Metropolis in the Making
A Planning History of Amsterdam in the Dutch Golden Age
By (author) Jaap Evert Abrahamse
Early modern Amsterdam was an ultra-modern city, laid out conforming to the triple demand of functionality, beauty and profit; a city that takes a unique place in European urban history because of its location, design, and impressive scale. Making of a Metropolis tells the story of Amsterdam becoming one of the largest cities in Euro
Early modern Amsterdam was an ultra-modern city, laid out conforming to the triple demand of functionality, beauty and profit; a city that takes a unique place in European urban history because of its location, design, and impressive scale. Making of a Metropolis tells the story of Amsterdam becoming one of the largest cities in Europe in the seventeenth century. Amsterdam was one of the cradles of capitalism, but at the same time one of the most meticulously planned cities in the world. After the Fall of Antwerp in 1585, Amsterdam took over its position as the central trade hub in northwestern Europe and grew rapidly to become one of Europesurge in trade and industry went hand in hand with an explosive growth of Amsterdam, in 1613 and 1663 respectively, which increased the surface area of the city fivefold. Around the old town, the famous ring of canals was constructed. Beyond this residential district, mixed-use and industrial zones were laid out, while the construction of new harbour islands resulted in a five-kilometre waterfront along the borders of the IJ, the sea-branch that connected Amsterdam to the rest of the world. In the Dutch Golden Age, Amsterdam became an extraordinarily modern city, laid out in accordance with the trifold demand for functionality, beauty, and profit. It thus occupies a unique place in planning history because of its location, design, and impressive scale. This book examines how the administrative bodies of Amsterdam managed to undertake and complete these immense projects from the viewpoints of urban design, infrastructure, water management, logistics, and finance. The first part of this study is dedicated to the extension projects. A thorough analysis of extant administrative archives and numerous cartographic documents has enabled the author to reconstruct the decision-making process concerning the scale, design, and realization of the extensions. The second part examines in detail the use of the land, public space, and water management. Metropolis in the Making tells the story of one of the most meticulously planned cities in the world, and reveals how Amsterdam thus became, among many other things, a significant cradle of early modern capitalism and urbanism.
- By (author) Jaap Evert Abrahamse
Other Titles in this Series
Late Antique Palatine Architecture
Palaces and Palace Culture: Patterns of Transculturation
Volume 5
Similar Books
Balthasar Caymox of Nuremberg
Early Modern German Print Publishers: Popular Prints of the Seventeenth Century
Behind the Scenes of Medieval Roofs
An Overview of the Roofing Systems of Italian Churches
Volume 90
Beyond Sovereign Courts
Agents and Practices in Early Modern Spanish and Habsburg Diplomacy
Volume 3
Circulation, Use, Impact
The Consumption of Architectural Books in the Early Modern Eastern Adriatic
Volume 1
Councils, Conflicts, Correspondence
Urban Diplomacy in Reval (Tallinn) and Lübeck (c. 1470–1570)
Volume 67
Innovationes Lovanienses: Arts, Law and Theology at the University of Louvain (1425–1797)
Studium Lovaniense: Learning across Borders, 2
Volume 18
Late Antique villae in the Balkans (3rd–7th c. AD): Current Research Questions and Perspectives
HAEMUS Companion to the Late Antique Balkans 1
Volume 4
Legal Visuality
Exegesis, Ambiguity, and Dissimulation of the Donation of Constantine in the Early Modern Period
Naples as Laboratory / Laboratorium Neapel
Style Options, Artistic Rivalry and Self Fashioning in Neapolitan Baroque Painting / Plurale Stilbildung, Kunstlerkonkurrenz und Self Fashioning in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei
Power and Women in Southeast and Central Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (1300-1600)
Volume 10
Staging the Spectacle of Majesty
Ceremonial, Courtly Space, and Collecting under the Spanish Habsburgs
Volume 9
Students, Scholars and Their Books at the University of Louvain (1425-1797)
Studium Lovaniense: Learning across Borders, 1
Volume 17
The Embodied Court in the Premodern World
Understanding the Physicality, Performativity and Lifecycle of Bodies at Court in Europe and Beyond, 1400-1800
Volume 4
The Sacred and the Secular in Renaissance Florence
Vallombrosan Exorcisms and the Rise of Observant Mendicancy
Volume 31
Visual Memory and Oblivion
Monuments and Conflicts in Urban Spaces in Central and Eastern Europe from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day
