Hendricus Theodorus Wijdeveld. Visions of a new Amsterdam

The early decades of the twentieth century represented a period of particular turmoil for the Netherlands as the country underwent a cultural transition that culminated in the search for a new social order to counteract the chaos generated by the Great War. The Dutch art world, which had always felt the need to play a role in society, now felt a pressing urge for renewal representative of the new community ideal. Wijdeveld contributed to this search through written pieces published in the magazine Wendingen. His support for a new social order first manifested itself in the idealistic design of the People’s Theatre to be built in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam, then in the visionary design concerning the expansion of the city of Amsterdam. Wijdeveld’s proposal for the People’s Theatre was initially conceived in 1919. The monumental theatre is located inside the Vondelpark in Amsterdam up against the city’s seventeenth- century perimeter walls. All around it lie the symbols of the country’s artistic culture: the Rijksmuseum, the Concertgebouw and the Stedelijk Museum. The drawings published in Wendingen magazine on the 9th and 10th of September-October 1919 highlight the urban value of the project. A major road axis, a veritable urban boulevard dotted with tower buildings, crosses the historic Vondelpark. Starting from the ramparts, the boulevard constitutes a perspective axis at the end of which stands the monumental People’s Theatre. The size of the public building reveals its representative value in accordance with a compositional tradition that harks back to the conception of the classical city. In the drawings, the Vondelpark appears to be overshadowed, with its presence negated. A modern route replaced the idea of the romantic park crossed by winding streets and symbolises trust in progress and the idea of urban and social order. This project prefaced the study of a contemporary and monumental expansion plan that involved the development of Amsterdam along radial roads that set out from the heart of the historical city towards rural land. These routes were dotted with a series of tower buildings that represented the idea of a city open to nature, following a development method that contrasted with the settlement rules of the historical city.