Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
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One of the advantages of my home region of Eindhoven is that until the founding of Philips it had no historical relevance whatsoever. So there is no protest against building upwards. This has caused the city to go from this in 2007:
To this now:
With 19 70+ meter high buildings on their way. 5 of which will be 100m+, adding to the already 5 100m+ buildings in the city.
Not only does this result in a great skyline, it is also a far more efficient use of space. Only criticism is that living there is expensive.
It has been cool to see the city develop from a provincial town vibe to a more proper city. Especially once the larger building reaching up to 150m will be finished.
I don’t know if this is true or not, just an anecdote I’ve heard from Dutch friends in the past, but it’s it true that there was some sort of archaic rule that only very recently stopped being enforced, where buildings could not be built taller than the church spire of their town?
That is something common in most of continental western and central europe.
Some cities have rules like that for famous landmarks. In Utrecht for example it is a sort of unwritten rule to not build any higher than the Dom. Antwerp, where I live now, has the same rule for their Cathedral at a little over 100m.
I sort of understand rules like that. You want to preserve landmarks in a way. But honestly at the same time it limits your city. Antwerp is incredibly dense and crowded in the center and a few giant skyscrapers could really solve some housing issues we have.
I’m glad Eindhoven didn’t cave to such narrow minded stuff. But that also leads to stuff like Eindhoven with 250k will have the largest building in the former duchy of Brabant soon, and that includes 2 million pop city Brussels and 560k pop city Antwerp, who are restricting their limits.
Amsterdam has a similar rule but here it’s about not building too high too close to Schiphol. But we’re starting to build more skyscrapers in areas that are further away
Brussels has the same issue with Zaventem, which is why Zuidertoren tops out at 150m just like Rembrandttoren in Amsterdam. Which is pretty small for cities these sizes lol