Hinterland
In the summer of 2004, I spent a month travelling through the Netherlands for an assignment for NRC Handelsblad. For the back page of the newspaper I wrote a column every day to accompany a photo I had taken. The series was published later that year as a book called Achterland (Hinterland).
Hoofdweg, Bovensmilde
At the end of the sixties, we used to ride our bikes twenty kilometers forth and back to school across the polders. You might encounter headwinds twice a day. Hunched over the steering wheel, I thought of a solution to this injustice. In my future vision, bicycle lanes were wind tunnels. Tailwind always. By the year 2000 they would undoubtedly exist. That is, if we would not be flying through the air with little rocket engines on our back anyway.
When I was driving into Bovensmilde, along the canal called Drentse Hoofdvaart, these tunnels came to my mind again. A little further, at that exit on the left, there is a bridge. And right across there is a bar: The Bridge. The owner tells me the story behind the blue arches:
‘The idea was that people that drive into the village, would lower their speed. That upon seeing these arches, they would think: ‘Hey, this is residential area, people live here’. You can’t say that it worked. And the arches were actually quite expensive.’
I wonder who sold that idea to the municipality. What is wrong with building houses to indicate the entrance of a residential area? Bovensmilde, go for it. Pull some plastic over it and place a large ventilator at the beginning: the first tailwind tunnel in the Netherlands.
H.J. Kniggestraat, Stadskanaal
Yesterday, while entering Stadskanaal, I saw this image come by. ‘Funny little car’, I thought. These days, when do you ever see anybody repair his own car in the Netherlands?
When our car breaks down, we don’t even look under the hood to see what’s wrong. We immediately call the car mechanic. ‘It will be done tomorrow sir’. ‘Tomorrow? But I need it today!’
The man working on his Amica is from Iran; he and his wife have lived in the Netherlands for five years now.
They have a temporary residence permit.
The little car is parked on the sidewalk in front of the house where they rent a room. In order to drive it, a moped permit will do. It has been decided by law that people with a W-document (for asylum seekers) and people with an expired A- to Z-document for foreigners, do not have the right to get a drivers license. But strangely enough, it ís possible to get a moped permit. Our government’s reasoning is apparently as follows: people with a temporary status are allowed to travel around the country in complete freedom, however, not too fast.
Last year, they drove their car to see friends in Utrecht. A distance of more than two hundred kilometers, all along secondary roads. It took them seven hours.
Spoorstraat, Haaksbergen
One hot Sunday afternoon this little square was beautifully deserted. It borders on a shopping street and without any shoppers around, you can comfortably observe the surroundings.
In the Netherlands, a couple of firms have specialised in ‘city scene enhancement’.
They design and produce almost everything we can see in the public space around us: tree grids, garbage cans, bicycle parking systems, removable bollards, benches with or without back support, plant troughs, drinking fountains, cigarette pillars and lots more.
If somewhere a square has to be designed, the designer will take a catalogue of one of these firms. He will pick some benches and garbage cans and will look for grids to match the small trees. Then everything is carefully spread across the square, bearing in mind the familiar and indestructible principle of our culture, based on straight lines and equal distances. Of course a small fund can always be found for a modest piece of art. Architects proceed in a similar fashion. A selection is made of prefabricated elements that are available at that time.
No wonder everything looks alike. This is a good thing, because it offers us great advantages. We can, for example, walk into any given town or village in the Netherlands and we automatically spot the middle class architecture ahead that shows us the way. Once arrived at one of these squares, you can be certain that department stores like Blokker and Hema are not far away.
Rijndijk, Pannerden
They are both 84 years old. Ms Groenen on the right and Ms Pop on the left. Ms Groenen drives a Town & Country mobility scooter. With a charged battery, the action radius amounts to 45 kilometers and the maximum speed to 8 kilometers per hour. Ms Pop drives a Calypso de Luxe. Its action radius is 35 km and it can also reach a speed of 8 kilometers per hour.
Both ladies live in an elderly home, called De Pannerd in Pannerden. The village is situated at the foot of the dike, which has this road on top. Without a mobility scooter they couldn’t travel further than the end of the hallway of the home.
The idea was that technological development would make life more pleasant. Looking around, you can wonder if that is always the case. But with the mobility scooter, man has finally given himself a useful present.
Mobility scooters are everywhere and it is a joyful sight. Although I wouldn’t want to have walking difficulties, I almost can’t wait to be able to drive it myself.
The government wouldn’t be the government if they didn’t want to stop all this joyfulness. New legislation forces people to pay for the costs themselves. For most people, this means turning in the mobility scooter and shuffling along the hallways behind a rollator.