The Bijlmermeer (Bijlmer for short) is an area within the Amsterdam-Zuidoost district. The area, developed between 1966 and 1975, is mostly known for its 12,500 flats; 11-storey gallery apartments situated in park-like surroundings forming hexagonal patterns. Elevated roads and centralised car parks kept the areas free of traffic, covered walkways would bring residents to their cars and homes. While initially and on paper this design sounded great (in the beginning the project even knew waiting lists), in practice, it didn't work out for various reasons. Not only did people decide to rather move to single-family houses in e.g. Lelystad and Purmerend instead of these flats, lack of public facilities (the buildings were ready way before shops, public transport etc. were put in place) made things even worse for potential owners. Add to that the much higher costs of maintenance, budget cuts, the feeling of unsafety in the public areas, and the high crime rate, and it is no wonder the whole thing started to deteriorate even before it got well under way. By 1985, one in four homes was unoccupied…

After some small scale projects to improve the quality of life in the Bijlmer between 1975 and 1990, it was decided to start a structural renovation of the whole area in 1992. This renovation included demolishing many of the high-rise flat blocks and replacing them with other forms of housing. The flats that were kept would be heavily renovated, fixing their shortcomings. Traffic was returned to ground level again, integrating it more with the rest of the area. We are now almost at the end of this renovation so it is about time we had a look at the results.

Walking through the Bijlmer, I was quite pleasantly surprised by the nice architecture and of how well everything looked, even after a few years of use. Almost as if artist’s impressions had come to life. This I reflected in the resulting images by giving them a “painterly” look.