The area that historically fell under the jurisdiction of the city of Amsterdam was limited. North of the IJ (also written as Y) the Volewijck (or Volewijk) peninsula fell to the city in 1393. The IJ was a broad sea inlet of the Zuiderzee (Southern Sea). This large saltwater bay was created by a disastrous floods in 1170, 1196, 1282 and 1287 that broke through the northern dunes and swept away the peat soils of Friesland, merging the large inland lakes, broad rivers and sea inlets into a 4 meter deep body of water. This cleared the way (literally) for the growth of Amsterdam by opening up a direct sea route to the Baltic via this Zuiderzee.
West of the Volewijck, where the gallows stood, lay a
shallow bay of the IJ called the Buiksloterham. Shortly after 1800 the slurry
that was dredges from the IJ was being piled here. In 1832 the city elders
decided a wicker dyke should be constructed around the Buiksloterham to prevent
the slurry from sliding into the shipping channel and the adjoining
Noordhollandsch Kanaal (the North Holland Canal completed in 1824). Slush
dredged from the harbours and shipping channels was subsequently deposited behind
this wicker dyke until in 1851 the land was brought up to a level above the
water level of the IJ. A dyke was constructed around this new polder: the
Buiksloterhampolder. By the same process of infilling the polder
Nieuwendammerham east of Volewijck was closed off in 1879. Some people tried
their hand at farming on the new land, but mostly failed so the two polders
remained a wasteland used a s a deposit for dredging slush.
Amsterdam showed little interest in its new land,
until the rapid growth in inhabitants led to a shortage in land available for
housing and factories during the 1870s. This coincided with some major changes
on the north side of the city. To further improve the connection of the Amsterdam
harbour with the North Sea it had been decided to dig a new shipping channel to
relieve the narrow North Holland Canal. This new canal was to be dug through
the dunes at Velsen. Digging started on 8 March 1865 at the Breesaap sand dunes
at the narrowest point of Holland. This North Sea Canal was built by digging a
channel lined with dikes through the old IJ and locks at the mouth and on the
side of the Zuiderzee. The land between the new canal dikes and the old sea
dikes were reclaimed as polders. To accommodate shipping and ensure drainage tributaries
of the IJ like the rivers Zaan and Spaarne were connected to the new canal by canal
links (Zijkanalen) named A through I. This new land up to the old sea dike (Waterlandse
Zeedijk) was added to the territory of the city in 1877.
In 1903 a rapport was published on the possibilities
of the vast area of land north of the North Sea Canal, the so-called Northern IJ-polders.
The low land values and good connections by water made this area attractive to
private enterprise and was designated as an industrial area by the city. The
city council wished to ban factories and dangerous industrial activity from inner-city
areas and also create new possibilities for nautical industry. Johan van
Hasselt, the director of Public Works, even included a new main shipping channel
to connect Volewijk to the old city by a new bridge.
The municipal Department for Housing and Construction
(Bouw- en Woningdienst) sought to
break away from the usual way of housing workers. Inspired by the ideas of the
Garden City Movement the department wanted to create new village-like satellites
near the areas designated for industry. These garden villages were planned all
around Amsterdam, but especially in the IJ-polders to the north and the
Watergraafsmeer-polder to the east. The first housing was erected by building
societies in the Buiksloterham and Niewendammerham polders respectively. Later
municipal housing would be built in between the housing provided by building
societies.
The old city of Amsterdam lay safely behind the dikes
(Zeedijk) shown below with a broad green line on each side of the IJ. The land
was mostly covered in pat that sank with use as farmland so an intricate system
of inner polders (Binnenpolders) was set up. True polders though are land reclamations,
mostly of lakes and in some cases of alluvial land. These polders are shown
with narrow green lines. Some were small like the Durgerdammer Diepolder (DD),
Blijkmeerpolder (Bp) and Burkmeerpolder (BP). Other reclaimed lakes were much
larger: Buikslotermeerpolder (BS), Noordmeerpolder (NM), Monnikenmeerpolder
(MM), Broekermeerpolder (BR), Watergraafsmeer or Diemermeerpolder (WM) and
Bijlmermeerpolder (BM). The largest of these polders is the
Haarlemmermeerpolder (HM).
The garden villages around Amsterdam were all
constructed between 1918 and 1953. Tuindorp Oostzaan (1) was built between 1919
and 1939 in two building campaigns. Tuindorp Buiksloterham (2) in the polder
Buiksloterham (BH) consist of three parts: Disteldorp (1918), Van der Pekbuurt
(1919) and Floradorp (1927). On the Volewijk peninsula (V) the Tuindorp
Buiksloot (3) was built in 1930. In the polder Nieuwendammerham (NH) two garden
villages were built: Vogeldorp (4) and Tuindorp Nieuwendam (5). Vogeldorp was
built in three campaigns in 1910-'16,
1917-'19 and 1920-'23. Tuindorp Niewendam also consists of three parts: Tuindorp
(1924-'27), Schellinkwouderbuurt (1930-'34) and Westwijk (1948-'50).The Noth
Sea Canal (N) with the harbour is easily recognisable. Further south we find
Tuindorp Oost (6) built in the 1930s and Betondorp (7) built between 1923-'25. The red outline shows the limits of the city around 1900.
The flood surge of 1916 devastated large areas of
Waterland north of Amsterdam. The Waterlandse Zeedijk was breached and the
small villages and towns behind it had no means of repairing the damage. As a
result the municipalities of Buiksloot, Nieuwendam and Ransdorp as well as the
Watergraafsmeer were finally annexed by Amsterdam in 1921. The result is a
series of garden villages that wrap around the city; starting with Tuindorp Oostzaan
in the northwest, via Tuindorp Buiksloterham, Disteldorp, Vogeldorp, Tuindorp
Buiksloot and Tuindorp Nieuwendam to Tuindorp Watergraafsmeer and Betondorp in
the east. Beyond these garden villages and in the west and south large housing
estates were constructed along the lines of the famous AUP-plan. This CIAM-housing
is known as Amsterdam-Noord , Amsterdam-Zuidoost and Amsterdam Nieuw-West.
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