Sloterplas

Outside the ring highway surrounding Amsterdam's historic center are the Westlijketuinsteden (Western Garden Cities). Built after the war, they comprise a sprawling collection of housing estates, single family houses, shopping centers, and considerable open space. The design of the Garden Cities was laid out by Cornelis van Eesteren, who was greatly influenced by Le Corbusier.

At the heart of the Western Garden Cities is Sloterpark, a slender green necklace encircling the Sloterplas, a man-made lake created in in the 1950s. Sloterpark, at 932 acres including the lake, is the second largest park in Amsterdam.

Intended to serve a broad public from the adjacent neighborhoods, the park has never functioned well as a place for recreation or socializing. It is a diffuse landscape ringed by widely dispersed neighborhoods of mostly high rises. In recent years, many of these neighborhoods have become low income immigrant enclaves, while others continue to house largely the white middle class.

MASTERPLAN SLOTERPLAS
In 2002 Bureau Parkstad, the city agency established to supervise development and implementation of urban renewal plans for the Garden Cities, started the planning process to redesign Sloterpark. Due to competing interests and overlapping governmental jurisdictions, achieving a unified reconfiguration of the park involved great challenges both politically and conceptually. more >>

LINKS:
www.parkstadamsterdam.nl