Description

This project description is an excerpt from the longer article “Housing and Landscapes”. For a comparative analysis and further data including accompanying graphs, please see the article “A Turning Point”.

Designed by Christian de Portzamparc, De Citadel is located in Almere – the newest city in the Netherlands, built on polders less than 20 kilometers away from Amsterdam. As one of the main cities in the Amsterdam metropolitan area, Almere is also part of the Randstad conurbation, the urban region in the shape of a crescent linking The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Amsterdam that collectively encircles a green area known as the Green Heart. Unlike other metropolitan areas in Europe, there is no dominant core within this polycentric area. Instead, functions are spread out across the four largest Dutch cities as well as several medium-sized cities between them. In Amsterdam, a growing population due to immigration flows from the Mediterranean, and especially from the former Dutch colony of Suriname in the 1970s and 1980s,
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prompted the government to develop the groeikernen or growth center of Almere to increase the housing stock with some state funding.
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Akin to the new town strategy adopted in the United Kingdom, the aim was to create a complementary core within commuting distance to the larger metropolitan centers, thereby relieving the pressures in the major cities and encroachment on the Green Heart. Almere was therefore initially conceived of as a residential suburb comprising several semi-separate nuclei or districts and without a need for a large-scale commercial center. By 1991, however, this bedroom community function was no longer viable as the population had expanded to 100,000; so the municipality of Almere decided to create a fully-fledged city center in 1994.
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Almere’s city center, located in the district of Almere Stad, was designed by OMA which proposed a radical approach of vertically integrating public space, retail, leisure, and residential uses on top of the existing infrastructure in a compact and dense manner. In addition, OMA’s winning scheme in 1999 sought to recreate a medieval atmosphere by deviating from the orthogonal grid structure; the urban blocks were intentionally displaced at odd angles and a curved ground plane was introduced. Through a series of negotiations with the developers – Blauwhoed Eurowoningen and M.A.B., which specialized in housing and inner-city projects respectively – the finalized master plan also ensured the continuity of the grid across the blocks and the ground plane, and the creation of a vista allowing views to the water. Within this public-private development of commercial, cultural, entertainment/leisure, and housing projects, a cast of international architects were assembled to undertake various parts of the scheme, such as Kazuyo Sejima for a new theater and arts center, William Alsop for the Almere Urban Entertainment Center, OMA for a new cinema at Block 6, De Architekten Cie, René van Zuuk, and Claus en Kaan for housing along the waterfront, transforming this new city center into a showcase of architectural pieces. In particular, Block 1 situated right at the heart of this plan was entrusted to Christian de Portzamparc.

Occupying a full block measuring 130 meters by 130 meters, the project has a total built area of 45,000 square meters, and is divided into four sections by pedestrian paths that preserve the underlying integrity of the urban grid as well as OMA’s proposed layout. In keeping with OMA’s intention, De Citadel is a relatively dense project, at 29 dwelling units per hectare or approximately 100 people per hectare. Physically, the curved ground plane cuts through the project, separating the underground world of public transit, automobiles, and parking from the two floors of commercial activities experienced at the street level. Floating immediately above this plinth of shops and leisure programs is the world of habitation, with terraced housing bordering a central garden of sorts. Collectively, this stratification of programs in conformance to OMA’s urban design guidelines creates a massive ‘citadel’ or fortress complex, reminiscent of the medieval castles and fortresses in the neighboring Vecht region, rising above the verdant countryside. Here, landscape is not just evoked by this parallel with the famous Vecht scenery, but presents itself almost quite literally as a cut through the layers of the earth: emerging from the caverns and networks of the underground to a porous stratum of activity that is symbolically demarcated from the living world above by a highly articulated façade. The façade pattern, derived from traditional Siennese brickwork, represents a tectonically extruded ‘bedrock’ undergirding the artificial ‘ground’ plane above. Apart from these gestures, another design feature alluding to the rivers and significance of water in the Dutch landscape is the array of black and white mosaic tiles in sinuous curves, laid on the interior plazas and courts within the shopping blocks.

At the pedestrianized shopping street level, the four main circulation routes widen towards the intersection, creating a plaza and nexus of activity while simultaneously, in de Portzamparc’s words, “avoid[ing] the wall effect”.

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Elena Cardani, “Stratificazione e Differenze: The Citadel, Almere,” L’Arca 228 (Sept 2007): 24–33.

Every unit faces onto the pedestrian areas, clad in a double-storey structure of steel and glass that might seem repetitive but in fact allows for creative storefront displays, distinguishing one from another. Rising above the corner at this intersection is a six-storey residential tower supported on stilts – the only landmark in the undulating meadow – surrounded by two- to three-storey townhouses, in the vein of Dutch row houses’ local modern block typology familiar to the place. The townhouses are distinguished by a palette of solid white, brown, or yellow wash, and are stepped in and out along the edge of the access path, creating a dynamic façade underscoring the playfulness and vibrancy of this young city. There are 46 of these townhouse units in eight different unit types, while the six-storey tower contains another six identical units, each occupying an entire floor. All 52 dwelling units are 100 percent owned and constitute 8,000 square meters in built area, and are typically occupied by young families. Access to the central meadow and the bridges crossing the four sectors is restricted to the residents, while public access to this green space is confined to a cantilevered deck serviced by a café offering views to the meadow and a brief respite from the retail activities below. Looking out to the meadow from within one of the apartments, one is literally transported to a bucolic world akin to the pastoral Dutch countryside, recreating a landscape to be admired rather than for functional use.

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Originally published in: Peter G. Rowe, Har Ye Kan, Urban Intensities: Contemporary Housing Types and Territories, Birkhäuser, 2014.