An aim to balance the aesthetic and the useful Premium

‘I have in mind here the new Zuiderzee polders where one is aiming to create landscapes that will be aesthetically pleasing as well as useful’. A 1940 speech by famous Dutch urban planner Cornelis van Eesteren offers a challenging prospect for the future of Dutch landscape architecture. ‘The garden architect, too, will need to prepare himself for undertaking a task in these developments. He will then discover large areas of undeveloped land. In saying this, I do not only mean that the scope of his work will merely extend to include many new targets; I mean above all that he will have to conquer them.’ Landscape architect Noël van Dooren and architectural historian Marieke Berkers unravel Van Eesteren’s speech, and add a new perspective on how Dutch landscape architecture emerged after the Second World War as a profession succesfully taking a leading position in the transformation of the Dutch landscape towards the 21th century.