Westerpark: It’s a Gas! The Adaptive Re-Use of the Westergasfabriek Gasworks in Amsterdam

 

Located in the Spaarndammerbuurt District in northwestern Amsterdam sits Westerpark, a vast expanse of green space dotted with artist studios, cafes and bars. It’s a place where you can get some ice cream, play soccer, then unwind with a drink and a steak dinner. However, one hundred years ago it was a very different story. Located along side of the first railway line in the Netherlands, an industrial site called Westergasfabriek was developed in the 1880s to extract lamp gas from coal. Here was a place of industry, with smoking chimneys, active fires, mounds of coke, cranes, railcars and wagons. Smells of coal, ammonia and sulfur filled the air, and noise from the operation and the railroad were deafening. This site was to become the park that draws people from all over the city today.

 

Westergasfabriek was abandoned in the mid-twentieth century, the buildings stood vacant and the ground was heavily polluted. Starting in the 1980s, plans were begun to turn the industrial site from a brownfield to green space. However, due to the heavy level of pollution, and the amount of planning that was necessary to make such a transformation, the actual cleanup process did not start until June of 2000.[1] The park was opened in 2003. Since it has only been ten years from the completion of the project, soil testing for contamination spread is still underway, but the current tests look positive. This paper intends to examine the success of the Westergasfabriek Project based on three adaptive re-use critereon: first, does the project embrace the industrial history and heritage of the site; second, is the project an environmentally sound solution to the previously toxic brownfield site; and third, has the project helped revitalize the community.

 

At its peak, Westergasfabrick had over twenty buildings located at the site. Most of these buildings were designed by Isaac Gosschalk in the Dutch Renaissance Style and built in the late 1880s for the Imperial Continental Gas Association.[2] However the success of the plant and the rising cost of gas led the city of Amsterdam to purchase the entire property in 1898, and at that time a number of new buildings were added to the site to expand the plants capacity. Of these structures, thirteen survive to this day and all have been repurposed to serve the needs of a vital artist community. In his book, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built, Stewart Brand explains that ‘unloved’ buildings, especially those with vast expanses of spaces, which he calls low-road buildings are the most suitable structures for adaptive re-use.[3] These building are flexible and allow for a wide range of retro-fitting. This is the type of building found at Westergasfabriek, and this is what allowed the re-use of these structures for their new capacity.

 

The historic fabric of the built environment has embraced the industrial heritage of the site and aided in the success of the park. It is a basic tenet of the field of historic preservation, and one that has been argued since Viollet-le-Duc taught at the École des Beaux-Arts, that for a place to be successful it cannot ignore its history. Historic structures evoke a sense of place and a feeling of belonging that cannot be replicated. Therefore, when the planners were deciding what to do with the thirteen structures littering the landscape of their proposed park, they opted for incorporation instead of demolition. The east end of the park contained the more white-collar operations of the gasworks. There stands the former office building, a building that served three distinct purposes (Werkplaatsengebouw [workshop], the Kantoorgebouw [office] and the Assistent-Ingenieurswoning [assistant engineer’s house) and was designed with a roofline to clearly communicate its multifunctionality. 

 

Today this building serves as office spaces and artist studios. To the west stands the Regulateurhuis (Regulator House), which historically housed the regulator and sold processed gas to the general public. Today the building functions as a bakery and café. To the west are the industrial buildings, half of which were demolished in the mid-twentieth century. Those which remain are used as commercial spaces, artist studios, performance venues and restaurants. It is the adaptibility of these buildings that allowed them to survive. At the far west of the complex stands the pièce de résistance of the project, the 1902 gasholder which has been restored and reused as a concert venue.

 

The success of the park could not have been achieved without a thorough cleanup of the sites industrial past. In the 1980s, when the plans to turn Westergasfabriek into a park first began, they conducted soil studies to assess the situation. This study showed tar, mineral oils, and cyanide, byproducts of the extraction and refining process.[4] It took until the 1990s for the Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting, Ruimtelijke Ordening en Milieu or (VROM) to decide the best measure to take. First, they decided that digging and removing the soil was not an option. It would be too expensive and Amsterdam’s position below sea level adds further complications. They instead decided that the most viable (read affordable) option was to isolate the pollution. This would involve ‘containing’ the contaminated soil within sheet piling and then capping it with a layer of asphalt. However, the city wanted to create a park, and so asphalt was not the best solution. Instead a compromise was reached where the soil would be contaminated by steel piling, but then capped instead with a layer of cloth and topped with a meter of clean soil.[5] Cleanup began in 2000. The plan involved isolating and concentrating the contaminated soils in designated areas, and using clean soil from other areas of the park as a top layer, this way soil would neither have to be removed from site nor would it have to be brought in from elsewhere. However, the ground proved to be more contaminated than estimated, and so 10,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil had to be removed.[6]

 

The buildings also had to be de-contaminated before they could be renovated. The initial plan was to pour new floors of vapor-proof concrete over the existing floors, but when they went into the buildings they found that the cellars were filled with toxic sludge, all of which had to be removed. In 2002 they started cleaning the gasholders. Only one of the four gas holders remained intact, the other three had been demolished in the mid-twentieth century. It was decided that the basins of the tanks were to remain and be reclaimed as wetland, however, to accomplish this, over 1,900 tons of toxic sludge had to be removed.[7] A separate water infrastructure had to be constructed to circulate the rainwater before it could permeate into the contamination sites. Then renovation of the thirteen buildings could begin. The result of all this effort, however, is a working ecosystem, no longer spreading toxic materials into the water table. The contamination levels are still closely monitered, but since the park’s opening in 2008, the toxicity levels have remained consistently insignificant.

 

Starting in the 1980s the industrial site was inhabited by squatters and artists, and in 1992 the city of Amsterdam starting granting temporary leases for citizens who wanted to used the site for creative activities.[8] Soon an artist community was living in the heavily polluted area. The desire to support this community led to the adaptive re-use efforts of the last quarter of the 20th century. Today the park is used by a variety of people for many different uses. The adaptibility of the structures and the open expanses of spaces have proved ideal for theatres, concert venues and studios. The city of Amsterdam has a strong adaptive re-use policy where they remain flexible to multiple options. Unless a builidng is declared a landmark, the policy of the Netherlands is to try to disrupt the exterior as little as possible, but to grant free-reign over the interior spaces. Thus a positive impression of preservation and re-use has evolved in the city. It is this attitude which allowed the Westergasfabriek Project to thrive.

 

Today the Westerpark neighborhood is a beautiful and desired place to live. Westergasfabriek ceased its operation in 1967 after eighty years of operation. By this time the soils were soaked with tar and cyanide and the air stank of sulfur and coal. Only fifty years later and the park has become one of the most celebrated green spaces in the city. Today, every commercial space is filled, people are riding their bikes and laying in the grass, and fathers are playing soccer with their sons. Every evening, the bars and restaurants start to open and people flock to the cinema. On weekends, performances happen in the multiple venues and arenas.

 

The Westergasfabriek Project is an extreme success of adaptive re-use and brownsite transformation. The re-use of the historic structures and their integration into the park environment embraces the sites industrial heritage while allowing for a new purpose and a sustainable environment. The toxic soil has been contained, and wildlife has been reintroduced to the area. Most importantly, the area has become revitalized. People are in the park at all hours of the day, and the neighborhood has become a valuable place to live.[9] The park renovation has acted as a catalyst for a number of private agencies to improve the homes in the area to provide better places to live in this now coveted area. In 2007 the park won the British Landscape Institute Award. And in 2010 the park won the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage, making the park one of the most successful industrial site adaptive re-use projects in the world.[10]

 

 

[1] Project Westergasfabriek: Geschiedenis

 

[2] Ibid.

 

[3] Brand, Chapter 3

 

[4] Project Westergasfabriek: Sanering

 

[5] Ibid.

 

[6] Ibid.

 

[7] Ibid.

 

[8] Westergasfabriek: History

 

[9] Iamsterdam: Westerpark

 

[10] Westergasfabriek Wins Europa Nostra Award

 

 

Works Cited

Brand, Stewart. How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built. New York: Penguin Books, 1983.

 

Iamsterdam. Westerpark. 2014. http://www.iamsterdam.com/en-GB/experience/about-amsterdam/areas/amsterdam-neighbourhoods/westerpark (accessed April 7, 2014).

 

MAB Development. Westergasfabriek Wins Europa Nostra Award. June 16, 2010. http://www.mab.com/news/news/westergasfabriek-wins-europa-nostra-award (accessed April 7, 2014).

 

Project Westergasfabriek: Geschiedenis. 2013. http://www.project-westergasfabriek.nl/nederlands# (accessed April 7, 2014).

 

Project Westergasfabriek: Sanering. 2013. http://www.project-westergasfabriek.nl/nederlands# (accessed April 7, 2014).

 

Westergasfabriek. Westergasfabriek: History. 2011. http://www.westergasfabriek.nl/en/westergasfabriek-en/history (accessed April 7, 2013).