Commentary on the Urban Renewal Plan
To: Mayor and aldermen of the Town of Leiden
6 June 2000
Reaction by
Dr. Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, privately and as Director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum Foundation
Mandenmakerssteeg 11
2311 ED Leiden
to:
Urban Renewal Structure Plan Aalmarkt and Vicinity, Plan (Leiden, 27 April 2000).
Although a number of very promising basic principles are mentioned in the Urban Renewal Structure Plan Aalmarkt and Vicinity, Plan ["Stadsvernieuwings Structuurplan Aalmarkt E.O. Ontwerp; referred to below as the Plan], numerous aspects of the proposals made in it depart from these principles so much that it seems that the principles are intended as beautiful words serving to obscure the true intent of the Plan. Further, the argument is very badly, or entirely not, supported with scientifically verifiable and believable studies and statistics as regards the most important presuppositions that are supposed to justify the project. The language used in the Plan is characterized by tendentious choice of words, vagueness, inaccuracies, and imprecision. Important aspects of the current situation are passed over in silence. The significance of many of the existing buildings in the area, from the point of view of cultural history and architecture, is scarcely taken into consideration. Through the failure to publish in a timely fashion the architectural-historical research of drs. J. Dröge, the public is denied its right to compose a well-informed response. If one assumes that the people who composed the Plan were able to see the Dröge Report, one must suggest the possibility that the fact that that research (completed already in March) was with-held can only have the goal of presenting the intended demolition, shrouded in intentionally unclear indications, in a less serious way. The negative effects of this intervention on the existing Leiden hotel/restaurant/café businesses, the market, and the shops, both within and outside the area in question, are skipped over without serious attention and only using fine hollow phrases. The proposed construction of yet more Grand Cafés and restaurants (without a statistically supported proof for their necessity) has to be considered ridiculous, unless one wants to attribute to the town a policy intended to grind existing businesses into the ground. The description of the Goudappel Coffeng Report [on traffic and parking in Leiden] is silent about the negative assessment in it of the effects on traffic of building a garage on the Boommarkt. Alternatives such as have been proposed by Machtwacht [Power Watchers] and the Stichting Stadsparkeerplan Leiden [Leiden City Parking Plan Foundation] are not considered seriously in this. With the Plan the town government is going to use public funds to donate an economic stimulus to the interests of a small number of big-capital investors, by which simultaneously the shopping public of the small-scale Leiden shops that have existed for years and the Leiden market will be distracted to the larger shops to be constructed. Although the part tourism plays in economic life is mentioned as important, it is not specifically studied and evaluated in the statistical approach to the public that shops in Leiden, so that it apparently has no clear influence on planological and architectural aspects of the Plan (the necessity to preserve the historical character of the area). The well-considered commentary of the National Monument Service, the Bond Heemschut [a national Patrimonial Protection Union], and the Leiden Cultural Platform, and of other well informed interest groups is on most points simply ignored (by the authors of the Plan who speak as if they themselves are the city government). The Plan is part of a series of renewals in Leiden by which the town government cynically ignores a number of international agreements or directives (from the Council of Europe and UNESCO), which were co-signed by the Kingdom of The Netherlands.
On p. 27, sub: "3. The Plan, 3.1 Current Policy, 3.1.1. Structure Plan of Leiden," we can read that, "Few cities possess such a beautiful historic center, a protected urban landscape, within a completely preserved city moat, with canals, alleys, monuments, varied and small-scale building. One feels at ease here. Here you can enjoy yourself, find work and services, you can enrich yourself both materially and spiritually, you meet people. The inner city, as a melting pot of activities and also popular as a place to live, provides much employment, income, and prosperity, but also much well-being, culture, pleasure and a good climate of life.
For these reasons the structure plan begins from a basis of cherishing these crown jewels. In the language of goal-setting it's called 'consolidation and administration of the monumental heritage, increasing multifunctional use, stimulating cultural functions and economic exploitation of the terrain of retail trade and tourism.'
The structure plan requires that the shopping circuits should connect as much as possible with the special Leiden characteristics: the canals, alleys, and historic places." And on p. 31, under: "3.1.8 Monument policy," we read, among other things, that "Restoration is the repair of the monument because of the historic and architectonic values present in it. This historic and architectonic value is irreplaceable, and therefore conservation of it deserves to take priority." And on p. 32, under: "3.2. Points of departure and goals," we see that the first of them is, "a. Begin from the Leiden historic character," - a point of departure that is elucidated with, among other things, the remark that "It is necessary to begin from the protected urban landscape and preservation of monumental, architectural and archaeological values." All of them beautiful words, but how does it go when it comes to applying them?
On p. 3, it is stated that the area between the Rijn and the Aalmarkt "was indicated as a part of the core shopping area, but that nevertheless, "scarcely any developments in that direction have taken place, although the necessary space for that was offered by the zoning plan of the Pieters [kerk] neighborhood. A more active approach appears necessary. The town government of Leiden is now for that reason working together with 'market participants' on the development of the Aalmarkt area." The Aalmarkt is described on p. 14 as "moribund." The 'market participants' with whom Leiden is now working are specified, not here, but in the municipal publication "Who Dares Wins, Information about the Aalmarkt Project (a publication of the Town of Leiden, November, 1998, nr. 1)" [Wie Waagt wint, informatie over het Aalmarktproject (een uitgave van de Gemeente Leiden…]; it's Vendex, Ahold, Anson's/P&C, and project developer MAB. According to local entrepreneurs they are not involved, and according to a spokesman of the town government during one of the information meetings the town government has no intention of talking with shopkeepers who rent their properties, only with property owners. By so doing, the shops that are doing good business here (Van Berge Henegouwen, De Leidse Strip Shop, JoHo, and others) are silently ignored. That the area has not developed further is solely the consequence of the policy of the town government itself, by which the Aalmarkt School is intentionally exposed to deterioration and the Perry store on the Haarlemmerstraat is allowed to have some fake display windows on the Stille Rijn, without an entrace or any commercial activity. The dead, massive design of the ground floor of the clumsily designed appartment building, approved by the town government (one must presume), in which these fake display windows are found, has the effect that a considerable length of the Stille Rijn is experienced as being unwelcoming. The same condition is found on the opposite river bank along the length of the Aalmarkt School. That the Aalmarkt School has been allowed to deteriorate is a conscious choice to permit it to be viewed as an object to be demolished. Important remains of the medieval St. Catherine's Hospital are found on the ground floor of this monumental property, which was converted to be a school in the 19th century 9ca. 1840) and later (ca. 1860) received an additional story. Since its creation, the building has had the lengthwise form it still has. Therefore this is not a place where one can properly refer to "the differentiated small-scale construction" (p. 32) as if that were a generally valid concept for the area (just as little as in the case of Student Society Minerva on the Breestraat, where the building has the shapes of the lots as they were already visible on the map by Pieter Bast (1600); this is in contrast with the remark on p. 11 regarding "the original small scale of the construction." Inside the Aalmarkt School there is a rare and finely designed grand staircase of ca. 1860 (free-standing, with expanding lower steps), having a cast-iron balustrade and stately carved newel posts, in a broadly conceived stairway hall. No other 19th -century staircase in Leiden expresses such a sense of official values; here children were brought up to behave themselves. Nonetheless the Aalmarkt School has to give way for the plans of the Plan, despite the fine words cited above: "One must start from the protected urban landscape, and preservation of monumental, architectural and archaeological values."
The Aalmarkt School is described as being in "very bad structural condition" (p. 10), which is a result of bad maintenance by the town government. But the question deserves an answer with more nuances. Now that the city government has finally repaired the roof sufficiently that it doesn't leak any more, one can see that the floors need replacement or in any case thorough repair (especially the floor upstairs), but that the walls can be repaired, and that even the cast-iron columns are in a reasonable condition. The plaster hangs down in shreds, and inside along the hallway there are broken windows, but one can probably not speak of irreparable damage unless out of a preference for demolition. Conservation is still possible. That the outer walls might be separated from the building (as an alderman told me was the true condition) is patently false. Some plaster has fallen from one of the portals, with cracks that need filling. The town government is letting the school deteriorate in order to create construction space and to answer the emotionally described opinion of the authors of the Plan, that "innovative architecture must be given an honest chance."
Another aspect of the negative effects of municipal policy in this area is that for years rebuilding plans have existed to make it possible to use presently vacant shop premises in the Mandenmakerssteeg, but carrying out these plans has had to wait while bureaucrats delayed. Furthermore, by describing the whole area in negative terms the city government does an injustice to the owners who (in contrast to Jansen Printers and Vendex) did maintain their properties well, such as Dr. Tjon Soei Len, the Meelker family, and the Diogenes Foundation, who have restored decrepit premises, and Mr. Van Bergen Henegouwen whose properties are also well maintained. But in order to describe the situation negatively, under the category "structural quality" the Plan (p. 10) talks about "inadequate sound insulation and inefficient use of space" in the LVC [Leiden Free-time Center, where pop concerts are held], and the Plan describes another building as "a decrepit warehouse for antiquarian books." From the outside, in any case, there are no structural problems visible in the walls of this storage space. The building possesses long, parallel roof windows, that receive north light, and it can be imagined that the space could be made appropriate for artists' studios.
That a necessity for such changes as are proposed in the Plan exists is an opinion without believable statistical support. The Major City Plan of Leiden was rejected last year [by the Minister of the Interior], partly because for years Leiden has failed to maintain proper statistics. Claims in the Plan are thus partly pure invention and partly based on studies whose independence cannot be guaranteed, because they were commissioned by MAB; these studies confirm that MAB makes good plans.
On p. 14 we read that "The Mandenmakerssteeg excells in somberness, partly because of the department store warehouses that border it." The Maarsmansteeg is then a more attractive place, "But also here the display window walls develop inadequate sucking power…" Somberness and sucking power are tendentious, immeasurable words, and the idea that there can be too little or just the right amount of sucking power is inadequate as a motivation for such grandiose plans. Tendentious also is the word-choice "honest chance" which "innovative architecture" must be given, as if it would be unfair to maintain existing monuments. That Student Society Quintus is recognized as a building with a zoning for social purposes (p. 53) and Student Society Minerva does not get that recognition, but is described elsewhere as hotel/restaurant/café, could be an indication of sloppiness in the conception of the Plan, but considering the fact that commentary on this point during one of the information evenings brought about no change in consequence, it suggests that perhaps a building with hotel/restaurant/café functions may be easier to dispossess than one with social purposes.
A necessity for 600 more parking spaces is concluded on p. 42 of the Plan, while the Bommmarkt Garage is described with a capacity for 400 places, without mentioning that 250 of them represent replacements of existing places in the neighborhood, so that only 150 new places will be added. These figures are examples of the mis-use of statistics in such a way as to raise doubts about other statistical aspects of the Plan.
Although the desire to combine residences with shops is mentioned here and there, the present situation is imprecisely described, for example, on pp. 9-10, where the Mandenmakerssteeg is not mentioned in the list of places with a residential function (probably because the intention is to offer these houses up for a large deparment store with its shop entrance on the square proposed to be built behind the Weigh House. Another imprecision is that Webster University is consistently referred to as Webster College, with a completely inaccurate explanation of the sort of education it offers.
Insufficient shop space is given on p. 35 as the reason for P & C's having left the Breestraat in 1998, while in the news that year the closure of the Leiden branch and other P&C outlets was connected with the take-over of P&C by another firm, which carried out large-scale changes in the business, with closings as a consequence, in order particularly to proceed further with smaller shops under a different name. That the direcotrs of V&D have expressed the opinion that it could do better with less floor-space points in the same direction and this tendency towards smaller shops (which is partly a result of changes in supply) is not only denigrated but crudely ridiculed in the commentary on the opinion of the Aalmarkt Foundation (p. 14 of the Discussion of Comments and Reactions).
Inadequate attention is given to the historic associations of premises in the area, including the house of Jan van Hout (where a commemorative stone for this important Leiden historical figure should be placed, which requires rebuilding the disturbingly anti-architectonic plate-glass shopfront); and that part of the St. Catherine's Hospital where soldiers were nursed during the Eighty Years' War, including numerous English and especially Myls Stansen/Standish. That a city would prefer to demolish yet another Pilgrim site rather than incorporate it in plans for re-use witnesses to a flawed vision on the role of tourism in the economy as well as inadequate willpower to conserve the historic values of Leiden, in opposition to temporary demands of shopkeepers and investors. The example of the bookshop De Kler, which was able to demand permission from Alderman Van Rij, to demolish a completely preserved 18th-century room with panelling and sculpture, as a condition for their staying in their premises on the Nieuwe Rijn, and which nonetheless shortly therafter moved away from the damaged premises in favor of another on the Breestraat, must serve as a general warning against giving in to the demands of private people who want to destroy "protected monuments" for their own profit. Furthermore, on the map of Pieter Bast (1600), between the Walloon Church and the St. Catharine's Hospital wing on the Aalmarkt (present Aalmarkt School), a tree can be seen where now grows one of the threatened monumental trees. The continuity which is represented there must be recognized as rare and even lead to reconsideration or the plan to build the courtyard full. The same is true of the tree behind Breestraat 72.
Considering that the intended demolition of the Vrouwekerk ruin can be called a direct crime against Article 5 ("Each Party undertakes to prohibit the removal, in whole or in part, of any protected monument, except where the material safeguarding or such monuments makes removal imperative. In these Circumstances the competent authority shall take the necessary precautions for its dismantling, transfer and reinstatement at a suitable location." ) of the Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe, of the Council of Europe (1985, enclosed [in the submission to the mayor and aldermen]); and the towers of Naturalis and the SVB were built in opposition to the principles of the recommendation of UNESCO (Nairobi, 1976, enclosed): Recommendation concerning the safeguarding and contemporary role of historic areas, paragraph 5 ("Architects and town-planners should be careful to ensure that views from and to monuments and historic areas are not spoilt and that historic areas are integrated harmoniously into contemporary life."), the fear is justified that the City of Leiden, with this Plan, thoughtlessly is ignoring the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Preservation of Cultural Property Endangered by Public or Private Works (1968, enclosed), paragraph 24 (b), in which it is stated that, "The preservation of monuments should be an absolute requirement of any well-designed plan for urban redevelopment especially in historic cities or districts.
Appendices which are an integral part of this reaction are:
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