The word ‘border’ appears no fewer than 43 times in the VVD election manifesto, writes Hans Teerds. For the liberals, a border serves one purpose: the protection of ‘our’ country. Consult architect Herman Hertzberger, Teerds advocates, because a lot of good things can happen if a border is not hard and impenetrable.
Hans Teerds20 October 2023, 17:54
‘Giving space, setting boundaries’ could easily be the title of a book by architect Herman Hertzberger. Hertzberger, now 91 years old, puts people at the center of his buildings. That seems obvious, but is certainly not always the case in architecture.
People, and therefore buildings, need structure – read: boundaries –, says Hertzberger, but structure that gives people space and does not restrict them. With this insight, he designed a number of Montessori schools in the 1960s and 1970s, in which he turned the boundary between classroom and corridor into an intermediate space, a zone with French doors, niches, tables; Do they belong to the room or to the hallway? Children can find their own place, do their work and observe life in the hallway. Many more ‘Hertzberger schools’ would follow, and his office designs them to this day.
And for his groundbreaking Centraal Beheer office in Apeldoorn in 1972, Hertzberger did not design closed office rooms, but balconies, atriums and roof terraces, which offered employees the space to choose and design their own workplace. They say they were even allowed to bring their dog.
Apart from government interference
Giving space, yes, that is Hertzberger. But setting boundaries? No, not that. ‘Giving space, setting boundaries’ is not Hertzberger’s, it is the VVD slogan for the House of Representatives elections in November. My association was probably the title of the book that Hertzberger published in 1991: Making space, leaving space. That could also be a VVD slogan: after all, liberalism wants to leave citizens as free as possible. Apart from government interference.
Hans Teerds (Zwijndrecht, 1976) is an architect and urban planner. He works as a lecturer and researcher at the ETH technical college in Zurich. His book The Space We Share was recently published. How do we make architecture and urban planning political?, about how architecture can and should play a social and political role.
But while Hertzberger emphasizes ‘leaving space’, closer examination of the VVD program shows that the party mainly regards ‘giving space’ as a privilege. And strikingly enough, both elements of its slogan actually require government intervention: the government gives the citizen space, but within the limits set by the same government.
No wonder that the border receives full attention in the election manifesto. The word (or its plural) appears 43 times, a small number of times in a symbolic sense, as an echo of the title, to indicate that the Netherlands is at the limits of its possibilities, or to explain the liberal principle: freedom, unless this causes harm to another.
For the vast majority, ‘border’ is discussed in a literal sense: as a national border, which needs to be better controlled, as a border around fortress Europe, which needs to be better guarded. It is obvious that the VVD wants to make this a theme, not only because the Rutte IV cabinet fell over the migration issue, but also to take the wind out of the sails of the parties on the right. ‘Migration has always existed,’ the program states, ‘and so does setting boundaries’.
Of course. Even if it just depends on how you set boundaries. Architecture as the art of setting boundaries offers an extremely suitable lens to map this. There are at least three architectural experiences that challenge the politics of the border.
Hardly any room for a bed
First of all, the intimate relationship between border and space. Man needs space, but demarcated space. Without walls, roofs, fences, hedges in all shapes and sizes, man cannot survive. The border thus creates potential: it marks a space that can be used for something. You can control the climate, regulate the light, and generate a certain level of comfort.
But boundaries can also limit the potential of space. A bedroom that can barely accommodate a bed is too small to serve as a living room (although that is often the only private space that families in asylum seeker centers have and even that is considered too luxurious by the VVD, I read in the election manifesto).
Another example: because Tiananmen Square in Beijing is so enormous, it paradoxically offers little room for political action. It simply doesn’t bring people close enough together.
The parliamentary hall of the House of Representatives, on the other hand, with its layout and with its wings and corridors that form the boundary between the hall and the rest of the building, is extremely suitable for political life. The hall offers space for formal debate, the border offers representatives the space to informally catch up with each other, negotiate and make agreements. Change the shape of the House, raise the outer border higher and that will have an effect on the political debate. The border affects what is enclosed.
Dangerous outside world
The second insight that architecture offers is the influence of the border on that which is excluded. The border discriminates: it distinguishes between here and there, inside and outside, accessible and inaccessible. For example, the wall of a house creates a pleasant indoor climate by keeping out wind, rain, excessive sunshine, freezing cold, deep darkness and uninvited guests. The comparison with the national border is easily made. In its programme, the VVD literally writes about the ‘dangerous outside world’ against which we must protect ‘our country’.
Beeld Colourbox
There is a downside to that. Borders all too quickly increase the disproportionality between the two sides. The clearest example of this is the gated community, which fortunately does not exist in an extreme form in the Netherlands. Within the walls of such a closed residential area there are beautiful houses on short-mown lawns and surrounded by water features. By the grace of the wall it is a nice place to be.
The wall gives a feeling of protection, but also stirs up fear of what is outside. So, as experience shows, that wall has to be higher and higher to maintain that protected feeling: there will be more cameras, more security guards at the gate. No resident simply ventures outside the wall, only in their own car. Paradise becomes a prison.
And the world beyond? It is populated by those who cannot afford life within its walls. They see the walls getting higher and their chances smaller. The higher the wall, the grimmer they become.
This insight also applies across national borders. The situation at Europe’s borders is becoming grimmer by the day and the interventions that ‘we’ must make to exclude this ‘danger’ are becoming increasingly drastic. The VVD writes: ‘The current commitment to guarding the EU’s external borders will be continued and expanded. Fences, drones and extra deployment of Frontex [de organisatie die de buitengrenzen van de EU bewaakt, red.] is not shunned.’
Farmers, citizens and outsiders met at the city wall
The third architectural insight is the double-sidedness of the border. English makes the interesting difference between boundary and border. The first is the border as the end point. So far and no further. What lies beyond is out of sight and out of reach. The border is a porous border that does not push worlds apart.
Although there was a city wall between the medieval city and its surroundings, they still belonged together. Everything was built against the wall on both sides, as well as on top of it: shops and workshops, homes and market stalls. In short, the wall was a place of trade and interaction, citizens, farmers and outsiders met in the city gates. A place of clapping and backbiting.
Or take the Old Testament command to landowners not to mow to the edges of the field. The grain and other goods that grew there were for people without land or who had lost their land, whether or not through their own fault. Land ownership was not absolute, the border is a zone that accommodates the care of outsiders and the underprivileged. Property comes with responsibility, not only for one’s own land and property, but also for one’s neighbor.
How do we residents of this country break the border?
These three architectural insights come together in the image of the border as an independent space, a zone of interaction between inside and outside, between those included and excluded. Providing this space is not only a humane task, but also a political challenge that is directly related to the vitality of democracy.
The VVD is concerned about the national border, but in times of increasing polarization, segregation and loneliness it is more urgent to ask ourselves how we can break through the borders that keep us apart as residents of this country. “Democracy is a way of life,” wrote the philosopher John Dewey in the 1910s. Democracy is not just a matter of votes, general considerations, party-political formations, but rather something that must take shape in everyday life.
It is therefore also an architectural issue: this way of life must be possible in the concrete space: in the city, on the sidewalk, in the park. How do you ensure that people from different population groups, with different educations and from different social classes do not lose sight of each other, but rather work together?
Balconies, galleries and hangouts
Hertzberger’s architecture provides an answer to this question. He did not draw his boundaries as hard and impenetrable, but as spacious and passable. They consist of stairs and stands, bridges and alcoves, balconies and wide galleries, public work and hanging areas. These border spaces offer the potential to see and be seen, to hear and be heard, to make contacts, to be surprised and addressed, as well as to be frustrated and threatened. These intermediate zones provide space for what philosopher Hannah Arendt called political life.
The boundaries and transitions in residential areas, workplaces, residential buildings, schools, libraries and streets are not neutral. The way they are designed affects political life. Whether you immediately get into your car from your front door or whether you have to walk around the block makes a difference. In the latter case, the border area between inside and outside, between house and car, is stretched and you run the risk of bumping into your neighbors.
The VVD does not write about these boundaries that nourish political life and make democracy resilient, including against ‘danger from outside’. When the border is discussed, it is not about interaction and humanity, nor about creating opportunities and reversing inequality, but only about protecting ‘our’ country, controlling access, and limiting opportunities.
These limits only apply to those who apparently take up too much space: nuisance asylum seekers, disadvantaged migrants, illegal immigrants and criminals. On the other hand, those who have the privilege of ‘being given space’ have nothing to fear from any border.
Also read:
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2023-10-20 15:54:04
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