Activating the voids of the Modernist city. OMA in Bijlmermeer, 1986

Abstract

In recent years, demolition and massive reconstruction processes have been assumed as the best solution to the problems of degradation in a large number of housing states built after the Second World War. The Bijlmermeer in Amsterdam, one of the landmarks of modernist urbanism, has not fared any better. Contrary to this trend, which tends to preserve small “heritage samples” and to erase everything else –as if making the buildings disappear would also vanish social conflicts–, OMA’s proposal for Bijlmermeer’s redevelopment raises an alternative reflection on the neighbourhood’s opportunities for survival. Showing an attitude that could be described as “critical optimism”, this project reveals specific strategies on how to act within the modernist legacy through conservation and adaptation. The existing neighbourhood is thus carefully studied by OMA in order to extract the triggering principles from the original design that can in turn guide its own transformation. Autonomy and urban relationships at different scales, limits between the collective and the private realm, integration and diversity of functions, building types, proportion, quality and character of public space; these will be some of the analysed concepts in this paper through an inquiry into the past, present and future of the Bijlmermeer