Schokland: a polder island

The first mention of what is now known as Schokland date back to Roman times. At that time however it wasn't an island as such but an insular area of peatland between rivers and lakes as the Zuiderzee didn't yet exist. Schokland was the only remaining peat island in the Zuiderzee (Southern Sea) until it was incorporated into the Noordoostpolder (literally North-eastern Polder) in 1942. The name Schokland isn't used until the 17th century - before than the island was seen as two separate entities named Emmeloord in the north and Ens in the south - and is a scoffing term referring to a so-called "schokke" a mix of reed and cow dung used for heating by those to poor to afford the usual peat.

During the middle ages the island was much bigger, but rising sea levels and erosion by storms and floods gradually decreased its size. As the island shrank the people retreated towards the higher areas on the island. Here people lived on artificial mounds in several neighbourhoods (Buurt in Dutch) known as Zuiderbuurt, Middelbuurt and Emmeloord. In 1855 the situating became so critical that the Zuidert (or Zuiderbuurt) was evacuated. Four years later is was ordained that all 650 remaining inhabitant were to be relocated. Nowadays only 8 people live on Schokland in the Middelbuurt which is now a museum. The former island is very recognizable in the flat expanse of polderland as a 1 to 2.5 meter high elevation of irregular circumference.

The Middelbuurt consist of houses in a distinct Southern Sea style, built in wood with fired clay roofing tiles. The planks are used to great effect, are coloured in bluish-green or gray green and often have contrasting trims and rabbets. The only stone building is the church (1834) built to replace the wooden church (1717) that had suffered from the 1825 tidal flood.

Getting around... Berlin

The Berliner Untergrundbahn (U-Bahn) first opened in 1902 and now boasts 10 underground lines. With the 170 halts the underground railway (which is in fact underground for 80% of its length) provides a vital service in the metropolitan area. The public transport network comprises of the underground, a rapid transit railway system (S-Bahn), busses and tram lines in the east of Greater-Berlin. There are 9 S-Bahn lines with the circle line S4 having been split into several new expanded routes (41-47) linking east en west. Berlin is also connected to the high speed train network with frequent ICE services to all mayor cities in Germany.

in the ICE whizzing             one of the old                   nostalgic

past Hannover             U-Bahn station                  Trabi-tours

Forum Fridericianum Berlin: how a planned royal residence became a cultural forum

Historic Berlin was a twin-city comprising of Alt-Berlin and Cölln on either side of the river Spree. Both cities were surrounded by a single defensive structure. Such twin-cities are not unique, we only have to think of Budapest, Cologne-Deutz, Nuremberg (Lorenz and Sebald), Herzogenrath-Kirchrath and Bielsko-Biala. In 1670 the Elector Fredric William I of Brandenburg granted the Cöllnischer Tiergarten west of the city walls to his wife Dorothea Sofia of Sleswick-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. The area was deforested and streets were laid out in the following years. This Neustadt (literally: New City) was granted city rights in 1674 en was renamed Dorotheenstadt in honour of the Electress in 1781. South of Dorotheenstadt lies the second Electoral new town: Friedrichstadt named after Fredrick I of Brandenburg, King of Prussia. After the death of his father in 1688 prince-elector Fredrick (Friedrich) was granted the right to develop a new city outside of the city walls. This new city was founded in 1691 on the former floodplain of the Spree river. In 1710 the independent cities of Berlin, Cölln, Friedrichswerder, Dorotheeenstadt and Friedrichstadt were merged to form the Royal Residence and Capital City of Berlin.

In 1720 work started to construct new city defences around the united city. This meant that the old defences could be dismantled. On the site of a demolished bulwark close to the old City Palace (Altes Stadtschloss) a new ensemble of buildings was to be erected with a new Residential Palace at its core. The ensemble was aligned with the former hunting avenue of Unter den Linden, the central axis of Dorotheenstadt and comprised of a large three-winged building with two inner courtyards and a large cour d'honeur  surrounded by a semi-circular colonnade. In line with the wings the architect Knobelsdorff planned an Opera House and a Ball Hall. The royal ensemble was to be free-standing on an extensive monumental square. As the important thoroughfare of Unter den Linden ran across, the Residential Square was planned as a public space from the onset.

Work started shortly after the installation of Fredrick II as the new King of Prussia in 1740. The new king ordered the purchase of 54 houses in Dorotheenstadt, among them the Palace of the Margraves of Brandenburg-Schwedt a sideline of the ruling Hohenzollern family. The waterlogged ground and difficulties in acquiring noble residences lead to adaptations to the plan. The blatant refusals of the Margaves of Brandenburg-Schwedt led to a repositioning of the Opera House and the residential palace was moved further back and made less wide so the existing city residence of the Margraves would align with the western wing. The Ball Hall was redesigned as an Academy of Science. This was the beginning of a transition from a monumental residence towards a cultural forum. The first stone for the Opera House was laid on September 5th 1741. The central square thus became known as the Opernplatz (Opera Square).  The construction of the Hedwigskirche started directly after the end of the Silesian War in 1747. The residence was scaled down and in 1748 work began on the Prinz-Heinrich-Palais (Palace of Prince Henry). In 1774 the Brandenburg-Schwedt-Palais was offered for purchase and was demolished to make way for the Academy of Science. On the site of the former Royal Stables the Royal Library (Königliche Bibliothek) was built between 1775-1786.

In 1773 work had started to change the Lindenmarkt south of the Opernplatz after designs of Georg Christian Unger. The cuirassier regiment Gens d'Armes had had their barracks here. For the many French Huguenots living in Friedrichstadt a church modelled after the Huguenot temple of Charenton-Saint-Maurice was built on the Lindenmarkt between 1701-1708. At the same time the mirroring Neue Kirche (New Church) was built at the northern end of the market square. In 1785 a domed tower was added to the French Church to create a symmetrical image. In 1818 work started on building the Schauspielhaus (Theatre) between the two churches. In the same year the Neue Wache (New Watch) was added to the Forum to commemorate the Napoleonic Wars. The two squares together with the avenue of Unter den Linden structure the grid of the western elector-cities. These places became the focal point for introducing new official and representative buildings within the urban fabric of Berlin.

The name Forum Fridericianum wasn't used in the 18th century. Knobelsdorff makes a reference to the foro di frederigo. Later in the nineteenth century this term was taken up in art-historical literature , but in the Latin translation: Forum Fridericianum. The idea of a cultural forum was taken up in many capital cities as a spatial intervention on the edge of the formerly walled capital city.

Around 1800 plans are made to expand the cultural program by building new museums to showcase the artistic treasures held by the Prussian state and the Crown. This museum quarter was realised in Altkölnn (on the island of Cölln between Spree and Kupfergraben -the old city moat). The Altes Museum was built at the end of the Hofgarten at a right angle to the Stadtschloss in 1830. The Neues Museum, built directly behind the Old Museum,  was finished in 1859. The Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) was built next to this in 1876. In 1905 the baroque Supreme Parish Church was replaced with a new Cathedral: the Berliner Dom. The Pergamon Museum was finished in 1930, specifically to house treasures like the Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate.

The Forum Fridericianum is located near the old residence of the Prussian rulers (1) across from the Hofgarten (Palace Gardens - 2).The hunting avenue (3) of Unter den Linden (literally: Under the Lime trees) ran from the Schlossplatz to the Tiergarten (a Deer park). It later formed the central axis of Dorotheenstadt. Within the old fortifications the Zeughaus (Arms House - 4), Kommandantenhaus (Commanders House - 5), Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince Palace - 6) and Kronprinzessinpalais (Crown Prinsess Palace - 7) stood. On the forum around the former Opernplatz we find the Opera House (8), the Neue Wache (9),the Prinz-Heinrich-Palais (10), the National Library (11), the Academy of Science (12) and Saint Hedwig Church (13). On the Gendarmenmarkt, the former Lindenmarkt, we find the French Church (14), the Theatre (15) and the Deutscher Dom (16). Near the Hofgarten we find the museum quarter with the Berliner Dom (17), the Altes Museum (18), the Neues Museum (19), the Alte Nationalgalerie (20) and the Pergamon Museum (21).

Getting around... London

The London Tube Map is iconic. And the system of subterranean railway lines that was pioneered here is very well known all around the world. These underground lines stretch far out into the suburbs of the London Metropolis. Many still run through the old Victorian tunnels. Apart from the network of underground railway lines London boasts a system of all pervasive public transport in the form of overground trains, commuter trains to outlying areas, trams around Croydon and the no less iconic double-decker bus.

The red double-decker bus (left), view down the central isle of a commuter train (middle) and one of the 1930s Piccadilly line Underground stations designed in a European style of brick-modernism (on the right).

Albertopolis: a cultural forum for imperial London

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha the spouse of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was instrumental in organising the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851. To this end a large exhibition hall was erected: the Crystal Palace. The international exhibition was a phenomenal success and in the late 1980s Exhibition Road was constructed to commemorate the event. This new road extended southwards from the West Carriage Drive that separates Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park and cut through Kensington Gore, an area of fields and market gardens south of Kensington Gardens.

Prince Albert had a vision of an area devoted to the arts and sciences to be built near the Crystal Palace. The huge profits from the Great Exhibition made this vision much easier to realise. The new cultural forum of ‘Albertopolis’, as it was dubbed, was based on the Fredericianum in Berlin an eighteenth century cultural forum loosely modelled after classical examples. The Kensington Gore in what is now South Kensington was chosen as the site for its proximity to the exhibition grounds on the edge of Hyde Park. Albert also made the first sketches with a symmetrical arrangement of several large buildings and spacious squares between two more or less parallel roads: Exhibition Road and Queens gate. As Queens Gate was being laid out the plans were augmented by including two roads than compartmented the terrain in three more or less equally sized areas.

Building work on the cultural forum started east of Exhibition Road with the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum or V&A stands here) in 1852. The rest of Albertopolis was to serve as exhibition grounds with large halls for the 1862 and 1886 international exhibitions. Almost all the exhibition buildings have now vanished, the institutions that replaced them remain. The present Albertopolis is thus the second incarnation of this cultural forum.

Between 1868-73 the present-day Henry Cole Wing of the V&A was built after designs by Henry Scott with Henry Cole and Richard Redgrave as the School of Naval Architects. Henry Cole was the first director of the South Kensington Museum and a driving force behind the Great Exhibition. In 1978 the building was annexed by the V&A. and the name was changed. Before that the building had been occupied by the Science School and by Imperial College.

The strong central axis of Albertopolis was focussed on the Albert Memorial on the edge of Kensington Gardens. This freestanding memorial was erected between 1863-72 by Sir George Gilbert Scott in atypical amalgamation of stylistic elements to form a rather copious monument. Albert had died in 1861 and thus never saw the completion of his dream of an area devoted to art, science and architecture.

The Albert Hall was built as a Hall of the Arts and Sciences, between 1867-71 after designs by  Francis Fowke and H. Y. D. Scott. The building is an elliptical, drum-shaped auditorium with a circumference of 225 metres, topped with a vast dome. The central axis of the building is aligned with the Albert Memorial north of Kensington Road. It recalls Gottfried Sempers Dresden Opera (built 1837-41) in style.

By the 1870s Kensington was almost fully developed, apart from the area immediately around the Albert Hall. Lowther Lodge (1873) was originally planned as a generously proportioned town house for William Lowther MP. It was conceived as a country mansion,  set back behind an entrance court on the Hyde Park front. Since 1911 Lowther Lodge has been the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society.

The Royal College of Organists (H. H. Cole, 1876) was built as the National Training School for Music and later became specifically devoted to organists. It was designed by Henry Cole’s son and is quite unique in appearance with the cream, pale blue and maroon sgraffito decoration.  The Jamaican High Commission by J. J. Stevenson on 29 Exhibition Road were completed in the same year in a fashionable style that loosely draws on English and Dutch buildings of about 1700. The whole is styled as a double house.

The so-called Albert Hall Mansions (Richard Norman Shaw, 1879) are luxurious red-brick apartments also executed in the new ‘Queen Anne’ style that was based on English and Dutch architecture of the early 18th century. As London had no tradition of apartment blocks for the middle and upper classes, Shaw took his floor plans from French examples. Several blocks comprise Albert Hall Mansions and together they wrap around the Albert Hall to appear like a fragment of a European city set down in London.

The 85-metre high Queen’s Tower on the central axis is the last remaining part of the magnificent Imperial Institute (T. E. Colcutt, 1887-93) that was founded as an outcome of the Colonial Exhibition of 1886. Despite the quality of Colcutt’s building in an expressive Renaissance revival style, the Institute was never successful and it was demolished in the 1950s and 1960s to make way for Imperial College.

Originating from collections within the British Museum, Natural History Museum, a landmark Alfred Waterhouse building, was opened in 1881. It was part of the British Museum until 1963 and was officially known as British Museum (Natural History) until 1992. The buildings large central hall (with the skeleton of a dinosaur) is positioned on the central axis of Albertopolis. It later incorporated the Geological Museum. The Darwin Centre is a more recent addition, partly designed as a modern facility for storing the valuable collections.

The Royal College of Music, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield was built between 1889-94 on the central axis of Albertopolis and introduces a French baronial element into the eclectic mix of architecture styles. The Baroque revival building is still in use. The facade in red brick echoes the Albert Hall opposite and was picked up again by R. J. Worley for Albert Court, the neighbouring tall block of apartments (1894–1900).

The Royal School of Mines (Aston Webb, 1909-13) stands next to the Royal College of Music. It was designed in a Classical revival style with an over-scale niche as the entrance containing a huge monument to Alfred Beit and Julius Wernher.  Aston Webb was also responsible for the Cromwell Road front of the V&A built around 1907.

On 26 June 1909 the Science Museum became an independent entity from the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Science Museum's present quarters, designed by Sir Richard Allison, were opened in stages over the period 1919–28. This building was known as the East Block. As the name suggests it was intended to be the first building of a much larger project, which was never realized. However, the Museum buildings were expanded over the following years.

Albertopolis comprises of several institutes and housing (light grey).De central axis starts at the Albert Memorial (1) and runs through the Albert Hall (2). Nearby are the Royal College of Organists (3), Imperial College Union Building (4), Holy Trinity Church (5), the Albert Hall Mansions (6), Lowther Lodge (7) and the Jamaican High Commission (8). The central axis continues through the Royal College of Music (10) flanked by the Royal School of Mines (9) and Albert Court (11). Behind these building stood the Imperial Institute (12). Across from a large public garden (now built over) stood stand the Church of Jesus Christ (13) an the Science Museum (14). Nearby we find the School of Naval Architects(15) and the V&A (16). On the other side of Exhibition Road we find the Geological Museum (17 and the Natural History Museum (18).