The city as a Monument

Abstract

The Dutch city planning hardly has any relations with the historical and architectural structure of the city. Historical and architectural structures were ignored by the architects of the New Building and even by the more traditional architects of the Delft School. Also no coherent theories of building and city-planning were developed with the historical urban structure as background.

The defensive attitude of the Preservation of Monuments did not result in changing opinions or in improvements of city-planning and design. Recently the historical analysis of the city became more integrated in the research, but the city-planning and the architects do not refer in their projects to the results of this analysis yet.

Preservation of Monuments and the modern architecture do not have the necessary connection up to now. Abroad, for example in Italy, since 1966 with Aldo Rossi's Architettura della Cita, the tradition of architecture and city-planning is deliberately taken up again. In the Netherlands the Preservation of Monuments could not find yet the connection with the research for the architectural tradition in city-design, its knowledge of historical built objects and ensembles has not yet an influence on the modern city-design.

The City as a Monument should be clearly defined and be a subject of research and the State Service for the Preservation of Monuments should be prepared to protect also parts of cities of historical importance in the future. Also the position of history of architecture and urban development in the research on Universities should be improved.