The Architecture of Almere

Almere was developed as a composition of cores of different sizes in a vast urban landscape, modelled on the garden city of Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928). This socially-minded journalist devised an alternative to the polluted English industrial cities, smoky slums, where people were denied air. Garden cities combine the advantages of the fresh countryside with the opportunities of the city, consisting of separate urban districts surrounded by water and greenery. People live in bright houses, breathe clean air, but also have work and entertainment. The landscape in which the buildings would rise was laid out first. After 50 years of growth, the city knows itself surrounded by a wealth of forests and ponds. Slowly, the six cores took shape within it. The centre of Almere Haven became a modern version of a Zuiderzee town, surrounded by child-friendly residential areas with greenery and by water. As the future city centre, Almere Stad was to have a more urban look with many straight lines, wide avenues, city parks and a centre with high-rise buildings. The layout of Almere Buiten was related to the rough polder allotment. First came industrial estates and then residential areas. The Evenaar, with its green median strip, became the axis of this part of town.

For Almere Poort, they first chose sport as a theme, but ultimately urbanity, with a core area for private and collective commissioning, gave Poort its profile. The neighbourhoods always look different and you will quite often find a house that makes you frown. Duin, built as a beach town with a high urban character in the south-western tip of Poort, bridges the gap with sister city Amsterdam. Almere Hout started with villa neighbourhoods in park-like greenery, but grew into a pinnacle of self-build with the Oosterwold neighbourhood. Although Pampus will have a high density around the metro station planned there on the Almere-Amsterdam line, its atmosphere will continue to be determined by the water and woods already abundant there. For the time being, the construction of this IJmeer connection remains a condition for the municipality to start building.

Many perceive Almere's multi-core layout as very valuable. Yet this construction does not yet appear to have definitive status. The desire for bustle and more metropolitan amenities, and the plans to build another 10,000 to 15,000 houses in Stad, may threaten the original concept. Currently, Almere has five urban monuments. It is certainly worth adding the multi-city layout to that row, as an exceptional, and now historic, quality of Almere.