Inburgering with DutchNews.nl: 10 places on the UNESCO World Heritage List

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One of the houses in the colony. Photo: Unesco document

With the rain at home and the prospects for a summer vacation abroad still uncertain, why not catch up with Dutch culture instead? Back by popular demand – DutchNews.nl burger Classes.

By the end of the month, Unesco experts will have decided whether two new Dutch sites should be inscribed on the list of world cultural heritage: the limes of Lower Germany and the “Colonies of benevolence” in Groningen and Drenthe. . Here’s a roundup of the 10 that have already been included.

1 Schokland
Schokland was a peninsula which by the 15th century had become an island that kept getting flooded. In the end, the authorities were so enraged by the islanders, who insisted on returning to their swampy home, that they were ordered to destroy all their homes and settle permanently on the mainland.

Photo: Jan Willem Schoonhoven via Wikimedia Commons

Since the 1940s the island has been part of reclaimed land and old houses and other buildings have been placed there to recreate what it was. It is strange to contemplate the farmland and think that it was once the seabed.

2 Stelling van Amsterdam
Do you live in a swamp and want to keep your enemies away? The Stelling van Amsterdam is a 135 km line of defense around the Dutch capital based on water control. Built between 1883 and 1920, the line of defense is a network of 46 armed forts linked by a complex network of reclaimed land (polders) and canals.

Illustration: Kwazel via Wikimedia Commons

Think of it like a giant ditch – at the first sign of trouble, flip the switches and Amsterdam is surrounded by water. Although the introduction of planes has made this line of defense redundant, much of it remains intact with the forts open to tourists or used by various small businesses.

3 Historic downtown and port of Willemstad, Curacao
Tropical beaches, sun, cocktails at sunset. This is the only one of the 10 that we haven’t visited and we want to go. After the Spanish occupation, the Dutch took possession of the Caribbean island of Curaçao in 1634, creating the Dutch West India Company to manage exports and trade movements between the islands and Europe.

Willemstad harbor on a sunny day

Photo: Nelo Hotsuma via Wikimedia Commons

The decision to include the historic district of Willemstad in the Dutch list appears to be based on the cultural influence of the Dutch on local town planning, architecture, trade relations and multicultural relations in Curaçao. Curacao remained a Dutch colony until 1955, when it gained independence and autonomy within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

4 Kinderdijk-Elshout mill network
The Netherlands has struggled with the swamp since the Middle Ages and the Kinderdijk windmill complex illustrates this perfectly: dikes, reservoirs, pumping stations, administrative buildings and a series of beautifully preserved windmills dating back to 1740 when the land was destroyed. was dried up for the first time. Kinderdijk is a small village in the province of South Holland, about 15 kilometers from Rotterdam and a very popular tourist attraction.

Sunset at Kinderdijk. Photo: Porcelaingirl via Wikimedia Commons

5 Ir.DF Woudagemaal
Maybe not the most romantic name in the world, but if you love your engineering, you’ll love this one. Engineer DF Wouda’s steam pumping station was opened in 1920 and remains the largest ever built. It is still used today on occasion.

Photo: Hanno Lans via Wikimedia Commons

You can see things getting serious with the water levels if a TV news reader states that the DF Wouda Mill has been started.

6 Droogmakerij de Beemster
Yet another polder which has been inscribed on the World Heritage List is the Beemster Polder in the province of Noord Holland. Historians describe the creation of the Beemster Polder as the impetus for urbanism based on Renaissance ideals – or more simply, it means that laws dating back to 1616 dictated the size of the subdivisions, the road layout and the conditions. planting trees. along the roads.

Photo: DutchNews.nl

Water drainage from inland lakes and ponds was controlled by windmills and dikes until the 1800s, when the system converted to steam. Today, this process is driven by electric pumping stations.

7 Rietveld Schröder House

Built in 1924, this former family home in Utrecht is an icon of modern architecture. The architect, Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964), designed the house based on the principles of De Stijl – a Dutch collective of artists and architects devoted to the ideals of modern neoplasticism or “total abstraction”.

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Simply, the designs were based on non-intersecting horizontal and vertical lines and layers, and the use of colors was limited to red, black, blue, yellow, white and gray. The house was built for Truus Schröder-Schräder, who lived there until his death in 1985, first with his children and then with Rietveld, following the death of his wife.

8 The Wadden Sea (shared with Germany)
The Wadden Sea is an area of ​​islands, seas and mud flats stretching from Den Helder north of Amsterdam to Denmark and is famous for its biodiversity.

Photo: Mark Plomp Stichting Natuurbeelden via Wikimedia Commons

The inclusion of the Wadden Sea on the World Heritage List is attributed to the fact that it remains a large-scale and largely intact intertidal ecosystem that is home to over 4,000 species of flora and fauna in their natural habitats. Without forgetting, of course, the tens of thousands of vacationers who flock there.

9 rings of the 17th century Amsterdam canal inside the Singelgracht
Added to the list in 2010, the city’s canal rings were built to drain swamps and create new land for housing, in what was considered the first example of large-scale town planning.

Photo: DutchNews.nl

Work began in 1613 and as anyone who took the easy route of exploring Amsterdam via a canal boat trip can attest, the planners knew what they were doing.

10 Van Nelle factory
De Van Nellefabriek in Rotterdam, which was added to the World Heritage list in 2014, has such a wonderful 1930s vibe that you wonder why it never appeared in an episode of Poirot. It was built for the tea, coffee and tobacco producers Van Nelle between 1927 and 1930 by architects Johannes Brinkman and Leendert van der Vlugt.

Photo: F. Eveleens via Wikimedia Commons

The people of Van Nelle liked the principle of functionalism of German Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and ended up with a complex that was both functional and very beautiful. Today it houses offices, a museum and hosts events.

And soon, supermarkets, normen in waarden and cinema. If you have any suggestions for topics you would like us to cover, send an email to [email protected].

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