Hilversum
Hilversum, Netherlands

Hilversum is the only city in the Netherlands that was developed as a large-scale garden city in the first half of the twentieth century. It has abundance of nature, social facilities and high quality architecture and urban planning. Through several extensions in the form of garden suburbs, architect Willem Marinus Dudok has managed to forge the city into a cohesive garden city while keeping a rural character.

Dudok had been director of Public Works since 1915 and was also appointed municipal architect in 1928. In addition to designing buildings, he also managed to rally the municipality behind him to initiate affordable municipal public housing. Hilversum thus not only grew into an attractive green city with beautiful and cohesive architecture, but also managed to propagate the social ideals of the garden city concept through the wide range of social facilities and accessible housing.

Dudok was not solely responsible for this assignment, but he managed to steer the growth of the city in the right direction in collaboration with a large number of other architects, urban planners and other skilled people. During Dudok's appointment, the city grew from approximately 35,000 inhabitants to a city of approximately 100,000 inhabitants.

Dudok designed the garden city on various levels, from realizing many public housing to thinking about urban (green) structures, like the relationship of the city with the beautiful surrounding Goois nature reserve. He also stimulated shaping the community through public facilities such as schools, a sports park, green parks and squares.