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
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
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
Students, Scholars and Their Books at the University of Louvain (1425-1797)
Studium Lovaniense: Learning across Borders, 1
Volume 17
Tradition, Interpretation, and Change
Developments in the Liturgy of Medieval and Early Modern Ashkenaz
Die Entwicklung erdbebensicherer Bautechniken in der Frühen und Mittleren Eisenzeit in Ostanatolien
Volume 11
Networking through Biography
Constructing Intellectual Junctions in Antiquity, the Renaissance and the Arabo-Islamic World
Volume 19
Art and Mysticism in Silesia in the Baroque Period
Angelus Silesius, Bernhard Rosa, and Michael Willmann
Building the Presence of the Prince
The Institutions Responsible for the Construction and Management of the Buildings of European Courts (14th-17th centuries)
Volume 14
Ceramics in Plain Sight: The Bacini of the Churches of Crete. “Reflections” of the Late Medieval and the Early Modern Material Culture of the Island
Volume II: The Regional Unit of Lasithi
Volume 13
