#modern dutch architecture

[dashalbrundezimmer]

vijzelstraat // amsterdam gouden bocht

nh collection amsterdam flower market the former carltonhotel

architect: gerrit jan rutgers

completion: 1928

the large hotel complex was built in the style of the amsterdam school, a kind of brick impressionism in the netherlands and especially in the city of amsterdam, and thus belongs to the modernist style. as the complex extends over several streets and is completely enclosed by the surrounding buildings, its size is hardly noticeable at first glance. it is also due to the narrow streets that many details of the building façade and the overall effect cannot really be seen, which is a great shame.

but it's still worth a visit.

der große hotekomplex, wurde im stil der amsterdamer schule errichtet, einer spielart des backsteinsimpressionismus in den niederlanden und vor allem im bereich der stadt amsterdam und ist damit zugehörig der moderne. da der komplex sich über mehrere straßen erstreckt und komplett von umgebenden gebäuden eingeschlossen ist, erkennt man die größe auf den ersten blick kaum. ebenso ist es der engen bebauung geschuldet, dass man viele details des gebäudefassade oder die gesamtwirkung auch optisch nicht wirklich erfassen kann, was sehr schade ist.

ein besuch lohnt sich aber natürlich trotzdem.

[arc-hus]

Netherlands American Cemetery Visitor Center, Margraten, the Netherlands - KAAN Architecten

[the-cricket-chirps]

Jan Toorop, A windmill near the water, 1880

Vincent van Gogh, Le Moulin de la Galette, Paris, Autumn, 1886

[auutumn]

autumn court inspired by germanic folklore & fairytales, my beloved

[lionheartlr]

Exploring Belgium: A Comprehensive Travel Guide

Belgium, a charming country nestled in Western Europe, offers a rich tapestry of history, culture, and modernity. This guide will take you through Belgium’s history, colonial past, political landscape, education system, and practical travel information, ensuring a delightful and informed visit. A Brief History of Belgium Belgium’s history is a blend of influences from Roman times to modern-day…

[thunderstruck9]

Cécile van Hanja (Dutch, 1964), Frozen Modernism, 2023. Acrylic on canvas, 150 × 110 cm.

Cécile van Hanja - Frozen Modernism, 2023

[fatehbaz]

Work acquaintance, ostensibly as a joke about me and my interests, asked if I had any educational reading recommendations about "Santa's sleigh"

So, to pass the time, I thought we'd have a dialogue about the history of urban vehicularization, pedestrian encounters with vehicles, and control of space and mobility, through the "vehicle" (pun intended) of a case study of carriages and sleighs in eighteenth-century Amsterdam.

---

And none of this is to be taken seriously, I'm just saying words recreationally. But Amsterdam is important in the history of urban space. It was the site of early speed limit regulations for vehicles: In 1681, a bylaw limited vehicle speed to walking pace (stapvoets), and a 1696 deposition describes the servants of a sheriff stopping a driver for driving too fast. By the 1770s, the sleigh-man's guild had 285 sleigh-men active year-round, not counting unregistered personal sleighs, or those who used sleighs over snow in winter. The (colonialism-fueled) expansion of the city's infrastructure (in the context of maritime trade and East India Company profits) allowed sudden, dramatic architectural expansion, though there was uneven adoption of new transportation methods of wheeled vehicles in newly-built edges of the urban area (where textile factories were situated) while maintaining the architecture of the dense streets of the medieval city core, so that sleighs and carriages existed side-by-side in a way that was distinct from the streets of Paris and London.

In 1790, visiting German scientist Georg Forster described Amsterdam as such: "The whole day long, a continuous thunderous roaring dominates. The manifold carriages of mayors, councilors, state officials, directors of the East India Company, physicians and the lavishly rich, the unremitting transport of goods [...] obstruct the way of passage and cause a constant yelling and rumbling [...]."

But history scholar Bob Pierik (in an article that opens with Forster's lamentation) describes how Amsterdam was an early site of "vehicularization" and related street regulations, and he finds this notable and worth considering because it anticipated and predated the more famous and more widely discussed urban regulations and policing of properly-industrialized nineteenth-century London, which allows us to perhaps rethink the historiography and "teleological narrative" of modernity.

Since vehicles, pedestrians, and their attendant regulations were experimented with in the Dutch metropole decades before the mechanized transportation and "politics of paving" in Victorian Britain, there were what Pierik calls "multiple modernities" existing simultaneously in the streets of early modern Amsterdam (a "proper metropolis" at that time).

---

Evidently, "sleighs had been an important part of street life in Amsterdam long before coaches and chaises." Indeed, Pierik invokes the observation of English author Samuel Ireland from 1789, describing a visit to Amsterdam: "[C]arriages with wheels, except for the use of the nobility and gentry, were not suffered here for many years […]. A sleigh, as the Dutch term it (the French a traineau or pot de chambre) is now in use: it is the body of a coach, without wheels […]."

And guess what? They dragged those sleighs over pavement. No wheels, but only "an oily cloth (a smeerlap) was used to smoothen the passage."

A piece of rhyming graffiti, written on a wagon, and collected by Hieronymus Sweerts between 1683 and 1690, reads:

Who drives fast make a quick start

But easily loses their horse and cart

Careful and sen-

Sible is a good carriage man.

(For all excerpts and arguments here, by the way, see: Bob Pierik. "Coaches, Sleighs, and Speed in the Street: "Vehicularization" in Early Modern Amsterdam." Journal of Urban History, Volume 50, Issue 4. First published online 2 September 2022.)

Along with sleighs for transporting goods and products, there were sleighs for personal transport: a toeslee (closed sleigh) and koetsslee (coach sleigh).

---

And what of the pedestrian? Early on, at least in the Netherlands, vehicles were perceived as dangerous to pedestrians, and it could apparently be seen as arrogant to flaunt aristocratic wealth by gallavanting around in an expensive personal carriage in the city center, and so regulations and public opinion seem to indicate that pedestrian right-of-way was prioritized. An Amsterdam bylaw from 1528 indicated that drivers of sleighs could not sit upon their vehicle but had to walk beside it, because:

"[D]riving caused great disorder, often mixed with malice, as people, specifically women and children, are at great danger of being driven over."

An important city bylaw in 1634 banned the use of coaches within city walls. But the prohibition was gradually loosened, such that conflict between coach-drivers and pedestrians was frequently mentioned in depositions. But by the 1730s, something had changed. In Pierik's words:

[Quote.] Pedestrians now shared space with vehicles and had a new responsibility to protect themselves […]. [T]he language used in Bicker’s chronicle is very telling: In 1734, exactly a century after the vehicle ban, he wrote of a coachman who “had the misfortune of driving over a poor woman who died shortly thereafter.” Here, rather than the “women and children first” rhetoric that we have seen in the sixteenth-century regulations on the sleigh-men in the previous section, the coachman was also presented as a victim, and the right of the coach’s presence on the streets remained undisputed. Similarly, in 1746, Bicker Raije wrote of a nine- or ten-year-old boy who was “negligently watching around him” moments before he was killed by a sleigh horse. [End quote.]

The trend continued, and in the nineteenth century, British authorities would notoriously enact sweeping policies to control mobility in and access to urban space, in ways that prioritized "economic" activity while reinforcing class hierarchies. In fact, Pierik sees this vehicularization of the early modern city as "at once a civilizing and a colonizing project" in the same vein as what Koslofsky described as "nocturnalization," or the way in which, in London and Paris, "the elites of the court and the city colonized the urban night" with their affordance of transportation and a mobility not always shared with those lower in the hierarchies.

We are, of course, reminded of another aristocratic figure who, traveling through the night, engaged in this civilizing mission of nocturnalization and colonized public space with their vehicle. Someone who, like the early modern vehicle regulations of Amsterdam, is associated with Dutch tradition. Someone whose persona is closely connected to mobility, even hyper-mobility, drawn forth by their sleigh:

Santa Claus.

[thenordroom]

This week on The Nordroom

IKEA HÖSTAGILLE: A Fall Collection with Halloween Decorations 2024

The Flint House Kitchen Extension by deVOL

Bold Color Accents in a Dutch Family Home

Light and Modern Spaces in a Small Victorian House

Period Details and Light Rooms in a Scandinavian Apartment

A Modern Duplex Apartment in The Netherlands

A Modern Barn House in the English Countryside

A Serene Modern Home in a Former Factory Building

Modern Interiors in an Architectural 19th Century Building

[germanpostwarmodern]

The Dutch architect Piet Tauber (1927-2017) a man of the public sector: with his town halls, archive buildings, libraries, housing estates, bungalows but also the Dutch embassy in Washington D.C. he contributed to and benefited from the booming postwar building activity in the Netherlands. The basis of his successful practice often were public competitions. At the age of only 27 Tauber in 1954 won the competition for a housing development in Delft comprising over 500 apartments and six shops. Five years later he won the pathbreaking competition for the regional library in Leeuwarden, a project that obviously qualified Tauber for many more public commissions, as show the different town halls, archive and court buildings he designed well into the late 1990s. 

Tauber’s architecture is rooted in the artisanal tradition of his father Hendricus, an architect who masterfully worked with brick as primary building material. Piet followed in this tradition and used brick for most of his buildings. At the same time he possessed a great sense for adapting his designs to the particular local contexts: rather low-slung than dominant buildings like the Alkmaar Post Office (1960-64) or the Dutch Embassy (1960-63) blend in the new in an existing urban, respectively scenic context. Borrowings from Scandinavian modernism represented by e.g. Alvar Aalto or Kay Fisker can’t be denied in these cases as David Keuning underscores in his book „Piet Tauber 1927 - Bouwen naar opdracht“: published by Stichting Bonas in 2012 it is the only comprehensive publication on Tauber and contains a complete work catalogue as well as a very insightful work overview and analysis by the author. The latter walks the reader through Tauber’s upbringing in Alkmaar, his student days at TH Delft and into his career of over four decades. In the further course of his text Keuning also sheds light on his many single-family homes/bungalows, again low-slung structures anchored in their respective plots and adapted to the particular lighting conditions. Like all Bonas monographs the book is comprehensively illustrated with photos, drawings and plans and again deserves being called an exemplary publication!

[archtechposts]

Brutalist boomerang!

The Johnson Wax Office Building and Factory in Mijdrecht, Netherlands, by Dutch architect Huig Maaskant, 1964.

[nardo-headcanons]

Iwagakure Worldbuilding Headcanon

yes, it is time. i have been planning to do this ever since i wrote the suna ones. what inspired me to write these? my chem analytics lab practical

People and Culture

Iwagakure is a rather densely populated village, with its country having a rather large population. The citizens of Iwa are often times brutally honest with each other and often work as one big union. The language spoken in Iwagakure sounds similar to Konoha's language, but not quite (Almost like Dutch sounds compared to German). There are many different dialects across different valleys, every one sounding slightly different from the other. This sometimes leads to interesting dialoagues, but they manage. Many foreigners think Iwa citizens don't have a sense of humor, but they do. It's just that it's rather dry compared to what most foreigners are used to.

Infrastructure

A lot of the infrastructure in Iwagakure is made of stone and their architecture is very immaculate and they like using earth style to accentuate their homes. Despite their economy not being the strongest, Iwagakure has a homeless rate of 0% since housing is easy to construct there.

Education

In the Iwa academy, genin are not only taught ninja skills, but basic geology and chemistry as well. Despite Iwa nin being regarded as 'stupid' by outsiders due to their funny accents, they have an extensive education system.

Fireworks

Fireworks in Iwagakure are a special good, and they are very proud of the fact that they invented it. No one really knows how, but the story says that one shinobi of Iwagakure's explosion corps added copper sulphate, rubidium acetate, strontiom sulphate and lithium chloride into their explosive clay, creating a prototype of the fireworks they use nowadays. Using their knowledge of the different minerals and their flame test colors, the earth country's pyrotechnicians are able to create elaborate artworks out of thin scraps.

Clothes

Most clothes are dyed with either natural colorants or colorful chemicals. Most older people prefer the natural dyes from plants, such as ube, purple and orange carrots, etc. The youngsters are more adventurous.

Politics

Much like Suna shinobi, Iwa ninjas had more trust in their tsuchikage than in their own daimyo, however this recently changed due to Oonoki, the third tsuchi-kage hiring mercenaries like the Akatsuki to work behind the other big villages backs. Since the economy of Iwagakure was not the strongest, they often relied on imperialism as well as colonialism to build their economy. In the modern era, this has changed, however, since Iwa and the Earth country in general is the biggest exporter of rare minerals such as, diamonds, pottery, glassware and fireworks.

Flora

The Earth country is a cold and rocky place, with many gushes of wind carrying rock and debris throughout the country, even beyond its borders. The winters of Iwagakure are very cold and harsh and the summers are only mild compared to the fire country, where Konoha is located. There is little to no vegetation, and the vegetation that exists is used for agriculture which has led to many native animals being driven out of their natural habitat.

Fauna

The mountains of Iwagakure are populated by ewes, goats and sheep, which, much like in our world, could not care less about gravity. Another animal that can be found in such large heights is the snow leopard, a symbol of bravery and strength to Iwagakure shinobi. Wolves are also native to Iwagakure, however its citizens have an ambiguous relationship to the canines, as they frequently pillage livestock from the people. It would also be a crime to not mention yaks, the national animal of Iwagakure. Their meat, tar and fur are all highly prized and yak meat serves as a protein source to many Iwa shinobi. When looking up into the sky, eagles, kites, vultures and hawks are no rarity, feasting on any small mammal they might find. Fortunately for all arachno- and insectophobes, Iwagakure's insect and spider population is rather small, the only ones that survive living in such high altitudes either minding their own business or even being useful to its citizens, the iwagakure mountain bees, coming to mind.

Food

Tubers and Root vegetables

The main component of any Iwagakure dish are tubers and root vegetables. Iwa nin actually prefer them over grains as their main source of carbohydrates. The most popular ones are potatoes, purple carrots, parsnips and onions. Often times, ube and ube extract is used as a flavoring agent and colorant for food.

Legumes

Another important stable of Iwa cuisine are beans, which are imported from Sunagakure. The most popular variety are kidney beans, mainly due to their color matching the iwagakure shinobi uniform. In the past there used to be many lectin and cyanide poisonings, until the government stepped in and implemented 'how to properly cook beans' into the education system.

Meat

Most meat comes from either yaks, goats, dear or sheep. Unlike their close allies, Sunagakure, Iwa nin rarely dry their meat and prefer it marinated or jarred.

Sweets

Similarly to Kirigakure, not many manufactured sweets can be found here, however, crispy rice cakes (Iwagakure rock mochi) are a specialty. The most popular filling for these rice cakes is, of course, red bean paste.

[dashalbrundezimmer]

sint antoniesbreestraat // amsterdam zuiderkerkbuurt

the colour of the day is blue on brick red and this building is just opposite the canary yellow house two entries earlier. in addition to the colour, the geometric design of the window elements is also fascinating

heute ist die farbe des tages blau auf ziegelrot. genau gegenüber des kanariengelben hauses zwei einträge zuvor befindet sich dieses gebäude. neben der farbe ist auch die geometrische gestaltung der fensterelemente faszinierend

[arc-hus]

Siyadi Pearl Museum Renovation, Bahrain - Studio Anne Holtrop

[the-cricket-chirps]

Vincent van Gogh

Achterkanten van huizen

Dec. 1885-Feb. 1886

[codylambertdanafoster]

My favorite final fantasy characters" aerith tifa cid cloud sephiroth barret vincent red yuffie noctis ignis prompto gladio aranea iris luna hopes yiuu love thems hims gorgeous beautiful handsome thighs pretty rugged realistic photorealistic anime tenga toppa gurren lagen bikini boy idol girl

In the style of rembrandt caravaggio famous dutch weather painters ocean van gogh gulf bay renaissance andy warhol woodcut van dyck holbein michaelangelo raphael da vinci river creek city italian

figure skating sailor moon porcelain robot corporate office tech worker female glasses male happy friendly professional productive plastic bottles africa child cleopatra audrey hepburn caesar bible samurai warrior dnd waifu wizard

figure skating sailor moon porcelain robot corporate office tech worker female glasses male happy friendly professional productive plastic bottles africa cleopatra audrey hepburn caesar bible samurai warrior dnd waifu wizard

motorcycle pokemon long hair porcelain robot cleopatra audrey hepburn architecture brutalist renaissance midcentury gothic romanesque byzantine modern dream k-pop man makeup babe hottie

beautiful forest dryad playing card dnd skeleton warrior war battle epic mage wizard gandalf sauron frodo aragorn fairy elf tank dwarf barbarian dragon dungeon fantasy barret balthier ashe penelo red xii cait sith vincent cid yuffie mog chocobo garnet zidane vivi celes rosa cecil midgar laguna seifer squall rinoa irvine selphie zell quistis summon ifrit titan bahamut pheonix rem machina ace sice nine eight cinque bartz gladio gilgamesh secretary administrative assistant harassment picard crusher worf la forge troi riker apostle disciple finance smiling woman sorceror mancer raptor stylized rex

[whencyclopedia]

Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories

"Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories" is a sweeping and jarring work of how opium became an insidious capitalistic tool to generate wealth for the British Empire and other Western powers at the expense of an epidemic of addiction in China and the impoverishment of millions of farmers in India. The legacy of this “criminal enterprise,” as the author puts it, left lasting influences that reverberate across cultures and societies even today.

Written in engaging language, Smoke and Ashes is a scholarly follow-up to the author’s famous Ibis trilogy, a collection of fiction that uses the opium trade as its backdrop. In Smoke and Ashes, the author draws on his years-long research into opium supplemented by his family history, personal travels, cross-cultural experience, and expertise in works of historical verisimilitude. Composed over 18 chapters, the author delves into a diverse set of primary and secondary data, including Chinese sources. He also brings a multidimensional angle to the study by highlighting the opium trade's legacy in diverse areas such as art, architecture, horticulture, printmaking, and calligraphy. 23 pictorial illustrations serve as powerful eyewitness accounts to the discourse.

This book should interest students and scholars seeking historical analysis based on facts on the ground instead of colonial narratives. Readers will also find answers to how opium continues to play an outsize role in modern-day conflicts, addictions, corporate behavior, and globalism.

Amitav Ghosh’s research convincingly points out that while opium had always been used for recreational purposes across cultures, it was the Western powers such as the British, Portuguese, the Spaniards, and the Dutch that discovered its significant potential as a trading vehicle. Ghosh adds that colonial rulers, especially the British, often rationalized their actions by arguing that the Asian population was naturally predisposed to narcotics. However, it was British India that bested others in virtually monopolizing the market for the highly addictive Indian opium in China. Used as a currency to redress the East India Company (EIC)’s trade deficit with China, the opium trade by the 1890s generated about five million sterling a year for Britain. Meanwhile, as many as 40 million Chinese became addicted to opium.

Eastern India became the epicenter of British opium production. Workers in opium factories in Patna and Benares toiled under severe conditions, often earning less than the cost of production while their British managers lived in luxury. Ghosh asserts that opium farming permanently impoverished a region that was an economic powerhouse before the British arrived. Ghosh’s work echoes developmental economists such as Jonathan Lehne, who has documented opium-growing communities' lower literacy and economic progress compared to their neighbors.

Ghosh states that after Britain, “the country that benefited most from the opium trade” with China, was the United States. American traders skirted the British opium monopoly by sourcing from Turkey and Malwa in Western India. By 1818, American traders were smuggling about one-third of all the opium consumed in China. Many powerful families like the Astors, Coolidges, Forbes, Irvings, and Roosevelts built their fortunes from the opium trade. Much of this opium money, Ghosh shows, also financed banking, railroads, and Ivy League institutions. While Ghosh mentions that many of these families developed a huge collection of Chinese art, he could have also discussed that some of their holdings were most probably part of millions of Chinese cultural icons plundered by colonialists.

Ghosh ends the book by discussing how the EIC's predatory behaviors have been replicated by modern corporations, like Purdue Pharma, that are responsible for the opium-derived OxyContin addiction. He adds that fossil fuel companies such as BP have also reaped enormous profits at the expense of consumer health or environmental damage.

Perhaps one omission in this book is that the author does not hold Indian opium traders from Malwa, such as the Marwaris, Parsis, and Jews, under the same ethical scrutiny as he does to the British and the Americans. While various other works have covered the British Empire's involvement in the opium trade, most readers would find Ghosh's narrative of American involvement to be eye-opening. Likewise, his linkage of present-day eastern India's economic backwardness to opium is both revealing and insightful.

Winner of India's highest literary award Jnanpith and nominated author for the Man Booker Prize, Amitav Ghosh's works concern colonialism, identity, migration, environmentalism, and climate change. In this book, he provides an invaluable lesson for political and business leaders that abdication of ethics and social responsibility have lasting consequences impacting us all.

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