Next week, the decision will be made about the future of Feyenoord City. The fervent desire to develop this district is offset by uncertainty about the feasibility of the new stadium. Henk Hartzema argues for a Feyenoord City with a city park on the river Meuse.
Urban plans live with a combination of making space, smart land use, compositional beauty, a dose of assertiveness and a touch of coincidence. The first three seem to be little in Feyenoord City’s planning. It results in a convulsive part of the city and this led us to make a sketch ourselves this summer to shed light on and clarify the situation differently.
Driver of urban developments
For a long time, the Nieuwe Kuip was considered the driving force behind urban developments in this part of ‘South’, and rightly so. In the wake of such a development, the environment starts to move. Something that would otherwise have been less obvious.
New Kuip
At the same time, the question is whether the Nieuwe Kuip should be built. If you look at images from the nineties, you see a half-filled stadium and even within two years of the last title, the Kuip was not always sold out. The club is not known for its deep pockets. And the question is whether the new Kuip should be built here. Or the riverbanks become so much c
osier with a closed box. It is not for nothing that, apart from the sentiments about the beauty of the existing Kuip, opinions are divided.
Park on the Nieuwe Maas
The fact is that soon, due to the monumental status of the current Kuip, there will be two space eaters in the area. Certainly not optimal for a city in which space is becoming scarce. A stadium with accessories easily covers ten hectares. That is half of the Park at the Euromast. Think away the new Kuip and there is a beautiful park on the river Meuse. A place where Zuid is connected to the river and the 3,000 planned homes suddenly get a great location. And all this thanks to the plan development of the new Kuip. Mission accomplished!
Henk Hartzema, LinkedIn, 16 September 2020
