Townscape

Parks have become important assets to western metropolises. In the 70’s and 80’s many great parks had become rundown and dangerous places. The Amsterdam Vondelparkwas no exception. After becoming a famous hippie hangout, the original landscape design had been greatly simplified in order to make cutbacks on maintenance. From the 70’s onward especially at night large areas in the park were primarily used by drunks, junkies and cruising gay men. Not anymore however. A recent renovation restored Vondelpark to its former elegance. And visitor numbers have surged from 8 million a year in 1996 to 20 million in 2010.

Vondelpark is a much loved urban space, and not just in summer

It’s save to say that Vondelpark is once again one of the worlds most fabulous urban spaces. It draws tourists from all over the planet and remains very popular with locals too. The success of one park is often contrasted by the failure of others. This remains a puzzling phenomenon. On summer evenings Vondelpark resembles a busy festival ground, with thousands of people picnicking and zipping chilled wine and beer. Meanwhile nearby Rembrandtpark can be as good as deserted. What is the reason Vondelpark draws huge crowds, what makes it so fabulous?

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A maze of narrow streets on a steep hillslope survived the 1755 earthquake and is therefor the oldest part of Lisbon. Moorish urbanism, based on squares and irregularly connected through narrow streets, presents a great walking habitat in many Iberian towns. We spent 3 days on St Miquel, central alfama in a homestay apartment. The Alfama people really live their neigborhood life. Walking around, the best orientation points were the people, never moving from their bench. 

Alfamans watching a tourist family moving though their stony football field. Red hair, three different clothing styles, Nikon camera’s. (more photo’s see flickr edoxococl, alfama)

Everywhere children were playing and adults were hanging round.The charm attracts many visitors. The residents themselves seemed to belong to Europe’s poorest. Some of the people we met were illiterates and most dressed very traditional. Contrasting sharply with the cosmopolitan visitors, that are feeding their economy by frequenting their terrasses and restaurants.

An Alfama family.

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The demise of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918 left Hungary with only 30% of its former territory and an impressive imperial twin-city capital it could hardly sustain. The country never seems to have recovered from the harsh Trianon Treaty and Budapest became a fading beauty, famous for it’s crumbling plastered buildings. Much has been invested in bourgeois Pest on the Danube’s left bank since 1989, but the golden era remains a far away memory. 

Pest, a city of courtyards

Pest’s 19th century builders must have somehow sensed it’s golden days were not to last forever. It never became the marble and granite clad Paris of the East. Pest is a city of plaster. A faux Paris, build of red brick and cast iron, covered in exuberant baroque, neoclassical and Art Nouveau stucco. But the street facades are not what Pest’s apartment buildings are all about. It’s the inside of these buildings that make Pest one of Europe’s most fabulous cities.

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Once the Hamburger Altstadt lived up to it’s name. But around 1880 a coalition of port companies decided to turn the old city into a modern naval center. Along the Elbe river the picturesque Brook and Gänge quarters were demolished. It’s many winding canals and towering half timber merchant houses were replaced by the famous Speicherstadt and huge naval offices. Urban renewal didn’t end there. Hamburg became the river metropolis the port barons wanted it to be. As a result every sailor knows: if you want to have fun in Hamburg, Sankt Pauli is the place to go, not the Altstadt.

Sankt Pauli remains rough around the edges

What makes a neighborhood a fun place? Looking at Hamburg, one thing’s certain. Hundreds of semi-identical warehouses do not, nor do giant office buildings. Not even if these have been built in very attractive architectural styles. The Speicherstadt is a monument of utilitarian neo-gothic architecture, but it is nevertheless remarkably lifeless. Yes, there is the mandatory industrial style grand cafe, with a huge bar made out of polished concrete. But if you actually want to see some people having a good time, you’ll have to take the U3 to St. Pauli station and head for Reeperbahn.

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Of the millions of inhabitants of the sprawling metropolis along the Bosporus and the sea of Marmara, only 230.000 live in Beyoğlu. But those that do may consider themselves lucky. The neighborhoods alongside İstiklal Caddesi, famous for their impressive neoclassical and early modernist facades, narrow streets with cozy bars and of course the thumping night life, are surely unique in Istanbul and even in Turkey at large.

Tens of thousands flock to İstiklal Caddesi every night

Samuel Huntington called Turkey a torn nation. And contrasts between conservative religious towns like Konya and hip and happening beach resorts are staggering indeed. Turkey’s cultural and economic capital Istanbul is just as torn. While in traditional neighborhoods like Fatih crowds of devout Muslims make their way to the mosques for evening prayer, the clubs in Beyoğlu are just warming up. Thousands of people stroll along İstiklal Caddesi, drink coffee in one of the many bars or buy roasted chestnuts from a street vendor. In the narrow side streets beer is served in large tankards. Wein, weib und Gesang all about.

Here the forward thinking Turk is to be found: the well to do youngsters, artists, intellectuals. İstiklal Caddesi and it’s surrounding neighborhoods are an island of westernized society adrift in an overflowing sea of traditional migrants from eastern Anatolia. The city’s population exploded from 2,7 million in 1980 to 13,1 million today. Beyoğlu upholds the image of Istanbul as a once very European city. Before the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 more than half the city’s populace was of non-Turkic descent: Greeks, Armenians, Jews and of course the Western-Europeans that lived in what is now Beyoğlu.

19th century grandeur along İstiklal

Nowhere in Istanbul Western-Europe is as palpable as on İstiklal Caddesi. The facades too remind one of the Occident. Bourgeois apartment buildings, western store chains and coffee bars. There’s even a Neo-Gothic Roman-Catholic Church. Seeing it’s soaring spires in the middle of a Turkish city is nothing short of surreal. Overall Beyoğlu looks very European, people behave European, but’s something is nevertheless different. Maybe it’s the strange habit of entering huge rooftop dance clubs through residential stairwells, or the wild exuberant dancing and singing that goes on inside. Or maybe it’s the fact that no one seems to care about the noise escaping through open windows, while the neighbor’s bedroom is just meters away on the other side of a light well.

All in all, the apparent disorganization of Istanbul, and especially of Beyoğlu, is very appealing to westerners used to over regulation, stifling restrictions and save, but predictable nights on the town. The old streets form a romantic and lively backdrop for long nights of drinking, singing and dancing. The Turks themselves seem to be partying like there’s no tomorrow. Knowing that many fear that civil liberties will eventually have to give way to the resurgence of Islam in their country (yes, another Huntington quote), this is understandable.

In the backstreets of Beyoğlu street terraces cater to the thirsty 

Recently the AKP dominated municipality of Beyoğlu has given the Istanbul party crew a taste of it’s idea of good morale. Street musicians were chased away and bars were forced to remove their sidewalk tabels. Istanbul wouldn’t be the first city to crack down on nightcrawlers on behalf of locals who value a good night’s sleep. But rumour has it the ‘table operations’ were instigated by AKP Prime Minister Erdoğan, who’s convoi of armoured cars got stuck amidst street terraces on it’s way to ramadan festivities. Thus many Turks feel a small scale clash of civilizations might be behind the municipality’s sudden vigilance.

 - Errik Buursink graduated in history and cultural heritage. He is now an urban planner with the city of Amsterdam

A blog on fabulous places sooner or later has to confront the fabulous neighborhood of fabulous neighborhoods: Jane Jacobs’ very own Greenwich Village. Of course every square meter of this holy ground has already been analyzed, criticized and reexamined. How to prevent readers from surfing on yawning? Well, let’s look at this prime piece of real estate from a different angle. I think one of the interesting things about the Village is the way in which it is scrutinized, says so much more about the writer and his time, than about the neighborhood itself.

Greenwich Village: bohemian paradise under threat?

I’m not talking about the many novelists that have used the Village as a setting for stories of modernity, quests for identity, with a hint of big city alienation. Nor would I like to discuss the Village in contemporary entertainment. No, it’s writers on urban geography, sociology and architecture who have used this neighborhood time and again to prove a point. From Jacob’s Death and Life to Sharon Zukins Naked City, Greenwich Village has been used, nay abused, for ideological and political purposes.

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Being the main route from Oud-West to the city center, Kinkerstraat evolved into a busy city street from 1880 onward. But things went downhill in the 60’s when thousands of families left the old cramped tenements for the suburbs. Now people and capital are returning to Oud-West, but somehow Kinkerstraat does not seem to reap the benefits. 80’s gloom still pervades in its many cheap outlets and vacancy is endemic. So what’s up?

Kinkerstraat in it’s golden era: early 1930’s

Oud-West used to be known as one of Amsterdam’s more gritty working class areas. Here a typical subspecies of the big mouthed Amsterdammer could be found. Think: platinum blonde big hair, thick make up, cynical looks and leather jackets. This all changed in the 70’s, when many of the inhabitants were offered new terraced houses with gardens in the suburbs Heerhugowaard and Lelystad. Oud-West became a neighborhood of squatters and immigrants. As the housing stock was generally in pretty bad shape, much of it was torn down and replaced by new social housing.

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There’s something very unasian about the French Concession in downtown Shanghai. While elsewhere in this bustling metropolis concrete and glass mega structures seem to be competing for sunlight, here a mostly lowrise neighborhood defies the onslaught of generic city. But as always in the People’s Republic, nothing happens by accident.

The French Concession: finally a decent cup of coffee!

Looking at the enormous model of Shanghai in the Urban Planning Exhibition Center, one neighborhood seems to defy the rising tide of towers: the French Concession. This amalgam of leafy boulevards, tightly packed shikumen, romantic villas and, inevitably, the occasional office tower, is unique in Asia. Travelling to Shanghai for the first time I was expecting the usual super dense, chaotic and traffic packed urban canyons that characterize many East-Asian metropolises. Instead I found a (relatively) relaxed, spacious and green city. A city where I could see myself live. And in that city one neighborhood stands out: the French Concession.

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