Centre OMA Architects

From the 1990s, planning for Almere's new city centre became urgent as the Haven, Stad and Buiten cores began to function as separate units.

A new city centre could restore cohesion. To realise the desired area development, the Aanloop Nota Centrum Almere 2005 was adopted in 1994, defining the new programme for the city centre. After a tendering procedure, the contract was awarded to Rem Koolhaas' Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). OMA won with a Master Plan that implements an urban core of 800 x 800 metres in the existing city centre, with facilities at the level of a city of 180,000 inhabitants. This programme mixes working, living, shopping, culture, entertainment and sports into an attractive blend.

OMA convinced the municipality with a design that broke the existing grid structure in two ways. First, the ground level was raised 9 metres, so that the city centre would rise spectacularly above the polder plane. In addition, the grid was given a nod and the straight streets were complemented by diagonal sightlines. The street pattern and elevation offer visitors exciting vistas. This urban iconography stands for modernist, avant-garde and progressive, the qualities that Almere wants to radiate as a young dynamic city.

On the curved ground level of natural stone, Koolhaas commissioned a selection of (inter)nationally known firms to design shops incombined with housing and cultural functions. This resulted in an amalgam of surprising volumes and shades. The many oblique lines in the design emphasise the sense of grandeur and modernity.Underneath the ground level, facilities for fast traffic were
were provided, ranging from car parks and bicycle routes to parking and provisioning areas.