verschoor, 4. 78. Kruseman, 41; Janssen, op. cit. 79. Dijkhuis, 38. 80. van der Veer, 208. 81. AG 1 (1874), appendix A. 82. Quoted in van der Veer, Volkshuisvesting 1, no. 20 (24 June 1920), 288. 83. Hasselt and Verschoor, 22-29; Schade, 141-151. 84. The original officers of the society were: G. A. Baron Tindal, Mr. W. Baron Roell, Jhr. Mr. F. Hooft-Graafland, Jhr. Mr. C. J. Den Tex, J. H. Vrancken, and Mr. E. J. Everwijn-Lange. 85. Hasselt and Verschoor, 25-27. 86. The main participants were H. Mercier, C. W. Janssen, A. Kerdijk, J. Kruseman, W. Spakler, all progressive liberals. 87. Kruseman, 45. 88. Hasselt and Vershoor, 4. 89. A. Roell, "Wetgeving op de huisvesting der arbeidende klasse" (Ph. D. diss., University of Leiden, 1892). This position was also endorsed in D. Josephus Jitta, Iets over de verbetering der volkshuisvesting te Amsterdam in verband met werkverschaffing (Amsterdam, 1893). 90. George A. M. Kallenbach, "Over de pogingen door particulieren in het werk gesteld tot verbetering der arbeiderswoningen" (Ph. D. diss., University of Leiden, 1892). 91. "Kort Verslag," BW 12, no. 24 (11 June 1892), 141-2. 92. "Verslag van de eerste Nederlandsch Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling," 62. 609 93. Drucker, 447, 456-58. 94. Drucker, 452. 95. Quoted in van der Veer, Volkshuisvesting 1, no. 20 (24 June 1920), 288. 96. "Kort Verslag," BW 12, no. 24 (11 June, 1892). 97. Volksbond tegen Drankmisbruik, Verslag van een onderzoek (Amsterdam, 1893), 40-50. 98. Drucker, 455. 99. This is the position supported by the influential second report on housing put out by the Nut: H. L. Drucker, H. B. Greven, and J. Kruseman, _Het Vraagstuk der volkshuisvesting (Amsterdam, 1896), 35. 100. This opinion was expressed at the architects' convention of 1892. 101. Drucker (1898), 481. 102. Menno Huizinga in the "Verslag van de Tweede Nederlandsche Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsreqeling," Amsterdam 23-24 September 1897 (Amsterdam, 1898), 83. 103. M. J. A. Moltzer, "De Nutsrapporten betreffende het woningvraagstuk," in Gedenkboek Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen 1784-1934 (Amsterdam, 1934). 104. G. van Overbeek de Meyer, Utrecht, E. Wintgens, Maastricht, J. F. W. Conrad, J. W. C. Tellegen, Arnhem, H. L. Drucker, Leiden. 105. P. Kooperburg, "De volksgezondheid in ons parlement," Tijdspiegel (September 1899), 42-43. 106. Taal, 222. 107. Drucker (1898), 447. 108. L. M. Hermans and H. H. Wollring represented this position at the first Public Health Congress, "Verslag" (1896), 31-66; Hermans' book Krotten en Sloppen put the argument more forcefully. 109. Wet van 22 Juni 1901 (Staatsblad no. 158), Houdende wettelijke bepalingen betreffende de Volkshuisvesting. The history of the Housing Act has been treated extensively: Nederlands Instituut voor Volkshuisvesting en Stedebouw, De Woningwet 1902-1929, Gedenkboek samengesteld ter gelegenheid van de Tentoonstelling gehouden te Amsterdam 18-27 October 1930 (Amsterdam, 1930); J. Kruseman, De Volkshuivesting onder de woningwet, Geschiedkundig overzicht en herinneringen (Haarlem, 1940); H. G. van Beusekom, Getijden der volkshuisvesting, Notities eener geschiedenis van een halve eeuw (Alphen aan den Rijn, 1955); Jacques Nycolaas and Rein Geurtsen, "70 jaar woningwet, nog eens 70 jaar woningnood," Plan no. 9 (September 1972), 17-21; "De woningwet van 1901 tot 1931," Plan no. 10 (October 1972), 28-34; Niels Luning Prak, "Zeventig jaar woningwet: huizen, plannen, voorschriften," Plan no. 11 (November 1972), 29-44; Frank Smit, "Geboorte van de Volkshuisvesting, een moiezame bevalling," Wonen TA/BK no. 13 (July 1973), 5-13; Frank Smit, "Gemeente als vliegwiel voor volkshuisvesting," Wonen TA/BK no. 14 (July 1973), 18-26; Jacques Nycolaas, Volkshuisvesting, een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van woningbouw en woningbelied in Nederland, met name sedert 1945 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1974); H.F.J.M. van der Eerenbeemt, "Wat leidde tot de Woningwet," Spiegel Historiael 11, no. 10 (October 1976), 516-25. 110. 121. P. L. Tak, "Het Nut," De Kroniek 2, no. 69, (19 April 1896), 610 Chapter Five: THE ORGANIZATION OF HOUSING PROFESSIONALS 1. See J. A. Verdoorn, Volksgezondheid en sociale ontwikkeling (Utrecht, 1965), 118-127, for a discussion of changing medical services in nineteenth century Amsterdam. 2. See above, Chapter 4. 3. See above, Chapter 2. 4. The circle included A. Kerdijk, M.W.F. Treub, B.H. Pekelharing, J. ter Meulen, and others. 5. The social democrat F.M. Wibaut writes in his autobiography of a visit to the van Markens' home around 1892. The house displayed a collection of modern luxuries such as electric lamps. When van Marken related that he had instructed the architect to build him a house somewhat larger and somewhat differently arranged from those of the workers, but otherwise in largely the same spirit ("bouw nu voor mij een woning, wat groter, en way anders ingericht, maar toch, zo na mogelijk in dezelfde geest"), Wibaut responded with the comment that they must have been amazed when they saw the house. F. M. Wibaut, Levensbouw, Memories (Amsterdam: Querido's, 1936), 373. 6. A detailed description of van Marken's factory reforms is to be found in J. Muntendam, Loon naar Werken, Enkele Sociale Aspecten van het Werk van J. C. van Marken (Deventer: Kluwen, 1971). On Agneta-Park, see J. C. van Marken, Het Agneta-Park en de N.V. Gemeenschappelijk eigendom (Delft, 1889). 7. J.C. van Marken, "Sociale Ingenieurs," Uit het fabrieksleven, Herdruk van hoofdartikelen in de Fabrieksbode van J.C. van Marken, vol. 3 (Delft: 1905), 323-324. 8. Ibid., 320. 9. Ibid., 312-329. The series of four articles started appearing in 1893 and were reprinted as a whole in 1898. 10. Ibid., 326-328. 11. Ibid., 325: "zijne bekwaamheid, zijne onpartijheid, en zijne eerlijkheid..." 12. Ibid., 329: "Beide, en de rechten en de plichten, van beiden, en den patroon en den werkman, vinden in hem een even onpartijdig verdediger." 13. On student life see A.J.C. de Vrankrijker, Vier Eeuwen Nederlands Studentenleven (Voorburg, 1939). The atmosphere in Delft is described in Theo van der Waerden, Het Delftse Milieu (1938). 14. See Chapter 4 above on Pekelharing's work with the Comite ter bespreking der sociale kwestie. Pekelharing joined Treub as an editor of Sociaal Weekblad from 1893 to the end of 1897. He was also involved with such organizations as the Vereeniging voor de Statistiek. 15. B.H. Pekelharing to F.M. Wibaut, 3 December 1897, no. 5, Wibaut archive, #5, IISG: "...flauw is mijn geloof in de renaissance onzer bourgeoisie. Aan de anderen kant gevoel ik me niet beheerscht door de leer van Karl Marx. Met diepen eerbied voor zijn genie, kan ik met zijn leer niet meegaan, al sta ik het dichtst bij zijn volgelingen." 16. See Walter Thijs, De Kroniek van P.L. Tak, Brandpunt van Nederlandse Cultuur in de jaren negentig van de vorige eeuw (Amsterdam: Wereld Bibliotheek, 1956), 70 for more on the circle. 17. P.L. Tak, "Een Delftsche toespraak," De Kroniek 5, no. 251 (15 October 1899), 330-331. "Als daar met zoo rustige en krachtige overtuiging het vrije onderzoek en het uitkomen voor de resultaten tot 611 plicht wordt gesteld, dan is nu openlijk gebleken wat een frissche wind er door dat Delftsche corps vaait." This was written upon the occasion of a speech given by the socialist student J. van der Waerden just after his election as president of the student body. 18. Pekelharing to Wibaut, 5 March 1897, Wibaut archive, IISG: "Ook in de Delftsche studentenwerld wordt in conservatieve kringen thans anders over het socialisme geoordeeld dan te voren. De gezichtskring is verruimd." 19. "De ingenieurs zijn tegenwoordig in de mode. Er wordt bijna geen fransch vaudeville vertoond waarin niet een ingenieur voorkomt." "Zijt gij bang dat zij de dokters verdringen zullen?" "Wat mij betreft, mogen zij dat veilig doen; doch ik geloof niet, dat zij de konkurrentie zullen kunnen volhouden. Zijn eenmaal overal spoorwegen aangelegen dan zullen de ingenieurs, die nu zulke goede diensten aan de tooneelpoezie bewijzen, - en geen wonder want zij zijn de meest portative sujetten van onzer tijd en man kan ze, even als champignons, overal laten opschieten, - van zelf weder van de planken verdwijnen." Quoted in Sr., "De Ingenieur," Technisch Studenten Tijdschrift 1, no. 9 (15 February 1911), 216. 20. Vereeniging van Burgerlijke Ingenieurs, "Het Hooger Onderwijs in verband met de opleiding van Ingenieurs," 1876; "Verslag van de Commissie in zake het Technisch Onderwijs," 1895. The general history of the Higher Education Act of 1905 is to be found in Cornelis de Ru, "Verheffing der Polytechnische School tot Technische Hogeschool," De Strijd over het hoger onderwijs tijdens het Ministerie Kuyper (Ph. D. diss., Vrije Universitiet, 1953). 21. For this controversy over titles see the discussion in volume 29 (1914) of De Ingenieur, started by the article by R. A. van Sandick c.i., "Academisch gevormde Nederlandsche ingenieurs," De Ingenieur 29, no. 5 (31 January 1914), 91-93. The government began to use the title "ir." officially in its publications from 1923. 22. "Waar in vroeger tijden het militaire, later het juridischfinancieele element leiding gaf aan den gang van zaken, daar treedt thans het technische op den voorgrond, en de drager van dat element: de ingenieur wordt geroepen tot steeds belangrijker maatschappelijke functien." S.H.S[toffel], "Techniek en Maatschappij," Technisch Studenten Tijdschrift 1, no. 2 (1920), 38-39. See also the lecture sponsored by the STVDIA by J.W. Albarda, "De aanstande ingenieur tegenover het Sociale Vraagstuk," Delft, 1909. 23. The archives and library of the organization are to be found at the IISG. By 1921, it appeared that the society had outlived its original purpose: "Men is het er over eens dat de verlangens die bij de oprichting voorgezeten hebben, voor een groot deel door de gebeurtenissen achterhaald zijn, en dat dit op zich zelf een verblijdend verschijnsel mag heeten. Dat het militante karakter eenigzins verloren is gegaan, moet toch wel daar aan worden op toegeschreven, dat het juist de oprichters en de leidende figuren uit de vereeniging zijn die thans aan de oplossing van de maatschappelijke problemen medewerken, en daarbij zelfs de richting aangeven, zoodat de vereeniging van zelf hare werkzaamheid op een nieuw gebied moet overbrengen." Notulen Bestuurdersvergaderingen, 20 April 1921. In 1924 the society was disbanded. 24. "wat geven de fraaie gevels, die een architect mogelijk heeft ontworpen, voor waarborg, dat hij bekend is met de eischen der hygiene, met sociale wetgeving en woningtoestanden... ?" P. Bakker Schut, 612 "Ambtenaren ter uitvoering der sociale wetgeving," De Kroniek 9, no.461 (24 October 1903), 339. 25. "Adres der sociaal-technische vereeniging van democratische ingenieurs en architecten," January 1905. Signed by P. Bakker Schut, L. Doedes, F.G. Unger, G. Versteeg, and J. van Hettinga Tromp. Reprinted in De Ingenieur 20, no. 5 (4 February 1905), 66-69, which refers directly to van Marken's articles as precedent. A detailed description of the curriculum appears in P. Bakker Schut and L. Doedes, "Sociaal-technisch ingenieurs," De Ingenieur 20, no. 6 (11 February 1905), 81-84. 26. Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer 1903/4 (4 March 1904), 1467-69, discussion of proposal for a degree in social engineering. The debate is summarized and the results described in De Ingenieur 20, no. 9 (4 March 1905), 127-128. In 1905 van Kol again attempted to have the field approved for study and did succeed in getting Parliament to accept the possibility of the Technical Institute introducing new fields with the approval of its governing body and without the necessity of Parliamentary approval. Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer 1904/5, 1085-91. 27. They served the specialized class interests of their members' collective social mobility under conditions of the free market economy. Magali Sarfatti Larson, The Rise of Professionalism, a Sociological Analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 66-79. 28. R. Hornstra, "Begrip Sociale Geneeskunde," in P. Muntendam, "Plaatsbepaling van de Sociale Geneeskunde," Sociaal-Wetenschappelijke Raad, Handelingen, Nieuwe Reeks No. 2 (Leiden, 1966), 45; D. Cannegieter, Honderdvijftigjaar Gezondheidswet (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1954), 145; Arie Querido, The Development of Socio-Medical Care in the Netherlands (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), 50. 29. These developments, so clear in the Netherlands, can also be followed in the international conferences which chart the emergence of housing and planning as disciplines distinct from demography and public health. 30. See Hornstra for a description of the origins and differences between these terms. 31. "Het Woningvraagstuk op het Gezondheidscongres," Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene 1, no. 5 (1899), 5-39. Among the active, nonmedical, participants were L. M. Hermans and H.H. Wollring (both Social Democrats representing the Amsterdam labor organization the Amsterdamsch Bestuurdersbond) J. Kruseman, and J.W.C. Tellegen. 32. Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene en Openbare Gezondheidsregeling 1 (1899), 3. A few years later, while arguing in the Lower House of Parliament for the introduction of instruction in social and technical hygiene at the Technical University at Delft, van Kol delineated the boundaries of social hygiene to include the cleaning of public water, sewage, hygiene of public ways, hygienic measures for traffic and the extension of cities, improvement of workers' housing, study of the housing problem, building of schools, factories, public baths, abattoirs. Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer 1903/4 (4 March 1904), 1467. 33. R.A. van Sandick, "Sociaal-technische ingenieurs," De Ingenieur 20, no. 5 (4 February 1905), 70. 34. See for example Dr. G. v. 0. de Meijer, "Woningshygiene," and Dr. Wintgens, "De eischen eener gezonde woning," in "Verslag van de eerste Nederlandsche Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling" (The Hague, 1896), 19-22. Doctors also studied ventilation with a view to suggesting proper materials. See, for example, Benjamin Swaab, "De natuurlijke 613 ventilatie van kleine woonvertrekken in Amsterdam" (Ph. D. diss., University of Amsterdam, 1901) and the more popular reporting of P.B. Middendorp, "Versche lucht en zonlight in onze woning," Het groene en het witte kruis 11 (1914-15), 59-71, 77-87. 35. Wet van 21 Juni 1901 (Staatsblad No. 157) tot regeling van het Staatstoezicht op de Volksgezondheid. 36. Cannegieter, 106; H.F.J.M. van der Eerenbeemt, Arts en sociaal besef in Nederland in historisch perspectief (Tilburg, 1969). Some participants in the parliamentary review of the proposed health act suggested broadening it to include the application of all social laws, including the inspection of workplace safety, labor, nuisance, and workman's compensation. G. Oosterbaan, Gezondheids- en Woningwet, 10. 37. Memorie van Toelichting, Ontwerp Gezondheidswet: "dat het Staatstoezicht tot behartiging der belangen van de volksgezondheid niet behoeft of mag zijn uitsluitend een geneeskundig staatstoezicht." See also the discussion of the relative role of doctors and other professionals in the Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer 1902, 1194-5, in which the authoritarian manner of doctors is taken to task. 38. The committee also expressed the concern that the introduction of experts from various non-medical specializations was not the equivalent of training specialists in social hygiene itself, that is, inspectors trained originally in one profession or another who had gathered the interdisciplinary training and experience necessary to an understanding of social hygiene. Vereeniging van Burgerlijke Ingenieurs, "Verslag der commissie in zake eene nieuwe regeling van het Staatstoezicht op de Volksgezondheid," January, 1900. 39. "In de meeste beschouwingen uit dien kring van beoordeelaars straalt door de eisch, dat hen, de medici, het oppergezag zal worden toegekend; dit is van hun standpunt begrijpelijk want 'chaque cure preche pour sa paroisse,' of dit daarom het juiste standpunt is, meenen wij ernstig te moeten betwijfelen." v. E.[rkel], BW 20, no. 7 (17 Feb. 1900), 51. 40. The best discussion of this controversy is to be found in Cannegieter, 111-117. Objections to the Health Act appear in Gezondheidscommissie Amsterdam, "Rapport over wetsontwerp," 24 January 1900; J. Zeeman, C.F.J. Blooker, H.G. Ringeling, C. de Man, D.H. Koetser, "Rapport der Commissie van praeadvies over het Ontwerp Gezondheidswet," Medische Weekblad (2 December 1899); "Rapport van de Commissie uit den Geneeskundigen Raad voor Noord-Holland aan den Genoemden Raad in zake het Ontwerp van de Gezondheidswet," March, 1900; Gezondheidscommissie Amsterdam, "Verslag 1900," Gemeenteverslag 1900, appendix 8, 3. A dissenting voice was heard from Dr. J. W. Jenny Weijerman who approved of cooperation with other professions, and suggested that the doctor work with, not above, the others. J.W. Jenny Weijerman, "Het Ontwerp Gezondheidswet," De Gids 18, part 1 (1900), 447-471. 41. "Deze Dr. is armendokter geweest, zou hij wel eens rondgekeken hebben in de woningen der armen? Zou de Dr. nooit in een der +/2000 kelderwoningen van Amsterdam geweest zijn of in die gangen en sloppen waar licht en lucht zoo spaarzaam toetreden? Zou de Dr. er nooit even gedacht hebben, dat reinheid in eene overvulde een kamer-woning, waar gewasschen, gekookt, geslapen wordt, naast de mogelijkheid van ongedierte bijna niet mogelijk is? Of wanneer moeder ook uit werken moet, de tijd en de lust er niet is, om alles rein te houden? Maar toch heet het: de drie eerst weldaden kunt ge u zelfs in de achterbuurten verschaffen voor niets! 614 Blijkt hier geen zuivere praedestinatie om hygienist te worden?" Scrutator (A. Keppler), "Hygienisten," De Kroniek 12, no. 611 (8 September 1906), 282-3. Keppler also questioned the qualifications of doctors as social hygienists in the article "Heer medici en de Social Hygiene," De Kroniek 11, no. 570 (25 November 1905), 370-1. 42. Dr. D. B., "Sociale Hygiene,"- De Kroniek 12, no. 592 (28 April 1906), 133-4 and no. 593 (5 May 1906), 138-139. Scrutator (A. Keppler), "Sociale-Hygiene," undated ms., no. 35, Tak archive, IISG. 43. "Meer en meer zal de sociale hygiene op den voorgrond treden en ik ben er van overtuigd dat een belangenstrijd tusschen eenerzijds de medici en anderzijds ingenieurs en architecten niet zal uitblijven. "Eerst hebben de ingenieurs moeten strijden tegen heeren juristen, in zake het beheeren van bedrijven en allerlei andere administratieve aangelegenheden, nu zullen, bij het opbloeien van de beoefening der hygiene en in het bijzonder der toegepaste hygiene, medicus en technicus de zwaarden gaan kruisen." Arie Keppler, "Medische en technische hygienisten," De Ingenieur 23, no. 4 (25 January 1908), 60. 44. Ibid.; Scrutator (A. Keppler), "Iets over het staatstoezicht op de Volksgezondheid," De Kroniek 10, no. 520 (10 December 1904), 395-7. 45. Sociaal-Technische Vereeniging van Democratische Ingenieurs en Architecten, "Het Onderwijs in de Hygiene aan de Technische Hooge School te Delft" (Amsterdam, 1909). Sr. (H. E. Suyver), "De Hygiene en haar toepassingen," Technisch Studenten Tijdscrift 1, no. 6 (1 January 1911), 143. Prof. Dr. J. G. Sleeswijk was inaugurated as professor of Technical Hygiene on 6 December 1910 with the lecture "De veelzijdigheid der hygiene." 46. The history of the Amsterdam Health Board and the Municipal Health Service can be found in Verdoorn, 295-322. The first results of the sanitary inspection in the Jordaan have been discussed in Chapter 3. 47. Chapter IX of the Algemeene Politie-Verordening. 48. See discussion in the municipal council, AG 2 (1900), 22 March 1900, 314-43. 49. Gemeenteverslag (1900), appendix 8, p. 4. The municipal decision to combine the building and housing inspection is found in AG 1 (1901), no. 276, 19 March 1901, 194-6. The existing housing inspection as organized in the health service was simply moved en masse to the new agency, with the same inspector (F. van Erkel) and the same staff. 50. "Het woningvraagstuk is dat onderdeel der gezondheidsleer dat even goed zoo niet beter kan worden overzien door een technisch hygienist als door een hygienisch medicus." AG 2 (1900), 1416, Dr. Blooker. Discussion of reorganization and appointment in AG 2 (1900), 21 December 1900, 1409-1426, and Notulen Besloten Vergaderingen Gemeenteraad 1900, 12 December 1900, 704-705. 51. "Niet in de formuleering der hygienische eischen ligt de moeielijkheid van het woningvraagstuk, maar in de technische en vooral de financieele zijde daarvan." J.W. Jenny Weijerman, "Het Ontwerp Gezondheidswet," De Gids 18, part 1, 450. 52. J. G. van Niftrik, [Leven en Werken], MAA. 53. "Men heeft vroeger, zonder dat er een Technische Hochschule bestond, zonder dat er eenig college over Stadebau gegeven werd, maar in de tijd toen er energie en kunstzin in het volk zat, hier in ons land steden weten aan te leggen, die nog de bewondering van Europa wekken." Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer 1903/4, 60th meeting, 4 March 1904, 14701471. The use of the German terms suggests that Kuyper considered 615 planning an alien discipline. Victor de Stuers defended planners and castigated the government for ignoring the importance of planning. 54. "Snarepijperij," De Kroniek 3, no. 113 (7 March 1897), 78. 55. Notulen Besloten Vergaderingen Gemeenteraad 1899-1900 (8 March 451-469. Notulen van de Commissie van Bijstand in zake Publieke 1900), Werken, 1900 (9 March 1900), p. 20-21. 56. H.P. Berlage, "De Kunst in Stedebouw," BW 12, no. 15 (9 April 1892), 87-90; no. 17 (23 April 1892), 101-102; no. 20 (14 May 1892), 121124; no. 21 (21 May 1892), 126-127. For a study of the development of Berlage's planning theory see Manfred Bock, "Stedebouw," in H.P. Berlage, bouwmeester 1856-1934 (The Hague, 1965), 51-72 and his Anfange einer neuen architektur, Berlages beitrag zur architektonischen kultur der Niederlande in ausgehenden 19. jahrhundert (The Hague, 1983), 81-120. "dat het maken van een uitbreidingsplan het werk is noch van den 57. architekt, noch dat van den ingenieur als zoodanig. Stedenbouw is.. .het J. H. W. Leliman, "Stedenbouw, een arbeidveld werk van den stedenbouwer." bedreigd," De Bouwwereld 11, no. 50 (10 December 1913), van den architekt 377-380. 58. "Immers, alleen een architect heeft het ruimte- en massaBerlage, op. cit. scheppend vermogen, dat daarvoor noodig is." A. Keppler, "Stedenbouw," Ingenieur 28, no.51 (20 December 59. 1913), 1089. The main articles contributing to this controversy are J. H. E. Ruckert, "Stedenbouw, een arbeidsveld van den ingenieur bedreigd," G.P. Nijhoff, letter, Ingenieur 28, no. 48 (29 November 1913), 1034-36; J. Gratama, "Een Ingenieur 28, no. 50 (13 December 1913), 1069; arbeidsveld van den ingenieur bedreigd?" BW 34, no. 1 (3 January 1914), 46; W. F. C. Schaap, "Wie is de stedenbouwer?," BW 34, no. 2 (10 January L. H. E. van Hylckama 1914), 14-16, no. 3 (17 January 1914), 27-29; K., "Een Vlieg, "Stedenbouwers," BW 34, no. 3 (17 January 1914), 31; 55-56; J. H. E. gevaar...doch waardoor?," BW 34, no. 5 (31 January 1914), J. 199-200; Ruckert, "Stedenbouw," Ingenieur 29, no. 10 (7 March 1914), 22, no. 13 (28 March de M. (Jan de Meyer), "Stedebouw," Architectura 1914), 107-8; W. F. C. Schaap, "Nogmaals 'Wie is de Stedenbouwer?'" BW 34, no. 16 (18 April 1914), 189-190. With the increase in commerce and population in Amsterdam, and 60. the abandonment of the canals for transportation of goods, pressure was building by the '80's to fill canals to provide wider transporation routes. Of particular concern were the linkages between the old and the new parts of the city, and discussion began early in the new century about to the radial routes, the Utrechtsestraat, Reguliersgracht, alterations Vijzelstraat, and Spiegelstraat. 61. "niet de fie-rste, de meest grootsche, de deftigste, maar de intiemste." Jan Veth, "Stedenschennis," in misschien wel de fijnste, Bedreigd Schoonheid (Amsterdam: P. N. van Kampen, 1916), 13-42. 62. "Maar is er voor een zomeravond verkwikkender kleine wandeling denkbaar, dan een loopje langs die prachtige gracht, met hare trouwhartige oude boomen, haar stil bedrijven op den wallekant en in het water, haar op de snijpunten met de groote grachten terweerszijde zoo warme huizenhoekjes met de aardige pothuizen en de van buiten zichtbaar insteekkamers, en de fantastische buitentrapjes, die allemaal aan het dekor van een pittig sprookje doen denken, - die eenige gracht, waar alles wat zich toevallig opdoet volvaakt stoffeert, omdat het geheel zoo indefinieerbaar mooi van proporties is en zoo gedragen door een ademm van illuzie, - die klassieke gracht met haar zestal groote, ronde, ongeschonden boogbruggen, waarvan er 616 de drie aan de Keizersgracht zich samen in een monumentalen prachtgroei van togen en bogen verbinden, tot misschien het schoonste punt van heel het onvergelijkelijke oud-Amsterdam!" Ibid. 63. In 1907 options considered by the council included the following: widening Utrechtsestraat at f4,000,000, widening Spiegelstraat at f4,350,000, and filling Reguliersgracht at f 530,000. The decision to fill the Vijzelgracht and widen it to 25 meters was budgetted at f3,350,000 in the proposal from the Mayor and Aldermen. AG 1 (1907), no. 367, 2 April 1907, 243. Discussion of the proposal is in AG 2 (1907), 622-647, Besloten Vergaderingen Gemeenteraad 1906, 19 September 1906 and 2 January 1907. 64. "Daardoor toch zullen gemeentebesturen nog meer dan nu al het geval is, geneigd zijn, het ontwerpen van stadsplannen te gaan beschouwen als een kwestie alleen van wetenschap en niet als een van kunst. En tengevolge daarvan zullen de ontwerpen opgedragen worden aan de mannen der wetenschap en niet aan de kunstenaars. Dat dit gevaar niet denkbeeldig is, bewijst wel het nog onlangs ontstane twistgeschrijf over de vraag, of een ingenieur dan wel een architect het uitbreidingsplan voor een stad moet maken." "Spreker voor zich acht de beantwoording van deze vraag niet twijfelachtig, omdat ze z.i. alleen beheerscht wordt door de kwestie, wat men ten slotte van de stad als geheel verlangt. Verlangt men, dat zij met mathematische juistheid aan alle practische eischen zal voldoen, dan moet de ingenieur het stadsplan maken; verlangt men echter, dat zij zal zijn een kunstwerk m.a.w., dat alle deelen niet alleen wetenschappelijke, maar ook aesthetisch-practisch tot een geheel zijn verwerkt, dan moet een architect dat doen." H. P. Berlage, "Het aesthetisch gedeelte van stedenbouw," BW 34, no. 17 (25 April 1914), 198. 65. H.P. Berlage, "Architectonische Toelichting tot het plan van uitbreiding der stad Ammsterdamm tusschen Amstel en Schinkel," September 1900 in AG 1 (1904), no. 876, 7 October 1904, 1717-1725. 66. Council member van Dijk, AG 2 (1904), 21 December 1904, 1300. "Nu zal ik de laatste wezen om daarvan van den architect een verwijt te maken. Hij toch heeft eenvoudig de hem gedane opdracht vervuld, zooals zijn fijnbesnaarde kunstenaarsnatuur hem dat ingaf. Het is ook niet de taak van den architect te vragen wanneer hem geen grenzen worden gesteld, of het zijn lastgever wel schikt zulke dure ondernemingen op touw te zetten." 67. "Zelfs het meest geniale teekenpotlood lost geen economische kwesties op." P.L. Tak, AG 2 (1904), 21 December 1904, 1304-5; 11 January 1905, 46-47. Berlage's planning practice changed markedly, as evidenced by the planning report accompanying the 1915 revised plan for south Amsterdam, which explains the traffic considerations and housing plans worked out with the appropriate authorities. H. P. Berlage, "Memorie van toelichting behoorende bij het Ontwerp van het Uitbreidingsplan der Gemeente Amsterdam," March 1915 in AG 1 (1917), no. 851, appendix A, 901915. 68. H.J.M. Walenkamp, "Amsterdam in de Toekomst," 1901. Walenkamp suggested that the northern extension mirror the concentric canals ot the seventeenth century half moon. 69. The appointment of a committee was opposed at first by Mayor and Aldermen. Long and trying discussions resulted in a a number of revisions to the list before the final choice was ratified on 26 June 1901. See AG 1 (1900), no. 385, 17 April 1900, 303; AG 1 (1900), no. 921, 1561-4; 617 Besloten Vergaderingen 1901, 12 June 1901, 115-117; AG 2 (1901), 26 June 1901, 556-7; Besloten Vergaderingen 1901, 9 January 1901, 4-10. A new director of Public Works van Hasselt replaced Lambrechtsen, who retired miffed by the rejection of his plan for the southern extension. Van Hasselt proposed a revision of a van Niftrik plan for the area north of The Chamber of Commerce petitioned for a committee the IJ on 4 May 1900. to study the plan in September, suggesting experts in trade, harbor, industry, railroad and housing to decide on land use in the north. 70. AG 1 (1914), no. 902, 29 July 1914, 814. 71. An international comparison of instruction in the social sciences is to be found in Henri Hauser, L'Enseignement des Sciences Sociales, Etat Actuel de cet enseignement dans les divers pays du monde (Paris, 1903). 72. P. L. Tak, "Een privaat-docent," De Kroniek 4, no. 174 (24 April 1898), 129-130. 73. J.L. de Bruyn Kops, professor in Delft from 1864 to 1873, established the first professional journal De Economist; Greven and Buys taught at Leiden, d'Aulnis de Bourouil at Utrecht. 74. S.R. Steinmetz, "Wat is sociologie?" Openbare les, Leiden Steinmetz led the development of sociology in the University, 1900. Netherlands, teaching first at Utrecht, then from 1900 at Leiden, and His own finally establishing a professorship in Amsterdam from 1907. interests were largely ethnographic, and the social question most directly connected to his studies was eugenics, whereas students such as the illustrious criminologist W. A. Bonger carried Dutch sociology closer to public policy issues. Degrees were not granted in sociology until 1921. W.A. Bonger, "De plaats van Steinmetz in de geschiedenis der maatschappelijke wetenschappen in Nederland," Mens en Maatschappij (1933), 2-10; J.D. Kruijt, "De betekenis van Steinmetz voor de sociografie en de sociologie, Mens en Maatschappij 38 (1963), 32-40. 75. At the national level, a corresponding set of issues emerged. See below, Chapter Seven. For the nineteenth century background to municipal land 76. management see L. Jansen, "De Grondpolitiek van Amsterdam in de negentiende eeuw," mimeograph, Amsterdam, Dienst van Publieke Werken, 1965, and G. T. J. Delfgaauw, "De Grondpolitiek van de Gemeente Amsterdam" (Ph. D. diss., University of Amsterdam dissertation, 1934). 77. S. Zadoks, "Geschiedenis der Amsterdamsche concessies" (Ph. D. diss., University of Amsterdam, 1899). 78. L. Jansen, "Het Amsterdamse Erfpachtstelsel van 1896-1909," mimeograph, Amsterdam, Dienst van Publieke Weiken, 6, 14-15. 79. AG 1 (1905), 2251. The mayor and aldermen rejected the suggestion from the council to shorten terms of leases and thereby charge a lower canon. They admitted the possibility of exceptions to the rule where it might provide important social benefits to the community. 80. Jansen, "Erfpachtstelsel," 28-31, cites the case of the Volksbadhuis Sparta which asked for a reduced canon in 1901, but was refused by the mayor and aldermen. The mayor wanted establish a clear distinction between decisions made by the municipality in its role as land developer and those it made to subsidize worthy social ventures. 81. Amsterdam Woningraad, 2 May 1906, discussed in the municipal council, AG 2 (1906), 30 May, 1062. See Jansen, "Erfpachtstelsel," 67ff. 82. Public Works Committee meeting, 26 May 1906, 104-6. Schut's comments were made during a discussion of a proposal to reduce the canon 618 for the housing society Rochdale upon changing the terms from 75 to 50 years. Public Works Committee meeting, 20 January 1910, 40. The director of Public Works found this acceptable, and permitted a canon reduction for the project on van Beuningenstraat, from fl.10 to .90. AG 1 (1910), no. 564, 3 June 1910, 535. 83. No. 6738 B.T. 1906 (12 October 1906). Public Works Committee meeting, 27 February 1908, 38-40. It was especially important to lower land costs after passage of the 1905 Building Ordinance which raised building standards and thus construction costs. Jansen, "Erpachtstelsel," 49-53. 84. AG 1 (1902), 2049. 85. AG 2 (1902), 31 October 1908, 1180-4. 86. "Thans nu hunne plaatsen nog niet zijn ingenomen door sociaaldemocraten, wordt de Commissie voor het vervullen van eene z.g. sociaale taak niet geschikt verklaard. Zoo en niet anders is de zaak en de Voorzitter zal wel zeker de laatste zijn om dit te ontkennen." Van den Bergh and C.B. Posthumus Meyjes at the Public Works Committee meeting, 19 May 1909, 127-29. It was not until 1914 that the Public Works Committee got its first Social Democrats, van den Tempel and Vliegen. PosthumusMeyjes belonged to the Christelijk-Historische Unie. AG 2 (1911), 18 May 1911, 612. 87. The members of the 88. Housing Committee meeting, 7 October 1912. first Housing Committee (Commissie van bijstand in het beheer der zaken van Volkshuisvesting, R.B. 954, 4 Sept 1912) were F. M. Wibaut, G. T. J. de Jongh, B. E. Asscher, H. H. Wollring, and Th. F. A. Delprat, chairman and alderman of Public Works. 89. Housing Committee meeting, 15 February 1916, 32; Subcommissie uitbreidingsplannen, Gezondheidscommissie, no. 56, March 12 1915. 90. "waarbij aan de belangen van alle diensten en betrokkenen in onderling evenwicht tot hun recht komen en behartiging kunnen vinden." Director Woningdienst and Director BWT to Alderman of Housing, Dossier 685 V.H. 1916, 16 March 1916. 91. "waarom het noodig is de grondexploitatie te verhelderen of te vertroebelen door er elementen op te doen inwerken, die er buiten staan." Dienst der Publieke Werken, No.2713/Doss. 921 G.E., 12 April 1916. 92. 3280 W.D. 1916, 5 August 1916. 93. 2342 V.H. 1916. 94. "Is een uitbreidingsplan meer dan een plattegrondteekening met grenslijnen voor straten, pleinen, parken en grachten (ik zonder havenplannen uit), doch is het en moet het worden gezien als een stadsindeeling naar de wijze van bebouwing (gesloten bouw, blokbebouwing en villabouw, bouw met of zonder voortuinen, enz.) mede ingedeeld naar wijken voor onder de Hinderwet vallende inrichtingen of daartegen beschermende zones; kortom een plan van bestemminggeving aan verschillende bouwterreinen en hunne indeeling naar bouwklassen en soorten; een plan van opruiming of ombouw van oude stadsgedeelten en van evacuatie der bewoners naar nieuwe stadsgedeelten; een plan van grondexploitatie, die in de eerst plaats dienstbaar moet worden gemaakt aan een goede bebouwing en behoorlijke volkshuisvesting en waarbij het verkrijgen van een goed stratennet met zoo gering mogelijke kosten op den achtergrond treedt, het bebouwingsplan daarentegen op den voorgrond, dan brenge men de voorbereiding en uitwerking van zoo'n plan bij den Dienst die voor behartiging der hoogerbedoelde belangen is aangewezen en met die bijzondere eischen organisch bekend moet zijn; waar alle zaken het Bouw- 619 en Woningvraagstuk betreffende in hunne algemeene verhoudingen en geledingen worden beoordeeld en waar alle statistisch materiaal dienaangaande verzameld moet zijn. No. 1142 A.Z. 1916, 18 September 1916. 95. "moet aan den dienst, aan welken de belangen van de volkshuisvesting meer in het bijzonder zijn toevertrouwd, het tot stand brengen van een stadsplan, een plaats worden ingeruimd, overeenkomstig het gewicht van die belangen." "Nota Betreffende Voorbereiding Stadsplannen," 2342 V.H. 1916, 20 September 1916. 96. Ibid. 97. "Heeft men elders gemeend zich reeds van zijn taak te hebben gekweten indien men zoodanige grondprijzen stelt en een zoodanige exploitatieduur aanneemt dat ten slotte de inkomsten de uitgaven dekken, dezerzijds wordt de vraag gesteld, welk plan is voor uitvoering vatbaar, dat zooveel mogelijk aan de zorgen voor een goede en goedkoope volkshuisvesting tegemoet komt?" "Voorlopige nota, terzake financieele van het aaneengesloten uitkomsten, te verwachten bij de exploitatie Gemeentelijke grondbezit in 'Uitbreiding Zuid' bij de uitvoering van het gewijzigd uitbreidingsplan," 717 W.D. 1916, 15 February 1916. 98. This conflict can be followed in the debates of the municipal council during 1918, and in numerous memoranda on cooperation between the two municipal agencies. 99. On the clash over the municipal planning department, see W. J. Bruyn, "Delegatie bij Planvoorbereiding, een kritische nabeschowing over het algemeen uitbreidingsplan van Amsterdam, 1935" (Ph. D. diss., Katholieke Hogeschool, 1976), 26-39. 100. "dat aan den dienst van Publieke Werken grondbeheer werd Grondbeheer en handel in grond. Dat moet uit zijn. opgevat als grondexploitatie noeten zijn niet handel in grond, maar het best mogelijke beheer van den grond in dienst van de woningvoorziening en anders niets." F. M. Wibaut, AG 2 (1919), 31 July 1919, 1730. Wibaut was speaking in defense of Keppler upon the motion by Zwart, Hendrix, Roell, Van Os, and ter Haar to rebuke Keppler, AG 1 (1919), 30 May 1919, 983. 101. Sr., "De Ingenieur," Technisch Studenten Tijdschrift 1, no. 9 (15 February 1911), 217-8. The aim of the Society of Delft Engineers is described as follows in the statutes: "Het doel der Vereeniging is het vormen van een band tusschen hare leden en het bevorderen van de algemeene maatschappelijke belangen van den ingenieur." The aim of the STVDIA is further described as "a. het bevorderen der volkswelvart, voornamelijk waar deze beinvloed wordt door maatregelen op technisch gebied; b. het bevorderen van groei van het Staatswezen in democratische zin, voor zooverre zulks met het sub a genoemde verband houdt. c. het behartigeen van de maatschapplelijke belangen der ingenieurs in het algemeen en van de leden in het bijzonder." 102. "een Amerikaansche opvatting dus van den socialen ingenieur." Amsterdamsch Nieuwsblad, 4 January 1899. 103. Is. P. de Vooys, Social Weekblad, no. 50 (1898). An article by J. C. Eringaard (Sociaal Weekblad, no. 47 (19 November 1898)) suggested the usefulness of such a bureau. It received more than a hundred sympathetic responses and resulted in a meeting in Utrecht on 27 December 1898 which appointed a temporary set of officers: J. C. Eringaard, J. C. van Marken, A. Ariens, W. H. Vliegen, A. Kerdijk, Treub. Treub refused the nomination, but was later appointed director. Central Bureau voor Sociale Adviezen (CBSA), Notulen Bestuursvergaderingen, 1898-1921, CBSA archive, IISG. 620 "verstrekken van gevraagde raadgevingen ten opzichte van de 104. oprichting, organisatie, leiding en administratie van instellingen, welke ten doel of mede ten doel hebben, de arbeidende klasse in hare pogingen tot verbetering harer economische positie op eenegerlei wijze te steunen." Statutes of the CBSA, 1899. "In de besprekingen bleek dat men aan de zaak een zuiver 105. T.[ak], "Bureel voor wetenschapplijk, een neutraal karakter wil geven." Sociale Adviezen," De Kroniek 5, no. 210 (1 January 1899), 2. 106. CBSA, Jaarverslag 1899-1900, 5. 107 CBSA, Notulen Bestuursvergaderingen, 4 January 1899, CBSA The first definitive board of officers was elected on 11 archive, IISG. A. four pillars: September 1899 and also included representatives from all Kerdijk, chairman, L. Went, vice-chairman, J. C. Eringaard, treasurer, P. J. M. Aalberse, G.M. Boissevain, R. A. de Monchy, A. S. Talma, J. F. Vlekke, W. H. Vliegen (replaced by P.L. Tak in 1900). Ibid., 16 May 1899 and 30 May 1899. 108. CBSA, Jaarverslag 1905-1906. 109. M.G. Muller-Lulofs speculated that such fears led to the 110. closing in 1903 of the original School for Social Work founded in September 1899 by A. Kerdijk, "Een opleidingsinrichting in wording," The school started up again in Sociale Weekblad (22 April 1899). M. G. Muller-Lulofs, "De School voor Maatschappelijk September 1904. On the history of the school see also E. C. Werk" (Amsterdam, no year). Knappert, "De School voor Maatschappelijk Werk 1899-1924" (Amsterdam, 1925?). CBSA, Jaarverslag 1899-1900, 3. 111. CBSA, Jaarverslag 1905-1906. 112. T.[ak], "Bureel voor sociale adviezen," De Kroniek 5, no. 210 113. 2; "Sociale Adviezen," De Kroniek 6, no. 270 (25 (1 January 1899), February 1900), 58. 114. The early days of the social movement are described in A. C. J. Vrankrijker, Een groiende gedachte, de ontwikkeling der meningen over de sociale kwestie in de negentiende eeuw in Nederland (Assen, 1959). "Het woord sociaal wijst echter op een andere beeteekenis dan 115. de letterlijke vertaling leert. Er is in onzen tijd een sociale beweging gaande, een strooming in de samenleving, die zich duidelijk ten doel gesteld ziet om een verdrukt deel der maatschappij, de klasse der P. de van welstand." Is. een hooger peil loonarbeiders, op te heffen tot Beweging 5, part 4, no. 12 (December 1909), Vooys, "Sociale Hygiene," De 20. 116. F. M. Wibaut, "Toynbee-werk," De Kroniek 4, no. 188 (31 July 1898), 247-8. 117. "De ontwikkeling die wij beloven heeft krachten noodig die de deze zal het dus met arbeidersklasse zelve nog niet kan leveren; waardeering begroeten als jonge mannen en vrouwen van deze instelling willen gebrijk maken om haar later dienst te bewijzen. T.[ak], "Opleiding Tak's voor socialen arbeid," De Kroniek 5, no. 233 (11 June 1899), 186. socialist perspective iis in striking contrast to the liberal proponents of social work. See A. van Gijn, et. al., "Persoonlijke bemoeiingen van meer ontwikkelden in 't belang van minder ontwikkelden (Toynbee-werk)," 't Nut, 1895. 118. "De mist der anarchie trekt op voor den dageraad van het socialisme, en allerlei instellingen ontkiemen, die tot wasdom gekomen, haar plaats zullen vinden in het stelsel der betere toekomst. Daarvoor 621 zijn werkkrachten noodig. Wij kunnen ze niet leveren, althans niet vele, het planten der want wij hebben te veel te doen aan de hoofdzaak: sociaal-democratische in hoofd en hart der arbeiders. En nu zien wij met vreugde dat de dadelijke zorg voor vele categorieen van misdeelden wordt aanvaard door geschoolde krachten uit het bestwillende deel der burgerij. T.[ak], "Sociale Arbeid," De Kroniek 10, no. 475 (30 January 1904), 34. 119. Biographical accounts exist for many of the leading housing reformers: H. van der Weide, Het werk van Mr. Dirk Hudig (Alphen aan den Rijn, 1970); J. Kruseman, De Volkshuisvesting onder de Woningwet, Geschiedkundig overzicht en herinneringen (Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink, 1940); Wilhelmina C. Blomberg, "Louise van der Pek-Went, pioneerster volkshuisvesting," (Amsterdam, 1966); Cornelia L. de Lange, "Johanna Elisabeth ter Meulen 11 augustus 1867-11 februari 1937," Amstelodamum 57 (1965). Punten ter beshrijving van de Algemene Vergadering, 1898, 112th 120. meeting, 1 June 1898, PA 211, no. 265, MAA. An invitation to a meeting on 5 November 1898 was refused by Th. Ligthart, secretary of the Ned. Aannemersbond, who wrote that "het bevorderen van een bouw van goede arbeiderswoningen, tot op heden ligt buiten de werkkring van den Ned. The members of the Nut's preparatory committee (Commissie Aannemersbond." van boorbereiding in zake de Centrale Commissie van het Woningvraagstuk) were H. L. Drucker (Congres van Openbare Gezondheidsregeling), E. Fokker, M. W. F. Treub, D. W. Stork (Nut), B. H. Heldt (ANWV), K. Kater (Patrimonium), W. C. J. Passtoors (Ned. R.K. Volksbond), W. H. Vliegen (S.D.A.P.), G. F. V. L. van Zuilen (Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst). 121. Adres van de Commissie van voorbereiding, December 1898. The CBSA was to select five from the current committee to form 122. the new housing committee. These were appointed on March 12 1900: Johanna Meulen, C. W. Janssen, A. H. Rakers, H. L. Drucker, J. W. C. Tellegen, ter 11-13. CBSA Jaarverslag 1899-1900, and J. W. Weijerman, secretary. 19 September 1899 and 12 March 1900. Notulen Bestuursvergaderingen, 123. See the many responses to queries in the CBSA archive, IISG and D. Hudig and H. C. A. Henny, Handleiding voor Woningbouwverenigingen (Zwolle, 1911). 124. The original board of officers were M. W. F. Treub, J. W. Jenny Weijerman, L. Went, D.P.D. Fabius, and P. L. Tak. Verslag der werkzaamheden van der Amsterdamsche Woningraad gedurende de vyf eerste jaren van zyn bestaan (Januari 1902 - Augustus 1906). 125. A number of these works were later republished by the voor Volkshuisvesting. Nederlandsch Instituut 126. CBSA, Notulen Bestuursvergaderingen, 9 June 1914. Hudig listed the existing housing organizations as the Nationale Woningraad, Congres voor Sociale Hygiene, Bond Heemschut, Vereeniging van Ned. Gemeente, Vereeniging voor Staathuishoudkunde, the three engineers' societies, the four main architectural societies, and the Rijkswoningcollege. 127. Peter de Ruyter, "De oprichting van het NIROV," Stedebouw en Volkshuisvesting (November 1978), 541-552. CBSA, Jaarverslag 1917-1918, 6-8. The organizations represented on the board were: the Nut, Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling, Volksbond tegen Drankmisbruik, Bond Heemschut, Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Geneeskunst, Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst, Bond van Nederlandsche Architecten, Architectura et Amicitia, Social Technische Vereeniging an Democratische Ingenieurs en Architecten, Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs, CBSA, 622 Nationale Woningraad, Amsterdamsche Woningraad, Rijkswoningcollege, Vereeniging Ned. Gemeente, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the Hague. 128. J. Kruseman to F.M. Wibaut, 27 February 1920, no. 288, Wibaut archive, IISG. 129. See, for example, the comments of H. L. Drucker in "Het Woningvraagstuk," De Gids 62, part 1 (March 1898), 444-54. 130. "partijmeeningen bestaan niet over het te kiezen woningtype, de huurpolitiek enz., evenmin als over de inrichting van gasfabrieken en den aanleg van parken." D. Hudig, "De woningbouwvereenigingen op politiek grondslag," Gemeentebelangen 15, no. 6 (15 November 1919), 83-85. See also his article in Sociale Voorzorg (June 1919) and Niebor, Socialistische Gids (1920). 131. "Men kan met eene groote mate van vastheid zeggen welke oorzaken zekere stoornissen in de functieen van het lichaam teweeg brengen, welke gevolgen zekere medicamenten en zekere levensregelen plegen te hebben, omdat men zoowel de verschijnselen van ziekte als van Maar men kan niet zeggen wat de beterschap nauwkeurig heeft opgemerkt. redenen zijn waaron het met de maatschappij zoo slecht is gesteld, en wat men zou moeten doen om die redenen te verwijderen. Er bestaat althans niet een gezaghebbende leer van deze zaken, een verzameling van gegeneraliseerde waarnemingen die overal in de beschaafde wereld ongeveer gelijkelijk gangvaar zou wezen, een duidelijk geformuleerd systeem van vermoedelijke oorzaken en waarschijnlijke gevolgen, dat men gewoon zou zijn in voorkomende gevalen te raadplegen. Neen, niet ongelijk aan de beoefening van de medicijnen in achterlijke landstreken, doktert iedereen er wordt betwijfeld of er wel een in het sociale zoowat op eigen hand; algemeene klassificatie van de betrokken verschijselen mogelijk zou zijn, dikwijls zelf geloochend." Frank van der Goes, "Sociaal Onderwijs," De 131-141. 1 (1891-92), Nieuwe Gids 7, part "men te eenger tijd even onbevangen over de gebreken van de 132. samenleving zal spreken, als thans gebeurt over de ziekten van het lichaam." Ibid. 133. "eindigen met aan de objectieve kennis van het leven in duidelijke formules vastheid te geven." Ibid. 134. "Er is geene katholieke chemie, geene conservatieve mechanika, geene anti-revolutionaire botanie," he noted, "Maar er is een antirevolutionaire politiek, een conservatieve leer van de maatschappij, een katholieke oplossing van de sociale quaestie." "De noodzakelijkheid dat men zijne meeningen over de samenleving, ontleene aan niets dan aan de Ibid. wetenschap van de samenleving, wordt nog maar zeer zwak gevoelt." 135. Men gevoelt niet hunne groote practische beteekenis, men bedenkt niet dat de scherts van leken aan hunne ernstige behandeling de noodzakelijkheid die ik noemde en die afbreuk doet, men beseft niet heirin bestaat, dat men alle toevallige meeningen en beginselen verwerpt die niet samenhangen met een stelsel van ernstige sociologie, ontworpen op den eenigen vertrouwbaren grondslag van menschelijke kennis, geduldige waarneming en voorzichtige generalisatie. En allerminst zou men willen toegeven, dat het even dwaas is een origineele opinie over politiek te hebben, als over de electriciteit of over chirurgie. Terwijl het toch zeker is, dat men ten slotte met dezelfde vastheid de raderen en de hefboomen van de maatschappij zal hanteeren, als thans de instrumenten van den medicus en van den natuurkundige. Men zal ophouden een liberale en een conservatieve politiek te onderscheiden, zooals men geeindigd is van Ibid. een kerkelijke en een wereldsche fysica te spreken." 623 Chapter Six: SOCIAL EXPERTISE: CIVILIZING THE WORKING CLASS 1. The shifts of national housing policy fall outside the scope of this study. Examples of decisionmaking at the national level which impinged on Amsterdam's housing include the pre-World War I rejection by Minister Cort van den Linden of a number of Amsterdam housing projects on the basis of their excessively high standards and the post-World War I subsidies to the private construction industry which effectively terminated the lead taken by the housing societies during the war. 2. Jhr. Mr. Rethaan Macare, quoted in Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene 15 (1913), 344. 3. "Lucht, licht en zonneschijn traden in de nieuwe woning binnen, en tegelijk daarmee meedere reinheid, spaarzaamheid, en huiselijkheid." P.B. Middendorp, "Versche lucht en zonlicht in onze woning," Het groene en het witte kruis 11 (1914-1915), 85. 4. J. van Hasselt and L. Verschoor, De Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland (Amsterdam, 1891), 229-330. The Volksbond tegen Drankmisbruik initiated the inquiry. Because of the assumed connection, the Volksbond had a continuing interest in housing reform. It had commissioned the 1893 Amsterdam study, later participated in the formation of the Nut housing committee, and set up its own housing committee. The question of the relationship between poor housing and pub attendence dated from the midnineteenth century (see W. de Sitter, "Een woord over de openbare gezondheidsregeling," De economist 2 (1853), 137), and in the early twentieth century the Volksbond was still investigating the connection. 5. "0 als het 'thuis maar half zoo was, als hier, dan zou Vader niet naar de kroeg gaan." Marie Sparnaaij, Het leven en werken, het lijden en door onze fabrieksarbeiders (Den Haag: Drukkerij "Vrede", 1898), strijden 41. 6. "Hoe ongezelliger de woning is, des to eerder zal de man des huizes ertoe komen om zeil heil in de kroeg te zoeken." v.d.B(reggen], "Woning en ziekte," Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene 19 (1917), 48. 7. Notulen van de commissie van bijstand in het beheer der gemeentelijke woningen, 14 Dec. 1915. 8. "Welnu-een goede, gezonde woning is bevordelijk aan huishoudelijkheid en zindelijkheid; een slechte woning daarentegen bevordert onordelijkheid en verkwisting. Het moge waar zijn, dat vele vrouwen, in welke omgeving ook geplaatst, altijd slordig en onpractisch blijven, daar staat tegenover, dat vele anderen, ofschoon met de beste voornemens bezield, den strijd opgaven, omdat zij moesten huizen in een krot, schier zonder licht en lucht, waar de stank niet was te verdragen en waar ook met de meeste zorg het steeds grooter wordend gezin niet meer behoorlijk kon worken gehuisvest. Tien tegen een, dat die vrouwen, in een betere omgeving geplaatst, ook betere huismeoders zullen worden. Ook nog op een ander factor behoort te worden gelet. Er zijn helaas vele huisvaders, die een groot deel van hun weekgeld buitenshuis zoek maken. Ongerijmd zou het zijn te willen beweren, dat dit niet meer zal voorkomen, indien slechts voor betere woningen wordt gezorgd, maar even ongerijmd zou het zijn te willen volhouden, dat gemis van een gezelligen huiselijken haard den man nooit naar de kroeg jaagt. Woningwet, Memorie van Toelichting, 2,3. 9. A rare instance in which housing was openly discussed as a means to keep workers happy with their lot occured in the municipal council's Public Works Committee when Charles Boissevain, in the aftermath of the 624 divisive Railroad Strike, proposed theconstruction of a garden city north of the Ij. "Door de best mogelijke woningtoestanden to scheppen b.v. door aanleg van een tuinstad zou men wellicht langerhand een tevreden en gelukkige arbeidsbevolking kunnen krijgen en kon zich daar eene moderne industriestad vestigen, waar het verblijf in de fabrieken niet langer een last zou zijn en waar maatschappelijk misstanden als de tegenwoordige woningen ontbraken." Public Works Committee meeting, 12 October 1905. 10. Woningwet (Staatsblad no. 158), 22 June 1901, articles 2 and 3. 11. Ontwerp Bouwverordening, AG 1 (1905), no. 387, 3 April 1905, 397-571. 12. Gezondheidscommissie, Verslag, Gemeenteverslag 1909, appendix 1. 13. Hendrix, AG 2 (1905), 21 June 1905, p. 820; echoed by Sutorius AG 2 (1905), 23 June 1905, p. 1032. The ordinance was approved by a vote of 28 to 8. 14. For the preceding discussion of building requirements, see the proceedings of the first and second Nederlandsche Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling, 1896 and 1897; J. W. Jenny Weijerman, "Woningtoezicht," (Ph. D. diss., University of Amsterdam, 1899); H. L. Drucker, "Het Woningvraagstuk," De Gids 62, part 1 (March 1898), 470-474; Dr. R. H. Saltet, "Betreffende zijne reis in Engeland tot onderzoek van het sanitair toezicht op woningen aldaar," Verslag van den Director van den Gemeentelijken Gezondheidsdienst te Amsterdam, AG 1 (1896), 565-578. 15. Jenny Weijerman, 26. 16. Schut, Posthumus Meyjes, Hendrix, AG 2 (1905), 21 June 1905, 819-831. 17. "dat de woningen voor de mensche inderdaad een geschikt verblijf zullen zijn, dringt de gedachte zich bij ons op, dat de taak, woningen te bouwen, heel weinig geschikt is om op den duur te blijven een bedrijf om winst te maken. Dat karakter van woningbouw, om winst te maken, dat karakter van grondexploitatie, evenzeer om winst te maken, geeft aan een aantal menschen een woning van zoodanigen aard, dat menige goede boer ze zelfs voor zijn vee niet zou begeeren." AG 2 (1905), 21 June 1905, 822. 18. See AG 1 (1905), nos. 590, 591, 130, 622, 625. 19. AG 2 (1905), 823. 20. Hendrix, AG 2 (1905), 23 June 1905, 945. 21. The Health Board influenced the planning of the Indische district and presented a model plan for the Spaarndammerbuurt. See Chapter Nine for a discussion of these plans. P. L. Tak had complained about standard planning practice during the building ordinance debate: "Wat niet in de verordening is bedwongen is het gebruik, dat de terreinspeculanten maken van hun grond. Een terrreinspeculant doet mij altijd denken aan een vischboer met gerookten elft. Die snijdt zijn elft zoo dun mogelijk uit en evenzoo worden de bouwterreinen zoo dun mogelijk uitgesneden, aan de straat zoo smal mogelijk gemaakt." AG 2 (1905), 21 June 1905, 826. 22. The number of dwellings condemned per year peaked around 1910: 1904 (12), 1905 (275), 1906 (328), 1907 (617), 1908 (463), 1909 (577), 1910 (734), 1911 (296), 1912 (407), 1913 (23), 1914 (13). 23. Mels Meijers, "Volkshuisvesting, De Architecten en de Woningbouw," BW 37, no. 29, 216-19. 24. AG 1 (1905), 21 June 1905, 829. 25. In both Hasselt and Verschoor's study for the Nut and Jenny Weijerman's doctoral dissertation, the position was maintained that 625 paupers need to be given a moral education and taught how to use the home. 26. Nota van den Directeur van den Woningdienst, 2729 V.H. 1920. 27. "Het woningvraagstuk op het Gezondheidscongres," Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene 1, no. 5 (1899), 23-27. 28. Woningwet, article 2. 29. Bouwverordening, 5 July 1905, chapter 5. 30. See, for example, De. B. van der Meulen, Uw huis en uwe woning (Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen, no date). Spaarnaaij's novel was a thinly veiled series of admonitions to factory workers to eat better, exercise, wash more often, and to cultivate virtues such as loyalty, sobriety, neatness, thrift. 31. See, for example, Jenny Weijerman, "Woningtoezicht." 32. v.d. Breggen, "Woning-ziekte," Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene 19 (1917), 50. 33. A. van Gijn, Woningbouw en woningwet (Haarlem, 1904), 45. 34. Gedenkboek van de tentoonstelling 1813 De Vrouw 1913 (Amsterdam, 1913), 28. 35. Catalogus van de tentoonstelling "De Vrouw 1813-1913," (Amsterdam, 1913), 202-203. 36. "Het huishoudonderwijs aan de herhalingsschool. Rapport van eene commissie uit den Bond van leeraressen bij het huishoudonderwijs," Amsterdam, 1905, 4, 45. The committee included M.D. Wittop Koning. One textbook on home economics estimated the cost of the tools needed for cleaning and housework at f36.61. M. Bosch and C.J.W. van der PloegDeggeler, Onderhoud van huis en huisraad (Almelo, 1905), 1. 37. Hasselt and Verschoor, 3. The philanthropic housing societies hired a housing supervisor who collected rent, knew the tenants, and kept an eye on them. 38. T.[ak], "Opleiding voor socialen arbeid," De Kroniek 5, no. 233 (11 June 1899), 186; and "Sociale arbeid," De Kroniek 10, no. 475 (30 January 1904), 33-34; Clara Brinkgreve, "Wonen onder toezicht" (Masters thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1978), 46-47; M.G. Muller-Lulofs, "Sociale Opleiding," Gids (1903), 288. D. Hudig and H. C. A. Henny, Handleiding voor 39. woningbouwvereenigingen (Zwolle, 1911), 89-90. 40. Johanna ter Meulen, De Woningopzichteres (Dordrecht, 1921). 41. Johanna ter Meulen, Verslagboekje betreffende de bewoners der verhuurde perceelen, 1897, manuscript, PA 492, no. 39, MAA. 42. "Je zult goede rechtvaardig en teer voor ze zijn, ze zullen bij je kunnen vinden warmte, steun en begrijpen, je hart zal naar ze uitgaan, ook wanneer hun daden en inrichten veen gelegenheid bieden voor kritiek." J. ter Meulen to Johanna F. (Han) van Vlissingen, 13 November 1913, PA 492, no. 29, MAA. 43. Hudig and Hennij included a model rental agreement as an appendix. 44. Helene Mercier discusses the standards of selction for Vereeniging ten behoeve der arbeidersklasse, Over Arbeiderswoningen (Haarlem, 1887), 139. Johanna ter Meulen, acting on behalf of the Vereeniging tot het bouwen van Arbeiderswoningen, refused to allow the municipality to force her to take in unfit dwellers, but she did not wish to restrict selection to only the "easiest" inhabitants, J. ter Meulen to J. van Vlissingen, 16 April 1914, MAA. 45. Johanna ter Meulen discusses this aspect of the housing inspector's job in De Woningopzichteres, 13-4. In its first meetings, the 626 council committee for the management of municipal housing took up the issue of segregating certain families, 9 November, 14 December 1915, 9 May 1916. In the 1920s two special communities were established for asocial families. 46. P.L. Tak, "De Amsterdamsche Woningraad," De Kroniek 8, no. 371 (1 February 1902), 33-35. 47. "Het uitgangspunt voor verhoging van beschaving in de arbeidersclasse moet liggen in verbetering van de woningen." F. M. Wibaut, Levensbouw, Memories (Amsterdam, 1936), 137. J. ter Meulen, "De beschaafde vrouw als opzichteres over 48. arbeiderswoningen" (Amsterdam, 1898), Hudig and Henny, 91. 49. 50. Johanna ter Meulen to J. van Vlissingen, 18 June 1915, PA 492, no. 29, MAA. "Wiens toewijding aan de woningzaak, los van partijbelangen, bij 51. mij vast staat," Ibid. 52. "Daarwerd op wonderlijk ongevoelige wijze over de armsten, op even wonderlijk overgevoelige wijze over den arbeider gesproken." Johanna Meulen to J. van Vlissingen, 20 December 1914, PA 492, no. 29, MAA. ter 53. The housing issue was used to motivate women's interests in politics and win their support for the SDAP through its promise of housing improvement. Housing propaganda increased with the 1919 elections since the introduction of universal women's suffrage led the socialists to fear See, for example, that confessional parties would win the women's vote. Een woord aan de arbeiders en hunne vrouwen" J. H. Sch., "Hoe woont gij? Z. Gulden, "De vrouw en haar huis" (Amsterdam: (Amsterdam, SDAP, 1906); Bond van Social Democratische Vrouwenclubs, 1923); De Proletarische Vrouw, passim. 54. "...gelooven wij niet dat het moederschap van zelf paedagogisch inzicht en talent meebrengt. De kinderen zullen er het beste aan toe zijn als zij de opvoedsters krijgen die de beste paedagogische aanleg bezitten. Intusschen, laten we nog eens een oogenblik aannemen, dat de moeder de beste opvoedster is of worden kan, laten we aannemen dat ze zorgvuldig is voorbereid voor de taak der opvoeding...Dan nog zal die moeder toch onmogelijk de opvoedingkundige principes, die voor de gemeenschappilijke maatschappij nodig zijn, in toepassing kunnen brengen zonder hulp van gemeenschappelijke voorzieningen." M. Wibaut-Berdenis van Berlekom, "De De Socialistische Gids 3 (November, 1918), 816. The Vrouw en het Gezin," article reveals the influence of the American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The educated classes showed greater interest in the possibility of kitchenless houses which would free the wife from housework, yet The middle class housing society maintain intimate family life. area. Samenwerking was active in this 55. For an example of the social thought of the Reformed pillar, see J. R. Slotemaker de Bruine, Christelijke Sociale Studien (Utrecht, 1910). 56. "In een ruim en nette woning is de weg naar de hemel gemakkelijker te vinden dan in een krot." Katholieke Social Weekblad (1902). 57. The categories of housing were the very poor, industrial workers, farm workers, storekeepers, craftsmen, farmers, teachers and functionaries. Mededelingen Katholieke Sociale Actie, 1905-1908. 58. 59. "de krachtigste propagandist van het socialisme." Vlugschrift For a representative view of Catholic social policy, No. 7, June, 1906. 627 see J.D.J. Aengenent, Leerboek der sociologie (Leiden, 1909). 60. The following is a list of housing societies which had either ACOB, Algemeene, built or were planning to build in Amsterdam in 1920: Amsteldijk, Amsterdam over 't Ij, Amsterdam Zuid, Amsterdamsch Bouwfonds, De Arbeiderswoning, De Dageraad, Dr. Schaepman, Eigen Haard, Handwerkers Vriendenkring, HIJSM, Ons Belang, Ons Huis, Onze Woning, Het Oosten, Patrimonium, Protestantsche, Rochdale, Het Westen, Zomers Buiten. 61. "In sectaire groepjes en in kringen van beoefenaars van 't zelfde beroep of vak, was men aan 't werk getoogen, op echt Nederlandsche manier." H. d. V.(ries, Mzn.), "Onze bouwplannen in Amsterdam," De Handwerksman 22, no. 4 (August 1912). 62. In order to reduce the bureaucratic tangle, Keppler insisted that only existing societies be designated building sites. As a result, some societies never succeeded in building. 63. Gezondheidscommissie, Besloten Vergadering, 15 December 19. 64. The Handwerkers Vriendenkring was organized to provide new housing for dwellers from the primarily Jewish renewal district Uilenburg, but it formed a special case because of the demolition of houses and forced evictions. The Amsterdam Vereeniging tot het bouwen van Arbeiderswoningen also received a municipal subsidy. 65. Gezondheidscommissie, Verslag, Gemeenteverslag 1914, p. 23. 66. Notulenboek Ledenvergaderingen Amsterdams Bouwfonds, meeting 30 August 1905, and passim. 67. A. van Gijn, Woningbouw en woningwet, Modelstatuten voor Van Gijn vereenigingen als bedoeld in de Woningwet (Haarlem, 1904). favored encouraging private entreprise over the government aided housing societies: "bij de voorziening in de behoefte van arbeiderswoningen, zoolang onze maatschappij niet geheel volgens de droomen van het collectivisme gewijzigd is, de particuliere bouwnijverheid wel altijd de grootste rol zal vervullen." "Hoe kan van het standpunt der Woningwet de bouw van arbeiderswoningen worden bevorderd?" Tijdschrift voor Sociale The role of the societies was to improve the Hygiene 7 (1905) 145-155. housing type such that entrepreneur had to improve his. This same argument had been made by Drucker earlier. Van Gijn and the drafters of the Housing Act assumed that government funds would be used for housing only when private enterprise failed, and that the housing societies would continue to operate on the same basis as the philanthropic societies of the nineteenth century. They were unprepared for the cooperative ventures proposed by workers themselves. In defending private enterprise by insisting that housing societies charge market rents, van Gijn'cut short the dreams of some workers. 68. van Gijn, Woningbouw, 72-9. 69. George A. M. Kallenbach, "Over de pogingen door particulieren in het werk gesteld tot verbetering der arbeiderswoningen" (Ph. D. diss., Leiden University, 1892), 2. 70. "Heeren mogen niet genoeg op de hoogte van de behoeften der arbeiders zijn, arbeiders zijn dikwerf niet genoeg op de hoogte der zaken." Hasselt and Verschoor, 210-212. 71. Proceedings of the Tenth Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene 8 (1905), 86-87. 72. "'tLijkt mij deels als iets komende van boven af, deels doet het mij herinneren aan hofjesbouw." Scrutator (Arie Keppler), "Cooperatieve Bouwvereenigingen," De Kroniek 11, no. 573 (16 December 1905), 396. 73. B. Bymholt, Geschiedenis der arbeidersbeweging in Nederland, 628 For more on worker involvement in the call vol. 2 (Amsterdam, 1894), 612. for housing reform, see Carel Schade, Woningbouw voor arbeiders in het negentiende-eeuwse Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1981), 44, 141-45. "Nu is het met het woningvraagstuk als onderdeel der sociale 74. kwestie, eenigzins bijzonder gelegen. In tegenstelling met andere deelen van het vraagstuk zooals loonregeling, regeling van arbeidsduur en kiesrecht, wordt voor het woningvraagstuk niet zooveel gevoeld door wie er Omgekeerd belang bij hebben, als men billijk zou mogen verwachten. daarentegen zijn er onder de hoogere klasse die voor loonregeling en dergelijken niets voelen, doch voor het woningvraagstuk zich warm maken." "Werk aan de Winkel," De Gemeente Werkman 1, no. 1 (26 [Glimmerveen], April 1902). Ibid. 75. Hermans work appeared in, "De tehuizen van de Amsterdamsche 76. His book was circulated by the Proletariers," De Jonge Gids (1898-1899). union leadership among members of the diamond workers union, the largest Hermans to ANDB, 21 May 1901, ANDB archive, IISG. Amsterdam union. Het Volk, 7 October 1913. 77. "Tal van sollicitanten het een groot voorrecht achtten, een 78. woning der Vereeniging te mogen bemachtige." J. van Altena to J. Kruseman, 15 March 1896, PA 297, no. 49, MAA. "Gij arbeiders strijdt voor betere en minder duure woningen, en 79. die elementen die met u voelen en de capaciteiten bezitten, laten die hun krachten inspannen om u voor te lichten met bouwplannen, financieele Scrutator, regelingen enz., ja dan zijn we op den goeden weg!" 397. "Cooperatieve Bouwvereenigingen," Proceedings of the Second Congres voor Openbare Gezondheids80. regeling, 78-79. are of many of the housing societies The early histories 81. the first or in recorded in union newsletters, commemorative publications, annual report of the society. See, for example, Cooperatieve "Rochdale 50 jaar, Woningbouwvereeniging Rochdale, Jaarverslag 1908; jubileumboek uitgegeventer gelegenheid van het 50 jarig bestaanvan de cooperatieve bouwvereeniging 'Rochdale' te Amsterdam" (Amsterdam, 1953); G.C.J. Drijfhout, "De gouden mijlpaal 1909 8 September 1959, Gedenkboek gelegenheid van het Gouden Jubeleum van de uitgegeven ter For woningbouwvereinging 'Eigen Haard' te Amsterdam" (Amsterdam, 1959). the genesis of the ACOB, see De Volksschool 1902-1912. D. Hudig to B. Wielenga, 27 December 1910, RA 877, no. 304, CBSA 82. archive, IISG. 83. Within societies, political differences often led to strife. Both Rochdale in 1902-3 and Eigen Haard in 1909 suffered difficulties at their foundations because of struggles between thee left and right leaning segments of their membership. The last two societies were specifically set up in 1912 for 84. The society Oholei Jacob those living in the renewal district Uilenberg. was set up to build near the old neighborhood, but proved unsuccessful in its efforts, RA 941, no. 311, CBSA archive, IISG. 85. Keppler to Wibaut, 13 December 1916, 3759 VH 1916; 5156 WD 1916. Keppler also suggested consolidation of existing societies, 5605 WD 1917, Rochdale and ACOB, Eigen Haard and 3678 VH 1918, 29 October 1917. plans together in the Stadion district and housing develop did Algemeene in Watergraafsmeer. 86. These are collected in the archives of the CBSA in the 629 International Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis. 87. "Uw wenschen geformuleerd in te brengen bij den Woningraad, op dat deze te steun kan verleenen bij het oprichten eener vereeniging tot verbetering van de woningtoestanden der diamantbewerkers. Dit toch zal de eerste stap zijn, die de ANDB moet nemen, en waarop subsidie aanvragen bij Louise van der Pek-Went to H. Polak, 10 November de gemeente kan volgen." 1905, no. 3055/18, ANDB archive, IISG. 88. J. Kruseman, "Woningbouwvereniging voor dee woningwet," in Nationale Woningraad, Beter Wonen (Amsterdam, 1938), 35-45; J. Mol, ed., "Gedenkboek uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het 50 jarig bestaan van de Vereeniging 'Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijging van Eigen Woningen,' opgericht 2 November 1868" (Amsterdam, 1918), 55-59. 89. In a letter to Treub, then head of the CBSA, the socialist worker H. H. Wollring, who took an active role in housing reform, insists on being paid for his time when a meeting is cancelled. His family cannot do without the pay, he writes. Such direct glimpses into the financial difficulties of worker participants in the housing movement appear only occasionally. Wollring to Treub, 19 December 1901, no. 19, CBSA archive, IISG. 90. Correspondance between Treub and the Cooperatieve Bouwvereeniging 'Eigen Haard," 1901, RA 152, no. 234, CBSA archive, IISG. 91. H. Glimmerveen to Treub, 4 January 1904, letter 4273, RA 374, no. 248, CBSA archive, IISG. 92. Hudig letter, 18 November 1908, RA 637, no. 248, CBSA archive, IISG. 93. H[enri] P(olak], "Wonen," Weekblad ANDB 11, no. 45 (10 November 1905). 94. "Werk aan de Winkel," De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 1 (26 April 1902). 95. "Woning-cooperatie," De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 20 (28 June 1902); "De nieuwe woningwet," 1, no. 23 (19 June 1902); "Woningcooperatie," 1, no. 24 (26 July 1902); "Bouwcooperatie," 1, no. 29 (30 August 1902). 96. "De beste krachten der organisatie slurpt zij up en zijn deze eenmaal zakenmenschen geworden, dan is er niet veel meer van te verwachten." Domela Nieuwenhuis and C. B. de Best, quoted in Verslag Openbare Cursusvergadering der Vereeniging van Stadsreinigers E.m.M., 14 December 1902, De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 47 (3 January 1902). 97. "Cooperatie is de frobelmethode in de opvoeding der arbediers tot krachtiger, welbewuste strijders voor de plaats in de samenleving die hen toekomt," "Bouwcooperatie," De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 46 (24 December 1902). 98. A.J.C. Rueter, De Spoorwegstakingen van 1903 (Leiden, 1935), 297, 330, 323-326, 344. 99. "Rochdale 50 jaar," 27; De Gemeente-Werkman 1902-3; De Amsterdamsche Gemeentewerklieden, 1906-7. 100. P. Roeland to Treub, 14 May 1903, letter 3337, RA 374, no. 248, CBSA archive, IISG. 101. "Wat staat de commissie nu te wachten? Dat ze met de gewaardeerden hulp van enkele hooggeplaatste mannen, ijverend voor een arbeidersbelang, dat arbeidersbelang straks zal hebben te verdedigen tegenover arbeiders?" De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 49 (17 January 1903). 102. "Werk aan de Winkel," De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 1 (26 April 1902). 630 103. "Rochdale 50 jaar," 31-2; RA 374, no. 248, CBSA archive, IISG. 104. "Want we verstaan uitnemend wel hoe het met ons artikeltje gegaan zal zijn. Het is ons te machtig. Het gaat ons te hoog. We hebben geen kennis van zulke zaken en weten niet hoe ze aan te vatten. Men voelt wel wat voor de zaak, maar durft ze niet aan. En het slot is, dat er niets van komt. We maken daar geen verwijt van, en geven we direct toe dat het ons zelf ook dikwijls zoo ging. "Schrijver dezes, die niet het voorrecht had volledig lager onderwijs te ontvangen, ondervindt persoonlijk te veel al den hinder van het gemis eener behoorlijke verstandelijke ontwikkeling, dan dat hij er anderen hard over zou vallen wanneer ze op dien grond opzien tegen een arbeid die ook waarlijk zoo kinderachtig niet is. "Maar vrees is een slechte leidsvrouw! "Laat ons die vrees dan nu eens overwinnen en waar we nu weten dat we mogen rekenen op den steun van een man als de heer Neiszen, en waar we bovendien de voorlichting van het Centraal Bureau voor Sociale Adviezen kunnen inwinnen, ons eens met de borst voor deze zaak zetten." De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 19 (21 June 1902). 105. For instance, one a letter from a "faithful reader" noted the need for support from more educated people such as "bosses." "Zeer zeker is steun van meer ontwikkeld noodig, bv. van onze chefs," Een abonne and getrouw lezer Z., De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 22 (12 July 1902); P. Roeland made a similar comment in a letter to Treub, "Zal zoodanige poging kans van slagen hebben dan zullen wij de hulp moeten hebben van mannen die door hun maatschappelijk aanzien en kennis ons ter zijde willen stand," 14 May 1903, letter 3337, RA 374, no. 248, CBSA archive, IISG. 106. "Moeilijk veel meer dan figuranten zouden kunnen zijn." The membership preferred non-member trustees. H. Glimmerveen to Treub, 13 September 1903, letter 3958, RA 374, no. 248, CBSA archive, IISG. In 1908, Rochdale did have a worker trustee, L. W. Tol, who served alongside J.H. Nieszen, director of the municipal tram service and J. Menno Huizinga, a doctor. Officers of the society included Keppler and Henny alongside the workers C. Koster, P. Roeland, and C. Melon. 107. "Men begrijpt waarom. Het bestuur van een zich flink ontwikkelde cooperatie is zoo heel gemakkelijk niet en zou wel eens kunnen gaan boven de verstandelijke krachten der leden." "Bouwcooperatie," De Gemeente-werkman 1, no. 27 (16 August 1902). 108. "Het is nog niet hetzelfde wie een advies geeft; en wie op grond van zijn schatting van de waarde van ons geschrijf *geneigd mocht zijn zich buiten de zaak te houden, op de oprichting van cooperatie tegen te werken, zij er hier naardrukkelijk aan herinnerd dat we ten opzichte van dit onderwerp zoo weinig mogelijk op eigen oordeel afgaan, doch doorgaans slechts in andere weergeven wat als mogelijk en bereikbaar doen den heer N. en het Centraal Bureau werd aangenomen." "Vakvereeniging en Bouwcooperatie," De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 25 (2 August 1902). "Wie nu weet dat de heer Tellegen.. .en als technicus naam heeft, en als hoofdambtenaar der Gemeente geacht mag worden met de stemming of het Prinsenhof bekend te zijn...die zal moeten toegeven dat waar de heer Tellegen dezen raad geeft, ze iets meer dan gewone beteekenis heeft. "Bouwcooperatie," De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 46 (24 Dec. 1902). 109. De Gemeente-Werkman 2, no. 57 (14 Mar 1903). The willing participation and encouragement of the high-placed was surely a "snake in the grass" according to this commentator. 631 110. "Al zijn deze heeren dan ook geen 'arbeiders,' niemand zal toch willen ontkennen dat ze in een aangelegenheid als deze met eenig recht mogen meespreken en dat hunne adviezen zekere waarde hebben." H. Glimmerveen, De Gemeente-Werkman 2, no. 58 (21 March 1903). 111. Many of the yearly reports of the housing societies comment on the low attendence at meetings, especially in the first years of organization before construction of housing began. 112. They may have been put off by his phrasing: "Het moeten menschen zijn, in staat en bereid een sommetje te storten in het aandeelen-kapitaal - eenige honderd guldens wellicht." H.P. (Henri Polak), "Wonen;" "Cooperatieve Woningbouw," Weekblad ANDB 12, no. 4 (26 January 1906) and no. 5 (2 Feb. 1906). 113. Vereeniging tot verbetering der Volkshuisvesting 'De Arbeiderswoning,' Jaarverslag 1 (1 October 1915 - 31 December 1916). 114. Keppler to CBSA, 2 March 1906, RA 549, no. 266, CBSA archive, IISG. Other early correspondence of the society can be found in the Wibaut archive at the IISG. The first officers of De Arbeiderswoning were Dr. G. de Gelder, A. Keppler,.W. A. Bonger, trustees, Wibaut, Hudig, and G.T.J. de Jongh. 115. Notulenboek, Ledenvergaderingen, Amsterdamsch Bouwfonds, 30 bestaan der August 1905 to December 1923; S. J. van Lier, "Vijftigjarig Vereniging 'Amsterdams Bouwfonds' 1906-1956" (Amsterdam, 1956); RA 308, no. 243, CBSA archive, IISG. Amsterdamsch Bouwfonds was established in 1906 by C. W. Janssen, J. Kruseman, J. ter Meulen, Louse van der Pek-Went, J. E. van der Pek, and H. C. A. Henny, all of whom were also active in the Amsterdamsch Woningraad. Amsterdam Over 't Ij was set up in 1906 by W. C. van der Hoeven, RA 582, no. 271, CBSA archive, IISG. 116. The Vereniging Oud-Amsterdam was admitted as a housing society under the Housing Act in 1904, but its plans for clearance of a block of housing in the Jordaan never materialized. RA 381, no. 271, CBSA archive, IISG. 117. Bossenbroek had written to the CBSA for examples of statutes in July 1910; meetings and exchanges with the CBSA followed. Letter 6 July 1910, RA 861, CBSA archive, IISG. On 10 July 1910 a preparatory committee consisting of Patrimonium leaders set up the organization's Amsterdam housing society. Patrimonium's Bode 2, no. 6 (1 March 1911) and no. 12 (1 June 1911). 118. Ad Bevers, Oost west thuis best (Amsterdam, 1962), 17-21. 119. The Federatie van Amsterdamsche Woningbouwverenigingenn was initiated by the socialist housing society Algemeene and the Catholic Het Oosten. 120. In July 1916 the municipality agreed to raise the loans granted the housing societies in exchange for the promise of rental hikes after conclusion of the war. Mayor and aldermen to municipal council, 29 September 1916, 3014 VH 1916. 121. "Rochdale 50 jaar," 34. 122. H. Glimmerveen to Treub, 15 September 1903, letter 3958, RA 374, no. 248, CBSA archive, IISG. Rochdale insisted on making a three quarters vote necessary for expulsion from the society because the quarter vote suggested by the CBSA might lead to political misuse of the vote. 123. Rochdale, "Opzichters instructie," January-December 1914, RA 104, no. 324, CBSA archive, IISG.. 124. For example, the committee for the society Algemeene organized musical events, outings for children, and use of the shared garden area. 632 125. H. Lucassen, "50 jaar Woningbouwvereenging 'Amsterdam Zuid,' 1911-1961" (Amsterdam, 1961). 126. "Beoordeel eens met nuctere zakelijkheid de macht en den invloed van uw bouwvereeniging en ge komt tot de conclusie, dat er nog zoowat alles aan ontbreekt, dat ze eigentlijk niet meer is dan het knechtje van iedereen. Zij heeft af te wachten wat allerlei hoogere machten believen goed te vinden. Alles wordt van bovenal bedisseld en beslist. Ziedaar de feitelijke toestand. Moet het zoo blijven? "Wij achten den tijd gekomen, dat de arbeidersklasse zich, meer dan tot nu, met de volkshuisvesting bemoeit. Reeds lang genoeg is er van buiten af verordeneerd, hoe de arbeiderswoning er uit mag zien. Zeker, wij waardeeren den steun en de voorlichting door he hervormers uit andere maatschappelijke kringen gegeven. Wij hebben geen geringschatting voor hetgeen verricht is door officieele colleges en belangstellende particulieren, doch wij meenen, dat voortaan de belanghebbenden zelf zich meer moeten bemoeien, meer zelfstandig hun houding bepalen. De arbeiders klasse dient er toe gebracht het vraagstuk der volkshuisvesting met eigen oogen te bekijken en een haar passende oplossing te geven. "Wat wil de bond van arbeiderswoningbouwvereenigingen in Nederland?" (Watergraafsmeer, 1919). Chapter Seven: HOUSING DESIGN AND VALUES 1. Proceedings of the Tenth Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling, p. 26. 2. "Wat over 75 jaar de "normale" woning van een arbeider zal zijn ontsnapt natuurlijk nu aan vaststelling. Dat zij anders zal zijn dan nu, blijkt hieruit dat reeds thans van wijzigingen wordt gesproken, die, nog slechts bij hooge uitzondering doorgevoerd, een aanwijzing bevatten van de richting in welke de ontwikkeling waarschijnlijk zal gaan. De Woningraad denkt hierbij aan centrale verwarming, gemeenschappelijke waschinrichtingen, vuilniskokers, badgelegenheden, daktuinen, gemeenschappelijk tuinen." Petition to Gemeenteraad, November 1909. 3. "Dat deze alle kans hebben op verwezenlijking wil de Woningraad met het bovenstaande niet beweren. De voorbeelden hebben alleen de beteekenis duidelijk te maken dat de woningstandaard zich wijzigt en in de toekomst zal blijven wijzigen." Ibid. 4. At the exhibition "De Vrouw" in 1913 the architect Greta Derlinge designed a model dwelling for the middle class which was equipped with central heating, warm water, electric light, and a modern kitchen. A bath and washroom was provided by Henri Brugman, Catalogus van de tentoonstelling 'De Vrouw' 1813-1913 (Amsterdam, 1913), 235-37. One twenty year old male visitor to the exhibition noted that the maid's room too luxurious with its washstand, bed, and cupboard. He claimed that a built-in bed in the attic was sufficient and that anything better would spoil her. "Het een en ander over Het Huis 1913," De Vrouw no. 12 (30 August 1913), p. 2. 5. "Voor de minstbescafden der mindere classen slechts openbare privaten passen." 6. Gezondheidscommissie, Report on the condition of cellar dwellings, by committee formed 26 October 1872 (1873). 7. Dr. Wintgens, "De eischen eener gezonde woning," Proceedings of the First Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling, 1896. Item No. 15 633 stated that every home should be equipped with a toilet with connection to the outside air, and that in multistoried housing there should be at least one toilet on each floor. 8. "Bij velen schijnt nog de meening te bestaan dat een badkamer en baden luxe dingen zijn." P. H. Schreuder and N. Cariot, De huishouding in al haar onderdeelen volgens de laatste en hygienische eischen (Amsterdam, 1901), p.55. Commissie van advies in zake Gemeentewoningen, 14 December 1915. 9. 10. Letter in Het Volk, 16 June 1920. Van Epen actually introduced showers into his workers' housing by designing a one square meter closet to be converted by the worker. 11. "Dagloners woningen to Amsterdam," BW 23, no. 6 (7 February Rents ran fl.45-2.20. 1903), p 57-8. Plan of Polanenstraat housing: "Behoorende tot de zeer breede laag van eenvoudige, meest losse 12. Amsterdamsch Woningraad, Adress to Ministerie van arbeiders." Their plan was for double parcels 15 square meters, Binnenlandse Zaken. with a very small kitchen, two small bedrooms, two closets, toilet and hall, renting for f2.00-2.50. Gezondheidscommissie, no. 391, 22 December 1911. 13. 14. Besloten vergadering Gezondheidscommissie, 18 December 1911. Amsterdam Bouwfonds, notes of the meetings of 26 April and 1 15. November 1912. 16. Amsterdam Bouwfonds to Health Board, 4 January 1913. 17. On the proposal for Het Westen, see AG 1 (1919), no. 1175, 24 Oct 1911, p. 2825ff. See also AG 1 (1912), no. 257, 23 February 1912, Early objections to Het 245; and discussion AG 2, 13 March 1912, 366-9. Westen's plan as old fashioned came from the Public Works Committee, 19 Plans for the second block next to the first eliminated Oct. 1911, 263. to back option and broke up the unwieldy block with cross the back 1035 families signed up to rent the 328 dwellings of the streets. Over second block. 549 V.H. 1914. 18. Tellegen, "Rapport," 1914. 19. Discussion about continuation of the Health Board's program of condemnatiion heightened in 1908 and 1911 as can be seen in the arguments put forth whenever massive condemnations were proposed in those years. These heated discussions paved the way for acceptance of municipal housing in 1914. 20. The "filtering" theory was much debated in the Netherlands and abroad. J. W. C. Tellegen demonstrated its failure in the report he wrote as director of the BWT preparatory for the introduction of municipal 634 housing, "Rapport van den directeur van het Gemeentelijk Bouw- en Woningtoezicht over het voorstel tot woningbouw van de Raadsleden Wollring, c.s." (25 June 1914), AG 1 (1914), 2698-99. Socialists rejected the filtering notion. They supported 21. subsidized municipal construction for the poorest and self-supporting A typical housing society construction for the better off workers. AG 2 no. 334, 365; discussion on the topic is to be found in AG 2 (1908), (1909), 7 April 1909, 370-408; and AG 2, 19 March 1912, no. 269, 484ff. 22. AG 1 (1911), 26 July 1911, no. 709, 1004. AG 2 (1912), 20 November 1912, 2200. 23. 24. Housing Committee meeting, 15 April 1913. In fact, in Amsterdam this issue of setting a limit resolved in favor of a standard which at times conflicted with nation policy. In 1913 Minister Heemskerk rejected proposals for seven housing society projects in Amsterdam, stating that he would only approve the simplest of plans. With a change of ministry, the Struggles over the definition plans were approved by Cort van der Linden. For of working and middle class housing continued after the war. instance, Z. Gulden objected to the 1920 housing proposal for Ons Huis in Watergraafsmeer because the housing had been designated as "middle class" to conform wwth national standards. Gulden objected that acceptance of such a designation would make it impossible to propose a similar housing type as workers' housing. Housing Committee meeting, 12 January 1920. The dwellings on Boerhaavelann by JC van Epen followed the same 25. plans he used for the housing on Pretoriusstraat. The survey is in Volksschool 8, no. 8 (3 March 1909). 26. "Dat men zal bouwen in zekeren zin mooiere woningen dan vele menschen noodig hebben, zouden nemen, wanneer zij genoeg woningen konden vinden. Daardoor brengt men de menschen eigenlijk in een betere woning, juist in anders zouden kiezen en de Gemeente zal nu wellict dan zij no. 568, 21 May 1913, dergelijke gevallen gaan bijpassen." AG 2 (1913), 907. 27. "Het is dus niet het verschaffen van hulp tot het verkrijgen van omstandigheden van het een woning die beter is dan met de financielle gezin zou zijn overeen to brengen, integendeel, het geldt hier het voorzien in een bepaald dringende behoefte, om armen menschen, die groote gezinnen hebben, een menschwaardige woning te geven." Ibid., 908. Henri Polak 28. AG 1 (1903), no. 1053, 30 November 1903, 2093. stated, "Eindelijk zou hij wenschen, dat de 'verplichting om, zoo Er zit mogelijk, plaats te nemen in een bijwagen' niet worden geschapen. iets stuitends in dat voorschrift. De tram is een democratisch vervoermiddel, dat geen onderscheid van rang, stand of klasse kent, noch kennen moet. Het zal goed zijn, geen enkelen maatregel to nemen, waardoor om zoo te zeggen, eene scheiding tusschen bokken en schapen wordt in het leven geroepen." 29. Public Works Committee meeting, 6 July 1910, 231. 30. AG 2 (1910), 27 July 1910, p. 914-29. An unfavorable view of these gardens appeared in a later report of the Director of Public Works (6 March 1913, no. 2559) in which he expresses the expectation that they would not be well-maintained. Posthumus Meyjes in the Public Works Committee also expressed concern in the 10 April 1913 meeting: "Bijna overal waar voortuintjes zijn aangelegd, is, in plaats van een tuintje, een rommel ontstaan, die het uiterlijk aanzien geducht schaadt." On the issue of parks in Amsterdam see H. P. Berlage, J. van Hasselt, D. Hudig and J. Kruseman, "De Amsterdamsche Parken en Plansoenen" (Amsterdam, 635 1909), report of a commission of the Amsterdam Woningraad, which argues for greater municipal intervention in the provision of urban green space and particularly for a large urban park. See also Thijsse, "De ParkenIn 1911 the mayor and kwestie," Algemeene Handelsblad, 5 January 1908. Vliegen, proposed a by councillor proposal aldermen, acting on an earlier For a 1911. November 14 1257, no. woods north of the Y. AG 1 (1911), De Rooijen, van history of urban parks in the Netherlands, see Maurits de in voorziening groen de over Groene Stad, een historische studie Nederlandse stad (The Hague, 1984). Public Works Committee meeting, 17 March 1910, 105. 31. See for example Public Works Committee meetings, 26 May 1906, 32. on Lepelstraat; 25 May 1908, 83-84 on Museumterrein; 3 February 104-6 1910, 62 on the Overtoom. "Door de uitvoering van die plannen zouden toch Z.G. 33. achterbuurtjes ontstaan, die tot verontreiniging aanleiding zouden geven en extra verlichting en bewaking noodig zouden maken." 8691 PW 1910, 1 The Algemene's plans, by H.P. Berlage, had proposed a pair of April 1911. freestanding groups of nine dwellings each on the area which became a on the public way. square facing directly "Met de benaming 'achterbuurtjes' is men gewoon geheel iets 34. anders aan te duiden dan wij bedoelden." Letter to mayor and aldermen, 5 The July 1911 in Algemeene Woningbouwvereeniging, Jaarverslag 1911, . plans are in BWT dossiers 18995, 22033, 5720. final The annual reports of the Algemeene list membership by 35. occupation. AG 2 (1909), 1422-23. 36. Algemeene, Jaarverslag 1911, 25-26. Amsterdamsch Woningraad, 37. The council responded to the Adress to Gemeenteraad, January 1911. petition in AG 2 (1911), 18 May 1911, 593. Public Works Committee meeting, 18 June 1918, 70. 38. "Omdat woningwetbouw minder zoude strocken met het karakter der 39. overige bebouwing langs den Amstel." 3211 VH 1918, September 1918. Public Works Committee meeting, 24 December 1918, . 40. Tellegen to Alderman of Public Works, 983 VH 1919, 22 April 41. 1919. Tellegen to Alderman of Public Works, 313 VH 1919, 7 March 1919. 42. 904 PW 1919, 13 March 1919. 43. For the continuing debate over the designation of land for 44. The letter of private developers and housing societies, see 657 VH 1920. the government clear makes 1920 4 December of Minister 'of Labor Aalberse the after agian work start intention to encourage private developers to war. A.I. No. 27166 1920. "Je kleedt je naar je stand en naar je geld, dat is beter dan al 45. Marie het vloddergoed dat sommige loopen om een Juffrouw te lijken." Spaarnaaij, Het Leven en werken, het lijden en strijden door onze fabrieksarbeiders (The Hague, 1898), 59, 164. 46. "Men bouwe soliede, maar men zij zuinig en streng eenvoudig, lucht en slechts indachtig aan den drievoudigen eisch van licht, vrijheid." J. ter Meulen, Huisvesting van Armen te Amsterdam (Haarlem, 1903), 68. 47. "En daarbij werd nooit gedacht behalve door Keppler aan zuinigheid bij de bouw, als het maar mooi was, een mooie gevel, iets om Meulen to Han van J. ter mee voor de dag te komen, dan was men tevreden." Vlissigen, 20 December 1914, PA 492, no. 29, MAA. 636 48. "De lui bij wie ze geweest zijn vinden de woningen te mooi, geen arbeiderswoningen meer." Hudig for CBSA to Keppler, 18 November 1908, no. 278, RA 637, CBSA archive, IISG. 49. The difference in orientation was often made clear during the first council discussions of housing proposals by housing societies. The right wing resisted support of higher quality housing, but had no objections to less expensive housing, renting for f1.00-50. Their willingness to support the people evicted from condemned housing but not the settled workers, reflects their expectation that housing societies would be organized top-down by reformers rather than worker-run. AG 2 (1909), 7 April 1909, 370-408. 50. "Een zoo eenvoudig mogelijk type," Tellegen, "Rapport," AG 1 The simplest possible housing meant four storey buildings (1914), 2720. with units consisting of livingroom, kitchen, and bedrooms. Tellegen rejected the back to back housing solution because it was inflexible and did not permit redesign as housing standards rose. "Het ontwerpen van de plannen voor deze woningen stelt den 51. architect en den woningdienst voor een zier moeilijk taak. Eenerzijds mag hij nooit uit het oog verliezen, dat deze woningen zoodanig moeten zijn, dat bij de bewoners steed de prikkel blijft bestaan, naar een duurdere woning te verhuizen, zoodra zij daartoe eenigzins in staat zijn en dat bij hen, die in woningen wonen, waarvoor de gemeenschap geen toeslag betaalt geen naijver wordt opgewekt; anderzijds moeten de woningen niettemin aan alle eischen der hygiene voldoen en moet de mindere aantrekkelijkheid niet gezocht worden in mindere bewoonbaarheid." Gezondheidscommissie, Report, AG 1 (1916), no. 128, 24 May 1916, 539. 52. Gezondheidscommissie, Report, Gemeenteverslag 1914, 23. "Wat nuttig en goed was zooveel mogelijk in alle woningen zou 53. worden aangebracht, maar niet wat men onder versiering zou kunnen rangschikken." Commissie van advies in het beheer der gemeentelijke woningen, 14 December 1915; Besloten vergadering Gezondheidscommissie, 15 May 1915. 54. The first municipal projects, designed by de Bazel, van der Pek, and Berlage, Gratama and Versteeg, excluded separate kitchens, eliminated internal hallways and minimized entry halls. 55. "Het meubelair in de 'mooie kamer,' die alleen voor het ontvangen van bezoek gebruikt mocht worden, was van mahoniehout. Het bestond uit een ovale tafel met dikke poot in het midden, een canape, zes stoelen en een penaatkastje. Bekleding rood pluche, tegen verkleuren beschermd door anti-makassars. Op de schoorsteen, daarboven een vergulde spiegel met kuif prijkte, een door mij zeer bewonderde vergulde pendule onder stolp en een paar vazen. J. C. van Dam, Sociale Logboek, 1900-1960 (Amsterdam, 1960), 25. 56. Helene Mercier, Over Arbeiderswoningen (Haarlem, 1887), 137, 140-1. 57. Nationale Tentoonstelling voor Vrouwenarbeid, Catalogus (Amsterdam 1899), 164. 58. "tIs een, met de eischen der gezondheid niet overeen te brengen gewoonte zelf in een kleine kamer of alcoof te gaan slapen terwijl men een der groote kamers van 'thuis voor salon of ontvangkamer heeft opgericht." Schreuder and Cariot, 17. 59. "Al is de woning reeds te klein, toch moet er een dikwijls hermetisch gesloten 'mooie' kamer af. Zoo goed als altijd wordt dat dan gevonden op de slaapgelegenheid, natuurlijk ten koste der gezondheid. Als 637 haringen in een ton wordt dan vaak het geheele gezin 'snachts opgeborgen in een alcoof..." De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 39 (8 November 1902). 60. Catalogus van de tentoonstelling De Vrouw 1813-1913, 202-203. 61. L. Heyermans, Gezondheidsleer voor arbeiders (Rotterdam: W.L. & 148. J. Brusse, 1905), 62. AG 2 (1905), 21 June 1905, p 9 4 6 . 63. A. Ogterop, "De gezellige woning" (Amsterdam: Bond van Social Democratische Vrouwenclubs, no date). 64. "Erg op opschik gesteld en op 't koopen van mooie dingen." Johanna ter Meulen, Verslagboekje betreffende de verhuurderpercellen, p. 68, PA 492, no. 39, MAA. 65. "...dat zij minder zorg aan het bereiden van het middagmaal dan aan het schuren van haar kopergoed besteden, maar niet tot inzicht schijnen te kunnen komen, dat de meubels om de menschen, niet de menschen om de meubels in de wereld zijn, en daarom man en kinderen bij hun thuiskomst meer op boenen en schrobben dan op rustig, gezellig samenzitten onthalen." Mercier, 239. 66. "Een minderheid wenscht deze bepaling zoo te redigeeren dat bij een totale ruimte van 40 M3 de woning uit slechts een kamer zou mogen bestaan; zij vrees, dat wanneer twee vertrekken van te zamen dien inhoud worden toegestaan, bij de bekende gewoonte van ons volk het grootste voor 'pronkkamer' het kleinste voor 'woonkamer' zal worden gebruikt." AG 1 (1905), no. 590, article 139, p. 795. 67. Ibid. 68. AG 1 (1905), no. 622, 822; AG 2 (1905), 22 June 1905, 918-920. In a circular of 1919, the national government also tried to prevent parlor by specifying that subsidies would be granted only for dwellings which included at least three bedrooms and no more than five rooms. 69. The Handwerkers Vriendenkring distinguished its non-subsidized units by including a full kitchen in them. Slightly over half of the units were subsidized. 70. "Huiselijk museum met allerei prullerei." Algemeene Handelsblad, 23 May 1916. 71. The figures cited here and in the following analyses ar based on a study of the dossiers in the Bouw- en Woningtoezicht for each of 87 housing projects approved by the Amsterdam Municipal Council between 1908 and 1919. The projects and their locations are listed in the appendices. Project numbers in the notes refer to the list in appendix 1. Housing societies which built almost exclusively designs which would not permit a parlor are Amsterdam Zuid, Amsteldijk, Ons Belang, Handwerkers Vriendenkring, Rochdale, Arbeiderswoning, Westen, Dageraad, Protestantsche. 72. She commented on the fact that decoration could even be found in attics, and ridiculed those who displayed nouveau riche tendencies. 73. "Waarom hiermede de vrouw haar illusie ontnomen, die in de meest gevallen toch zoo weinig van de genoegen des leven smaakt, vooral zij die aan harr woning gebonden zijn door hulpbehoevende kinderen?" Letter of 15 January 1884, published 19 January 1885 in "Nog eens de Woningplannen," J. C. van Marken, Uit het fabriekleven, vol. 1, 268-9 74. AG 2 (1905), 21 June 1905, 942-3. 638 75. During the war there was a steep decline in the percentage of housing society dwellings with true parlors or rooms which could be used as parlors: Percent of units with: potential parlors parlors 1909-14 1915-18 34.7% 11.4% 12.4% 1.2% 1919 26.4% 10.3% 76. Other societies which included parlors in around 10% of their units were HYSM (10.6%), Dr. Schaepman (11.5%), het Algemene (12.6%), and Bouwmaatschappij (12.8%). 77. If alternatives are included the percentages are: Bouwmaatschappij, 42.4%, Oosten 47.5%, Amsterdam Vereeniging tot het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen 83.12%, HYSM 97.9%. This option did not necessarily mean that the livingroom was put aside as parlor; it was often used as a bedroom or daily sitting room or both. But the possibility for its use as salon was there, and this lead to objections by the Health Board. Eigen Haard and Algemeene had plans which allowed bedrooms to be used as parlor. 78. The correlations between rent and the percentage of units with possible parlors were: prewar .50, wartime -0.15, postwar -0.02. The projects which provided parlor space fit into two categories. Those with a designated parlor in a significant percentage of units were, with two exceptions, above average in rent. Those with below average rent and parlor space usually followed the pattern of livingroom kitchen and separate livingroom. 79. "Maar hoe het dan wel zijn moet, hoe men zijn woning dan wel ingericht wenscht, daarvan gaf men zich niet voldoende rekenschap." De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 31 (11 Oct. 1902). and no. 39 (8 Nov. 1902). 80. J. A. Snikkers letter De Gemeente-Werkman 1, no. 50 (24 January 1903), 2. 81. D. Hudig, "De bouwvereenigingen en de nieuwe tijd," Woningbouw 3, no. 1/2 (March 1919), 3 The controversial theory of "filtering" (see note 20 above) 82. justified the provision of housing primarily for this group of workers, since it was believed that the housing vacated by the better off workers would become available to the less well off. However, the arguments in favor of municipal provision of housing for the poorest were bolstered by evidence against "filtering." 83. Municipal surveys of those dwelling in condemned housing reveal these patterns clearly. See especially , "Verplaatsing van de bevolking uit de in 1905 onbewoonbaar verklaarde woningen," in Verslag opgemaakt ter voldoening aan het bepaalde in art. 52 der Woningwet over het jaar 1905, AG 1 (1905), appendix A, table C. 84. One woman asked the doctor who complained that drying damp clothes in the living room was a threat to her sick husband if she could dry them at his attic. Smit, AG 2 (1905), 23 June 1905, 943. 85. Families were occasionally given bedframes through charily or through the housing society itself. In 1920 Keppler told of a family found wandering in the streets which was brought into temporary municipal facilities at a school on Wittenburgerstraat. It was later transferred into housing for asocial families and finally given a subsidized home with kitchen and four bedrooms in the Handwerkers Vriendenkring project. 639 However, the family did not use two of the bedrooms because they had no linens and had no money for them. Housing Committee meeting, 12 January 1920. 86. "De kamers worden niet geregeld schoongehouden, de vloeren zijn doorgaans bedekt met voddige stukken tapijt en karpet, aan de trappen wordt niets gedaan, de wasch bij velen niet op tijd verzorgd, de bedden worden 'smorgens niet direct afgehaald, de kleeding wordt slecht onderhouden." A. v.d. Wijk-Groot, Verslag over de arbeiderswoningen, Blok AW I and AW V, June- December 1919, 5730 VH 1919. 87. Ibid. 88. "Beschaafd wonen noemen wij het bewonen van een huis zoo dat woon- en slaapvertrekken en keuken enz. zooveel mogelijk van elkaar geschieden zijn. En hoe geringer de ontwikkeling des te grooter is de neiging om alles maar in het zelvde vertrek te doen. Die neiging moet worken tegengegaan zooveel maar mogelijk." Louise v. d. Pek-Went, quoted in Clara Brinkgreve, "Wonen onder toezicht," (Masters thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1978), 48. 89. The prevalance of single room dwellings in Amsterdam is discussed above in Chapter Three. At the second Congres voor Gezondheidsregeling, Wollring spoke against the single room dwelling, identifying living room, bedroom, kitchen and attic as the minimum requirements of a dwelling, p. 102. The Amsterdamsch Bestuurdersbond petitioned the municipality in 1905 to effectively prohibit the single room dwelling. 90. The experimental housing designed by van der Pek for Amsterdam Bouwfonds was not funded by the Housing Act. 91. "De vrouw des huizes in arbeidersgezinnen die meestal bij hare werkzaamheden niet over hulp krachten kan beschikken speciaal in gezinnen, welke slechts woningen met lage huurprijzen kunnen bekostigen, die dus gedwongen is, bij het gereedmaken der maaltijden, het doen der wasch en andere dergelijke werkzaamheden, waarvoor de keuken bestemd is, hare kinderen in hare onmiddleljke nabijheid te houden teneinde het oog op hen te hebben, door den aard van hare werkzaamheden wel gedwongen is het grootste deel van den dag met hare kinderen juist in die keuken door te brengen, die keuken als woonvertrek te bezigen..." Gezondheidscommissie, no. 391, 22 December 1911. 92. Enlargement of the pantry to include space for a gas range would allow it to be used for cooking in addition to washing and cleaning, and thus alleviate the problem. De Arbeiderswoning, Jaarverslag (1 October 1915 to 31 December 1916), 6. 74 new houses by de Bazel for the society in van Beuningenplein did get larger pantrys. 93. Woningbouw van Gemeentewege, AG 2 (1915), 443. 94. The type was used in the two projects by HIJSM and the first three projects by het Oosten; other societies using the type were the Amsterdamsche Vereeniging tot het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen, Bouwmaatschappij, Patrimonium, and in a single instance the Amsterdam Bouwfonds for large families. There were a total of 1856 living roomkitchens, 1148 with a second living room. 95. "Wat hebben wij aan een voorkamer er wordt nagenoeg nooit gebruik van gemaakt en wekelijks moet er toch tijd aan worden besteed om alles stofschoon te maken." Quoted in Ad Bevers, Oost-West, thuis best (Amsterdam, 1961), 28. 96. "Opmerkelijk achtten wij het steeds dat de verkondiging wan die lof niet ten volle onderschreven werd door degenen die deze woningen 640 betrokken hadden." Ibid. 97. "Zodat besloten werd tot het maken van een flinke vierkanten voorkamer met een zoo groot mogelijk keuken die desgewenst voor het gebruiken der maaltijden kan worden gebruikt. Daardoor is voorkomen, dat in de huiskamer alles en nog wat moet geschieden omdat in de keuken plaatsruimte ontbreekt en kan deze (de huiskamer) worden het gezellige vertrek dat meermalen in boeken wordt beschreven, doch helaas maar al te dikwerf ontbreekt in de woningen der arbeiders, die zich om de hoge huren met zo min mogelijk ruimte tevreden moesten stellen. Ibid. 98. In 1148 of the 1856 livingroom kitchens this would have been possible, i.e. 9% of the housing societies in this study. 99. "De heeren juist de voorkamer als salon bestemmen. De eigenlijke bewoning vindt dus plaats in woonkamer en slaapkamer. Van de 48 M woonruimte, wordt dan 28 M2 gebruikt voor woning en 20 M2 voor salon. Dit is geen toelaatbaar verhouding." 255 GC 1918, 22 November 1918. 100. This type was also used by the Amsterdamsche Vereeniging and het Oosten. 101. "Wij moeten m.i. slapen in woonkamers blijven afkeuren. Of de woonkamer wordt niet bewoond en dan wordt er te veel ruimte daaraan opgeofferd, of zij wordt wel bewoont en dan is slapen in die atmosfeer onhygienisch." 255 GC 1918, 22 November 1918. 102. Of a total of 868 units. en 103. "Het slapen in een woonvertrek veroorzakt steeds stof, gedurende een aantal uren van den dag door het afgehaalde beddegoed een 270 GC 1919; 217 VH 1919, 20 December 1918. ongeredderd aanzien." Architect van Loghem points out that a direct connection 104. J.B. van between livingroom and kitchen is not considered very classy. Loghem, "Algemeene wenken aan woningbouwvereenigingen," Woningbouw 2, no. 4 (October 1918), 5-6. 105. Health Board to Keppler, 270 GC 1919, 217 VH 1919, 20 December 1918. "Wanneer aan dit denkbeeld niet steeds alle aandacht wordt 106. geschonken ben ik bevreesd dat de bebouwing van Amsterdam op den duur eenigszins op een lappendekken zal gaan gelijken en dat wij steeds zullen blijven hokken in den kazernebouw die uit den aard der zaak de verbetering 241 GC 1918, 23 October van de volkshuisvesting een 100 jaar acteruitzet." 1918, No. 663. 107. Bouwmaatschappij to J. Kruseman, No. 1328, 20 November 1918. This small type was not the cheapest unit; it rented for f3.70, while another unit with livingroom and two bedrooms rented for f3.60. 108. Housing Committee meeting, 18 March 1919, . 109. Primarily found in projects by het Westen and Bouwmaatschappij, but also to a lesser extent Rochdale and Patrimonium. 110. AG 2 (1905), 23 June 1905, 942. 111. "Verkeerde gevoel van netheid," Ibid., 946. Heyermans also mentioned workers liking of alcove in Gezondheidsleer, 147. This reformers' intolerance for the bedstead was recently developed. Hasselt and Verschoor had assumed the necessity of the bedstead because they accepted two conditions: the two room dwelling, and the worker's use of the rooms as living room and salon. At the same time, they wished to encourage use of both rooms for sleeping in order to encourage the "In een woning met een kamer kunnen daarom, naar separation of the sexes: maar ook in woningen van twee onze meening, bedsteden niet worden gemist; vertrekken zal dit bezwaarlijk gaan. In de eerste plaats toch zal, waar 641 de gelegenheid tot slapen zoo mogelijk in beide vertrekken bestaan; maar bovendien zal een arbeidergezin, wanneer het over twee vertrekken kan verschikken, niet het eene also woon- het andere als slaapkamer inrichten. Waar twee vertrekken zijn, workt het eene steeds tot een soort pronkkamer bestemd, en nu moge dit verkeerd zijn, toch meenen wij, dat het onjuist zoude wezen, hiermede geen rekening te houden." 112. "Wij zullen bovendien eenige ouderwetsche fatsoensbegrippen kwijt moeten raken, wat mischien nog wel wat opschudding zal veroorzaken." AG 2 (1905), 23 June 1905, 956. Tak noted the use of the storage space under the bed. "Een alcoof kan nog gelucht worden, maar in een bedstede kan nooit doorstrooming gemaakt worden. Men houdt daar een geur, dien het zeer lang vertoeven van een of meer menschen acterlaat, en die tenslotte in het hourwerk trekt. Die geur is niet te beschreven, het is niet muf, het is... men kan er niets anders van zeggen dan dat daar hangt een speciale bedstedegeur. Dat is het effect van hat slapen van menschen in houten kasten, welke zoo spoedig mogelijk na het verlaten worden gesloten en gesloten gehouden." 114. Bevers, 27. 115. See, for example, the discussion in AG 2 (1907) 23 January 1907, 131-146; Housing Committee meeting 25 February 1913. Builders designated areas as storage, but reformers were concerned that the space would be used for sitting or sleeping. Closets under stairs were particularly suspect, In 1920 the Communist councillor Collij complained that the Housing Authority forced a housing society to put up a partition to prevent use of the area under the stairs for sleeping (AG 2 (1920), 1 December 1920, 1814). 116. Wollring in the Housing Committee meeting of 19 May 1914 objected strenuously to the use of bed niches by het Westen and the Bouwmaatschappij. 117. Volksschool 8, no. 8 (3 March, 1909). 118. J. W. Jenny Weijerman, "Overzicht van de door verschillende woningvereenigingen op aanvrage der [Arnhemsche] Tentoonstellingscommissie verstrekte statistische gegevens" (Amsterdam, 1899). The results showed housing society dwellings of the following sizes: 1 room: 319, 1 with alcove: 229, 2 room: 1693, 3 room: 112. 119. A typical example is the 1889 housing of the Bouwmaatschappij in the Dapperbuurt. 120. Comparison of housing society dwellings: 1909-14 % with 4 or fewer rooms (1 or 2 br) 48.9 % with 5 or more rooms (3 or more br) 51.1 1915-18 40.3 59.7 1919 34.6 65.4 Total 41.3 58.7 From 1911 the state housing inspector Zoetmulder began to insist that more units include three bedrooms. In 1919 this became state policy. Henny to Wibaut, 28 February 1911, no. 22, Wibaut archive, IISG. 121. "Eene dergelijke samenbrenging van slaapplaatsen van personen behoorende tot verschillende gezinnen, uit een zedelijke oogpunt aan groote bedenking onderhevig is." AG 1 (1905), no. 625, 16 June 1905, 8356. Schut & Hendrix claim that attic bedrooms are as safe as hotel rooms and thus do not require an entry hall. AG 1 (1905), no. 591, 8 June 1905, 803. 642 122. Het Algemeene's architect J. C. van Epen pointed out that he did not know if the attic rooms had led to undesirable relationships between male and female members of different families, but even in the absence of such bedrooms, there was still no way to avoid the occurance of such relations. 123. Verslag van de Subcommissie voor de zaken betreffende Volkshuisvesting, February 1916, 1012 VH 1916. 124. 87 GC, 14 April 1915; 150 GC, 12 June 1915. 125. Housing Committee meeting, 28 July 1916, 76-9. 126. "Over de vraag of het voordeel dat een afzonderlijke verbinding binnenshuis met zich brengt de meerdere kosten die hierdoor gemaakt moeten worden wettigt, een enquete is gehouden bij de verschillende vereenigingen. Zeer vele vereeniging bleken toen van oordeel dat de noodzakelijkheid om van de gemeenschapelijke trap gebruik te maken, een groot bezwaar was en dat een afzonderlijke verbinding zulke groote voordeelen opleverde, dat men zich de meerdere kosten daarvoor wel moest getrooken." Housing Committee meeting, 17 April 1917, 29-30. 127. Ibid. 128. Objections from the fire department put an end to the practice a few years later. 129. "Waar 16 gezinnen in een huis wonen dus door eene deur van de straat toegang tot hunne woningen hebben is niet de keur der werkmansstand to bekomen." Letter, 12 Feb 1896, no. 49, PA 297, MAA. 130. "Die gemeenschappilijke trap die men in alle Amsterdamsche bouwvereenigingen vind, is een steen des aanstoots voor de bewoners en niet bewoners tevens. Al wat Nederlandsche arbeiders heet, schijnt een ingewortelde afkeer te hebben voor wat ook maar in de verte naar een Parijsche Cite ourvriere zweemt, en een zween daarvan voert die aan zoovele toebehorende trap onwillekeurig mee. 'tIs bij ons het rechte 'thuis zijn' niet in een huis, waarvan de alleen bij nacht gesloten voordeur achter acht gezinnen dicht valt." Mercier, op. cit. See discussion in the Public Works Committee, 14 Dec. 1911, 333 where apartment houses are also disparaged by the middle and upper classes. Hasselt and Verschoor claim that "de wensch om heer en meester in zijn eigen woning te zijn, is aan ons volkskarakter in die mate eigen dat de van woningen, waarbij elke bewoner geheel onafhankelijk is van inrichting zijn buurman, zeker moet worden verkozen boven elke andere." Hasselt and Verschoor, 153. 131. "Levendiger, ongebonder wijze," George A. M. Kallenbach, "Over de pogingen door particulieren in het werk gesteld tot verbetering der arbeiderswoningen" (Leiden, 1892), 12. 132. Kallenbach, 14-16. His arguments are borrowed from Dr. Sax, Die Wohnungszustande der arbeitenden Klassen. "De gelijkheid van sociale positie lift aan het vrije den teugel laten vieren van den hartstocht geenen moreelen dwang op." 133. van der Wijk-Groot, op. cit. 134. See, for example, G.E.V.L. Zuylen, "De volksvesting. Voordracht gehouden de Haagsche afdeeling der Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst," (The Hague: Mouton, 1908), 7. "Het is immers onbetwijfelbaar, dat eene kleine afzonderlijke woning voor ieder familie, liefst met tuintje of bleekveld er bij het ideaal is." 135. Jaarverslag van de Vereeniging Zomers Buiten 1917. The society established a housing society, Tuindorp, in 1916, which finally carried out plans plans in Nieuwer Amstel and Buiksloterham in 1924. See 643 Tuindorp, Maandblad van de woningbouvereniging Tuindorp. Ons Belang 40, no. 1 (1965) 136. 137. H. Lucassen, "50 jaar woningbouwvereeniging Amsterdam Zuid 1911-1961," meeting 1 January 1911. 138. Algemeene to ANDB, March 1910. 139. Hudig to Bossenbroek, 17 September 1910, RA 861, no. 302, CBSA archive, IISG. 140. Hudig and Henny, 12. 141. "Breede slingerende lanen, hoog geboomte, op zich zelf staande huizen, omgeven van flinken tuinen, ziedaar een heerlijke kijkje in Utopia." at a meeting of the Bond van Nederlandse Onderwijzers, 12 January 1906 reported in Volksschool.5, no. 3 (7 February 1906). For contemporary views on the garden city, see J. Bruinwold Riedel, Tuinsteden (Utrecht, 1906); G. Feenstra, Tuinsteden en volkshuisvesting in Nederland en buitenland (Amsterdam, 1920); S. J. Fockema Andreae, "The Garden City Idea in the Netherlands before 1930," Stedebouw en Volkshuisvesting 44 (1963), 95-107. 142. In the Public Works Committee, Charles Boissevain supported the idea of garden suburb development in the belief that such housing types produced happy and contented workers. Public Works Committee notes, 12 October 1905. 143. On Keppler's efforts to apply the garden city ideal to Amsterdam. See Frank Smit, "Van tuinstedebouw tot stedelijk uitwaaiering," Wonen TA/BK, no. 13 (1975), 5-17; Frank Smit, "Pleidooi voor een naief realistische stedebouw," Wonen TA/BK, no. 13 (1976), 5-20. 144. 1909 to 1914: 666 d.u. (14.0%); 1915-1918 1110 d.u. (37.0%); 1919 1716 d.u. (34.6%); 1909-1919 3503 d.u. (27.5%). 145. For Eigen Haard six of its nine projects, for Algemeene six of its nine projects. 146. See Francis F. Fraenkel, op. cit. 1915-1918: 12 projects 147. 1909-1914: 24 projects (68.6%); (57.1%); 1919: 4 projects (20%). 148. Distribution of storeys in housing society projects: no. of dwellings storeys 1909-14 2 3 4 TOTAL 665 261 3823 4750 1915-18 1110 6 1880 2996 percent of dwellings 1919 total 1728 1831 1316 4875 3503 2098 7019 12620 1909-14 1915-18 14.0 5.5 80.5 37.0 0.2 62.8 1919 total 35.4 37.6 27.0 27.8 16.6 55.6 149. Helene Mercier, "De Volkshuisvesting te Amsterdam," De Gids 69, part 1 (1905), 119. 150. 70.7% of all projects with three or four floors included separate first floor entries. Van Epen did some with street entry to all four families (ACOB, Algemeene). Separate first floor entries remained common, but double stairs increased in usage. 22 of the 58 projects with three and four stories (37.8%) included the double stair, for 1909-1914 in 8 of 30 projects, but for 1915-18 in 7 of 14 projects and in 1919 7 of 14 projects, ie half of the projects over two stories used double stairs. 151. "Het stelsel van huisvesting waarbij een groot aantal gezinnen door eenzelfde straatdeur en door een trappenhuis de woningen kunnen 644 bereiken blijkt niet te voldoen." Woningdienst Verslag 1918, p. 57 on van Beuningenplein. 152. Workers themselves objected to the multi-family entry; see, for example, Volkshuisvesting 1, no. 14 and no. 17 (14 April 1920); Eigen Eigen Haard wrote that workers wanted "good Haard, Jaarverslag 1925. State housing houses, not six families living off one stairway." inspector Wentink also objected when het Algemeene proposed a plan in which eight families shared an entry. These stairs were wide, well lit and bore no resemblance to either the steep slum stairs of the past or nineteenth century philanthropic kazernes, but they remained unpopular, and presented special problems of maintenance since two families per floor were responsible. 153. Those who did were 3 projects of Arbeiderswoning, 3 of Bouwmaatschappij, 2 of Algemeene, 2 of Rochdale, 2 of Eigen Haard, 1 each of Amsterdamsch Bouwfonds, Dageraad, Amsteldijk, Amsterdam Zuid. 154. "Het verdient aanbeveling te bevorderen, dat elk huisvader in het bezit gerake van een eigen woning." "Patrimoniums Woningstichting," Patrimonium's Bode 4, no. 5 (1 November 1912). 155. Ibid. 156. Public Works Committee meeting, 23 Aug 1916, 68. Objections to the deep open stairs at HYSM's Oostzaanstraat project. A later report by the Housing Authority on portiek housing disapproved of projects by Patrimonium and Amsterdam Zuid. 860 WD 1919, 4 February 1919. Plans with portieks by Gulden and Geldmaker for Rochdale and Amsterdam Zuid were rejected by the Healh Board. 378 VH 1919, 5 March 19; Public Works Committee meeting, 3 March 1919. 157. "De begeerte van den normalen Nederlander gaat uit naar een woning die een afgesloten gebouw, een geheel huis vormt, waarin hij noch op de trap noch in de gang vreemde menschen behoeft tegen te komen. Is het hem niet mogelijk zich een heel huis te bewonen, dan wenscht hij toch in elk geval een boven- of benedenhuis voor zich, dwz een half huis, dat opzich zelf ook weer een afgesloten geheel vormt. Gaat ook dat niet en moet hij zich met een etage tevreden stellen, dat gaat men - als de nood der tijden maar oorzaak wordt, dat velen in hetzelfde geval komen te verkeeren - de etagewoning (eigenlijk het etage huis) invoeren, dat is een kleiner deel van een huis maar toch ook weer afgesloten, de zg "portiekwoning." Men kan de Nederlandsche tendens ten deze aldus naar waarheid typeren: de Nederlander will een straatdeur, waar binnen hij alleen baas is, desnoods heeft hij geen bezwaar zijn buurman te ontmoeten op een trap, die buiten de straatdeur maar beneden, naar de straat leidt, maar gang en trap binnen zijn straatdeur moeten zijn eigen terrein zijn, dat hem niemand betwisten kan." Praeadvies quoted in Volkshuisvesting 3, no. 11 (1 Mar 1922), 188. 158. Schade, 70-71 and passim. 159. M. Wibaut-Berdenis van Berlekom, "De Vrouw en het gezin," De Socialistische Gids 3 (November 1918), 808-829. Her husband, the alderman of housing in Amsterdam, was also interested in the one kitchen or central kitchen house, Housing Committee meeting, 17 February 1914. 160. The municipal council approved municipal bath houses in 1908, AG 1 (24 July 1908), 719-21; discussion AG 2 (30 Sept 1908), 796. 161. Amsterdam Zuid, Jaarverslag 1915, 3. 162. Zomers Buiten, Jaarverslag 1917. 163. Rochdale and Algemeene had most (5 of 9 projects, 6 of 9 projects respectively). Enthusiasm for collective facilities appears to 645 have been most widespread among the progressive segments of the middle class rather than among workers, socialist or otherwise. The cooperative housing society "Samenwerking", established in 1908, built housing renting at over f400 a year without government support. Borne of the cooperative movement, its blocks came to include four consumer cooperatives (Central cooperative voor woninginrichting, Centrale cooperatie voor aardappelen en groenten, Centrale cooperatie voor Zuivel, Amsterdamsche Cooperatieraad for fuel and potatoes). In 1912 the society met with the Amsterdamsche Cooperatieve Keuken to discuss the idea of housing for singles and young families which would include a central kitchen. Discussion of a one kitchen house continued through 1916, and the society eventually built the experimental Het Nieuwe Huis in the 1920s. "Twintig jarig overzicht 191828 Amsterdamche Cooperatieve Woningvereeniging Samenwerking;" Samenwerking, Jaarverslagen. 164. Algemeene, Jaarverslag 1915, 12. 165. See A. v.d. Wijk-Groot, 5730 VH 1919. The nature of working class reactions to the municipal laundries has been the subject of controversy. See Ali de Regt, "De vorming van een opvoedingstraditie: arbeiders kinderen rond 1900," Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdscrift 5, no. 1 (June 1978), 37-61; Ulla Janz., "Gemeetelijk keuken en wassen in Amsterdam, 1915-1939," Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijscrift 7, no. 4 (March 1981), 501-532. To alleviate some of the workers' objections to the central laundry, a system of wash stations was introduced where women could do their own wash. Address of Social Democratische Vrouwenclub to municipal council, discussion Housing Committee meeting, 12 Nov 1912; AG 1 (1920), no. 1725, 28 December 1920, 3875. 166. Mercier wondered in 1887 if the age-old Dutch custom of washing underclothes and linens in the bedroom/livingroom would change even if a laundry were built nearby. Mercier, 213. The socialist perspective of the Bond van Social Democratische Vrouwenclubs is presented in "De wasch uit de woning" (Amsterdam, no date); "Een wasscherij van de Gemeente" (Amsterdam, 1917); and S. Rodriques Miranda, "De vrouw, de woning, en de waschtobbe" (Amsterdam, 1924). 167. Housing Committee, 1919. 168. Polak, op. cit. 169. "Cooperatieve Woningbouw," Weekblad ANDB 12, no. 4 (26 January 1906) and no. 5 (2 February 1906) There were two sorts of reactions toward cooperatives: a petit bourgeois desire for individualism and a far left anarchist reaction against bourgeois cooperation. During the organization of the housing society Rochdale, some municipal workers viewed the cooperative as taking energy from real struggle, De Gemeentewerkman, 1902-3, passim. 170. Between 1909 and 1919 the average number of rooms per dwelling increased from 3.59 before the war and 3.89 during the war to 3.94 in 1919. 171. One clever plan variation placed three second floor units above two ground floor units, each with its own street entrance. See Leliman's Eigen Haard housing in the Indischebuurt. 172. No. 49, PA 297, MAA. 173. Jenny Weijerman, 65. 174. The CBSA asked societies about innovations, by which it specifically meant any practical or hygienic innovations such as "alcove ventilation, top openning windows, incinerators, separate places to sleep, furnesses, bath, collective gardens, roof gardens, dumbwaiters, drying 646 attics." Hudig, 24 December 1908, no. 194, CBSA archive, IISG. 175. Mededeelingen van het Central Bureau van de Katholieke Actie, no. 3, December 1905. 176. De Gemeentewerkman 10, no. 10 (7 October 1911). At the time the first Rochdale projects were designed, a controversy arose over the exclusion of the parlor. This was viewed by some as paternalistic control of workers' home life, as an economic necessity by others. See, A. K eppler], "Woningwet woningen," Bouwwereld 8, no. 41 (13 October 1909), 326-28; J. G., "De cooperatieve bouwvereeniging; 'Rochdale,'" BW 29, no.42 (16 October 1909), 505-6; J.L.B. Keurschot, "Sociale Hygiene en Techniek, VIII," BW 29, no. 47 (20 November 1909), 561-3; BW 29, no. 48 (27 November 1909), 579; BW 30, no. 16 (16 April 1910), 191. 177. In an impassioned disavowal of the middle class interpretation of working class habits, Brooshooft points to the use of the word "overpopulation" by middle class reformers to cover up the fact that many workers are unable to support their children. P. Brooshooft, Officieele en feitelije waarheid, Bijdrage tot de kennis van onze arbeiderstoestanden (The Hague: Haagsche Vereeniging voor Kindervoeding, 1897). 178. Van Gijn, Proceedings of the Tenth Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling, 29ff. 179. H. de Vries, "Op Onderzoek op Uilenburg,2" De Handwerksman 22, no. 8 (Dec 1912). 180. De Handwerksman 24, no. 1 (July 1914) and no. 2 (August 1914). Only 5.3% of the members of the Handwerkers Vriendenkring worked in food, 82.9% were diamond workers. S. R. de Miranda, Gedenkscrift der Stichting "Bouwfonds Handwerkers Vriendenkring (Amsterdam, 1937). 181. The issue of storage arose repeatedly in reformers' discussion and it was closely tied to the issue of work at home. Reformers wished to remedy the evils of the home as workplace, but their rejection of facilities at times worked against the workers' own needs. Kruseman suggested a few bicycle sheds at Amsterdam Bouwfonds' Indischebuurt housing, 7 July 1910, Notulenboek Ledenvergadering; in 1919 van de WijkGroot suggested the need for workplaces and storage areas in De Arbeiderswoning houses; in 1921 the Buurthuurdersvereeniging "Over het Y", supported by the Buurthuurdersvereeniging "De Eilanden" asked the municipality for work and storage areas for workers who worked at home: AG 2 (20 April 1921), 887. 182. J. Mol, "Gedenkboek uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het 50 jarig bestaan van de Vereeniging 'Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijging van Eigen Woningen'" (Amsterdam, 1918). Johanna ter Meulen also discusses housing 183. Mercier (1905), 124. needs, (1903), 68-70. 184. The percentage of projects including three room dwellings was 37.1% before the war and 25.0% in 1919; the percentage of projects including seven room dwellings was 17.1% before the war and 70% in 1919. 185. Among all the housing societies, the average percentage of dwelling units with over five rooms was 20.5; for specific societies the figures are as follows: Algemeene 25.5%, Rochdale 33.9%, Eigen Haard 31.3%, Amsterdam over 't Ij 44.8%, Protestantsch 47.1%, Dr. Schaepman, 59.0%, HYSM 59.6%. There is no study of the size of families living in housing society projects. Of the 375 families in living in the projects of het Oosten in 1921, 111 had 5 or more children, Bevers, 47. Of those willing to move from the Jodenbuurt, the Handwerkers Vriendenkring found that the average family size was 5.61 people. 647 186. H. C. A. Henny, "Het Amsterdamsch Tehuis voor Arbeiders," Woningbouw 2, no. 4 (December 1918), 2-4. Schade, 164, 30. In 1872, Leliman made a plan for Salerno including attic rooms for singles. Samenwerking also put up a middle class housing block for singles which was designed by B. van der Nieuwer-Amstel and included collective facilities. 187. De Arbeiderswoning, Jaarverslag 1915-1916, 10-12. The report suggests that the noise level and behavior of the inhabitants depended on their origins and the number of children. Berlage's housing in the Indischebuurt came to be called the "beehive" because of the noisy swarms of children living there. 188. Commissie van Advies in het beheer der gemeentewoningen, 9 Nov 1915 meeting. 189. Ibid., 9 May 1916. 190. Ibid. Keppler argued that the housing north of the Ij was intended for the industrial workers working there and for those still living on the Eilanden, Czaar Peterstraat, and the Indischebuurt, that is, those from poor quality housing. Because of wartime housing shortages, many municipal workers ended up in the municipal housing in Buiksloterham and friction developed between them and the subsidized dwellers. 191. "Die door hun levenswijze ongeschikt blijken met andere 2680. gezinnen in hetzelfde gebouw te verblijven." AG 1 (1914), 192. The municipal housing subcommittee as a whole reacted against further splitting these families, Commissie van Advies in het beheer der gemeentewoningen, 22 June 1916. Another issue of dispute was the class origins of housing inspectors: should they be well bred, middle class girls trained by the School voor Maatschappelijk Werk or lower class girls? Meeting 4 July 1916. 193. The families were placed first in a converted school, then in special housing constructed in Zeeburgerpad and Asterdorp. The designs were severe: one story, one family dwellings, consisting of living room, kitchen and 2 to 4 bedrooms with flat roof, iron windows and doors, limited woodwork, brick pavememt in place of gardens, and a single guarded entrance. AG 1 (1921), no. 14, 7 January. The Communist councilor 27 Wijnkoop objected that the design looked like a prison, AG 2 (1921), January 1921, 222-228. 194. Many workers rented a dwelling at f600-800 a year, and sublet rooms in order to afford it. These included casual laborors such as streethawkers. The introduction of lower paid workers to the Amstels Bouwvereenging middle class housing, created a set of issues: for instance, the storage in rooms of fish (fresh, smoked, sour and salted!) fruit, and flowers. There was an interesting discrepancy between the work of the main renter and that of the lodgers: one was a white collar office worker or salesman, the other was an unskilled worker, hawker, assistant or harbor worker. Woningdienst, Verslag van het onderzoek naar de woningtoestanden in het z.g. Amstellaankwartier, no date. 195. "De bouwvereenigingen en de nieuwe tijd," Woningbouw 3, no. 1/2 (March, 1919), 4. The idea of the housing societies as organizers of culture and social life like old villages, organizing consumer cooperatives, playgrounds, vacations, savings and insurance, improvement of furniture and living standards, is expressed in "De Sociale Taak der Woningbouwcorporaties," J. H. v. S.[luis] reporting on a lecture by C. van Doorn, Volkshuisvesting 2, no. 22 (August, 1921), 395. 648 196. Feenstra, 165. 197. "Veelvuldig is ons uit bouwkundige kringen met verwondering te kennen gegeven dat het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen door bouwvereenigingen zoo weinig enthousiasme onder de arbeiders bracht, niettegensstande toch daardoor een stuk grond en een aantal huizen aan het roofsysteem van particuliere bezitters werd onttrokken. Ons kwam dit gebrek aan enthousiasme niet onverklaarbaar voor, omdat de wijze van inrichting der woningen nog maar al te dikwijls werd gemaakt naar de opvattingen van arbeidersvriendelijk heeren en dames of architecten die van de eigenaardigheden van het arbeidersgezin weinig of niets wisten, alhoewel ze meenden geroepen te zijn den arbeiders gezinnen woningen te geven die zij voor de arbeiders als aangewezen beschouwden, doch waarmede de Zomers Buiten, Jaarverslag 1917, 33. arbeiders geen vrede konden nemen." huis," Bond van Sociaal Vrouw en haar Z. Gulden, "De 198. Gulden call no date [1923]. Vrouwenclubs, Amsterdam, Democratisch of housing. Mecca Amsterdam the 199. "Wat wil de bond van arbeiderswoningbouwvereenigingen in 1919. C.A. van Doorn, chairman, refused to work with other Nederland?," political orientations, and rejected the Nationale Woningraad. 200. Feenstra, 37. 201. Proceedings of the First Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling, 56. Jenny Weijerman, 65. 202. 203. "De Amsterdamsche Woningraad" De Kroniek 8, no. 371 (1 Feb 1902), 33-35. "Dat er door mij naar gestreefd zal worden, zooveel mogelijk 204. standaard-woning types toe te passen, opdat de voorbereiding zoo snel mogelijk kan geschieden." Keppler to the Alderman of Housing, 13 November 1917, 4067 VH 1917. "Uitwendig wordt den laasten tijd veel moeite en kosten aan de 205. arbeiderswonigen besteed, maar de verbetering van het woningtype houdt daarmee geen gelijken tred. Als we het woningvraagstuk vooruit willen helpen, dienen we eerst op de inwendige ruimte verdeelig te letten, en te zorgen dat de ruimten zelf niet bekrompen zijn." 15 November 1918, 255 GC 1918. 206. Nota van der Directeur van der Woningdienst, 2729 V.H. 1920. Housing society construction cost 33% more than private construction in 1913, 53% more in 1919. 7714 VH 1920, 20 Dec 1920. 207. 208. This issue was taken up in the newspapers and journals, see for example a rebuttal to van der Kaa by Z. Gulden, "Het particulier en de woningvoorziening," Volkshuisvesting 1, no. 19 (12 June initiatief 1920), 271-2. 209. Circulars of 25 June 1919, 30 July 1920, 12/13 November 1920, 1 subsidies in 2 April 1921, Staatscourant No. June 1921, 28 December 1921; 63, KB 8 November 1920 No. 29 (Staatscourant, 7 December 1920, no. 238). 210. Circular of 30 July 1920. Later circulars similarly suggested limitations to current Amsterdam practise. 211. Woningbouw 3, no. 1/2 (March 1919), 4. 212. T. van der Waerden, "Maatregelen waardoor de bouw in massa bevorderd wordt. Normalisatie in de uitvoering in het bijzonder wat de te werkenden individueelen," in Nationale Woningraad, betreft See also Praeadviesen voor het Woningcongres 11-12 februari 1918, 67-96. discussion in Chapter Ten, below. 649 213. Album bevattende een 50-tal woninqtypen voor met Rijksverschot The te bouwen woningen (The Hague: Departement van Arbeid, 1921). Nederlandsch Instituut voor Volkshuisvesting sent an address to the Minister of Labor in protest of the album (Volkshuisvesting 2, no. 15 (21 April 1921). The architects responded by publishing an album of recent examples of housing design: H. P. Berlage, et. al., Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland (Rotterdam, 1921). Chapter Eight: HOUSING AND THE ARCHITECT 1. Quoted in J. A. C. Tillema, Schetsen uit de geschiedenis van de Monumentenzorg in Nederland (The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1975). 2. AG 2 (1890), no. 110, 27 February 1890, p. 77. D. Josephus Jitta: "het aesthetisch toezicht toch van de Gemeente kan niet zoover gaan dat zij mooie lijnen mag eischen." 3. AG 2 (1891), no. 656, 25 November 1891, p.143. Cuypers: "De openbare weg toch, onverschillig of hij voor het verkeer noodig is of niet, dient niet voor de aanwonenden alleen, maar voor de geheele stad, en voor iets dat in strijd is met de algemenen regelen van schoonheid moet van gemeentewege geen vergunning worden gegeven." 4. R. N. Roland Holst, "Kunst als Regeeringszaak," De Gids 78, part 2 (1914), p. 514. "Kon Thorbecke voor ongeveer zestig jaren zeggen, dat kunst geen regeeringszaak is, geen regeerder van thans zou deze uitsprak nu nog durven bevestigen." 5. Public Works Committee meeting, 10 October 1918, p. 295. "De schoonheid van de stad is het eigendom man elke inwoner en wandelaar, en om dit to beveiligen moet het recht van den eigenaar van de gebouwen een weinig beperkt worden." 6. Charles Buls of Brussels played a leading role in the movement, for example, through his book L'Esthetique des Villes and the le Internationale Congres de Oeuvre de l'Art Public, Brussels, 1898. 7. The vision of the seventeenth century Amsterdam was always strong in people's minds as the city redeveloped. See, for example, H. P. Q. Quack, Herinneringen uit de levensjaren 1834-1913 (Amsterdam: P. J. Kampen, 1913), p. 100. 8. For a discussion of the origins and motivations of Bond Heemschut see Egbert J. Hoogenberk, "Het Idee van de Hollandse Stad, Stedebouw in Nederland 1900-1930 met de internationale voorgeschiedenis" (Ph. D. diss., Delft Technical University, 1980), 39-40. 9. A typical instance is Jan Stuyt, "Oud en Nieuw in Amsterdam," De Kroniek 4, no. 207 (11 December 1898), p. 4 0 0 . 10. [P. L.] T.[ak], "De uitbreiding van Amsterdam," De Kroniek 11, no. 525 (14 January 1905), p. 410. "Wie zal de nieuwe stad bouwen? Zullen het koekebakkers of bouwmeesters zijn, die Amsterdam ruimer maken?" 11. AG 2 (1916), 4 November 1916, p.1799. "Publieke Werken was slechts enkele jaren geleden nog een dienst, die op architectonisch terrein de risee was van Amsterdam en zeker van het land. De producten, die Publiek Werken intertijd gaf, waren van dien aard, dat zij werden gepubliceerd in de bouwkundige bladen, om te laten zien, hoe het eigenlijk niet moest. Telkens kwamem er in den Raad klachten over.Publiek Werken. Wij kunnen op het oogenblik tot ons genoegen bespeuren, dat, wat dat Dat is uitgegaan. gedeelte aangaat, Publiek Werken een andere richting verheugend verschijnsel wensch ik te constateeren dat Publiek Werken op 650 architectonisch gebeid niet meer de risee is, zoodat Amsterdam op architectonisch gebied de lieding zal aangeven, zooals het ook op ander gebied doet en behoort te doen." J. P. Mieras, "Veranderingen in het Architectenberoep," BW 40, 12. no. 47 (22 November 1919), pp. 285-287. A general account of housing design and the role of architects in Dutch housing is given in Donald I. A Grinberg, Housing in the Netherlands (Delft University Press, 1977). year-by-year survey of housing and planning in the Netherlands can be found in Giovanni Fanelli, Archtettura Edilizia Urbanistica Olanda 1917/1940 (Florence, 1978). 13. See, for example the letter from Joh. Hoogenboom, "Geen Bauberatungstelle," BW 33, no. 12 (22 March 1913), p. 142, or J. D. Landre, "Bauberatung," BW 33, no. 17 (26 April 1913), p. 194, or the conclusions of Brunzeel. 14. From 1891 to 1900 seven new students enrolled at Delft for the From 1901 to 1910 77 enrolled. degree program in architecture. Gedenkschrift van de Koninklijke Academie en van de Polytechnisch School gelegenheid van de oprichting der Technische 1842-1905 samengesteld ter A[drien] Huet, "De regeling van het hooger Hoogeschool (Delft, 1906); A. onderwijs en de vorming van ingenieurs en architecten," Delft, 1873; Le Comte, "Het Goede Recht der Kunst aan de Polytechnisch School," J[an]. Afschiedwoord aan zijne leerlingen, Delft, 30 November 1894; V[eth]., "Bouwkunst aan de Rijksacademie te Amsterdam," De Kroniek 5, no. "Rapport over het onderwijs tot opleiding van 225 (16 April 1899), 121-2. bouwkundig ingenieur (architect) aan de Polytechnische School te Delft ingediend aan de afdeeling 'sGravenhage van de Maatschappij tot F. Westendorp, et. al., eds., Bevordering der Bouwkunst," 31 March 1895; (Delft, 1930). De Technische Hoogeschool te Delft van 1905-1930 15. This was an argument which continued into the twentieth century. See the inaugural adress of Prof. J. A. G. van der Steur, "De opleiding van den architect behoort uisluitend te geschieden aan de technishe hoogeschool," Rotterdam, 1914. The address was attacked in the BNA and A+A. It was written in reaction to a parliamentary speech by Victor de Stuers calling for full architectural training at the Rijksacademie der Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. "Verslag oprichtingsvergadering Voortgezet en Hoger Bouwkunst," 16. In 1908-9 56 students were enrolled. In Architectura (1908), p. 107. 1915 the VHBO was sponsored by A+A, BNA, and the Maatschappij. Instructors included leading architects such as Berlage, De Bazel, Walenkamp and Kromhout. 17. Ordinary membership was extended to architects, surveyors, contractors and materials suppliers. Extraordinary membership was Amateur membership was granted to non-practicing. extended up to age 23. architects 315, engineers 61, In 1908 the membership list was as follows: Delft students 19, teachers 10, crafts artisans 11, draftsmen and surveyors 111, contractors 45, manufacturers 52, societies and institutes BW, 1908, p. 18, material suppliers 22, building workers 31, others 78. 186. 18. "De vakbelangen van den architect voor te staan, de beoefening, kennis en belangen van en het onderwijs in de bouwkunst, benevens de algemeene belangen harer beoefenaars te bevorderen." 19. "Den bloei der Bouwkunst te bevorderen en tot een goede verstandhouding harer beoefenaren mede te werken." 20. J. de Meyer quoted in Architectura 20, no. 47 (23 November 651 1912), P. 400. "De architecten hebben te weinig vakbegrip omdat er onder te weinig werkelijke architecten zijn." nog architecten de 18, no. 27 (2 July 1899), p. 209. Willem Kromhout had 21. BW suggested a Nederlandsche Architecten Bond in 1893 and his lecture on the topic on 20 November 1895 before the A+A had evoked considerable Kromhout's original idea, however, was to create an elite discussion. group of gifted architects of proven talent, not the idea of a professional society to represent the profession's social and economic interests. Unsuccessful attempts were made at fusion in 1898 and 1904. 22. Members also had to be 28 years old and have practiced for three consecutive years as an independent architect. For the BNA letter of The pp. 163-65. and description see BW 28, no. 11 (1908), invitation For the history of BNA see M. P. final statutes are in BW (1908), p. 363. van der Linden, "De oprichting van de Bond van Nederlandsche Architecten (1908) en zijn fusie met de Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst "beoefenaars der Bouwkunst die (1919)," BW 76 (17 May 1958), pp. 239-244. bij door hen geliede werken den opdrachtgever vertegenwoordigd, zijne belangen behartigen, en noch zelfstandig noch als lid eener firma, noch als concurrent aannemer als of als makelaar optreden." The code was based on Julien Guadet's 1907 code for the Societe 23. Central des Architects Francais. 24. The first proposal for change came on 11 March 1908 and proposed Van der Linden, p. 241. that only architects have the vote. At the 83rd meeting of the society in May 1901, J. W. H. Leliman 25. castigated the officers for not acting on the fusion of 1898 and Jr. Wanneer "Wat doet ge? Niets. summarized the inactivity of the society: BW 21, no. 35 (31 Nergens." Nooit. Waar doet ge dat? doet ge dat? August 1901), p. 326. In 1899 it had 494 ordinary, 12 extraordinary, and 73 amateur 26. Amsterdam's branch had 74 ordinary members and 5 extraordinary members. members. BW 27, no. 51 (1907), pp. 8 0 3 - 4 . See "Een Woord van Protest," 27. "steenbakkers en wellicht koekebakkers." 26 years old members had to be at least In addition architect 28. In 1915 there and to have worked three consecutive years independently. 14 aspirants, 25 medewerkers, and were 2 honorary, 213 architect members, The statutes were again changed in 22 December 1914 441 subscribers. introducing the requirement that architects refrain from commercial activity, removing non-architects from membership altogether and placing them in the category of "medewerker." had formed a committee for Kromhout with twelve young architects 29. A+A following Kromhout's 20 November 1907 lecture "Ons Genootschap zoals The committee proposed, among other things, the het was, is en kon zijn." See Linden, p. 240. creation of membership based on aesthetic competence. 30. See Architectura 25, no. 14 (7 April 1917), pp 101-2 or no. 27 On A+A see Helen Searing, "Housing in Holland and the (7 July 1917). Amsterdam School" (Ph. D. diss., Yale University, 1971), 206-215. 31. The rights and privileges of this last group remained a hotly societies, contested issue during the reorganization of the architectural since many draftsmen, surveyors, and other salaried assistants aspired to full independent professional status after their period of service in another's studio. Were they to be treated as apprentices, as aspiring architects, or as workers? That is, did they share the architect's interests or were their economic interests different? For those 652 emphasizing the aesthetic nature of architecture, the economic distinctions were irrelevant. For a discussion of the architecture societies and education in relation to class position see Rein Geurtsen, "De tol-grenzen van de architectenpractijk," Wonen TA/BK (April, 1973), pp. 11-20. 32. Petition of BNA to mayor and aldermen, 5 June 1915, 1485 V.H. 1915, petition of A+A to B&W, 18 May 1915, 1325 V.H. 1915. 33. Kallenbach, 1892, p. 1 8 . "Toch H. J. M. Walenkamp, "Amsterdam in de Toekomst," 1901. 34. U bij door Architecten! heeren doen, zoudt ge van Uw kant veel kunnen bezig te houden met het woningvraagstuk meer dat dit tot heden zonderling genoeg - is gescheid." BW 26, no. 19 (1906), p. 252. 35. 36. Mels Meijers, "Volkshuisvesting, De Architecten en de 212. Woningbouw," BW 37, no. 28 (1916), "Het was, Quoted in BW 22, no. 45 (8 November 1902), pp. 425-6. 37. zeide de heer Tellegen, een merkwaardige maar teven zeer betreurens waardige gewoonte dat de meeste woningen gebouwed worden door menschen die van goed bouwen geen verstand hebben, dat er te weinig woningen door Wanneer hierin verandering kan komen, kundige architecten gebouwd worden. Hoe meer de architecten in zouden ook betere woningtoestanden ontstaan. zullen trachten to presteeren, en de niet-kundige bouwers deze richting zullen verdwijnen, hoe beter de toestanden zullen worden." Arie Keppler, "De Architect en het Woningvraagstuk," 38. Lecture at Architectura 20, no. 47 (23 November 1912), pp. 398-400. 1305th meeting of A+A. 39. Mels Meijers, BW. 40. Wendingen 3, no. 3/4 (March/April 1920). Results described in BW 21, no. 20 (18 May 1901), pp. 184-5. 41. 22, no. 17 (26 April 1902), 157-6. 42. BW 28, no. 4 (1908), pp. 53-54 for the description of the competition. The jury was W. van Boven, Inspector of Health in the Hague, L. Krook, Director of Public Works in Zwolle, J. H. W. Leliman, architect, W. F. C. Schaap, Director of Public Works in Arnhem, and D. E. Wentink, See Eensgezins Werkmanswoningen (The Inspector of Health in Utrecht. Hague, 1908). 43. The jury was J. H. W. Leliman, A. D. N. van Gendt, J. W. C. See BW 28, no. 11 (1908), 174-5 Tellegen, P. van Exter, C. H. Eldering. and no. 31 (1908), 589-91. The jury consisted of architects H. P. Berlage, J. Gratama, J. 44. E. van der Pek, and housing inspector J. M. A. Zoetmulder, as well as of the society including A. Keppler. officers 45. J. E. van der Pek ended up designing the eventual project. BW 30, no. 16 (16 April 1910), 190-2. J. H. W. Leliman also objected in See also BW 30, no. 18 (30 April 1910), 215-6; Bouwwereld no. 16 (1910). no. 32 (6 August 1910), 382; no. 41 (8 October 1910), 491-2. 46. Architectura 25, no. 4 (27 January 1917), 19-20 and the jury The jury was J. B. van Loghem, report 25 no. 15 (14 April 1917), 111-116. Jan de Meyer, H. Th. Wijdeveld. Searing, "Housing in Holland," pp. 225-7, discusses the significance of this competition for the development of the Amsterdam school. 47. The jury was P. Bakker Schut, H. P. Berlage, W. van Boven, A. Keppler, and W. F. Schaap. No first prize was awarded. J. F. Repko of Amsterdam won the largest prize money and his plan was included in 653 Berlage's 1915 revision of Plan-Zuid. The entries were exhibited in Amsterdam in May 1914 and published, in a book, Prijsvraag voor het ontwerpen van een tuinstadwijk. Juryrrapport met reproducties der beste ontwerpen (Amsterdam, 1915). The jury was de Architectura 20, no. 26 (29 July 1912), 220-1. 48. Bazel, Berlage, van der Kloot-Meyburg, Klaas van Leeuwen and C. W. Nijhoff. There were six entries. Kunst aan 't Volk also sponsored a competition for furniture for a living room in 1915 with eight entries, BW (1915), p. 21. BW 29, no. 50 (11 December 1909), p. 594 and 31, no. 26 (1 July 49. This schedule was needed because the Beauty Commission was 1911), p. 304. See below. trying to get builders to turn to architects for designs. BW 29, no. 52 (25 December 1909), pp. 617-18. 50. During the war the BW 30, no. 32 (6 August 1910), 278-9. 51. enormous increases in building material costs caused the housing societies once again ask that the architectural fee be reduced, and the agreed to use 25% above 1914 costs as a basis for societies architectural honorarium. the architectural figuring about this group. In 1921 they sent an address known is 52. Little on the housing circulars. They worked Minister the Labor to of protest housing construction by trying to centralize attempt in the with Keppler for the Federatie van office architectural central large a up to set of the Club in the Representatives Amsterdamsche Woningbouwvereenigingen. J. Gratama. and W. Noorlander negotiations were On Leliman, see Carel Schade, Woningbouw voor arbeiders 53. (Amsterdam, 1981), 191. BW 15, no. 48 (30 November 1895), pp. 306-7. 54. Half of the Volksbond in 1893 were architects according to 55. Schade, p. 175, note 44. See, for example, Amsterdamsche Woningraad, "Rapport over de 56. Amsterdamsche Parken en Plantsoenen" (Amsterdam, 1909), reporters: H. P. "De Berlage, J. van Hasselt, D. Hudig, J. Kruseman and C.A. den Tex; Volkshuisvesting in de nieuwe stad te Amsterdam" (Amsterdam, 1909), reporters: Johanna ter Meulen, D. Hudig, A. Keppler, J. E. van der Pek, H. H. Wollring. Verslag Gezondheidscommissie, 1905. 57. 58. D. E. C. Knuttel, "Het onderwijs in de hygiene aan architecten," lecturee at the fiftieth anniversary of the Maatschappij, 28 May 1892. The study compared the Delft program to other European 59. Zurich, Vienna, Stuttgart, Munich, Karlsruhe, Aken, and Polytechnics: Vereeniging van Burgerlijke Ingenieurs, "Verslag der Commissie in Berlin. zake het Technisch Onderwijs, benoemd ingevolge het besluit van de Algemeene Vergadering der Vereeniging van Burgeelijke Ingenieurs op 18 Juli 1891," Den Haag, 1895. Rapport van de Centrale Commissie voor Studiebelangen, Delft, 60. 1906 and 1908. A number of student designs for housing appear in the student publication at Delft, the Technische Studenten Tijdscrift, The course suggested by the STVDIA particularly in 1911 and 1912. included the influence of housing on health, lighting, heating, ventilation, siting, statistics, urban renewal, and building ordinances. Memorie van toelichting bij het adres der STVDIA, De Ingenieur 20, no. 5 (4 February 1905), p. 66. STVDIA, "Het onderwijs in de hygiene aan de Technische 61. In 1911 Dr. Sleeswijk was brought Hoogeschool te Delft," Amsterdam 1909. 654 in by Delft to teach technical hygiene. It was not a required course. The housing hygiene section covered ventilation, heating, lighting, and sewage. The 1913 course included housing conditions, workers' housing, the hygienic side of planning, garden cities. Programma der lessen, Delft, 1911-13. 62. See J. A. Veraart "Recht en Economie," Technische Hoogeschool 1905-1955, pp. 168-173. 63. (F.] v. E.[rkel], "Woningbouw," BW no. 43 (26 October 1901), 401-2. "Opmerkelijk is, wat uit verschillende boeken en tijdschriften blijkt, dat in het buitenland 'de studie van het grondplan' tegenwoordig zeer de aandacht trekt en professoren aan hoogescholen het niet beneden zich achten in die studie op te gaan, inderdaad naar onze meening meer practische dan zich te verdiepen ten koste van die eerste voorwaarde, in de aesthetische zijde van een stadsuitbreiding of dan wel in het geven van uitgebreide cursussen in kerken en andere monumentaal gebouw. Het zoo belangrijke vraagstuk wij zouden haast zeggen het belangrijkste aller bouwvraagstukken de oeconomische bouw der 'volkswoning' in den meest uitgebreiden zin opgevat, behoort ook in ons land meer op den voorgrond te treden." 64. Alongside Berlage's lectures on the aesthetics of planning, Tellegen lectured on the Housing Act and van der Pek taught design of workers' housing. See VHBO brochures, 1908-1909, 1909-1910. Technical Science was a required course and covered hygiene, ventilation, heating, sewage, the Housing Act and building ordinances. City Extension and Planning was an elective. The VHBO had 70 students in 1912; the program was a three year evening course. 65. Adres of 24 October 1912. 66. C. H. Schwagermann, "Het Onderwijs in Stedenbouw aan de T. H. S. te Delft," BW 32, no. 49 (7 December 1912), pp. 593-4 and Letter to the Maatschappij from the Architecture Department of Delft, "Leerschool in den Stedenbouw aan de Technische Hoogeschool," BW 32, no. 50 (14 December 1912), pp. 601-3. 67. Architectura 20, no. 46 (16 November 1912), pp. 387-8. The Minister of the Interior refused on 22 January 1913 to decide the question of the chair until the question of the future of the Academy of Fine Arts was settled. 68. Some 120 students attended Berlage's lectures, an indication of the desire for the aesthetic approach to planning. BW 33, no. 51, p. 20. 69. Van der Steur's inaugural speech of 1914, "Architecture should only be taught at the Technical Institute," hit another blow at the continuing dispute between supporters of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and those of the Technical Institute. Van der Steurs point was that only Delft was equipped to do equal justice to both the technical and the aesthetic side of architecture. This was a largely sterile debate, echoing to some extent the contemporary depate between architects and civil engineers over planning. 70. For the complete set of lectures at Delft, see H. P. Berlage, "Het aesthetisch gedeelte van stedebouw," BW 33, no. 51, p. 20; 34, no. 1 (3 January 1914), 6-8; no. 2 (10 January 1914), 17-20; no. 9 (28 February 1914), 98-100; no. 10 (7 March 1914), 116-118; no. 11 (14 March 1914), 126-8; no. 12 (21 March 1914), 138-40; no. 16 (18 April 1914), 186-9; no. 17 (25 April 1914), 198-202; "Stedenbouw," De Beweging 10, no. 1 (1914), 226-247; no. 2, 1-17, 142-164, 263-279. 71. The following discussion of Berlage's historical perspective is 655 based on his "Over Architectuur," De Kroniek 1, no. 2 (6 January 1895), "Over Architectuur," De Kroniek 1, no. 8 (17 February 1895), pp. 9-10; "Over Architectuur," Tweemaandelijksch Tijdschrift 2, part 3 pp. 58-9; (November 1895), pp. 202-35 (includes J. E. van der Pek's article "Bouwen"Kunst en Maatschappij" in Studies over in-Stijl" of March 1894); (Rotterdam: W. L. and J. Brusse, 1910), Bouwkunst, Stijl, en Samenleving "De Bouwkunst als maatschappelijk kunst," in Schoonheid in pp. 1-44; W. L. and J. Brusse, 1919), pp. 91-123. Samenleving (Rotterdam: Berlage, Schoonheid in Samenleving, 1919, 93-94. 72. BW 34, no. 12 (21 March 1914), p. 138, lecture of 2 March 1914. 73. "Het klink voor ons gevoel zeer arbitrair, in zekeren zin zelfs onverdragelijk, en toch stond toen de kunst van stedenbouw op hoog peil." "Niet alleen elke Schoonheid in Samenleving, p. 102. 74. godsdienst, elk weesgeerig stelsel berust op een dogma, maar ook de kunst. Want wat is de kunstvorm van een bepaalden stijl anders dan een dogma, het kunstzinniq dogma, hetwelk alle kunstenaars van een zelfde tijdvak En het is juist door de aanvaarden als een collectieve begrip? aanvaarding van zulke een dogma dat de kunstenaars in staat zijn tot de openbaring der hoogste aesthetische idee." Chapter Nine: THE INSTITUTION OF PUBLIC AESTHETIC CONTROL 1. J. E. van der Pek, "Het Gemeente-Museum te Amsterdam," De He was answered by Weissman in Kroniek, no. 41 (6 October 1895), 322-4. De Opmerker of 12 October 1895 and responded in De Kroniek on 20 October. 2. The specifications called for real sandstone; he used an artificial sandstone. 3. Address to the City Council, BW 15, no. 4 (26 January 1895), 267. This was his 4. AG 1 (1902), no. 664, 24 June 1902, pp. 839-40. no. 595, 7 1 (1902), AG proposal, aldermen's and response to the mayor municipal a for need the of He raised the issue June 1902, 775-9. In 1902 he proposed an in budget discussions of 1900 and 1901. architect AG 1 (1902), no. 1018, 7 October 1902, 2023; aesthetic advisor. discussion AG 2 (1902), 22 October 1902, 1467. Address to City Council by A+A, BW 22, no. 39 (27 September 5. 1902), 247 and by the Maatschappij, BW 22, no. 39 (27 September 1902), 248. 6. AG 1 (1902), no. 902, 5 September 1902, 1899-1900. [P. L.] T.[ak], "Een Gemeente-architect," De Kroniek 8, no. 396 7. hoe "De eenige vraag die te beantwoorden valt is: (26 July 1902), 243. krijgen wij het beste voor Amsterdam?" Plan for N. V. AG 1 (1903), no. 544, 29 May 1903, 453. 8. Bouwmaatschappij "Ringvaart" and "Over-Amstel." Gezondheidscommissie no. 166, 29 April 1903. 9. no. 577, 17 June 1903, 667. AG 2 (1903), 10. kan er geen oogenblik plan hier ligt, "Zoals dit Ibid., p. 669. 11. zou mogen Dat in deze richting sprake van wezen het goed te keuren. worden gebouwd, daaraan mag geen oogenblik gedacht worden. Wat is dit plan? Het zijn eenige lijnen horizontal getrokken en eenige lijnen Dat is een plan, waarvan nooit verticaal. Dat is het lineaal stelsel. sprake kan zijn dat men hier moet hebben, omdat men er al veel te veel van Een groot gedeelte van onze nieuwe stad is in zekeren zin bedorven heeft. 656 er is ergenlijk bij niemand en verwoest, door op die manier te bouwen; vershil van meening dat op een verschikkelijk leelijke manier is gebouwd." "Want dit is weer iets van de oude richting, van Ibid., 670. 12. dat ambtenaartje dat zoo goed rechte lijnen kan trekken." 13. AG 1 (1903), no. 1060, 4 December 1903, 2123, approved 23 The plans were ready by 23 July 1903. December 1903. The plan was for the entire district. AG 1 (1897), no. 200, 24 14. March 1897, 137, but the southern half was revoked by RB (2 October 1901), The north-east no. 892, AG 1 (1900), no. 114, 21 February 1900, 1555. no. 1183, 21 AG 1 (1902), quadrant was probably designed by Berlage. November 1902, 2227. His proposal to AG 1 (1908), no. 923, 9 September 1908, 754. 15. the plan had change the plan was rejected because it was out of turn; already been accepted by the council and only its execution was being decided. 16. AG 1 (1885), no. 233, 11 May 1885, 228-239, approved 27 May For N. V. Hollandsche Hypotheekbank. 1885. AG 1 (1912), no. 1434, 31 December 1912, 3279. 17. Wibaut compared the ugly AG 2 (1913), 29 January 1913, 95-100. 18. oblique corners to those he had complained of in the Indische district. He also complained about the anticipated high density construction and we op het punt de claimed "Op het gebeid van uitbreidingsplannen zijn For J. The plan was approved 22 to 14. Chineizen van Europa te worden." H. W. Leliman's objections see "Amsterdam. Het Uitbreidingsplan Spaarndammerbuurt en de Volkshuisvesting," Bouwwereld 13, no. 12 (19 March 69-72. 1913): 19. W. J. de Groot, "De aesthetische aansprakelijkheid voor de bouwwerken door den dienst der Publieke Werken Amsterdam in de laatste Van der Mey jaren uitgevoerd," BW 40, no. 25 (21 June 1919): 151-2. 1 May 1915 after most work 1919, but 1 May until worked for Public Works of the the exception with Hulshoff, A. R. was by the architects under Kramer. bridges by Piet Public Works Committee meeting (29 December 1910), pp. 391-4. 20. 21. Keppler wrote an open letter to van der Mey published in BW 33, no. 7 (15 February 1913), p. 83 and van der Mey answered circumscriptly in no. 9 (1 March 1913), p. 108. J. Gratama accused Public Works of hiding its own incompetence behind van der Mey's name in "Kroniek III," BW 33, In the discussions of the 1914 budget no. 10 (8 March 1913), pp. 109-11. in October 1913 Delprat admitted that others had designed the plan and van der Mey only looked at it. AG 2 (1913), 29 October 1913, p. 1821. Jos. Th. Cuypers in the Health Board also presented a sketch 22. plan in response to Public Works' plan to indicate the nature of the Health Board's objections to the orientation and width of the housing blocks. Berlage, Louise van der Pek-Went and Cuypers formed the They wanted north south orientation, subcommittee commenting on the plan. shallower blocks of 33 meters to encourage low-rise building, and narrower streets for a domestic scale. Cuypers' plan was a grid, and was intended merely as an indication of the hygienic requirements, not as an aesthetic solution. Gezondheidscommissie, 153/18 (13 November 1918). There is also a lost plan for this area by J. E. van der Pek: a plan for the Overbraken Bin.nenpolder in connection with plans by the Amsterdam Housing Council for a housing society. The plans never came to pass, but van der Pek's drawing was sent to the Director of Public Works in February 1911. Henny to Mayor and aldermen, 1359 PW 1911. 657 23. 1504 PW 1912, developers were N. V. Bouwmaatschappij "Insulinde", Maatschappij voor Grondbezit en Grondcrediet, and Maatschappij "Amsterdam" te exploitatie van bouwterrein. The Health Board did like a revised plan by van 24. 4278 PW 1913. Niftrik, but wished the area to be designated for two and three storey building, a proposal rejected by the Director of Public Works, Bos, 6226 Dos. 265 (3 June 1913). 25. Wibaut suggested a competition for the plan, saying that if there could be a competition for the Dam, why not for a workers' area. AG Alderman Delprat defensively 2 (1912), 17 April 1912, pp. 529-30. suggested that Berlage design the plan so as to avoid the accusation from the council that Public Works did not consult an expert. BWT also to Bos. designed a plan and sent it Van der 4278 PW 1913; 46 VH 1916; Dossier 2456/1916 Dienst PW. 26. Mey based his plan on van Niftrik, the Health Board report, and the Director of Public Work's comments. Van der Mey's intention included a "walk" along the central boulevard, connecting to a "wandel allee" in the eastern half, a church playground, and a monumental complex in the west. Because of the necessity of waiting for a report on future railroad plans, 27 1918, AG 1 (1918), no. 851, approval of the plan was put off until September 1918, 2895-99, approved 9 October 1918. The Health Board was pleased with van der Mey's plan aesthetically and hygienically, but still wished for lower building heights. Gezondheidscommissie no. 322 (19 December 1913). Dir. PW #12399 Dossier 265, J. M. van der Mey, "Memorie van 27. toelichting bij schets uitbreidingsplan in den Overamstelschen Polder," 22 voor, te trachten September 1913. "...kwam het ontwerper verkieselijk naar een traceering van bouwblokken, die als geheel complex zooveel mogelijk waarborgen biedt voor een dragelijk geheel, gezien hoe weinig in het algemeen de traceering van rooilijnen een invloed ten goede geven kan, waar de bebouwing meest in handen komt van aesthetische onkundige particulieren." 28. For example, the council's decision of 15 February 1882, no. 8550 to give an award of f10,000 to the most beautiful facade on de Ruyterskade was never applied. 29. "Speculatie Bouw," BW 16, no. 24 (13 June 1896), pp. 148-9. Report of the Amsterdam chapter of the Vereeniging ter Bevordering van A. J. Cohen Stuart, Ed. Fabrieks- en Handwerksnijverheid in Nederland. Cuypers, J. Kruseman, E. de Lange, J. F. Staal, C. T. J. Louis Rieber. "Wel echter zouden de Gemeentebestuuren, bij het geven van vergunning tot bouwen, de ontwerpen in handen kunnen stellen van bevoegde beoordeelaars wijziging en verbetering, what vorm en kleur om wenken te geven tot betreft; immers, ten nutte van het algemeen behooren de plannen ook beoordeeld te worden door de hoofden der Brandweer ter plaatse, met het oog op brandweer, en door een praktisch hygienist-bouwkundige wat betreft de hygiene der woning. 30. In 1903 the Beauty Commission passed judgement on 91 out of 1909 new buildings; in 1912 409 out of 1072. From around 1911 it became the custom to have the Beauty Commission review all buildings to be constructed on land leased from the city. In 1905 Social Democrats Henri Polak and P. L. Tak tried unsuccessfully to amend the proposed Building Ordinance so that inadequate aesthetic treatment might be grounds for AG 1 (1905), no. 622, 15 June 1905, 821; refusing a building permit. 21 June 1905, pp. 872-6. discussion and rejection AG 2 (1905), 658 31. The commission conflicted with the mayor and aldermen over the design of new police headquarters. In a letter of 25 January 1911 the commission asked mayor and aldermen for the authority to review all designs for municipal buildings. For contemporary histories of the Beauty Commission see W. J. de Groot, "Het Instituut der Gemeentelijke (27 May 1916), pp. 46-7; Delprat Schoonheids Commissie," BW 34, no. 4 speech, AG 2 (1914), 25 March 1914, pp. 625-28. 32. AG 1 (1915), no. 93, 26 January 1915, pp. 57-66. Mayor 33. Beauty Commission to mayor and aldermen, 6 December 1915. The Public Works and aldermen to Beauty Commission, 10 July 1916. Committee argued that Public Works already had a first class architect in van der Mey and therefore its designs did not need to be reviewed. 2 March 1916 meeting. "Een 34. Public Works Committee meeting, 10 October 1918, p. 292. ieder die een bouwontwerp indient en niet behoort tot de bevriende architecten-vereenigingen is met een zwarte kool geteekend. Geen ontwerp van hem zal worden goedgekeurd, terwijl ontwerpen van personen uit of groen, zonder bezwaar de Commissie passeeren." bepaalde groepen, rijp 35. A. Keppler, "De Architect en het Woningvraagstuk," BW 20, no. 47 (23 November 1912), p. 399. 36. AG 2 (1915), no. 93, 25 February 1915, 235. Quoted in F. J. Kubatz, "Bauberatung," BW 33, no. 33 33 (16 37. August 1913), p. 408 at the Verbond van Nederlandse Kunstenaars "Hier wordt men wel getroffen door het comble van Vereenigingen. tegenstellingen. Men heeft daar bouwwerken van de meest op den voorgrond tredende en toonaangevende bouwmeesters, die te samengebracht een ensemble effekt te weeg brengt. Mij, heeft dit allerzotst totaal pijnlijker getroffen dan elk incoherent ensemble van revolutiebouw zou vermogen te doen." 38. Ibid. Niet slechts zal ze te zorgen hebben, dat wat gebouwd wordt beantwoorden zal aan aesthetiese eisen, maar verder zal - tot zolang wij weder in het bezit zijn van een algemeen uit den tijdgeest en de kultuur voortgekomen kunstuiting - gezorgd moeten worder, dat het totaal beeld van straat en plein een aesthetiese eenheid of een harmoniese samenspel vertoont van vorm een kleur." 39. Ibid. "regelend optreden en er voor zorgen dat de verschillende bouwblokken als architectoniese eenheid behandelde zullen worden." 40. Die Einheitliche Blockfront als Raumelement im Stadtbau, ein zur Stadtbaukunst der Gegenwert (Bruno Cassirer Verlag: Berlin, Beitrag 1911). 41. H. P. Berlage, "Het Aesthetisch Gedeelte van Stedebouw", BW 34, no. 2 (10 January 1914), p. 11. Lectures transcribed by C. H. Schwagerman. "Zulke voorschriften, voor onze tijd eene onmogelijkheid geworden, geven intusschen het bewijs van een good inzicht in artistiek effekt en tevens van de bedoeling bij de inderdaad niet ongegronde vrees, dat bij verslapping van der algemeen stijl, waartoe in de Renaissance zeker alle kans bestond, het subjectivistisch element, dat altijd de eenheid verbreekt, zou overheerschen." 42. BW 34, no. 9 (28 February 1914), p. 98. 43. BW 34, no. 11 (14 March 1914), p. 126. "De mooi stad is geen verzameling van mooie eenheden, maar een enkele, groote, schoone eenheid." 44. BW, 34, no. 1 (3 January 1914), p. 7. "De stad als kunstwerk in zijn geheel begint eerst daar waar en plan en gebouwengroepeering te samen als een geheel worden ontworpen." 659 Ibid., pp. 126-7. 45. 46. Ibid., p. 127. 47. BW 34, no. 12 (21 March 1914), p. 138. "Thans zal men er toe moeten komen, de bebouwing van een straat aan een enkelen bouwmeester op te dragen of, hetgeen bij goeden wil tot hetzelfde doel kan lieden, tot een samenwerking van hen, die eenzelfde straat zullen bebouwen en dus het stadsbeeld scheppen." 48. H. P. Berlage, "Memorie van toelichting behorende bij het Ontwerp van het Uitbreidingsplan der Gemeente Amsterdam," March 1915. AG 1 (1917), no. 854, 27 July 1917, pp. 910-14, appendix A. Berlage referred to the 1906 Serrurier-Falkenberg report which also led to the conclusion that housing would improve with the coming of large scale development by financially secure developers. Berlage' "blokbouw" prescription for Amsterdam unlocked economic controversy during council discussion of the plan. Would Amsterdam refuse to lease land to small builders? This was not a tenable position. Alderman Vliegen explained the intent of the mayor and aldermen to support "blokbouw" on the important streets, such as the avenue leading to the proposed (but never built) Academy of Fine Arts. 26 October 1917, p. 2021. AG 2 (1917), 49. Letter from Bos to the Alderman of Public Works (18 October 1915), 4548 Doss. 4548 GE 1915. Arie Keppler, Director of the newly established Housing Authority and Theo van der Waerden, Director of BWT supported the idea of the designer of a plan giving direction to the building on it. 46 VH 1915 (31 March 1916) 50. Public Works Committee meeting, 16 December 1915, pp. 249-50. 51. BWT no. 636 AZ 1913 no. 9204 (19 July 1913). Keppler sent the Director of BWT a map of the Spaarndammer district with possible sites for the societies HIJSM, Patrimonium, Oosten, Amsterdam Bouwfonds, and het Westen. 52. Keppler, Tellegen and the Director of Public Works visited the van Verschuer district in Arnhem to see if it offered any ideas for Amsterdam, Tellegen AG 2 (1918), 2 October 1918, p. 2294. 53. A. Keppler, "Gewijzigd plan Polanenbuurt," 30 December 1913, 15818 AZ 1910 (14 January 1915), Director BWT Tellegen to Alderman of Housing Wibaut. This single large block was to be put in the place of three blocks designed in the southwest corner of the original Public Works plan. Keppler also hoped to put in detached single storey houses. 54. Drawing in Director of Public Works, 2307 Doss. 882 (5 March 1914). 55. His plan is in 3163 VH 1914. 56. The Health Board, Public Works and Housing Committees all praised it. The Health Board visited Arnhem and was impressed by the hofs there. 232 GC 1915 (23 September 1915). The Public Works plan for the Spaarndammer district was changed on 13 October 1915, AG (1915), no. 1084, 28 September 1915, 2390-2. 57. Jan Gratama, "Kroniek LXII," BW 36, no. 13, (24 July 1915), p. 100-1. 58. Searing has pointed out that the lack of constructive expression in de Klerk's work ran against Berlage's rationalism. Cuypers resigned from the Beauty Commission over the question of the separation of construction from aesthetic judgement in relation to the block by de Klerk across from this one. Helen Searing, "Housing in Holland and the Amsterdam School" (Ph. D. diss., Yale University, 1971), 183-4. 59. Beauty Commission meeting (25 November 1915), PA 458/16, MAA. 660 The block faced the square and turned onto Krommeniestraat, adjacent to the proposed housing for Het Oosten by Lippets, Scholten and Moolenschot which in turn connected to Leliman's housing for Eigen Haard. On the other side of Krommeniestraat, Gulden and Geldmaker planned a block for Amsterdam Zuid. 60. Beauty Commission meetings, 30 December 1915, 9 December 1915, 24 February 1916, PA 458/14, MAA. Keppler to de Klerk, 12 January 1916 and de Klerk to Keppler, 14 January 1916, PA 458/20, MAA. De Klerk wanted continuity, not a break with the adjacent housing as the Beauty Commission suggested. He wanted a high continuous roofline. Beauty Commission to Housing Authority, 14 January 1916; Director Housing Authority to Alderman of Housing, 1439 WD 1916 (29 March 1916). 61. See Keppler's letter to the Alderman of Housing, 1439 WD 1916 (29 March 1916): "Bovendien is het mij gelukt de woningbouwvereeniging "Eigen Haard" bereid to vinden de bebouwing aan het Spaarndammerplein te doen uitvoeren doo den Architect M. de Klerk, zoodat ook rondom dit plein de eenheid van het stadsbeeld niet verbroken behoeft te worden. Wel zal de derde zijde van het plein voor een deel bebouwd worden naar plannen van de Architecten Gulden en Geldmaker, doch overleg met den Architect M. de Klerk acht ik niet buitengesloten te meer daar deze mij bereids verklaarde, dat de ontworpen bebouwing van de heeren G. en G. naar zijne meening niet storend op het door hem ontworpen stadsbeeld zou werken. 62. Beauty Commission meeting, 30 December 1915, PA 458/14, MAA. 63. 170 VH 1916, SC no. 12 (14 January 1916) letter to mayor and aldermen. This issue once again split Public Works from BWT and the Housing Authority. Director of BWT van der Waerden shared the committee's point of view, see letter to Alderman of Housing, 170 VH 1916 (6 March 1916), where he wants this for the private developer as well. In another letter the Beauty Commission complained to mayor and aldermen about the developer who puts his profit before all else and of the Public Works land policy which worked against Berlage's plan. SC no. 49 (29 December 1916). 64. For the history of planning of the North see L. Jansen, "De geschiedenis van Amsterdam Noord," Ons Amsterdam 14, no. 12 (December 1962), pp. 354-9 and 15, no. 2 (February 1963), pp. 42-4. Arie Keppler, Amsterdam "Plan van uitbreiding van de overzijde van het Ij," Woningdienst, 1926. 65. Y-Commissie plan of 27 April 1903, set by RB 20 January 1906, AG 1 (1905), no. 1024, p. 2357. A general extension plan for the Ij was set on 29 July 1914. 66. AG 1 (1910), no. 706, 12 July 1910, pp. 755-60, and no. 798, 24 July 1912. Building was limited to three stories on the recommendation of the Health Board, 27 December 1909, no. 438. The Public Works plan changed the street pattern, but kept the land use suggested by the YCommissie. The housing societies which built here were Dr. Schaepman, het Oosten, and het Algemeene. 67. The individual architects also drew up plans. Noorlander, Leliman, Kuipers and Ingwersen. These were little improvement over the Public Works plan. The collaborative plan was a collaboration of Keppler with Leliman, Walenkamp and Kuipers and Ingwersen. 1931 VH 1914 (21 January 1915), Director BWT to Alderman of Housing. 68. Keppler also generally urged that schools be designed by the same architects as designed the housing rather that by the Public Works civil servants. Keppler had submitted his plan 69. 812 PW 1915 (24 February 1915). 661 to Public Works for comment fully expecting the ideas to influence Public Works. But van der Mey made little use of the ideas. The Director of Public Works was even upset that van der Mey had met with Keppler and the housing architects to plan the Zaanhof. 70. 1931 VH 1914 (21 January 1915) Director BWT to Alderman of Housing; 4955 PW 1914 (27 July 1914). 71. 704 VH 1915 (5 May 1915). Bos also disagreed on the cost of the land and the density of construction. 72. The plan was passed on 18 October 1916, AG 1 (1916), no. 1113, 10 October 1916, p. 2577. 73. 1439 WD 1916 (29 March 1916). 74. 952 WD 1916 (29 February 1916) and 2762 PW 1916 (13 March 1916). 75. Beauty Commission meetings 9 July 1917, 8 November 1917. A. Kepper to Beauty Commission, 31 May 1917. Verslag Schoonheidscommissie, 1917. 76. AG 2 (1917), no. 851, 26 October 1917, p. 2029. 77. Beauty Commission meeting (20 June 1918). The Cooperatie district was on the site originally planned for an academic hospital. Chapter Ten: THE BEAUTY COMMISSION 1. Keppler to Mayor, 1987 VH 1918, 12 July 1918. "Een goed resultaat is door mij bereikt, door bij den bouw aan het Spaarndammerplantsoen den eisch te stellen, dat die bouw door een bepaald Keppler also complained to the Beauty architect moest geschieden." Commission about failures in the Zaanbuurt, Nieuwendammerham, and in the South at the Beauty Commission meeting of 15 May 1919, PA 458/14, MAA. The most famous of housing complexes in Amsterdam, de Klerk's projects for Eigen Haard in the Spaarndammerbuurt, have been extensively studied: Worker's Housing and the Amsterdam School," Helen Ssaring, "Eigen Haard: "Michel de Klerk's Designs for Architectura no. 2 (1971), 148-175; Amsterdam's Spaarndammerbuurt (1914-1920) A Contribution to Architectural Lyricism," Nederlandse Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 22 (1971), 175-213; Maristella Casciato and Wim de Wit, Le Case Eigen Haard di De Klerk (Rome, 1984). De Klerk's life and work are chronicled in Suzanne Frank, "Michel de Klerk (1884-1923), An Architect of the Amsterdam School" (Ph. D. diss., Columbia University, 1969). For an introduction to the history of the Amsterdam School, see Ellinoor Bergvelt, et. al., Amsterdamse School 1910-1930 (Amsterdam, 1975), exhibition catalogue, Stedelijk Museum; Wim de Wit, ed., The Amsterdam School, Dutch Expressionist Architecture, 1915-1930 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983), exhibition catalogue, CooperHewitt Museum. 2. Keppler to Tellegen, 4656 VH 1919, 13 October 1919. 3. Public Works Committee, 10 July 1913. 4. BW 31, no. 37 (16 September 1911), p. 447; Architectura 19 (1911), p. 298. 5. "Honorarium Gevelontwerpen," BW 31, no. 26 (1 July 1911), p. 304. 6. Beauty Commission meeting, 2 November 1916, PA 458/16, MAA. This suggestion was vetoed because if the Beauty Commission made the appointment it would be unable to judge the facade without prejudice. 7. Beauty Commission meeting 16 November 1916 and 23 November 1916, PA 458/16, MAA. Beauty Commission to mayor and aldermen, 29 December They would drop a name from 1916, SC no.48 and 8 January 1916, SC no.48. 662 the list once used, and fill in with new names so as to rotate the opportunities for work. Beauty Commission Bos, Dienst PW 248 Doss 247, 23 April 1917; 8. meeting, 30 August 1917, PA 458/14. These proposals arose as 1363 VH 1917, 24 September 1917. 9. reactions to the Koninklijke Hollandse Lloyd episode, see below. Beauty Commission meeting, 12 August 1915, PA 458/14. The intent 10. to judge the architects on the BWT list was also clearly stated in the meeting of 26 August 1915. 11. Beauty Commission meeting, 23 September 1915, PA 458/14. This led to one argument against the "Bauberatung," a bureau for 12. correcting inept facades. It was feared that the provision of such a service to developers would free them from the necessity of turning with work to archtitects. Chairman, B. J. Ouendag, BW 34, no.21 (23 May 1914), pp. 244-5. 13. F. J. Kubatz, and P. G. Buskens. This report also advised the of an architectural advisory office on the model of the installation German Bauberatung to which the rejected plans of non-architects could be sent for correction. Ibid., p. 245 Several years later another committee of the 14. Maatschappij studied the problem and concluded that advisory office should not be allowed in large cities where developers could always afford to pay for professional architectural help. The report subscribed to the system of a list of local architects, that is, that the Beauty Commission aid the It defined architects as members of architectural hiring of architects. societies which set sufficient requirements of competence for membership. BW 38, no. 25 (23 June 1917), pp. 145-6. 15. "Reorganisatie der Schoonheidscommissie," Architectura 20, no. 8 (24 February 1912), pp. 62-3. J. E. van der Pek, "De Taak en Bevoegheid der 16. The Schoonheidcommissien," BW 33, no. 23 (7 June 1913), pp. 273-5. general debate on the topic was held by the Maatschappij on 28 May 1913. See Jan Gratama, "Schoonheidcommissies en Openbaar Bouwkundig BW 33, no. 32 (9 August 1913), pp. 389-91. Adviesbureaux," C. B. Posthumus Meyjes, "Het typisch karakter onzer oude steden 17. en de taak der Schoonheidcommissies," BW 37, no. 34 (23 December 1916), p. 250. "De ontwikkeling van de bouwkunst worde nimmer verplaatst van de Dat zoude niet het bevorderen der bouwmeesters naar eengerlei Commissie. kunst, doch het dooden haarer bloei." J. Ingenohl, "Schoonheidscommissien," BW 33, no. 23 (7 June 18. "Hierin ligt juist het subtiele, het ethische van het 1913), p. 272. instituut: persoonlijk smaak mag niet gelden, geen enkele voorkeur voor den doorslag geven; de grootst mogelijke wwardeering voor de eene richting opvatting van den vakgenoot blijve op den voorgrond ook al druischt deze vierkant tegen eigen meening in." 19. On the other hand, both sides could agree that the prevention of P. Bakker Schut ugliness by eliminating the non-architect was legitimate. on the avoidance of official art in "Schoonheideischen en de Bouwverordening," Gemeentebelangen 12 no. 6 (1916), p. 103. "Heeft eene schoonheidscommissie het Posthumus Meyjes, op. cit. 20. recht, on aldus te trachten de architecten te leiden in de banen, die zij der Daartoe is het instituut meent dat de eenige ware en schoone zijn? schoonheidscommissie zeer zeker niet in het leven geroepen en daartoe zijn deze commissies zeker niet gerechtigd. Zij hebben alleen de ingediende 663 ontwerpen objectieve te beoordelen en na te gaan of een ontwerp al of niet in strijd is met de algemeene en fundamenteele eischen der aesthetica en zij moeten zich onthouden van het voorschrijven van een bepaalde stijl, waaraan de ontwerper moeten voldoen." De Gids 78, 21. R. N. Roland Holst, "Kunst als Regeeringszaak," This was part of an argument on the failure of part 2 (1914), p. 531. state architecture and the juries for the Rotterdam City Hall and aesthetische "Een jury met politiek Groningen University buildings. overwegingen samengesteld, waarin voor iederen van van rechts zorgvuldig een jury aldus samengesteld, legt ook een man voor links wordt gekozen; onvermijdelijk den doorslag in handen van de kleurlooze middenstof, van de onovertuigden, wier smaak in kunst uitgaat naar het tamme karakterlooze, naar die kunst die niet gehaat kan worden, noch kan worden bemind, omdat vrijwel onverschillig laat. zij een ieder eigenlijk AG 1 (1902), no. 664, 24 June 1902, pp. 839-40. 22. Maatschappij and A+A "Een Adres," BW 22, no. 28 (12 July 1902); 23. to City Council, 20 September 1902 in BW 22, no. 39 (27 September 1902). For example, such issues as the design of the police 24. headquarters, de Bijenkorf, the Stadhuis, or the Vijzelstraat. Discussion of the incident occurred in the council AG 2 (1914), 25. 1 Beauty Commission to mayor and aldermen, 25 March 1914, pp. 623-32. April 1914; Architectura 22, no. 14 (4 April 1914), pp. 110-2. Beauty Commission meeting, 4 January 1917. 26. 27. "Was een staal van de uitheemsche stijlnamaak zoals die 30 of 40 jaar gelden werd bedreven en eene volkomen negatie van de onwikkeling der bouwkunst sedert dien tijd." SC 342,23 September 1916, PA 458/20. 28. 29. J. B. van Loghem, "Moderne bouwkunst en Schoonheidcommissie," BW "Al zal dan ook een schoonheidscommissie 38, no.1 (6 January 1917), p. 6. in haar kwaliteit geen kunstwerk kunnen doen ontstaan, zij kan zeker wanneer zij blijft afwijzen de dorre producten uit antiquarischen geest gesprolen, of door domme behoudzucht van den lastgever ontstaan, veel bijdragen tot het zuivere begrip omtrent kunst." For instance, a dissenting voice in the commission itself, 30. Ouendag. "De vraag waar het publiek allermeest belang bij heeft - zoolang 31. wij de schoonheid onzer stad nog een openbaar belang mogen noemen - is deze: mag men in de tegenwoordigen omstandigheden het Amsterdamsche stadsschoon bij de overheid veilig behoed achten?" "Wie zal bepalen, hoe het AG 2 (1917), 10 January 1917, p. 31. 32. stadsschoon er zal uitzien? De individueele bouwheer, of zullen B. en W. Of Publieke Werken?" dat doen? Mayor and aldermen to Beauty Commission, 25 November 1916, mayor 33. "De vrijheid om gebouwen op te richten and aldermen no.240871, SC no.46. welke de stad ontsieren kan [het gemeente] ontkennen, maar dwang op te leggen ter zake van de keuze van bepaalde bouwstijlen, kan, naar ons oordeel, niet op den weg liggen van een gemeentebestuur of ander overheidslichaam." 664 Chapter Eleven: WORKERS' HOUSING AND AESTHETICS 1. J. van Hasselt and L. Verschoor, De Arbeiderswoningen in 141. 1891), Nederland (Amsterdam, 2. Carel Schade, Woningbouw voor arbeiders in het negentiende eeuwse Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1981), 196. 3. G. E. V. L. van Zuylen, "De toepassing der hygiene bij den bouw BW 12 (4 June 1892), p. 114. van goedkope woonhuizen," "Hoewel de heer [P. J. H.] Cuypers 4. BW 12 (4 June 1892), p. 115. afkeurend sprak over een overdreven versiering van arbeiderswoiningen meende hij toch voor den werkman, evenwel recht te mogen vorderen om in een huis te wonen, dat aan alle eischen der bouwkunst voldoet, even goed het geval is bij de woningen van de meer bemiddleden." dit als 5. See for example the arguments used by J. B. van Loghem, "Algemeene wenken aan woningbouwvereenigingen," Woningbouw 2, no. 4 (December 1918), 5-6. The committee also 6. Beauty Commission meeting, 23 March 1916. planned to tell Keppler that they objected from an aesthetic viewpoint to such designs. They also objected to the gateway by Kuipers for Patrimonium. There was some dissent on the issue, although later the point was clarified with the admission that more extravagance was permissible where the housing was not being subsidized by the state. (Meeting 20 April 1916) "Het oordeel der commissie over het ontwerp dat dit voor de luxueuse opzet speciaal de torens en de Walenkamp is, talrijke topgevels, die een belangrijke bedrag aan bouwkosten en onderhoud vorderen, geenzins het karakter van arbeiderswoningen vertoont." Walenkamp sat on the 7. Beauty Commission meeting, 6 April 1916. Beauty Commission at the time. 8. For an interesting contemporary discussion of the symbolic "De significance of the rural motif in modern dwellings see J. G., BW no. 47 Gartenstadt Tentoonstelling in het Gebouw der Maatschappij," (1908), pp. 907-8. 9. R. N. Roland Holst, "Proletariaat en Kunst," De Nieuwe Tijd 9 (1904), 787-790. 10. Housing Committee meeting, 18 May 1915, refering to the Nachtegaalstraat housing in Spreeuwpark. 11. H. P. Berlage, "De arbeiderswoningen aan de gedempte "Want dat Lindengracht," De Kroniek 2, no. 98 (8 November 1896), 360-1. is het verblijdenden van deze mogelijkheid, dat de arbeider nu en mocht langzamerhand zal ggan zien dat ook de kunst voor hem kan wezen; het zijn, wat ik zoo zeer wensch, dat wat men gewoon is luxe-architectuur te noemen haar parvenuachtig schijnschoon zal gaan afleggen, een schon dat de arbeider met zijn smaak, die in dezer tijd wel niet anders denkbaar is, voor echt, d.i. rijk, d.i. mooi aanziet, en eenvoudig zal gaan worden, dan die een weldadig democratische tegemoetkoming zijn zal er een artistiek eenheid komt brengen in het architectonisch aspect, zonder dat wij daarom een luxebouw voor een arbeiderswoning, of omgekeerd een arbeidswoning voor een luxebouw behoeft aan te zien." 12. Leliman to Keppler, 4894 WD 1917. 13. Jan de Meyer, H. Wijdeveld, and J.B. van Loghem, "Juryrapport Geval Prijsvraag Arbeiderswoningen," Architectura 25, no. 15 (14 April 1917), p. 114. 14. Helen Searing, "Berlage and Housing: 'the most significant modern building type,'" Nederlandse Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 24 (1975), 665 133-180. Berlage's design included work for De Arbeiderswoning, Het Algemeene, and the City. 15. Algemeene, Jaarverslag 1911, p. 19. Helen Searing, "Housing in Holland and the Amsterdam School," 16. (Ph. D. diss., Yale University, 1971), 225-7. 17. Mayor and aldermen to Keppler, 155 VH 1919, 24 January 1919. It was defended by 18. Housing Committee meeting, 20 March 1920. Gulden, Wibaut, and Keppler who said it was not more costly. Actually, the accusation of costliness began with BWT Director van der Kaa's accusation of the increased costs of housing society housing and a nasty letter from the Minister of Labor, This led to the detailed comparison of the costs of public and private construction in 1913 and 1919, 2729 VH 1920. 19. D. Hudig and H.C.A. Henny, Handleiding voor woningbouwvereenigingen (Zwolle, 1911), p. 23. 20. De Handwerksman 22, no. 8 (29 October 1912), (12 November 1912). They selected Leliman, saying certain names were out of the question. 21. Eigen Haard to CBSA, 28 September 1901, a cooperative housing society for teachers. CBSA 234, RA 152, IISG. 22. Theo Rueter, "Bouwvereenigingen en Architecten," BW 42, no. 14 "In ons landje met honderderlei schakeeringen op (2 April 1921), p. 83. politiek en godsdienstig terrein bestaan even zoovele coterieen, waarvan 't gevolg dus is dat katholieke bouwvereenigingen katholieke architecten kiezen; christelijke bouwvereenigingen christelijk architecten; soc.democratisch bouwvereenigingen soc.-democratisch architecten, ieder volgens eigen etiket." 23. For instance, these societies kept the same architect for all their projects between 1909 and 1919: HIJSM - Greve (2 projects), het Oosten - Moolenschot, Lippits, Scholte (5), Patrimonium - Kuipers and Ingwersen (8), Dr. Schaepman - Rijnja (4), het Westen - Walenkamp (3), Amsterdam Bouwfonds - van der Pek (2), Amsterdam Zuid - Gulden and Geldmaker (5), ACOB - van Epen (3), Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijging van Eigen Woningen - Weissman (7). Ad Bevers, Oost-West Thuis Best (Amsterdam, 1961), p. 30. 24. 25. Patrimonium's Bode 4, no. 1 (1 July 1917), project behind Schinkel. 26. See for example, L. H. E. van Hylkema Vlieg, "Bauberatung IV," BW 33, no. 47 (22 November 1913), pp. 576-8. 27. See for example Frans Coenen, "Kunst aan het Volk," Pro en Contra 5, no. 6 (1909). 28. Helene Mercier, Over Arbeiderswoningen (Haarlem, 1887), p. 238. Met verbazing heb ik tot op de vierde verdiepingvan huizen in zijsloppen van 'Hol' en 'Hemelrijk' goed onderhoudne latafels of kastjes, glimmend glazen ballen, porceleinen poppetjes, enz. gevonden. En wat in 't oogvallend mag heeten - schier overal, ook in de woningen der bouwvereenigingen viel de opmerking te maken dat, hoe minder beschaafd de bewoners schenen, hoe meer zoo genaamd moois er in de kamer was uitgesteld." 29. Henri Polak, "De Strijd der Diamantbewerkers" 1896, p. 13-4 quoted in Henri Heertje, De Diamant-bewerkers van Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1936), p. 38. "Het geld moest weg, en ging weg aan de meest smakelooze, wanstaltige dingen.. .Allereerst werden nieuwe meubelen aangeschaft.. .Het waren mahoniehouten abominaties, met rood trijp bekleede stoelen en canapes (tete a tetes genaamd), zorgvuldig met "hozen" overtrokken, 666 zilverkasten (Bonheur du jour geheten, de hemel weet waarom), versierd met onmogelijk beeldhouwwerk, linnenkasten "van binnen massief eeken," waarin werd opgeborgen het familie linnen en de damasten tafellakens (deze vooral), die met hunne ingeweven landschappen, hertenjachten en arabesken den trots der slijpersvrouwen uitmaakten. "Verblinden waren de kleuren der gebloemde tapijteen, helschitterend de vergulde pendules met candelabras, de vergulde lijsten om de chromo's "naar Koekoek," de glazen gaskronen." 30. Mercier, op. cit. "Er is menige eenkamerwoning, die op het punt van meubelering een sterken familietrek gemeen heeft met den modernen salon van den rijkgeworden bourgeois: snuisterijenmagazijnen even als deze." 31. [P. L.] T.[ak]I, "Kunst aan 't Volk," De Kroniek 10, no. 516 (12 P. L. Tak, F. M. Wibaut, and H. P. Berlage November 1904), pp. 360-1. supported the organization. In its 1908 membership was 2000. Vereeniging Kunst aan het Volk, "Daden der vereenignng, 1903-1907," Tak archive, IISG. For a scholarly discussion of taste reform in the Netherlands between 1900 and 1940 see Mark Adang, "Breng me in uw huis, laat me uw woonkamer zien, Het denken over kitsch en smaakopvoeding en ik zal u zeggen wie gij zijt! in Nederland," Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 28 (1977), pp. 209-59. 32. W. P.[enaat], "Kunst aan 't Volk, Catalogus met de beschrijving van de tentoonstelling gehouden in het Stedelijk Museum van Amsterdam," April 1905. 33. Also in 1909 in the Hague there was an exhibition by the similar society Kunst aan Allen with good and bad examples of workers' home See v. H., "Tentoonstelling van 'Kunst aan Allen,'" BW 29, no. interiors. 22 (29 May 1909), pp. 264-5. 34. See Jan Gratama, "Kroniek XX, Tentoonstelling van Smaakmisleiding," BW 31, no. 2 (14 January 1911), pp. 13- 5. 35. "Tentoonstelling van meubeleeringen voor arbeiderswoningen in 'Ons Huis' te Rotterdam, Juni, 1912," Architectura v. 20, no. 26 (29 July 226-7. 220-1, (6 August 1912), 1912), 36. Lambertus Zwiers, "Meubelen voor een Arbeiderswoonkamer," BW 37, no. 6 (10 June 1916), p. 65. De Volksschool 5, no. 3 (7 February 1906). 37. 38. Amsterdam Zuid, Jaarverslag 1915. Berlage and van Epen also furnished a flat in the Transvaal district for het Algemeene. Other exhibitions included: Het huis en zijn inrichting, 1 May to 7 June 1920 by the Nederlandsch Vereening van Huisvrouwen for which van Epen designed low cost and expensive rooms; Tentoonstelling voor Woning-inrichting, 20 May to 1 July 1921 at the Stedelijk Museum with work of P. Kramer and others, organized by A. R. Hulshoff. 39. This was according to a scheme originated in Germany by G. E. Pazaurek, who wrote Geschmacksverirrungen im Kunstgewerbe, Fuhrer fur die neue Abteilung im Koningl. Landes Gewerbemuseum (Stuttgart, 1909). See Adang, op. cit., note 1. 40. H. P. Berlage, "Korte Uiteenzetting van het doel der tentoonstelling van smaakmisleiding," Kunst aan 't Volk, 1910. Listed of materials, further are poor materials, old materials, falsification poor construction, inefficient construction, false representation of technique, plagiarism, overdecoration, historical styles, loud and clashing colors. A. Ogterop, "De gezellige woning," Bond van Sociaal41. democratische Vrouwenclubs, Amsterdam, no date. 667 42. See the description of the bad example of furnishings described in the Ons Huis exhibition, Architectura 20, no. 27 (6 August 1912). 226 or Henri Polak's articles in the Weekblad. 43. Architectura 20, no. 26 (29 July 1912), p. 220. 44. From E. Kuipers' attack on workers who fill de Klerk's Eigen Haard complex on Wormerveerstraat with a poor imitation of "capitalist" furniture. This is clearly a socialist speaking, but the argument is exactly the same as a liberal's: "Het zal wel veel moeite kosten, de arbeiders te overtuigen, dat zij voor het geld dat zij te besteden hebben geen waarlijk goede meubelen zich kunnen verschaffen, en dat zij, in plaats van hum woning met slechte namaak meubelen te stoffeeren, beter zouden doen also zij zich zouden beperken tot het allenoodigst huisraad." E. Kuipers, "Arbeiderscomplexen van M. de Klerk," Woningbouw 3, no. 4 (October 1919), pp. 30-2. 45. Handelsblad (23 May 1916): "Luthersche Besjeshuis." 46. "Arbeiderscomplex van K. de Bazel," Woningbouw 3, no. 4 (October 1919), 4. 47. Joh. L. in the Telegraaf of 27 May 1920 on J. C. van Epen's design for a modest home at "Het huis en zijn inrichting" exhibition organized by Ned. Ver. van Huisvrouwen, 1 May 1920 to 7 June 1920. "Als de mindergegoeden zich niet zelf kunnen opwerken tot de lust te wonen in een interieur waar men levendigheid meer intimiteit en meer eigen inventie domineert dan in deze goedkoope schepping van deze architect, dan verdienen zij eeuwig het te midden van hun penantkastjes en theetafeltjes gezellig te hebben." 48. For example, v. H., "Tentoonstelling van 'Kunst aan Allen,'" BW 29, no. 22 (29 May 1909), pp. 264-5. 49. Cornelius Veth, "Kunst aan 't Volk," Pro en Contra 5, no. 6 (1909), p. 13. "de pretentie, gelegen ten eerste in het zich opwerpen als een soort van intellectueele en aesthetische voogd over een onmondige: and het volk." Veth argued that people wanted entertainment, not art, that few people of any class had real interest in art. Art, he said, cannot be served up on a silver platter. Art appreciation must be learned, and rather that offer popularized art to adults, it would be better to start proper training at an early age. J. P. M[ieras], "Amsterdamsche Tentoonstelling van Woning50. in he Stedelijk Museum," BW, no. 25 (18 June 1921), pp. 161. inrichting "De pogingen om de arbeiderswoning te brengen op een voldoend praktisch en aesthetisch peil, zullen wel van een bevredigend resultaat afblijven, zoolang aan die pogingen niet meer dan tot nu toe door het arbeiderselement zelf wordt deelgenomen. Het is nu eenmaal zoo, dat iedereen er gaarne op gesteld is, dat er, wanneer er over hem workt bedisseld, er toch nog eenigmate rekening wordt gehouden met wat hij zelf voelt en wil. En tegenover al het goede, dat de huidige woninghervormers in zich hebben, moet men toch nog helaas opmerken, dat ze tegenover de arbeiders psyche wat vaderlijk opvoeden zijn. Men leert b.v. de arbeiders wonen! Men leert ze waar hun tafel moet worden geplaatst, waar hun lamp moet hangen, waar hun bed moet staan. En om de ongehoorzamen hun les goed to leeren, plaatst men het raam in den hoek opdat daar voor en vooral niet in het midden der kamer de tafel kome, schroeft men de lampehaak uit middelpuntig in het plafond, opdat de lamp des arbeiders niet in het midden van zijn kamer hange, en timmert men in een bepaalde hoek van zijn woonvertrek zijn bed vast, opdat hij niet daar, waar het hem nu eens zou lusten, maar hier zijn achturige slaap geniete. 668 "Alles in naam der hygiene, der sociale verzorg en der aan te leeren begrippen omtrent "echte" huiselijkheid. "En over den arbeider, die zijn tafel parmantig in het midden zet van zijn kamer, dat malle naar den hoek verwaaide raam van 's morgens vroeg tot 's avonds laat verwenscht, die aan de lampehaak zijn kanariekooi en lamp aan een vernuftig gespannen ijzerdraad in de kleur van het zijn plafond hangt, en zijn vastgetimmerd bed eenvoudig stuk zaagt om het te reconstrueeren in den uitbouw van zijn woonkamer, vanwege het schoone rond middennacht, over zoo'n uitzicht op de pinkelende sterretjes onbekeerbare schudt men meewarig het hoofd en er rijst twijfel in de boezems der woninghervormers, die niettemin hun wenkbrauwen fronsen. "En vooral ook moet nog de smaak van den arbeider ontwikkeld, In naam der schoonheid, o arbeider! verbeterd, vooral verfijnd worden. ziehier een theetafel...zie hier een pul...zie daar aan Uwen wand een Isographie van van Meurs, voorstellende een Herdersjongen van J. F. Millet, een beroemd Fransch schilder uit de 19de eeuw, in lijst en achter En voortaan zult gij slapen o arbeider!, in dit hemelsblauwe glas. gij des ledikant met deze witte sterren, en daar Uwe vrouw:; van haar zult nachts gescheiden zijn door deze tabouret en dit nachtkastje met afgesloten medicijnberging, voortaan zult gij U scheren voor dezen spiegel, links de zeep, rechts de kwast en Uwe vrouw zal zich spiegelen in dit triptiek, een glas voor haar effen voorhoofd, haar neus, haar kin en haren blanken hals, een glas voor hare linker wang, het ander voor de rechter. "En dit alles in de blauwe met grijs gemengde kleuren, opdat als gij nederligt in Uwe sponde, de schoonheid binnenstroome en doorwerke tot op Uw gebeent! "Zoo wordt de smaak van den arbeider onder voogdij gesteld van hen, die hum smaak ontwikkeld, interessant, gevoelig en mooi vinden." 51. W. H. V.[liegen], "Leekgedachten over kunstbeoefening," De "Wie kunst wil brengen aan het volk Kroniek 10, no.465 (1904), p. 370. moet die kunst aanpassen aan het begripsvermogen van het volk." A. Keppler, "De Architecten en Volkshuisvesting," Architectura 52. 20, no. 47 (23 November 1912), 398-400. Jan Gratama, "Gemeentelijke Woningbouw. Transvaalbuurt, Amster53. See also a favorable dam," BW 41, no. 4 (24 January 1920), pp. 19-23. review by J. G. Wattjes, "Woningbouw in de Transvaalwijk te Amsterdam," Bouwbedrijf, no. 3 (September 1924), pp. 97-103. 54. P. L. Tak, "Kunst aan 't Volk," De Kroniek 10, no. 516 (12 "Er is onder ander kunstenaars zooals architekten November 1904), p. 361. en sierkunstenaars, een behoefte groeiende aan eenvoud en waarheid, die een duidelijke reactie is tegen de eischen van het kapitalisme, veelal zoowel met eenvoud als met waarheid in strijd." 55. R. N. Roland Holst, "Proletariat en Kunst," De Nieuwe Tijd 9 "Zeker het proletariaat ontbreekt het vermogen de (1904), p. 787-790. schoonheid der burgerlijke kunst in haar diepste beteekenis te begrijpen." 56. J. F. Staal, "Af- en toe wendingen," Wendingen 1, no. 10 (October 1918), p.16. "De arbeider spreekt niet mede in het vraagstuk zijner woning dan met de woorden van den bourgeois, daar hij aan het inzicht en de vertolking zijner eigen belangen nog niet is toegekomen." 57. J. van der Waerden, "Maatregelen waardoor de bouw in massa bevorderd wordt. Normalisatie in de uitvoering, in het bijzonder wat betreft de te verwerken onderdeelen," in Nationale Woningraad, Van der Waerden figured that Praeadviezen voor het woningcongres, 67-96. 669 nine housing types would be needed, single family dwellings in detached, row, and corner types; two, three, and four family dwellings in row and corner type. 58. The discussion following van der Waerden's presentation appears in Nationale Woningraad, Stenographisch Verslag van het Woning Congres 11-12 Februari 1918, pp. 107-162. Van der Waerden's response to his audience follows on pages 165-174. 59. H. P. Berlage, Normalisatie in Woningbouw (Rotterdam: W. J. Brusse, 1918). This is a further elaboration of Berlage's comments at the convention. A negative appraisal of standardization appeared in Mederlandsch Instituut van Volkshuisvesting, "Normalisatie in den Woningbouw" (Amsterdam 1920), the results of a committee consisting of HCA Henny, A. Keppler, W. Verschoor, P. Vorkink, J. Versteeg, W. K. de Wijs. Chapter Twelve: PUBLIC ARBITERS OF TASTE: NEUTRALITY AND COMMITMENT THE CONFLICT BETWEEN 1. J. Mol, "Gedenkboek uitgegeven ten gelegenheid van het 50-jarig bestaan der vereeniging Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijging van Eigen Woningen"(Amsterdam, 1918), p. 81. The same series of events occured with their next project, in the Indische district. 2. Ibid., 111-5. 3. Beauty Commission, 23 May 1919 and 6 June 1919. 4. SC no.110, 19 June 1919. 5. For the history of the Beauty Commission and its relation to the Amsterdam School, see Helen Searing, "Housing in Holland and the Amsterdam School" (Ph. D. diss., Yale University, 1971), 215-224. 6. 5214 WD 1919 (25 June 1919), Keppler to Mayor. 7. 5412 WD 1919 (2 July 1919). "Het goedkeuren der plannen zou mijnerzijds zeer betreurd worden. Amsterdam heeft, wat betreft de verzorging der nieuwe arbeiderswijken, een naam gekrijgen in Binnen- en Buitenland. De uitvoering der plannen van den architect Weissman zou dien naam ten zeerste schaden." 8. A. W. Weissman to Mayor and aldermen (17 July 1919), 3057 PW 1919. 9. Bestuur, Vereeniging Bouwmaatschappij tot Verkrijging van Eigen Woningen to Mayor and aldermen (17 July 1919), 3056 PW 1919. 10. See Council discussion AG 2 (1919), 30 July 1919, pp. 1692-3, no.796. 11. Discussion at A+A meeting (10 January 1912), Architectura 20, no. 47 (23 November 1912), p. 400. 12. For instance, see reactions of all the main architectural societies to Mayor and aldermen on the Beauty Commission'S controversial Koloniaal Instituut decision. "Hierbij zij er op gewezen dat de Schoonheidscommissie is een zuiver aesthetisch-technische commissie, die bouwkundige ontwerpteekeningen te beoordelen heeft, waar omtrent de nietdeskundige uit den aard der zaak, zeer moeilijk het vereischte inzicht kon krijgen." BW 34, no. 13 (28 March 1914), p. 145. Note however, that the BNA later indicated that it favored lay members in the Beauty Commission. 13. AG 2 (3 November 1915), p. 1664. "Moeten wij de bebouwing van deze nieuwe stad, waarvan de plannen zijn gemaakt door Berlage, die zijn eigen opvattingen heeft omtrent bouwkunst, over laten aan de eigenaars, een vrijheid die de heer Fabius, zij het dan wellicht met een bloedend 670 hart, verdedigt, of moeten wij in den Raad paal en perk stellen aan de wijze van opbouw? Ik geloof dat was er niet van af zullen kunnen, om regelen te stellen ten aanzien van den opbouw in denzelfden stijl als Berlage zijn stad heeft ontwerpen." 14. J. F. Staal, jr., "'De Bouwwereld' en de Schoonheidcommissie," Architectura 25, no. 6 (10 February 1917), p. 27. "Voor deze keuze is een ruim inzicht in de bouwkunstwereld noodig, dat bij de Schoonheidcommissie zelve verwacht kan worden, doch niet bij een of anderen bouwer, die alleen een meer of minder ruim inzicht in zijn voordeel heeft. Een eigenbouwer kiest een ontwerper voor zijn te bouwen perceelen bij voorkeur uit goedkope, halfsleetsche of minderjarige krachten, uit zoons van leveranciers van bouwmaterialen, uit taxateurs of agenten van hypotheekof crediet banken, uit derzelver familieleden, etc." 15. J. H. Schaad, "Stedenschoon en Woningbouw met steun volgens de Woningwet," BW 34, no. 44 (31 October 1914), p. 483. "De beslissing wat mooi, wat leelijk is op architectonisch gebied, wel allerminst kunnen worden overgelaten aan de ondernemers, de leden eener woningbouwvereeniging." 16. 3622 WD 1919 Keppler letter to Beauty Commission 5 May 1919. 17. Beauty Commission meetings, 15 May 1919 and 25 September 1919. 18. Beauty Commission to Director of the Housing Authority, no.115 (27 September 1919). 19. 4656 VH 1919 (13 October 1919) Keppler to Tellegen. "De opbouw zal moeten ontworpen worden door de beste architecten van ons land, terwijl de uitvoering aan uitvoerende architecten kan worden opgedragen. Zulke brengt mede dat niet elke woningbouwvereenigingen een architectontwerper kan aanstellen. Door de overheid - de zorgdragster voor een aesthetische stedenbouw - zal moeten worden aagewezen de bouwmeesters, die de ontwerper zullen maken." 20. Ibid. "Er is een nieuwe tijd aangebroken; met oude organismen kan thans niet meer volstaan worden." A controversy ensued over a revolutionary memo Keppler prepared in 1918. He tried to organize a centralized architectural office for preparation of drawings for all housing societies, working with the Federatie of Amdsterdamsch Woningbouwvereenigingen and the Club of Amsterdamsch Woningbouwarchitecten, but with little result. At the same time, Keppler was encouraging collective organization of the building trades, with worker self management, Frans Becker and Johan Frieswijk, Bedrijven in Eigan Beheer, Kolonies en productieve associaties in Nederland tussen 1901 en 1958 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1978). 21. J. F. Staal, "Gemeentelijke aesthetisch toezicht op het bouwen," De Nieuwe Tijd (January 1920), pp. 12-17. 22. Theo Rueter, "Inleiding tot een bespreking over de noodzakelijkheid van een moderne bedrijfsorganisatie van architecten," quoted in J. P. M.[ieras], "Veranderingen in het Architectenberoep," BW 40, no. 50 (13 December 1919), pp. 310-5. See also his "Bouwvereenigingen en Architecten," BW 42 no. 14 (2 April 1921), 82-4 and no. 17 (23 April 1921), 105-7, and his letter BW 39, no. 31 (3 August 1918), . 180-2. 23. 4656 VH 1919 (13 October 1919). 24. For example, the works of de Klerk, Kramer, Gratama and Versteeg, Gulden and Geldmaker, J. F. Staal. On the architectural shaping of the southern extension of Amsterdam, the role of the Beauty Commission, the application of Amsterdam School aesthetics, and the association with Social Democratic policy, see Helen Searing, "With Red Flags Flying: 671 Housing in Amsterdam, 1915-1923," in H. A. Millon and L. Nochlin, eds., Art and Architecture in the Service of Politics (Cambridge: MIT Press, Social Democracy's Helen Searing, "Amsterdam South: 1978), 230-269; 59-77. Elusive Housing Ideal," VIA 4 (1980), Beauty Commission 25. He did not actually sign the drawings. meeting, 8 November 1917). Beauty Commission meeting, 19 May 1920. 26. Beauty Commission meeting 4 July 1919. 27. 27 September 28. SC no.115 to Director of the Housing Authority, 1919. The project was 29. Beauty Commission meeting, 29 August 1919. subjected to repeated rejections meeting after meeting until 15 October 1919 when they suggested that Moolenschot get an aesthetic assistent. numerous revisions on 22 March approved the design after They finally 1920. X. "Woningen der Amsterdamsche Coop. Woningbouwvereeniging 30. and Jaarverslag. Samenwerking," BW 32, no. 30 (27 July 1912), 358-9. 31. Beauty Commission meeting, 19 September 1919. This raised a question of authority resolved in a meeting of the 32. Beauty Commission with Berlage and Keppler present on 3 October 1919. Berlage's position as aesthetic advisor of Plan Zuid was to coordinate the as if he massing, building heights andf ir7-2 use, not to oversee details Berlage had been consulted by both were a Beauty Commission of his own. Lippits and Scholte for het Oosten and Jan Stuyt for Amsteldijk, who were SC no.118 to Mayor and aldermen, 9 building on neighboring sites. Lippits and Scholte to Beauty-Commission, 14 October 1919. October 1919; See also discussion of this in Fraenkel, 81-2. 33. A. Keppler's obituary of Leliman noted his importance for introducing low rise housing to Amsterdam in his Eigen Haard housing in the Indische district. Tijdscrift van Volkshuisvesting 2, no. 5 (15 May 1921), pp. 123-4. 34. "Op den voorgrond moge gesteld worden dat, naar de meening der Commissie, voor een dergelijk, eenzelfde doel dienend en in een hand zich bevindend en blijvend complex de eenige juiste aesthetische oplossing is de blokbouw, derhalve eene zoodanige architectonische vormgeving dat de voormelde eenheid van bestemming ook naar buiten spreekt." SC no.62, 6 June 1917; Beauty Commission meeting, 13 December 35. 1917. Keppler, 3788 WD 1918, 12 June 1918. 36. De Klerk in 1916 37. Beauty Commission meeting, 1 February 1917. had commented that Berlage was not an artist. Beauty Commission, 24 August 1920 PA 458/16. Van Epen ran into 38. with the Beauty Commission in 1919 and 1920 with his housing difficulties designs for Samenwerking, on the Amsteldijk for Algemeene, on Krusemanstraat for ACOB and Rochdale, and on Cronjestraat for Algemeene. This dispute was a precursor of the late 1920's objections to modernism in Amsterdam. A critical but balanced discussion of van Epen's work is J. P. "Woningcomplex Staatsliedenbuurt Amsterdam," BW 40, no. 37 (13 M.[ieras], September 1919), p. 223-4. His own account of the Amstelveenscheweg is in BW 39, no. 49 (7 December 1918), 284-5. 39. J. C. van Epen, "Schoonheid. Nadeeligen gevolgen van Schoonheidscommissies, De dood der ware kunst," BW 43, no. 39 (30 September 1922), 377-8. He turned to van der Pek's idea that those with 672 professional membership should have free passage through Beauty Commission. See BW 44, no. 4 (27 January 1923), 51-2 and no. 5 (3 February 1923), 62-4. Keppler had earlier asked the Beauty Commission if it had 40. preferences for architects in Amsterdam Zuid and it had said it was not authorized to chose architects and could not influence choice. PA 458/16: Beauty Commission meeting, 20 June 1918. attending: Beauty Commission meeting, PA 458/14 (15 May 1919) 41. P. J. de Jongh, de Meyer, Slothouwer, Vorkink, Jansen, Wijdeveld, Staal, de Rooij, with Hulshoff, Berlage, and Keppler. Staal was also 18 November 1919. Commission meeting, Beauty 42. named a leader of building, in Watergraafsmeer. Jan Gratama, "Complex Arbeiderswoningen bij het Stadion te 43. "omdat de Amsterdam," BW 42, no. 47 (19 November 1921), p. 300. combinatie der architecten te willekeurig was, aangezien zij door de woningbouwvereenigingen werden gekozen, zonder dat deze eenig overlet onderling plegen omtrent de keuze der architecten." See 11 November 1921 Nieuws van de Dag and Gratama, "Complex." 44. municipal The architects and societies were as follows: 45. L. Zwiers; De Huis, Ons jr.; Lansdorp, N. housing, Public Works architect C. J. (Bouwmaatschappij), Woning Onze Sevenhuysen; Dageraad, August M. J. Roest; C. A. E. Ingwersen, A. Blaauw; Patrimonium, Tjeerd Kuipers, Algemeene, Jan Gratama and G. Versteeg; Rochdale, G. F. la Croix; Ons Dr. Schaepman, Jan Kuyt, Wzn.; Het Oosten, J. Belang, Willem Noorlander; J. L. Moolenschoot. A. R. Hulshoff, "De aesthetische leiding van der woningbouw van 46. te Amsterdam," BW, 'Amstel's Bouwvereeniging," in de Uitbreiding 'Zuid' no. 17 (23 April 1921), pp. 101-4; Searing, "Housing in Holland," 285-9; The architects were: P. Kramer, D. E. Slothouwer, P. Fraenkel, pp. 63-76. L. Marnette, M. de Klerk, A. Kint, J. Zietsma, A. van Baalen, J. Boterenbrook, D. Greiner, G. F. La Croix, G. J. Rutgers, C. Kruyswijk, N. Lansdorp, H. Th. Wijdeveld, B. van der Nieuwer-Amstel, A. J. Westerman, M. For an interesting account of the way this complex of housing Kropholler. functioned when the housing shortage led to overcrowding through subletting see "Verslag van het onderzoek naar de woningtoestanden in het z.g. Amstellaankwartier," Gemeentelijk Woningdienst, 1923. Searing, "Housing in Holland," 311-18. Plan West (Amsterdam, 47. The architects on the committee were Gratama, Hulshoff, Versteeg. 1925). 48. Beauty Commission, 16 November 1922. Art. 95 bis, added 25 January 1922. 49. The Beauty Commission also merged with the Committee for City 50. Beauty (Commissie voor Stadsschoon, founded in 1908 by A. W. Weissman and A. L. Gendt), a committee composed of representatives of societies dedicated to the preservation of Amsterdam's beauty and largely concerned The fact that these representatives with issues of historic preservation. were not architects raised a commotion in architectural circles. AG 1 (25 The proposed January 1924), p. 145, no.85. Passed 26 March 1924. composition of the new Beauty Commission was 9 architects, 1 painter, 1 sculptor, 1 landscape architect, 1 archeologist, and 4 laymen interested in urban design. Originally, only architects were to have the vote. Later a decorative artist was added and non-architects were given the -vote. The lay presence was criticized in the architectural press, for But the BNA and NIVS instance by J. F. Staal, C. J. Blaauw, and by A+A. Although lay members were in favor of it and Granpre Moliere defended it. 673 were given the vote, this was largely obviated by the division of tasks whereby district commissions got the power to judge facades, rather than the whole Beauty Commission. The issue of lay participation was raised earlier in the council by Social Democrat Vliegen during the Janus affair when the Beauty Commission was accused of forcing a "hypermodernism" on an office building. Vliegen and others accused the architects of behaving like a monopoly, and stated that they had no trust in the committee without a lay voice. See AG 2 (9 March 1921), pp. 522-32. In the Bouwkundig Weekblad, the controvery is in articles by M. J. Granpre Moliere, Posthumus Meyjes, and J. F. Staal, BW v. 44, no. 1 (6 January 1923), 4-7, no. 2. (13 January 1923), 22-3, and no. 3 (20 January 1923), 35-6. 51. They also were asked to list buildings of architectural and historical interest to be preserved, to plan for the change and restoration of monuments, canals and planting plans, and to take up anything necessary to carry out the new ordinance. 52. AG 1 (7 May 1926), p. 690. "Een beoordeling van elk 53. AG 1 (7 May 1926), pp. 387-8, no.374. het doel waarmede tot het leiden kan nooit gevel afzonderlijk verdienstelijke Een gevel kan schoonheidstarget is ingesteld. hoedanigheden bezitten en toch niet met de omgeving overeenstemmen, zoodat de volgens afzonderlijke plannen opgerichte gebouwen geen samenhangend aanzien der Ondanks de zorgen besteed aan het uiterlijk geheel vormen. afzonderlijke gevels, geeft dan tock de geheele bebouwing een onbevredigende indruk. Bij den opbouw van elk stadsgedeelte moet, o.i., eenheid, harmonie bestaan tusschen de verschillende bouwwerken, ook dan, van verschillende architectuur zijn." wanneer zij 54. H. L. de Jong, Open letter to Mayor, Aldermen and City Council, October 1925, AA 276.006, MAA. "Onze schoonheidscommissie heeft zich verlaagd tot het doorwoeren van schoolmesterij, tot een examen-commissie He voor het verkrijgen van een diploma in den architectuur van deze dag." prefered a state exam for architects similar to those for doctor, lawyer, and engineer. Public Works Committee meeting, 2 April 1925. 55. 56. AG 1 (1926), pp. 690-1. 57. Director of Public Works, , chairman, Director of BWT, Director of the Housing Authority, City Architect, Chief of Land Management, the designer of Plan Zuid, and an architect to be appointed. 58. AG 1 (1926), pp. 692-7. AG 1 (7 May 1926), p. 698. "Het ontstaan van een soort van 59. "officieele bouwkunst" als gevolg van den verstijvende invloed, welke zou kunnen uitgaan van een stelsel, volgens hetwelk de Gemeente de architecten blijven in de keus aanwijst, wordt voorkomen, nu de bouwondernemers vrij van hun architect, mits die keus valt op een bouwkundige van voldoen bekwaamheid. Integendeel meenen wij, dat bij het door ons voorgestaan stelsel, gericht op het bereiken van harmonie in de bebouwing, niet te kort gedaan zal worden aan ieders streven en dat aan ieders talent gelegenheid tot ontplooiing gegeven wordt. De te bebouwen gronden zullen verdeeld worden in een betrekkelijk groot aantal eenheden, zoodat verschillende architecten ieder met hun eigen opvattingen gevelplannen De commissie van architecten kan zorgen, dat onbekwame zullen maken. architecten worden geweerd, maar zal - zoo daartoe al de wensch mocht bestaan - geen uitingen van eigen opvatting kunnen onderdrukken." 60. J. F. Staal, "'De Bouwwereld' en de Schoonheidscommissie," 674 Architectura 25, no. 6 (10 February 1917), p. 12. "Het is mogelijk dat deze de grootst mogelijk objectiviteit in de oogen van belanghebbenden medebrenqt, doch het doel van de werkzaamheden der Commissie is niet objectief te zijn, mog minder to schijnen, doch de schoone bebouwing der door de Gemeente uitgegeven erfpachtsterreinen te bevorderen." 61. AG 2 (25 October 1917), p. 1975, no.851. He also said there was need for many young architects not just one, and supported the free competition of ideas. AG 2 (3 November 1915), p. 1670. Vliegen (Social Democrat), Posthumus Meyjes (Christelijk Historische), and Hendrix (Roman Catholic) agreed. "Wij zullen moeten hebben voor het bouwen van deze stad verschillende architecten, met verschillend aanleg, verschillende zienswijzen, verschillende stijlen." 62. J. F. Staal, op. cit., p. 36. Staal also argued later against admittance of non-architects to the Beauty Commission in 1924. He satirically suggested that if businessmen were admitted as Granpre Moliere had suggested, then there would have to be a representative of the workers' unions, since these are democratic times. "De Ideale Schoonheidscommissie," BW 44, no. 3 (20 January 1923), 35-6. 63. Granpre Moliere, "Kunst en Publiek," Wendingen 1, no.9 (September 1918), p. 6. "Wie alle kunstuitingen zoeken 'aan te voelen' zoals dat is geheten, vergeten dat er voor elk tijd, elke kring, en ten slotte voor elke persoon slechts een sfeer van schoonheid is..." 64. R. N. Roland Holst, "Kunst als Regeeringszaak," De Gids 78 (1914), p. 518. "begin van een nieuwe niet-individueelistische cultuur voor Holland, de collectieve geest die thans naar nieuwe uitdrukking zoekt, en tot nieuwe schoonheid drijft." 65. A.W. Reinink, Amsterdam en de Beurs van Berlage, Reacties van Tijdgenoten (The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1975), p.71. "Zij zijn overtuigd ten bate van het volk, maar - nog - zonder de stem- van het volk, een toekomstige 'gemeenschapskunst' te bevorderen. Tegelijkertijd zien wij dat deze intellectuele bovenlaag zich juist doorde bevordering van een toekomstige 'gemeenschapskunst' op een paradoxale manier nog meer tot een elite verheft." 675 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 676 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY A. Archive Collections 1. Municipal Archives of Amsterdam a. Amsteldijk 1) Private N. V. Woningmaatschappij Oud-Amsterdam Vereeniging ten behoeve der Arbeidersklasse Amsterdamsche Vereeniging tot het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen Tentoonstelling "De Vrouw 1813-1913" Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen 2) Public Besloten Vergaderingen Gemeenteraad Commissie tot het ontwerpen van een plan tot uitbreiding der bebouwde kom van de Gemeente benoorden het IJ Commissie van bijstand in het beheer der Publieke Werken Commissie van bijstand in het beheer der zaken der Volkshuisvesting Commissie van advies bij het beheer der Gemeentewoningen Schoonheidscommissie b. Ceres Depot Gezondheidscommissie Afdeling Volkshuisvesting Afdeling Publieke Werken Dienst Publieke Werken Bouw- en Woningtoezicht c. Other municipal collections Dienst Publieke Werken Dienst Volkshuisvesting Bouw- en Woningtoezicht 2. Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis F. M. Wibaut P. L. Tak Algemeene Nederlandsche Diamantbewerkers Bond Sociaal-Technische Vereeniging van Democratische Ingenieurs en Architecten Centraal Bureau voor Sociale Adviezen 677 3. Nederlands Documentatiecentrum voor de Bouwkunst J. Gratama H. P. Berlage J. C. van Epen B. Government Papers Staatsenquete, gehouden door de Staatscommissie benoemd krachtens de wet van 19 januari 1890 (The Hague, 1890-1894). Amsterdam, Gemeenteverslag Amsterdam, Gemeenteblad Amsterdam, Heerenboekje Statistische Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor Statistiek der Gemeente Amsterdam Gemeentelijk Bouw- en Woningtoezicht, "Verslag van de Woningtelling gehouden in maart 1909" (Amsterdam, 1910). "Woningbouw van Gemeentewege," 3 vols. (Amsterdam 1914-15). Gemeentelijke Woningdienst, "Verslag van de Woningtelling gehouden in de maand februari 1916" (Amsterdam, 1916). Gemeentelijke Woningdienst, "Woningtelling Amsterdam 1919" (Amsterdam, 1919). Gemeentelijke Woningdienst, "Het technische woningonderzoek en de systematische perceelbeschrijving van Amsterdam" (Amsterdam 1920). Gemeentelijke Woningdienst, "Amsterdam: development of the town; housing improvement" (Amsterdam, 1924). Gemeentelijke Woningdienst, "De huisvesting van asociale gezinnen te Amsterdam" (Amsterdam, 1929). Gemeentelijke Woningdienst, "Verslag van het onderzoek naar de woningtoestanden in het z.g. Amstellaankwartier" (Amsterdam, n.d.). C. Newspapers, periodicals, annual reports Bouwkundig Weekblad Architectura Bouwwereld Technisch-Studenten Tijdscrift De Ingenieur Tijdscrift voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling en Sociale Hygiene Tijdscrift voor Volkshuisvesting en Stedebouw Woningbouw Volkshuisvesting Programma der lessen [aan de] Technische Hoogeschool (tot 1904/5 Polytechnische School] te Delft CBSA, Jaarverslagen Nationale Woningraad, Jaarverslagen voor Volkshuisvestin, Jaarverslagen Nederlands Instituut STVDIA, Jaarverslagen De Kroniek Weekblad ANDB 678 De Volksschool De Handwerksman De Gemeente-werkman De Gemeentewerkman De Amsterdamsch Gemeentewerklieden Patrimonium's Bode Katholieke Sociale Weekblad Mededeelingen van het Central Bureau van de Katholieke Sociale Actie De Proletarische Vrouw Algemeene Woningbouwvereeniging, Jaarverslagen Amsterdam Zuid, Jaarverslagen De Arbeiderswoning, Jaarverslagen Eigen Haard, Jaarverslagen Rochdale, Jaarverslagen Samenwerking, Jaarverslagen Zomers Buiten, Jaarverslagen D. Contemporary books, reports, articles, pamphlets, etc. Amsterdam Bestuurdersbond, "Adres en memorie van toelichting en zake het ontwerp eener 'Bouwverordening April 1905' van Amsterdam" (no date). Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, "The Harbor of Amsterdam" (Amsterdam, 1907). , "Report on the Condition of Trade, Shipping, and Industry in 1900" (Amsterdam, no date). Amsterdamsche Woningraad, De Verbetering der volkshuisvesting te Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1913). , "Rapport over de Volkshuisvesting in de Nieuwe Stad te Amsterdam" (Amsterdam, no date). Ankersmit, J. F., Arbeiderslevens (Amsterdam: Ontwikkeling, 1919). "Arbeidersbudgets, Jaarbudgets van zeventig arbeidersgezinnen in Nederland; Rapport eener enquete der Sociaal Democratische Studie no.69 (Amsterdam, 1912). Club te Amsterdam," "Arbeiderswoningen," BW 15, no. 48 (30 November 1895), 306-7. Berlage, H.P., "De Kunst in Stedebouw," BW 12, no. 15 (9 April 1892), 87- 90; no. 17 (23 April 1892), 101-102; no. 20 (14 May 1892), no. 21, (21 May 1892), 126-127. 121-124; De Kroniek 1, no. 2 (6 January 1895), , "Over Architectuur"," , "Over Architectuur," De Kroniek 1, no. 8 (17 February , "Over Architectuur," Tweemaandelijksch Tijdschrift 2, part 3 9- 10. 1895), 58-9. (November 1895), 202-35. , "De arbeiderswoningen aan de gedempte Lindengracht," De Kroniek 2, no. 98 (8 November 1896), 360-1. het plan van uitbreiding der , "Architectonische Toelichting tot stad Amsterdam tusschen Amstel en Schinkel," September 1900 in AG 1 no. 876, 7 October 1904, 1717-1725. (1904), (Rotterdam: W. , Studies over Bouwkunst, Stijl, en Samenleving L. and J. Brusse, 1910). , "Korte Uiteenzetting van het doel der tentoonstelling van smaakmisleiding," Kunst aan 't Volk, 1910. , "Het aesthetisch gedeelte van stedebouw," BW 33 (1913), no. 679 51, 10, p. 20; 34 (1914), 116-118; no. 11, no. 1, 126-8; 6-8; no. no. no. 2, 17-20; no. 9, 98-100; 12, 138-40; no. 16, 186-9; no. 17, 198-202. , "Stedenbouw," De Beweging 10, no. 1 (1914), 226-247; no. 2, 1- 17, 142-164, 263-279. , "Memorie van toelichting behorende bij het Ontwerp van het Uitbreidingsplan der Gemeente Amsterdam," March 1915 in no. 854, 27 July 1917, pp. 910-14, appendix A. , Normalisatie in Woningbouw (Rotterdam: , Schoonheid in Samenleving (Rotterdam: W. J. W. L. AG 1 (1917), Brusse, 1918). and J. Brusse, 1919). , J. van Hasselt, D. Hudig and J. Kruseman, "De Amsterdamsche Parken en Plantsoenen" (Amsterdam, 1909), report of a commission of the Amsterdam Woningraad. , et. al., Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland (Rotterdam, 1921). Bond van Social Democratische Vrouwenclubs, "De wasch uit de woning" (Amsterdam, no date). Bosch, M. and C.J.W. van der Ploeg-Deggeler, Onderhoud van huis en 1905). huisraad (Almelo, B[reggen], v.d., "Woning en ziekte," Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene 19 48. (1917), Brooshooft, P., Officieele en feitelije waarheid, Bijdrage tot de kennis Haagsche Vereeniging voor van onze arbeiderstoestanden (The Hague: Kindervoeding, 1897). Buls, Charles , L'Esthetique des Villes (Brussels, 1898). Buuren, J. van and B. H. Heldt, Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijing van eigen woningen te Amsterdam 1868-1893 (Amsterdam, 1893). Bruynzeel, J. P., "Wettelijke regeling van de opleiding van bouwkundigen," BW 20, no. 51 (22 December 1900), 427-429. Bymholt, B., Geschiedenis der arbeidersbeweging in Nederland, 2. vol. (Amsterdam, 1894). Catalogus van de tentoonstelling 'De Vrouw' 1813-1913 (Amsterdam, 1913). Catalogus van de tentoonstelling voor Woning-inrichting in het Stedelijk Museum van 20 mei tot 1 juli 1921 (Amsterdam, 1921). Coenen, Frans and Cornelius Veth, "Kunst aan het Volk," Pro en Contra 5, no. 6 (1909). Colonel, S. S., Middelburg voorheen en thans; bijdragen tot de kennis van der voormaaligen en tegenwoordigen toestand van het armwezen aldaar (Middelburg, 1859). , "De invloed van betere arbeiderswoningen op de gezondheid der bewoners," De Economist (1875), 659. , "Het bouwen van arbeiderswoningen," De Economist, part 2 (1894), 704. Commissie van onderzoek benoemd door de Gemeenteraad 30 januari 1897, "De toestand der werklieden in de bouwbedrijven te Amsterdam" (Amsterdam, 1898). Comte, A. Le , "Het Goede Recht der Kunst aan de Polytechnische School," Afschiedwoord aan zijne leerlingen, Delft, 30 November 1894. Departement van Arbeid, Album bevattende een 50-tal woningtypen voor met Rijksverschot te bouwen woningen (The Hague, 1921). Det, E. J. van and F. L. Ossendorp, "Arbeid van schoolgaande kinderen te Amsterdam in 1913," Amsterdam, Bond van Nederlandsche Onderwijzers, afdeling Amsterdam, 1913. Doorn, C.A. van "Wat wil de bond van arbeiderswoningbouwvereenigingen in 680 1919). Nederland?" (Watergraafsmeer, 1 (March 1898), Drucker, H. L., "Het woningvraagstuk," De Gids 62, part 444-84. H. B. Greven, and J. Kruseman, Het Vraagstuk der Drucker, H. L., volkshuisvesting (Amsterdam, 1896). "Een wasscherij van de Gemeente" (Amsterdam, 1917). Eensgezins Werkmanswoningen (The Hague, 1908). Epen, J. C. van, "Schoonheid. Nadeeligen gevolgen van SchoonheidsDe dood der ware kunst," BW 43, no. 39 (30 September commissies. 1922), 377-8. F. v., "Woningbouw," BW no. 43 (26 October 1901), 401-2. E(rkel], Faber, J. H., Sprekende cijfers, Woningtoestanden in Nederland (Zwolle, 1904). Feenstra, G., Tuinsteden en volkshuisvesting in Nederland en buitenland (Amsterdam, 1920). Gedenkboek van de tentoonstelling 1813 De Vrouw 1913 (Amsterdam, 1913). Genootschap "Architectura et Amicitia," "Lesrooster van den cursus van VHBO," 1908-1909. Gijn, A. van, Woningbouw en woningwet, Modelstatuten voor vereenigingen als bedoeld in de Woningwet (Haarlem, 1904). , "Hoe kan van het standpunt der Woningwet de bouw van arbeiderswoningen worden bevorderd?" Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene 7 (1905), 145-155. Gijn, A. van, et. al., "Persoonlijke bemoeiingen van meer ontwikkelden in 't belang van minder ontwikkelden (Toynbee-werk)," 't Nut, 1895. (Glimmerveen], "Werk aan de Winkel," De Gemeente Werkman 1, no. 1 (26 April 1902). Goes, Frank van der, "Sociaal Onderwijs," 92), De Nieuwe Gids 7, part 1 (1891- 131-141. Granpre Moliere, M. J., "Kunst en Publiek," Wendingen 1, no.9 (September 6-9. 1918), Gratama, Jan, "Kroniek XX, Tentoonstelling van Smaakmisleiding," BW 31, (14 January 1911), no. 2 , 13- 5. "Schoonheidcommissies en Openbaar Bouwkundig Adviesbureaux," BW 33, no. 32 (9 August 1913), 389-91. , "Gemeentelijke Woningbouw. Transvaalbuurt, Amsterdam," BW 41, no. 4 (24 January 1920), 19-23. , "Complex Arbeiderswoningen bij het Stadion te Amsterdam," BW 42, no. 47 (19 November 1921), 300. Groot, W. J. de , "De aesthetische aansprakelijkheid voor de bouwwerken door den dienst der Publieke Werken Amsterdam in de laatste jaren uitgevoerd," BW 40, no. 25 (21 June 1919), 151-2. en de woningvoorziening," initiatief Gulden, Z., "Het particulier Volkshuisvesting 1, no. 19 (12 June 1920), 271-2. , "De vrouw en haar huis" (Amsterdam: Bond van Social Democratische Vrouwenclubs, [19231). Antwoord ingezonden door de Afdeling Hamer, W., "Arbeiderswoningen: Amsterdam," BW 15, no. 48 (30 November 1895), 306-7. Hasselt, J. van and L. Verschoor, De Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland, Beoordelend overzicht samengesteld door de commissie van onderzoek naar hetgeen in verschillende gemeenten des lands gedaan is ter verkrijgen van verbeterde arbeiderswoningen (Amsterdam: Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen, 1891). "Het Amsterdamsch Tehuis voor Arbeiders," Woningbouw 2, Henny, H. C. A., 681 no. 4 (December 1918), 2-4. De Jonge Hermans, L. M., "De tehuizen van de Amsterdamsche Proletariers," Gids (1898-1899). , Krotten en Sloppen (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1975). Heyermans, L., Gezondheidsleer voor arbeiders (Rotterdam: W.L. & J. Brusse, 1905). Holst, R. N. (1914), , Hoogenboom, "Kunst als Regeeringszaak," Roland, De Gids 78, part 2 514-32. "Proletariaat en Kunst," De Nieuwe Tijd 9 (1904), 787-790. J., "Geen Bauberatungstelle," BW 33, no. 12 (22 March 1913), 142. grondslag," "De woningbouwvereenigingen op politiek Hudig, D., 83-85. 1919), Gemeentebelangen 15, no. 6 (15 November , "De bouwvereenigingen en de nieuwe tijd," Woningbouw 3, no. 3-4. 1/2 (March 1919), Hudig, D. and H. C. A. Henny, Handleiding voor Woningbouwverenigingen (Zwolle, 1911). Huet, A[drien], "De regeling van het hooger onderwijs en de vorming van ingenieurs en architecten" (Delft, 1873). "Het huishoudonderwijs aan de herhalingsschool. Rapport van eene commissie uit den Bond van leeraressen bij het huishoudonderwijs" (Amsterdam, 1905). Hulshoff A. R., "De aesthetische leiding van der woningbouw van 'Amstel's Bouwvereeniging," in de Uitbreiding 'Zuid' te Amsterdam," BW, no. 17 101-4. (23 April 1921), Ingenohl, J., "Schoonheidscommissien," BW 33, no. 23 (7 June 1913), 272. J. G., "De cooperatieve bouwvereeniging; 'Rochdale,"' BW 29, no.42 (16 October 1909), 505-6. , "De Gartenstadt Tentoonstelling in het Gebouw der BW Maatschappij," Janssen, C. W. , et. al., (Amsterdam, no. 47 (1908), 907-8. "Doel en werken van de Bouwonderneming Jordaan" 1900). Jitta, D. Josephus, Iets over de verbetering der volkshuisvesting te Amsterdam in verband met werkverschaffing (Amsterdam, 1893). Kallenbach, George A. M., "Over de pogingen door particulieren in het werk gesteld tot verbetering der arbeiderswoningen" (Ph. D. diss., University of Leiden, 1892). [Keppler], Scrutator [A.], "Cooperatieve Bouwvereenigingen," De Kroniek 11, no. December 1905), 573 (16 396. (13 October 1909), 326-28. , "De Architecten en Volkshuisvesting," Architectura 20, no. 47 , "Woningwet woningen," Bouwwereld 8, no. 41 (23 November 1912), 398-400. , Gemeentelijke woningbouw (Amsterdam: Amsterdamse Woningraad, 1913). ______, "Plan van uitbreiding van de overzijde van het Ij," Amsterdam, Woningdienst, 1926. Keppler, A. and F. M. Wibaut, "De Gemeente en de Volkshuisvesting," Bibliotheek voor Gemeentepolitiek 2 (Amsterdam: Ontwikkeling, 1924). Kerdijk, A., "Een opleidingsinrichting in wording," Sociale Weekblad (22 April 1899). Keurschot, J.L.B., "Sociale Hygiene en -Techniek, VIII," BW 29, no. 47 November 1909), Knappert, E. C., 561-3. "De School voor Maatschappelijk Werk 1899-1924" (20 682 (Amsterdam, 1925). Knuttel, D. E. C., "Het onderwijs in de hygiene aan architecten," lecture at the fiftieth anniversary of the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst, 28 May 1892. Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs, "De Inrichting van Arbeiderswoningen," 1853. P., Kooperburg, "De volksgezondheid in (September, 1899), 42-43. "Kort Verslag van het verhandelde in voor Bouwkunst," BW 12, no. 24 Kubatz, F. J., "Bauberatung," BW 33, Kuipers, E., "Arbeiderscomplexen van ons parlement," Tijdspiegel de sectien van het Nationale Congres (11 June 1892). no. 33 (16 August 1913), 408. M. de Klerk," Woningbouw 3, no. 4 (October 1919), 30-2. Kunst aan 't Volk, "Korte uiteenzetting van het doel der tentoonstelling van smaakmisleiding" (Amsterdam, 1910). "Bauberatung," BW 33, no. 17 (26 April 1913), 194. Landre, J. D., BW 32, no. "Leerschool in den Stedenbouw aan de Technische Hoogeschool," 50 (14 December 1912), pp. 601-3. Leliman, J. de H. W., "Amsterdam. Het Uitbreidingsplan Spaarndammerbuurt en Volkshuisvesting," Bouwwereld 13, no. 12 (19 March 1913), 69-72. , "Gemeentelijke Woningbouw te Amsterdam," De Groene (18 April 1915). Amsterdammer , "De volkshuisvesing te Amsterdam in 1913," De Groene Amsterdammer" (14 and 21 February 1915). Loghem, J.B. van, "Moderne bouwkunst en Schoonheidcommissie," BW 38, no.1 (6 January 1917), 6. , "Algemeene wenken aan woningbouwvereenigingen," Woningbouw 2, no. 4 (October 1918), 5-6. Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst, Eensgezins-werkmanswoningen (The Hague, 1908). eigendom Marken, J. C. van, Het Agneta-Park en de N.V. Gemeenschappelijk (Delft, 1889). , "Sociale Ingenieurs," Uit het fabrieksleven, Herdruk van hoofdartikelen in de Fabrieksbode van J.C. van Marken, 3 vol. (Delft, 1905). Meijers, Mels, "Volkshuisvesting, De Architecten en de Woningbouw," (1916), 51, 55, Mercier, 201, 65. Helene, 212, 216, 224, 229, 235, Over Arbeiderswoningen 242, BW 38 (1917), (Haarlem: H. D. BW 37 1, 14, 21, Tjeenk Willink, 1885). , (1905), "De volkshuisvesting te Amsterdam," De Gids 69, part 1 96-136. Meulen, B. van der, Uw huis en uwe woning (Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen, no date). Meulen, Johanna ter, "De beschaafde vrouw als opzichteres overarbeiderswoningen" (Amsterdam, 1898). , Huisvesting van Armen te Amsterdam (Haarlem: H.D. Tjeenk Willink, 1903). , De Woningopzichteres (Dordrecht, 1921). Meyer, Jan de, H. Wijdeveld, and J.B. van Loghem, "Juryrapport Geval Prijsvraag Arbeiderswoningen," Architectura 25, no. 15 (14 April 1917), 114. Meyjes, C. B. Posthumus, "Het typisch karakter onzer oude steden en de taak der Schoonheidcommissies," BW 37, no. 34 (23 December 1916), 683 250. Middendorp, P.B., "Versche lucht en zonlight in onze woning," en het witte kruis 11 Mieras, J. P., Het groene (1914-15), 59-71, 77-87. "Veranderingen in het Architectenberoep," BW 40, no. 47 November 1919), 285-287, no. 50 (13 (22 December 1919), 310-5. ,. "Woningcomplex Staatsliedenbuurt Amsterdam," BW 40, no. 37 (13 September 1919), 223-4. , "Amsterdamsche Tentoonstelling van Woninginrichting in het Stedelijk Museum," BW, no. 25 (18 June 1921), 161. Miranda, S. Rodriques, "De vrouw, de woning, en de waschtobbe" (Amsterdam, 1924). Mol, J., ed., "Gedenkboek uitgegeven ten gelegenheid van het 50-jarig bestaan der vereeniging Bouwmaatschappij tot verkrijging van Eigen 1918). Woningen" (Amsterdam, Muller-Lulofs, M. G., "De School voor Maatschappelijk Werk" (Amsterdam, no year). Nationale Tentoonstelling voor Vrouwenarbeid, Catalogus (Amsterdam 1899). Nationale Woningraad, Stenographisch Verslag van het Woning Congres 11-12 Februari 1918. Nederlandsch Instituut van Volkshuisvesting, "Normalisatie in den Woningbouw" (Amsterdam 1920). Niftrik, J. G. van , [Leven en Werken], mimeograph, Amsterdam Municipal Archives. Ogterop, A., "De gezellige woning" (Amsterdam: Bond van Social Democratische Vrouwenclubs, no date). Onderzoekingen naar de toestanden in de Nederlandsche huisindustrie, 3. vol. (The Hague, 1914). Pekelharing, B. H. , "Herinneringen aan een tweetal comites," Vragen des Tijds 2 (1895), 368-69. Pek, J. E. van der, "Het Gemeente-Museum te Amsterdam," De Kroniek, no. 41 (6 October 1895), 322-4. , "De Taak en Bevoegheid der Schoonheidcommissien," BW 33, no. 23 (7 June 1913), 273-5. Penaat, W., "Kunst aan 't Volk, Catalogus met de beschrijving van de tentoonstelling gehouden in het Stedelijk Museum van Amsterdam," April 1905. Plan West (Amsterdam, Poggenbeek, F. W. M., 16, 1925). "Arbeiderswoningen (Bouwonderneming Jordaan) 1," BW no. 41 (10 October 1896), 249-250. Quack, P. G., "Sociale Rechtvaardigheid," De Gids 50, part 3 (July 1886), 60-89. , Herinneringen uit de levensjaren 1834-1913 (Amsterdam: P. J. Kampen, 1913). opleiding van bouwkundig ingenieur "Rapport over het onderwijs tot (architect) aan de Polytechnische School te Delft ingediend aan de Bevordering der afdeeling 'sGravenhage van de Maatschappij tot Bouwkunst," 31 March 1895. Rapport van de Centrale Commissie voor Studiebelangen, Delft, 1906 and 1908. Rapport van de Commissie uit den Geneeskundigen Raad voorr Noord-Holland aan den Genoemden Raad in zake het Ontwerp van de Gezondheidswet, 1900. Riedel, J. Roell, A., Bruinwold, Tuinsteden (Utrecht, 1906). "Wetgeving op de huisvesting der arbeidende klasse" (Ph. D. 684 University of Leiden, 1892). diss., Rueter, Theo, "Bouwvereenigingen en Architecten," 82-4 and no. 1921), 17 (23 April 1921), BW 42 no. 14 (2 April 105-7. Schaad, J. H., "Stedenschoon en Woningbouw met steun volgens de Woningwet," BW 34, no. 44 (31 October 1914), 483. Sch., J. H., "Hoe woont gij? Een woord aan de arbeiders en hunne vrouwen" (Amsterdam, SDAP, 1906). in den woningbouw," Volkshuisvesting 1, no. "Neutraliteit Schl(osser], H., 15 (24 April 1920), 205-6. onderdeelen Schreuder, P.H. and N. Cariot, De huishousing in al haar volgens de laatste en hygienische eischen (Amsterdam, 1901). Schut, P. Bakker, "Schoonheideischen en de Bouwverordening," Gemeente- belangen 12, no. 6 (1916), Schwagermann, C. H., 103. "Het Onderwijs in Stedenbouw aan de T. H. S. te Delft," BW 32, no. 49 (7 December 1912), 593-4. woord over de openbare gezondheidsregeling," De W. de, ".en economist 2 (1853), 137). Smitz, C. J., "Memorie van een 85-jarige Amsterdammer," 1877, manuscript, Amsterdam Municipal Archives. Sociaal-Technische Vereeniging van Democratische Ingenieurs en Architecten, Woningtoestanden in Nederland, Cijfers en grafische voorstellingen bewerkt naar de woningstatistiek van 31 December 1899 (Rotterdam, 1906). , "Het Onderwijs in de Hygiene aan de Technische Hooge School te 1909). (Amsterdam, Delft" , Prijsvraag voor het ontwerpen van een tuinstadwijk, Juryrrapport met reproducties der beste ontwerpen (Amsterdam, 1915). door onze Sparnaaij, Marie, Het leven en werken, het lijden en strijden fabrieksarbeiders (Den Haag: Drukkerij "Vrede", 1898). Staal, J. F., "'De Bouwwereld' en de Schoonheidscommissie," Architectura Sitter, 25, no. , 6 (10 February 1917), 27. "Af- en toe wendingen," Wendingen 1, no. 10 (October 1918), 16. , "Gemeentelijke aesthetisch toezicht op het bouwen," De Nieuwe Tijd (January 1920), 12-17. , "De Ideale Schoonheidscommissie," BW 44, no. 3 (20 January 1923), 35-6. Steur, J. A. G. van der, "De opleiding van den architect behoort uisluitend te geschieden aan de technishe hoogeschool" (Rotterdam, 1914). Stuyt, Jan, "Oud en Nieuw in Amsterdam," De Kroniek 4, no. 207 (11 December 1898), 400. Swaab, Benjamin, "De natuurlijke ventilatie van kleine woonvertrekken in Amsterdam" (Ph. D. diss., University of Amsterdam, 1901). 121. Tak, P. L., "Het Nut," De Kroniek 2, no. 69, (19 April 1896), , "De Woningscommissie," De Kroniek 5, no. 211 (8 January 1899), 9-10. , "Opleiding voor socialen arbeid," De Kroniek 5, no. 233 (11 June 1899), 186. , "Een Gemeente-architect," De Kroniek 8, no. 396 (26 July 1902), 243. , "De Amsterdamsche Woningraad," De Kroniek 8, no. 371 (1 February 1902), 33-5. , "Sociale arbeid," De Kroniek 10, no. 475 (30 January 1904), 685 33-34. , "Kunst aan 't Volk," De Kroniek 10, no. 516 (12 November 1904), 360-1. , "De uitbreiding van Amsterdam," De Kroniek 11, no. 525 (14 January 1905), 410. Tellegen, J. W. H., "Rapport van den directeur van het Gemeentelijk Bouwen Woningtoezicht over het voorstel tot woningbouw van de Raadsleden Wollring, c.s." (25 June 1914), AG 1 (1914), 2698-99. "Tentoonstelling van meubeleeringen voor arbeiderswoningen in 'Ons Huis' te Rotterdam, Juni, 1912," Architectura 20, no. 26 (29 July 1912), 220-1, (6 August 1912), 226-7. Thomassen, C. and W. Post, "Arbeid van schoolgaande kinderen. Enquete ingesteld door de afdeling Amsterdam van de Bond van Nederlandsche Onderwijzers" (Amsterdam, 1903). Tien Jaren Arbeiderswetgeving, verzameling van aanhalingen uit de verslagen der arbeidsinspectie 1890-1900 (Amsterdam: Nationale Bureau van Vrouwenarbeid, 1903). Vereeniging van Burgerlijke Ingenieurs, "Het Hooger Onderwijs in verband met de opleiding van Ingenieurs" (Rotterdam, 1876). , "Verslag der Commissie in zake het Technisch Onderwijs, benoemd ingevolge het besluit van de Algemeene Vergadering der Vereeniging van Burgerlijke Ingenieurs op 18 Juli 1891," Den Haag, 1895. , "Verslag der commissie in zake eene nieuwe regeling van het Staatstoezicht op de Volksgezondheid," January, 1900. "Verslag van de Commissie in zake het Technisch Onderwijs," 1895. "Verslag der werkzaamheden van der Amsterdamsche Woningraad gedurende de vyf eerste jaren van zyn bestaan" (Januari 1902 - Augustus 1906). "Verslag van de Eerste Nederlandsch Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling," The Hague, 21 September 1896 (Amsterdam, 1896). "Verslag van de Tweede Nederlandsch Congres voor Openbare Gezondheidsregeling," Amsterdam 23-24 September 1897 (Amsterdam, 1898). "Verslag oprichtingsvergadering Voortgezet en Hoger Bouwkunst," (1908), 107. Architectura Veth, Jan, Bedreigd Schoonheid (Amsterdam: P. N. van Kampen, 1916), 1342. , "Bouwkunst aan de Rijksacademie te Amsterdam," De Kroniek 5, no. 225 (16 April 1899), 120-1. Vliegen, W. H., "Leekgedachten over kunstbeoefening," De Kroniek 10, no.465 (1904), 370. Volksbond tegen Drankmisbruik, Verslag van een onderzoek naar den toestand der Arbeiderswoningen te Amsterdam (oude stad) (Amsterdam: de Bussy, 1893). Vooys, Is. P. de, "Sociale Hygiene," De Beweging 5, part 4, no. 12 (December 1909), 20. Vries Mzn., H. de, "Onze bouwplannen in Amsterdam," De Handwerksman 22, no. 8 (December 1912). Waerden, J. van der, "Maatregelen waardoor de bouw in massa bevorderd wordt. Normalisatie in de uitvoering in het bijzonder wat betreft de te werkenden onderdeelen," in Nationale Woningraad, Praeadviesen voor het Woningcongres 11-12 februari 1918, 67-96. Walenkamp, H. J. M., "Amsterdam in de Toekomst," 1901. Wattjes, J. G., "Woningbouw in de Transvaalwijk te Amsterdam," 686 Bouwbedrijf, no. 3 (September 1924), 97-103. Weijerman, J.W. Jenny, "Woningtoezicht," (Ph. D. diss., University of Amsterdam, 1899). , Overzicht van de door verschillende woningvereenigingen o2 aanvrage der (Arnhemsche] Tentoonstellings-commissie verstrekte statistische gegevens (Amsterdam, 1899). (1900), 447, "Het Ontwerp Gezondheidswet," De Gids 18, part 1 471. Wentink, D.E., De Bouwverordening en het woningvraagstuk (Utrecht 1915). De Wibaut-Berdenis van Berlekom, M., "De Vrouw en het gezin," Socialistische Gids 3 (November, 1918), 808-29. "De Woningvraagstuk op het Gezondheidscongres," Tijdschrift voor Sociale Hygiene 1, no. 5 (1899), 5-39. X. "Woningen der Amsterdamsche Coop. Woningbouwvereeniging Samenwerking," BW 32, no. 30 (27 July 1912), 358-9. Zeeman, J., C.F.J. Blooker, H.G. Ringeling, C. de Man, D.H. Koetser, "Rapport der Commissie van praeadvies over het Ontwerp Gezondheidswet," Medische Weekblad (2 December 1899). Zuylen, G.E.V.L., "De volksvesting. Voordracht gehouden de Haagsche afdeeling der Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst," (The Hague: Mouton, 1908). Zuylen, G. E. V. L. van, "De toepassing der hygiene bij den bouw van goedkope woonhuizen," BW 12 (4 June 1892), 114. Zwiers, Lambertus, "Meubelen voor een Arbeiderswoonkamer," BW 37, no. 6 (10 June 1916), 65. E. Secondary sources Adang, Mark, "Breng me in uw huis, laat me uw woonkamer zien, en ik zal u zeggen wie gij zijt! Het denken over kitsch en smaakopvoeding in Nederland," Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 28 (1977), 209-59. De Algemene Woningbouwvereniging Amsterdam in het goud 1910- 1960 (Amsterdam, 1960). Andreae, S. J. Fockema, "The Garden City Idea in the Netherlands before 1930," Stedebouw en Volkshuisvesting 44 (1963), 95-107. Becker, Frans and Johan Frieswijk, Bedrijven in Eigen Beheer, Kolonies en productieve associaties in Nederland tussen 1901 en 1958 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1978). Ben-David, Joseph, The Scientist's Role in Society, A Comparitive Study (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971). Bergvelt, Ellinoor, et. al., Amsterdamse School 1910-1930 1975), (Amsterdam,- exhibition catalogue, Stedelijk Museum. Beusekom, H. G. van, Getijden der volkshuisvesting, Notities eener geschiedenis van een halve eeuw (Alphen aan den Rijn, 1955). Bevers, Ad, Oost west thuis best, Gedenkschrift bij gelegenheid van het vijtigjarig bestaan der R.K. Woningbouwvereniging "Het Oosten" te Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1962). Blau, Judith, Architects and Firms, A Sociological Perspective on Architectural Practice (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1984). slecht ontworpen, toch bewoonbaar," Ons Amsterdam Blijstra, R., "De Pijp: no. 6 (June 1973). , "Transvaalbuurt," Ons Amsterdam 27, no. 2 (February 1975), 49- 56. 687 , "Indischebuurt," Ons Amsterdam 27, no. 5 (May 1975), 142-6; no. 6 (June 1975), 186-8. jaar woningwerk in Nederland" "Vijftig Blomberg, Wilhelmina C., (Amsterdam: Vereniging van Woningopzichteressen, 1953). , "Louise van der Pek-Went, pioneerster volkshuisvesting," (Amsterdam, 1966). Bock, Manfred, Berlages beitragzur Anfange einer neuen architektur, architektonischen kultur der Niederlande in ausgehenden 19. jahrhundert (The Hague, 1983). Borrie, G.W.B., Wibaut, mens en magistraat; ontstaan en ontwikkeling der socialitische gemeentepolitiek (Assen, 1968). Lodewijk Tak (1848-1907); journalist en politicus , Pieter (Assen: van Gorcum, 1973). Braam, A. van, Ambtenaar en bureaucratie in Nederland (Zeist, 1957). de Brasz, H. A., Veranderingen in het Nederlandse communalisme; van sociale element in het Nederlandse stelsel gemeentebestuuren als beheersing (Arnhem, 1960). Brinkgreve, Clara, "Wonen onder toezicht, De Bouwonderneming Jordaan van verschillende kanten bekeken, 1894-1914" (Masters thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1978). Brugmans, I. J., De arbeidende klasse in de negentiende eeuw (The Hague, 1925). , Welvaart en Historie, Tien Studien (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950). , Paardenkracht en mensenmacht, sociaal-economische geschiedenis van Nederland 1795-1940 (The Hague, 1961). Bruyn, W. J., "Delegatie bij Planvoorbereiding, een kritische nabeschowing over het algemeen uitbreidingsplan van Amsterdam, 1935" (Ph. D. diss., Katholieke Hogeschool, 1976). Cannegieter, D., Honderdvijftigjaar Gezondheidswet (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1954). Carr-Saunders, A. M. and P. A. Wilson, The Professions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933). Casciato, Maristella and Wim de Wit, Le Case Eigen Haard di De Klerk (Rome, 1984). Clark, Terry Nichols, Prophets and Patrons, the French Universities and the Emergence of the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973). Dam, J. C. van, Sociaal Logboek 1900-1960 (Amsterdam: De Brug-Djambatan, 1960). Delfgauw, G. T. J., "De Grondpolitiek van de Gemeente Amsterdam" (Ph. D. University of Amsterdam, 1934). diss., Dijkhuis, H. T., "De Jordaan, de Ontwikkeling van een volkswijk in een grote stad," Economisch-historisch Jaarboek 21 (1940), Dillen, J. G., Mensen en Achtergronden (Groningen, 1964). Drijfhout, "De gouden mijlpaal 1909 8 September 1959, C.J, 1-90. Gedenkboek uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het Gouden Jubeleum van de woningbouwvereinging 'Eigen Haard' te Amsterdam" (Amsterdam, 1959). Eck, J. van, De Amsterdamsche Schans en de Buitensingel (Amsterdam: P.N. van Kampen, 1948). Eerenbeemt, H.F.J.M. van den, Arts en sociaal besef in Nederland in historisch perspectief (Tilburg, 1969). , "Wat leidde tot de Woningwet," (October 1976), 516-25. Spiegel Historiael 11, no. 10 688 Elliot, Charles W., "City Planning in Holland," Architectural Record 56 (September 1924), 276-82. Engberts, G.E., De Nederlandsee en Amsterdams bouwactivitieten 1850-1914; een poging tot raming van de omvang met behulp van technische en economisch samenhangen (Deventer, Kluwer, 1977). Etzioni, Amitai, ed., The Semi-Professions and Their Organization (New York: The Free Press, 1969). Fanelli, Giovanni, Architettura Edilizia Urbanistica Olanda 1917/1940 (Florence, 1978). Fraenkel, Francis F., Het Plan Amsterdam Zuid van H.P. Berlage (Alphen aan der Rijn: Canaletto, 1976). Frank, Suzanne, "Michel de Klerk (1884-1923), An Architect of the Amsterdam School" (Ph. D. diss., Columbia University, 1969). , "Michel de Klerk's Designs for Amsterdam's Spaarndammerbuurt Nederlandse (1914-1920), A Contribution to Architectural Lyricism," Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 22 (1971), 175-213. Freidson, Eliot, The Profession of Medicine, A Study in the Sociology of Applied Knowledge (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1970). "Gedenkboek ter gelegenheid van het 30 jarig bestaan van Handwerkers Vriendenkring bevattende een kort overzicht ven de geschiedenis der vereeniging 1869-1899" (Amsterdam, 1899). "Gedenkboek uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het 25 jarig bestaan der Centrale Commissie voor de Statistiek 1892-1917," The Hague, 1917. Gedenkschrift van de Koninklijke Academie en van de Polytechnisch School 1842-1905 samengesteld ter gelegenheid van de oprichting der Technische Hoogeschool (Delft, 1906). Geurtsen, Rein, "De tol-grenzen van de architectenpractijk," Wonen TA/BK (April, 1973), 11-20. , "Sociaal ontbonden, cultureel verbonden, aspecten van woningbouw- en stedebouwpraktijk in de negentiende eeuw," Ons Amsterdam 26, no. 2 (February, 1974), 50-58. Levenshouding en maatschappijbeeld van de Giele, J., "Arbeidersbestaan. arbeidende klasse in Nederland in het midden van de negentiende eeuw," Jaarboek voor de geschiedenis van Socialisme en Arbeidersbeweging (1976), 21-91. Giele, , Arbeiderslevens in Nederland 1850-1914 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1979). Jacques and Geert Jan van Oenen, "De sociale structuur van de Nederlandse samenleving rond 1850," Mededelingenblad, Nederlandsch Vereniging tot beoefening van Sociale Geschiedenis, no. 45 (May, 1974), 2-31. , "Theorie en praktijk van het onderzoek naar de sociale structuur," Tijdscrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, no. 5 (May, 1976), 167-86. Goode, William F., "The Theoretical Limits of Professionalization," in Amitai Etzioni, ed. The Semi-Professions and Their Organization (New York: The Free Press, 1969). Gouldner, Alvin W., The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Oxford University Press, 1982). Class (New York: Grinberg, Donald I., Housing in the Netherlands (Delft University Press, 1977). Hagoort, R., Patrimonium, Gedenkboek bij het Gouden Jubileum (Kampen, 1927). 1927),_Het beginsel behouden, Gedenkboek van het Nederlandsch Werkliedenbond Patrimonium over de jaren 1891-1927 (Amsterdam, 1934). 689 Hansen, Erik and Peter Prosper, "Religion and the Development of the Dutch Trade Union Movement, 1872-1914," Histoire Social 9, no. 18 (November-December, 1976), 357-383. Harmsen, Ger, Historisch overzicht van socialisme en arbeidersbeweging in Nederland, Van de begintijd tot het uitbreken van de eerste wereld oorlog (Nijmegen: SUN, 1971). , Idee en beweging, bekommentarieerde bibliografie van de geschiedenis van socialisme en arbeidersbeweging in Nederland (Nijmegen: SUN, 1972). Harmsen, Ger and Bob Reinalda, Voor de bevijding van de arbeid; Beknopte geschiedenis van de Nederlandse vakbeweging (Nijmegen: SUN, 1975). Harmsen, Leendert , 27, no. 5 (May, "Acterom kijken naar brokje Jordaan 2," 1975), Ons Amsterdam 147-8. Hauser, Henri, L'Enseignement des Sciences Sociales, Etat Actuel de cet enseignement dans les divers pays du monde (Paris, 1903). Heertje, H., De Diamantbewerkers van Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1936). Heldt, B. H., Algemeen Nederlandsch Werklieden Verbond 1871-1896 (Leeuwarden, 1896). Hoogland, P., Vijf en twintig jaren sociaal democratie in de hoofdstad (Amsterdam, 1928). Hoogenberk, Egbert J., "Het Idee van de Hollandse Stad, Stedebouw in Nederland 1900-1930 met de internationale voorgeschiedenis" (Ph. D. diss., Delft Technical University, 1980). Hornstra, R., "Begrip Sociale Geneeskunde," in P. Muntendam, "Plaatsbepaling van de Sociale Geneeskunde," Sociaal-Wetenschappelijke Raad, Handelingen, Nieuwe Reeks No. 2 (Leiden, 1966). Hudig, D., Dutch Housing Legislation (Amsterdam, Nederlandsch Instituut voor Volkshuisvesting, no date). Jansen, Tony , "De wil der bazen regelt het werk, Havenarbeiders rond 1900 in Rotterdam en Amsterdam," Jaarboek voor de geschiedenis van Socialisme en Arbeidersbeweging 2 (1979), Jansen, L., "De 7-87. geschiedenis van Amsterdam Noord," Ons Amsterdam 14, no. 12 (December 1962), 354-9; 15, no. 2 (February 1963), 42-4. , "De Grondpolitiek van Amsterdam in de negentiende eeuw," mimeograph (Amsterdam: Dienst van Publieke Werken, 1965). , "Het Amsterdamse Erfpachtstelsel van 1896-1909," mimeograph (Amsterdam: Dienst van Publieke Werken, 1968). Janz., Ulla, "Gemeentelijk keuken en wassen in Amsterdam, 1915-1939," Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdscrift 7, no. 4 (March 1981), 501-532. Jones, Gareth Stedman, Outcast London, A Study in the Relationship between Classes in Victorian Society (Oxford University Press, 1971). Jong, F. de, Om de plaats van de arbeid, een geschiedkundig overzicht van de ontstaan en ontwikkeling van het Nederlands Verbond van Vakverenigingen (Amsterdam, 1956). Jonge, J. A. de, De industrialisatie in Nederland tussen 1850 en 1914 (Amsterdam: Scheltema en Holtema, 1968). Kamp, Adolph F., H. Kramers, et. al., De Technische Hogeschool te Delft 1905-1955 (The Hague, 1955). Kampffmeyer, Hans, Wohnungen, Siedlungen und Gartenstadte in Holland und England (Berlin, 1926). Kaye, Barrington, Development of the Architectural Profession in Britain, A Sociological Study (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969). Kossman, E. H., De Lage Landen 1780-1940, Anderhalve eeuw Nederland en Belgie (Amsterdam, 1976). 690 Kostof, Spiro, The Architect, Chapters in the History of the Profession (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). Kruseman, J., De Volkshuivesting onder de woningwet, Geschiedkundig overzicht en herinneringen (Haarlem, 1940). Lange, Cornelia L. de, "Johanna Elisabeth ter Meulen, 11 augustus 1867-11 februari 1937," Jaarboek Amstelodamum 57 (1965). Larson, Margali Safatti, The Rise of Professionalism, a sociological analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). Lier, S. J. van, "Vijftigjarig bestaan der Vereniging 'Amsterdams Bouwfonds' 1906-1956" (Amsterdam, 1956). Lijphart, Arend, The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). Linden, M. P. van der, "De oprichting van de Bond van Nederlandsche Architecten (1908) en zijn fusie met de Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst (1919),"BW 76 (17 May 1958), 239-244. Lipschits, I., Politieke stromingen in Nederand, Inleiding tot de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse politieke partijen (Deventer: Kluwer, 1977). Lockwood, D., "Sources of Variation in Working Class Images of Society," Sociological Review 14, no. 13 (November, 1966), 249-267. Lucassen, H., "50 jaar Woningbouwvereenging 'Amsterdam Zuid,' 1911-1961" (Amsterdam, 1961). Maas, P.F., "Sociaal-Democratische Historiael 11, Meischke, R., Gemeentepolitiek, 1894-1929," Spiegel no. 5 (May 1976), 264-73. Het Nederlandse Woonhuis van 1300-1800 (Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink, 1969). Meldrum, D. S., Home Life in Holland (New York: Macmillan, 1911). Mens, Jan, Er wacht een haven (Amsterdam: Kosmos, 1951). Meyers, Ine and Peiternel Rol, "Rijkluis dochters en arbeiderszonen, sociale afkomst, opleiding en organisatie van onderwijzers en onderwijzeressen rond 1900," Jaarboek voor de geschiedenis van Socialisme en Arbeidersbeweging in Nederland 2 (1979), 88-118. Minnucci, Gaetano, L'Abitazione Moderna Popolare nell'Architettura Contemporanea Olandese; Esame delle leggi, sviluppo, tecnica ed esthetica delle abitazione economiche in Olanda (Rome, 1926). Miranda, S. R. de , Gedenkscrift der Stichting "Bouwfonds Handwerkers Vriendenkring" (Amsterdam, 1937). Mokyr, Joel, Industrialization in the Low Countries, 1795-1850 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976). Moltzer, M. J. A., "De Nutsrapporten betreffende het woningvraagstuk," in Gedenkboek Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen 1784-1934 (Amsterdam, 1934). Moulin, Raymonde, et. al., Les architectes, metamorphose d'une profession liberale (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1973). Muntendam, J., Loon naar Werken, Enkele Sociale Aspecten van het Werk van J.C. van Marken (Deventer: Kluwen, 1971). Nationale Woningraad, Beter Wonen: Gedenkboek, gewijd aan het werk der Woningbouwvereenigingen in Nederland, uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het 25 jarig bestaan van den Nationalen Woningraad, Algemeenen Bond van Woningbouwvereenigingen 1913-1938 (Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 1938). Nederlands Instituut voor Volkshuisvesting en Stedebouw, De Woningwet 1902-1930, Gedenkboek samengesteld ter gelegenheid van de Tentoonstelling gehouden te Amsterdam 18-27 October 1930 (Amsterdam, 691 1930). Nycolaas, Jacques , Volkshuisvesting, een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van woningbouw en woningbelied in Nederland, met name sedert 1945 1974). (Nijmegen: SUN, Nycolaas, Jacques and Rein Geurtsen, "70 jaar woningwet, nog eens 70 jaar woningnood," Plan no. 9 (September 1972), 17-21. Oldevelt, W.F.H., "De Pijp," Jaarboek Amstelodamum 44 (1950), 119-127. Oosterbaan, G., De Gezondheidswet en de woningwet (Groningen, 1901). Oosterbaan, N., Politieke en sociale programmas (Utrecht, 1897-1909), 5 vols. Ottens, Egbert, Ik moet naar een kleinere woning omzien want mijn gezin 1975). wordt te groot (Amsterdam, "Het negentiende eeuwse woonhuis in Nederland," Peeters, C.J.A.C., Jaarverslag Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser 53 (1971). Pek-Went, Louise van der, "Woningtoestanden voor de Woningwet," in Beter Wonen, Gedenkboek gewijd aan het werk der woningbouw verenigingen in Nederland (Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 1938), Petit, Daniel, "Amsterdam et la question des 13-33. logements populaires," La Construction moderne 54 (April 2, 9; May 7, 15; July 16, 23 1939), 286-93, 319-24, 418-24. Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). huizen, plannen, Prak, Niels Luning, "Zeventig jaar woningwet: voorschriften," Plan no. 11 (November 1972), 29-44. Querido, Arie, The Development of Socio-Medical Care in the Netherlands (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968). arbeiders kinderen Regt, Ali de, "De vorming van een opvoedingstraditie: 5, no. 1 (June 1978), Tijdscrift Sociologisch rond 1900," Amsterdams 37-61. Reinink, A.W., Amsterdam en de Beurs van Berlage, Reacties van Tijdgenoten (The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1975). "Rochdale 50 Jaar; Jubileumboek uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het 50 jarig bestaan van de cooperatieve bouwverenigin 'Rochdale' te Amsterdam" (Amsterdam, 1953). Roegholt, Richter, Amsterdam in de 20- eeuw, (1919/1945) (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1976). Rogiers, L. J. and N. de Rooy, In vrijheid herboren: Katholiek Nederland 1857-1953 (The Hague, 1953). Romeijn, H.J., "The Housing Problem," in H.B. Greven, ed., The Netherlands Studies in the War History of a Neutral (New and the World War; Haven, 1928). Rooijen, Maurits van, De Groene Stad, een historische studie over de groen voorziening in de Nederlandse stad (The Hague, 1984). Rooy, P. de, Een revolutie die voorbijging, Domela Nieuwenhuis en het Palingoproer (Bussum, 1971). , Werklozenzorg en werkloosheidsbestrijding 1917-1940, landelijk en Amsterdams belied (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1978). Ru, Cornelis de, De Strijd over het hoger onderwijs tijdens het Ministerie Kuyper (Ph. D. diss., Vrije Universitiet, 1953). Rueter, A. J. C. de, De spoorwegstakingen van 1903, Een spiegel der arbeidersbeweging in Nederland (Leiden: Brill, 1935). Ruyter, Peter de , "De oprichting van het NIROV," Stedebouw en Volkshuisvesting (November 1978), 541-552. Schade Carel, "104 woningen in het Plantsoen, Woningbouw voor arbeiders in Amsterdam 1851-1856" (Masters thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1973). 692 , Woningbouw voor arbeiders in het negentiende eeuwse Amsterdam (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1981). Scouten, Martin, De Socialen zijn in aantogt, De Nederlandse arbeidersbeweging in de negentiende eeuw (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1974). Schut, P. Bakker, 50 Jaar Woningwet 1902-1952 (Alphen aan de Rijn, 1952). Searing, Helen , "Housing in Holland and the Amsterdam School" (Ph. D. diss., Yale University, 1971). Worker's Housing and the Amsterdam School," , "Eigen Haard: Architectura no. 2 (1971), 148-175. 'the most significant modern building , "Berlage and Housing: type,'" Nederlandse Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 24 (1975), 133-180. Housing in Amsterdam, 1915-1923," in "With Red Flags Flying: H. A. Millon and L. Nochlin, eds., Art and Architecture in the Service of Politics (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978), 230-269. Social Democracy's Elusive Housing Ideal," , "Amsterdam South: , VIA 4 (1980), 59-77. Singelenberg, Pieter, et. al., H.P. Berlage, bouwmeester 1856-1934, Haags Gemeentemuseum catalogue, 1975. Sleef, J. W., "Algemene woningbouwvereniging; Het 25-jarig bestaan van de Algemene Woningbouwvereniging te Amsterdam" (Amsterdam 1935). Smit, Frank , "Geboorte van de Volkshuisvesting, een moiezame bevalling," Wonen TA/BK no. 13 (July 1973), 5-13. , "Gemeente als vliegwiel voor volkshuisvesting," Wonen TA/BK no. 14 (July 1973), 18-26. , "Van tuinstedebouw tot stedelijk uitwaaiering," Wonen TA/BK, no. 13 (1975), , 5-17. "Pleidooi voor een naief realistische stedebouw," Wonen TA/BK, no. 13 (1976), 5-20. Starr, Paul, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982). Swarte, J. D., "Uit Krotten en Sloppen," Volkshuisvesting 1, no. 11 February 1920), (25 141-2. Taal, G., Liberalen en radicalen in Nederland 1872-1901 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980). Tarn, John Nelson, Five Per Cent Philanthropy; An account of housing in urban areas between 1840 and 1914 (Cambridge University Press, 1973). Taverne, Ed, In 't land van belofte, in de nieue stadt; Ideaal en werkelijkheid van de stadsuitleg in de Republiek 1580-1680 (Maarssen: Gary Schwartz, 1978). Thijs, Walter, De Kroniek van P.L. Tak, Brandpunt van Nederlandse Cultuur in de jaren negentig van de vorige eeuw (Amsterdam: Wereld Bibliotheek, 1956). Tijn, Theo van, Twintig Jaren Amsterdam, de maatschappelijk ontwikkeling van de hoofdstad, van de jaren '50 der vorige eeuw tot 1876 (Amsterdam: Scheltema en Holkema, 1965). een succes , "De Algemene Nederlandsche Diamantbewerkersbond: en zijn veklaring," Biidragen en Mededelingen betreffende de geschiedenis der Nederlanden 88(1973), 403-418. , "Berusting en beroering, aspecten van amsterdams sociale geschiedenis in de negentiende eeuw," Ons Amsterdam 26, no. 2 (February, 1974), 34-42. , "Voorlopige notities over het ontstaan van het moderne klassebewustzijn in Nederland," Mededelingenblad, Nederlandsch 693 Vereniging tot beoefening van Sociale Geschiedenis (May, 1974), 3739. Tijn, Theo van and W. M. Zappij, "De negentiende eeuw," in J. H. van Stuijvenberg, De economische geschiedenis van Nederland (Groningen: Wolters-Nordhoff, 1977), 201-308. Tillema, J. A. C., Schetsen uit de geschiedenis van de Monumentenzorg in Staatsuitgeverij, 1975). Nederland (The Hague: Toulmin, Stephen, Human Understanding, vol. 1 (oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). Verdoorn, J. A., Volksgezondheid en sociale ontwikkeling, beschouwingen over het gezondheidswezen te Amsterdam in de negentiende eeuw (Utrecht, 1968). "Vereeniging ten behoeve der arbeidersklasse over de jaren 1917-1952" (Amsterdam, 1952). "Vijftig jaar algemene woningbouwvereniging 'De Dageraad' 1916-1966" (Amsterdam, 1966). Vliegen, V. H., Die onze kracht ontwaken deed, geschiedenis der SDAP in Nederland gedurende de eerste 25 jaren van haar bestaan (Amsterdam, 1938). Vrankrijker, A. C. J., Vier Eeuwen Nederlands Studentenleven (Voorburg, 1939). , Een groiende gedachte, de ontwikkeling der meningen over de sociale kwestie in de negentiende eeuw in Nederland (Assen, 1959). Weijde, H. van der, Het werk van Mr. Dirk Hudig (Alphen aan den Rijn, 1970). Weissman, A. W., Het Amsterdamsche Woonhuis van 1500-1800 (Amsterdam, 1885). Welcker, J. M., Heren en arbeiders in de vroege Nederlandse arbeidersbeweging 1870-1914 (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1978). Werkman, Evert, 100 jaar bouwen 50 jaar Nationale Woningraad (Alphen aan der Rijn, 1963). Westendorp, F., et. al., eds., De Technische Hoogeschool te Delft van 1905-1930 (Delft, 1930). Wibaut, F. M., Levensbouw, Memories (Amsterdam: Querido's, 1936). Wijk, Frank van, "Volkshuisvesting te Amsterdam, tussen 1850 en 1914" (Masters thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1974). Wit, Ton de, "Woonnormen-eenheidsworst van voorbijee zedeprekers," Wonen TA/BK 1, no. 13 (1973), 14-18. Wit, Wim de, ed., The Amsterdam School, Dutch Expressionist Architecture, 1915-1930 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983). Young, crawford, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976). Zadoks, S., "Geschiedenis der Amsterdamsche concessies" (Ph. D. diss., University of Amsterdam, 1899). Zantkuyl, H. J. , Bouwen in Amsterdam, Het Woonhuis in de Stad (Amsterdam, 1973-75). Zomers Buiten, "Jubileum uitgave van de woningstichting" (Amsterdam, 1969). Zuydewijn, H.J.F. de Roy van, Amsterdamse Bouwkunst 1815-1940 J.H. de Bussy, 1970). (Amsterdam: