Changing ideals

Post-65 districts in Capelle aan den IJssel

Abstract

In this article Capelle aan den IJssel features as a case study of changes in architecture and urban design in the Post-65 period (1965-1990). During those years the original dike village of Capelle, on the eastern edge of Rotterdam, expanded significantly. Several completely new districts were developed, among them Oostgaarde and Schollevaar. This article focuses on the social trends and ideas that influenced the changes and what phases can be discerned in those changes.
The first phase was dominated by economic growth and quantitative thinking. In the final phase of the post-war reconstruction this resulted in large-scale districts with a lot of high-rise flats and a repetition of identical housing complexes. Growing discontent with the outcome eventually led to the realization that this type of spatial design had no future. It also largely ignored the single-family dwelling, yet this was precisely the section of the housing stock that was very much in demand, including in the greater Rotterdam area.
This did not, however, prompt an immediate breakthrough of small-scale architecture and urban design in the next phase. Under the influence of Team X and its Dutch offshoot centred around the journal Forum there were even proposals for megastructures, the best-known Dutch example being the (unbuilt) Pampus project of Van den Broek & Bakema. Even cars were initially tolerated. The urban designer Tjakko Hazewinkel proposed one such megastructure for Oostgaarde.
From the early 1970s, criticism of large-scale developments led to a broad interest in ecology, return to nature and sociologically-informed architectural experiments. Following Hazewinkel’s departure, there was a change of course in Capelle, too. In the new residential areas of Oostgaarde and Schollevaar, orthogonality and repetition gave way to adventurous housing subdivisions and road layouts featuring home zones; high-rise was renounced and replaced by single-family dwellings and multilevel low-rise. Playfulness and fantasy were given free rein. This was also facilitated by the introduction of sector plans, which allowed architects much greater freedom.
Rising mortgage interest rates and the economic recession of the early 1980s led to a sharp decline of the demand for private sector housing. It was decided to build more social housing, which necessarily entailed higher densities. That densification can be clearly seen in the eastern and last realized section of the district. In terms of amenities, the plan had been considerably trimmed back and there were growing doubts as to its financial feasibility. Whimsicality and playful brick architecture – typical of the 1970s – had had their day, replaced in the 1980s by straightforward, rational subdivisions and a more functional architecture.