It provides a coherent narrative, not trying to shoe-horn everything into a single framework or thesis, but bringing out institutional and ideological continuities and their interactions with the constraints of history and the natural environment. And it is nicely illustrated, with maps and reproductions of documents and photographs.

"The lost hills of Amsterdam - A history of reclamation" tries to reconstruct the earliest landscapes and the changes brought by human settlement.

"The unintended consequence of this reclamation was that the peat layer dried out and shrank, and much of the vegetable matter rotted away more quickly, so that the ground level fell and thus came to lie closer to the water level again. This meant that efforts to drain the soil had to be stepped up, while the danger of flooding increased. The peat cushion collapsed like a soufflé. Within a couple of centuries the area no longer lay four metres above sea level, but at or even below that point."

And "In the heart of the city - A short biography of the Dam" looks at the incremental development of a town centre.

"The informal city turns formal - The genesis of the ring canals" describes the creation of the most famous area of Amsterdam.

"A half century after the Third Expansion it was the turn of the rest of the dotted half moon to have a formal development plan. That was the Fourth Expansion, which, beginning in 1660, was approached more professionally in all respects than the Third. If Amsterdam ever came close to the ideal city expansion, this was it. The circumference of the new city, its defensive wall, was constructed between 1657 and 1663, in a wider curve than Staets had sketched in, and in 1660 the city fathers began to think about how the space inside it was to be filled in. The City Architect, Daniël Stalpaert, and two other designers together prepared five 'distinct concepts', which were then discussed intensively by a committee of the city fathers for the next 18 months. In early 1662 the city fathers settled on a plan."

"Watery Babel - Water becomes land" looks at land reclamation and the filling in of canals, which were smelly, unhygienic, and often negatively viewed. Abandoning chronological order, it extends down to the present, where changing attitudes now see proposals to reopen several filled canals.

"In the web, but not the spider; Central Station as a key event" describes how the routing of railway lines was largely decided outside the city. "The battle over Central Station was not just about the station itself, but about the question of where the connections between the existing dead-end railway lines in the north-west and the south-east of the city should run." And "In private hands - How order grew out of disorder" centres on "medical doctor, idealist, and project developer" Samuel Sarphati (1813-1866).

"The first question was how the large-scale construction of dwellings for the working class might be possible. ... The second issue that Sarphati raised was coordinated urban expansion. His 1862 plan was too large for a normal building plan, and its realization would have taken longer than a private firm such as his Nederlandsche Bouwmaatschappij could handle. But the city was equally incapable of thinking in terms of a period of dozens of years."

"The city breaks open - How Amsterdam got hands-on training in urban planning" and "The city as movement space, On the walking city, the auto city and the bicycle city" take the story down to 1970.

"As each year passed it became more painful that the great promise of the Housing Act of 1901 had still not been fulfilled. Even in Amsterdam the construction of decent working class dwellings came only in dribs and drabs. The first complex of housing association dwellings under the new law was delivered in 1909, and the annual production crept up to 268 dwelling units in 1912. It was proving very difficult to get the mechanism in motion."

"The fiercest skirmishes around the question of how strong an influence the auto should have in determining the spatial pattern took place in and around the old city. Just as in the termite mound, there the question was whether the old city should be preserved, or whether motorized traffic should be given all the room it needed."

There is only brief coverage of cycling, perhaps because Feddes has written a separate book Bike City Amsterdam.

"Two modern cities - The battle for the scale of the city" covers the conflicting visions over what a modern city should look like, as well as squatters, riots, and the bid to host the 1992 Olympic Games. And "Along new lines - The comeback of Sunday's child" looks at the most recent areas of development.

"Of the conflict between the IJ Axis and the South Axis, about which the city had once been concerned, nothing remains. A mix of residential use and culture dominates the IJ, while the South Axis is dominated by international business activities with a strong orientation to Schiphol. After initial hesitation, in the 1990s the city embraced the South Axis, and the area is now regarded as once of Amsterdam's major trumps in the international competition among cities."

Interspersed with this general narrative are some thirty brief stand-alone pieces, looking at individual topics, such as: "City on Stilts", "Amsterdam versus Venice", "Three houses on the Dam", "Who owns Amsterdam?", "Amsterdam versus Rotterdam". And many of the captions are substantial enough to turn individual illustrations into thought-provoking vignettes.

It would help to have visited Amsterdam, but this is a book that will appeal to more than just professionals. I just wish similar books had been written about every city I visit!

July 2025

Related reviews:

- books about the Low Countries
- books about architecture + urbanism