The contemporary Dutch city and the future of Recife, Public seminar I

As part of the workshop rXa – Recife Exchange Amsterdam, CAU-Pe, the new installed board of architects, organizes together with Iphan and IAB a public seminar with the Dutch team as referents.

Zeca Brandao of the University of Pernambuco is leading the session and introduces the theme for today: how can the planning practice in Amsterdam inspire the developments in Recife?

“It’s great that so many people are here, it shows the great interest at the moment that citizens have in the future of their city. We feel like it’s the sixties again! More and more people feel responsible to contribute to a better future and stand up against the developments they don’t agree with.”

Eric van der Kooij from the Spatial Planning Department of Amsterdam takes the floor. He states that the realities in Amsterdam and Recife are very different: only now we are here we really feel the size of the problems that Recife faces. He hopes that the story of Amsterdam can be an inspiration.

Amsterdam has a long tradition in planning. With the recent structural vision we even think thirty years ahead. To make sure the plans can be carried out, it is key to agree with a broad range of stakeholders. This culture of discussion, the so-called ‘polderen’ was born from the need to collaborate to protect low-lying The Netherlands from the water.

In urban planning it is very important to have an integral approach from the start: architects and urban planners should work together with the water agency, the departments of infrastructure and heritage, developers and last but not least the citizens. What kind of city would you like to live in? It’s will not be about jobs only, it will be about quality of life. A good public space and diversification of functions are key.


Johannes Beuckens from the Amsterdam Department of Infrastructure and Mobility adds to this that to be able to work together, it is important to formulate mutual themes. The mobility plan in Amsterdam has the focus points that Amsterdam should be attractive, clean and safe. By differentiating areas and make them accessible for different types of transport it is possible to regulate the traffic in the city.

Paulien Hartog of the water company Waternet, tells in more detail how Amsterdam works with water. Water levels in the city are very different, with the lowest part being five meters below sea level. Due to the risks this brings about water management is the oldest democratic system in the Netherlands. To realize safe water management and enhance the quality of the water it is necessary to connect the water to other themes in the city like urban planning, city marketing , energy production and ways to have fun at the water.


Eric rounds up stating that city planning is for 80% about communication. How can you use the wisdom of crowds? How to connect bottom-up planning with top-down planning? How to affect people with ideas? It’s all about making a cohesive story and telling it to a small group of people that will be affected by it and spread the word further.

Discussion – questions and reaction from the public

Fernando Diniz, architect and professor at UFPE states it is interesting to see that Amsterdam is densifying and links the green spaces in between together. This is a big contrast with Recife where all the space in between buildings is being filled with more buildings.


Zeca is interested in what we could learn from the contradiction that Recife is growing very fast and Amsterdam is growing at a much slower pace. Is there a conceptual parallel?

Eric: being in Recife, the feeling that overwhelms us is: “where should we start?” Problems are so big and you have to start with small-scale solutions. Planning in Recife seems to be in the architectural realm only. Could more parties participate? In Amsterdam we are also looking for new ways to interact with the public. So, we could say that we are both struggling to discover how to use the wisdom of crowds. We’re both searching how the stakeholders can be activated. We should check in a few years where both cities are by then…

How did Amsterdam make the public aware that cleaning the canals was important?

Paulien: There were strict regulations in the seventies to clean the water. Only the last ten to twenty years people became more aware of the quality of the water. And awareness still is a challenge: The people that use the water in their daily life (people living and recreating on boats) are our ambassadors. To make citizens aware of the good quality of the Amsterdam tap water we organized a ‘Canal bar’ where people could taste purified canal water on the spot.

How do you reach out to the different stakeholders to think along in the planning process? And how does your own role as City Planning Department change by this?

Eric: You need agents of chance to stimulate change. We have to know what is happening outside our office, by using internet, and organize discussions and exhibitions. But you still you have a unique position as professional. Our skill is to visualize different ideas together in one plan. By combining data, trends and expectations we can inspire people by giving them a context. Our function maybe changed from directing into more listening, more visualizing. In this way we hope to work towards the city we all want to live in.

Did Recife contribute anything to you?

Eric: What we learn from the situation in Recife is that you can have big ideas of planning, but that whatever happens, the city will go on. The fascinating part is the question when you will notice that you went a different way. Learning about these crucial points of timing in Recife gives us inspiration in how to approach issues in Amsterdam.

Flora van Gaalen