There are hundreds of garden villages and garden cities in the Netherlands. They are based on the garden city idea. There are many pearls of garden villages and garden cities. The (Dutch language) book Het Paradijs van de Arbeider. Tuindorpen en Tuinsteden (The Worker's Paradise. Garden villages and garden cities) covers many of these pearls.

An article in the Dutch glossy magazine MONUMENTAAL pays attention to garden villages and garden cities in the Netherlands, and the upcoming exhibition on them at Museum Het Schip.

At the World Garden Cities Conference 2024, the organizers looked back at 1924 – when the first Garden City Conference was held in Amsterdam – and ahead to 2124: how can green cities provide affordable housing for al?

Day two of the conference will kick off in the EYE Film Museum in Amsterdam in the morning. In the afternoon, excursions will take you to the largest garden city of The Netherlands: Hilversum. 

From 1924 to 2124: Look back and glimpse ahead

5-6 June 2024, we are celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the 1924 Garden City Conference in Amsterdam. We will look back at the first edition, and glimpse ahead to 2124!

The first day of the conference will take place at Het Ketelhuis in Amsterdam in the morning, followed by excursions in the afternoon to various locations in Amsterdam or Utrecht.

For the third year students from the University of Amsterdam looked at the development of the new Amsterdam district of Havenstad and the way garden city ideas can be incorporated here. They focussed on two specific areas: Coen- & Vlothaven, and Cornelis Douwes.

ARAU has just published a new series of three exploratory maps to discover – amongst others – the most beautiful garden cities in Brussels.

If you would like to receive more information about World Garden Cities, we recommend you to subscribe to our international newsletter. 

Monica Cirstea, Romanian architect and author of the blog Dreams of an Architect, a few years ago wrote an article comparing the garden city idea with Frank Lloyd Wrights design of Broadacre City.

In 2024 it will be 100 years since the International Town Planning Conference took place in Amsterdam. The extensive report that was published after the conference can be read online here.

This fourth article from EcoResponsive Enviroments about re-imagining the Garden City for today’s issues, reaches the stage of meshing land uses in the most positive relationships with the longer-lasting framework of plots developed in the third article.

In the third article from EcoResponsive Enviroments about re-imagining the Garden City for today’s issues, they continue explaining their complex systems approach of their RIBA competition- winning scheme for expanding the world’s first Garden City at Letchworth in the UK.

5-7 June 2024 we are celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the 1924 garden cities conference in Amsterdam. We will look back at the first edition, and glimpse ahead to 2124!

Access historical issues of the Town & Country Planning Journals, spanning across an entire century.

In 2022 the Association régionale des cités-jardins d'Ile-de-France organized the international congress 'Garden cities for the 21st century', which can be viewed online.

Monuments need to become more sustainable in the coming years. With social housing that also has monumental status, the challenge can be very great. In Hilversum, three monumental garden suburbs were made sustainable, most of them social housing.

For the second year students from the Urban and Regional Planning Masters of the University of Amsterdam looked at the development of Havenstad, the new city district that is being created to the west and north of Amsterdam.

Garden city- and Amsterdam School-enthusiast Esther Kreikamp analyzed similarities between the two movements, apparant at the beginning of the twentieth century. She wrote an excellent article about the shared zeitgeist, ideals and objectives, the cooperative initiatives and the similarities in design.

Read Shared Ideals: The Garden City and The Amsterdam School.

In the second article from EcoResponsive Enviroments they will continue explaining their complex systems approach of their RIBA competition-winning entry for the expansion of Letchworth, the world's first garden city.

The series builds up the scheme through interactions between subsystems, starting with those that are longest-lived and progressively meshing-in faster-changing ones. We start by meshing the public space network with the natural infrastructure of water and green systems.

Open PDF: EcoResponsive Environments - Article 2 Meshing Natural and Human Networks 

This is the first of a series of short articles by EcoResponsive Environments, (Article 1 Introduction) that will explore ways of reimagining the Garden City movement to address the social, economic and environmental issues that face us today. 

The London-based architectural and urban design practice is the winner of the RIBA international competition for the expansion plan of garden city Letchworth. 

Open PDF: EcoResponsive Environments - Article 1 Introduction

As part of our international project on the Garden City idea, Alice Roegholt, the director of Museum Het Schip in Amsterdam, has written an article for the magazine of heritage association Heemschut. Click on the link below to read it! (Language: Dutch)

Alice Roegholt, 'De Tuinstadgedachte'. In: Heemschut, de Erfgoedbeschermers (jaargang 98, nr. 4 December 2021).

Students of the University of Amsterdam researched the development of Havenstad, a new city district in Amsterdam, and wrote a report about their ideas.