Marianne Loof column
Last week, I visited our Belgian neighbours in Turnhout, just across the border from Eindhoven, with a group of architect friends from AetA (Architectura et Amicitia).
There was plenty to fill a two-day tour to the architectural gems of the Turnhout school of the Sixties and to learn about the state of urban planning and architecture in Kempen. Minister Schultz believes that the Netherlands would do well to look a little more like Belgium, so I also viewed the excursion as a study trip. After all, who does not want better quality with fewer rules and greater freedom?
As soon as you cross the border, you notice in every sense that Belgium has a different tradition when it comes to spatial planning. And because the infrastructure in Belgium leaves rather a lot to be desired, we drive through interconnected buildings in linear towns with a diversity of attractive, ugly and peculiar houses and a glimpse of the green hinterland every now and then. Indeed, typically Belgian…
Bolstering the public domain
In Turnhout, we were entertained by a young urban planner. He had immersed himself in the ‘successes’ of Dutch civil engineering and explained how Turnhout was seeking to achieve a better quality of spatial planning with those instruments familiar to us, namely sectorial planning, structural vision, spatial strategy, and aesthetics planning. With greater government oversight: bolstering the public domain at the expense of private property, greater architectonic oversight and cohesion. He told us with a hint of awkwardness that there was nothing we could learn from him. After all, we came from that country with efficient construction of cycling lanes and roads, where quality of spatial planning is an established concept.
However, the Belgians have a long tradition of private commissioning, something we are only just starting to see in the Netherlands. Together we drove through disjointed areas, alongside slums to gems of residential dwellings. Conclusion at the end of the weekend: from the perspective of both Belgium and the Netherlands, the grass is always greener on the other side.
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