Aesthetic control in Europe

Abstract

In the Netherlands there has been increasing interest in architecture, design, and in the quality of the built environment in general in the last few years. Plans for such important buildings as the Opera House and Town Hall in Amsterdam or the new Town Hall in The Hague received extensive publicity and provoked much discussion. Many local authorities are busy drawing up and developing plans, through which, they hope, their city's identity can be profiled. Part of the reason for this increasing interest is the impending single European market. More and more Dutch towns (such as Amsterdam with the northern banks of the IJ, Arnhem with the banks of the Rhine, Eindhoven with the Hill area, Maastricht with the rearrangement of the Sphinx-Ceramique area, Nijmegen with the "Brabantse Poort", Rotterdam with the "Kop van Zuid") are developing grand projects, sometimes designed by internationally famous architects, which are supposed to increase the prestige and importance of the towns. It is easily forgotten, however, that controlling the architectural quality of the environment in which most of us live is just as important as the fact that prestige projects are being developed. In the Netherlands this control takes the form of aesthetic control (welstandszorg). Through aesthetic control, building regulations are enforced to regulate the external appearance of buildings and their relation to their environment. This means that every building to be constructed and all (major) alterations to existing buildings have to be assessed on the basis of their external design; that design has to be acceptable and also to fit in with the environment. In the Netherlands architects are confronted with this aesthetic control system when they apply for building permits. The debate about architectural and environmental quality is mainly a national issue. Hardly ever does it take on an international dimension. There is thus hardly any knowledge or experience of control systems for maintaining the quality of the built environment in other European countries. This was one reason we decided to study possible equivalents to the Dutch system of aesthetic control in other European countries. This will provide us with a better knowledge of the specific qualities of our own national system of aesthetic control and perhaps also provide