Book Review: De diabolische snelweg (The Diabolic Highway)
De diabolische snelweg: Over de traditie van de mooie weg in het Nederlandse landschap en het verlangen naar de schitterende snelweg in de grote stad, Wim Nijenhuis and Wilfried van Winden, Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2007. 206 pp.
[Title translates as The Diabolic Highway: On the Dutch tradition of the attractive country road and the desire for a breathtaking motorway in the metropolis.]
Space & Culture has previously posted on automobile-influenced architecture (’carchitecture‘) and Dutch architect Aldo Van Eyck.
Cars and highways are the mediators between nature and culture — except, of course, in the Netherlands where, probably more than anywhere else on earth, nature has been transformed into an artificial phenomenon and has become a part of culture. Here, it looks as if landscape and cityscape have both been carefully designed; but, usually they are the result of difficult, uncontrollable processes that have occurred during relatively long periods.
In De Diabolische Snelweg, Willem Nijenhuis and Wilfried van Winden attempt to render the Dutch highways as elements of beauty by stating that this has always been a goal of the different official institutions responsible for their planning and construction. Beauty was an integrated, sometimes substantial, part of their development. But conflicting institutions and rivalry between governmental departments have often compromised the final achievements. Nevertheless, highways should be taken in account when dealing with the aesthetic representation of Dutch society.
On the one hand the Dutch looked at the United States with its meandering park- and freeways, and on the other at the famous accomplishments of the German system. In the book especially the latter gains a special value because, according to the authors, this influence has been suppressed due to the fact that the German ‘Reichsautobahnen’ had a clear national-socialistic touch to them. Their beauty was thus considered suspect. That the authors provide privilege to the German influence has caused an unbalance in their readings: The American perspectives from Mumford to Appleyard have hardly been considered. This doesn’t affect the book as a whole, but does limit its scientific value. The authors opt for a different approach and see their work as opening a debate about the highway of the future. They consider this to be ‘diabolic’ in the sense that it reverses the experiences that have been dominant until now in the construction and observation of highways.
Peculiarly enough, this book fits in a Dutch tradition in curious interpretation of existing objects that float on a thin borderline between the ugly and the agreeable. Many years ago, one of the authors, Wim Nijenhuis, wrote a book on the Berlin wall; in a certain sense, this book on Dutch highways is a continuation of that topic. Integrating ugliness as part of their culture can be considered a characteristic feature of Dutch aesthetics or Dutch functionalism, which has often been highly subsidized by the government. The requirements of function and use do not always correspond to the necessity of beauty. The realization that absolute beauty is beyond reach has led to the acceptance of a conflicting reality in which a change in position can create the change of aesthetic experience. Of course, this is true on the level of theory. The reality is that the aesthetic of the highway is not static but a myriad of aesthetic experiences. Ugliness and beauty, excitement and boredom, peacefulness and terror are part of a sublime interpretation of complex and contradictory surroundings. The admiration for asphalt has not overtaken the natural love for the brick. In the Netherlands design has obsessive connotations: Everything is labeled as having been designed. Highways are no exception. In the urge to remain a modern and avant-garde country, cultural institutions in the Netherlands were, a couple of years ago, eager to promote a more dynamic vision. A special University chair in Mobility Esthetics was installed at the Faculty of Architecture in Delft. Since that moment, there has been an offensive move towards viewing highways as beautiful. It is clear that the perception is limited to the visual. Other sensory senses are excluded, also in this book.
This book sublimates reality. It is beautiful in its appearance and layout. Besides two long essays the books contains eight case studies of highway parts in the Netherlands. The case studies that are largely based on the information gained from interviews with some of the responsible designers and therefore should be read before traveling on these roads. They provide interesting insights. The sometimes heavy, indigestible essays can be read while stalled in the frequent traffic jams of this congested country. A stream of German and French theorists, from Heidegger to Virilio, pass the revue. In these essays the authors try to extrapolate the criteria that make the valuation of the highways interesting. It is not a coincidence that one of the authors refers to Carl von Clausewitz who stood at the cradle of the modern organization and esthetics of war. Photographic essays and other illustrations complete this publication that certainly provides an appropriated view of a country proud of everything that others might be less eager to propagate.
Reviewed by: Herman van Bergeijk, Institutio Historiae Architecturae, Artis et Urbis, Technische Universiteit Delft, Netherlands.
-Ondine