I think it looks really nice but alluded to in the article is the spectre of people who thought they were doing something equally innovative in the 1950s and we now have large brutalist city centres that are much lamented.
There are plenty of buildings that look amazing when they are first built (or even worse when they are simply drawn) but give it 5 years, some water staining, a few unruly residents etc....
I don't want to be negative because I often wonder about much better living environments/thinking but I think that the social side of things is often overlooked (at least in the UK) so that affordable housing in my friends new estate meant drug dealers and large white vans parked up and down her small road next to her nice house. You don't want to be a snob but when you work hard to afford a nice place to live, you also don't want to be imposed upon by those who aren't so bothered about their community.
Its not made clear in the article but Almere is exactly one of these Brutalist cities. Its only since the late 90s or early 2000s they built the new 'city centre' which is an architects wonderland to start overcoming its monotony. There's still huge expanses of fairly simple, cheap, robust and boring 70s housing. This is close to the train station [0] and a typical suburban street [1]. Regardless of the buildings the Netherlands is the world leader in street design which makes this slightly less bleak than others of a similar era.
Not 1950s, but 1970s; Lelystad. They did not mention this at all in the article, which is quite a miss. Lelystad was the earlier experiment, a bit more up north in Flevoland. It is not growing anymore because some parts have failed and not many people move there anymore. Housing is still quite cheap, even now. Some neighbourhoods are quite good neighbourhoods, some are just awful with many residents living on wellfare, many people into drugs, etcetera. They didn't plan for mixing different cultures and classes in society, they planned for somewhat segregated neighbourhoods, which was a wrong choice. If there is a city in the Netherlands where you can guess income and status from the postal code, Lelystad is the place.
We still have to see what will happen to Almere, Almere Haven is just 30 years old. Not all parts there are good :) It is often 30 or 40 years, that a neighbourhood can go from good to bad, at least that is usual in the Netherlands.
No love for the roads, but many of those brutalist buildings in Birmingham are considered masterpieces of architecture. That's why they are listed. And I can't think of one from before 1960, either.
In particular, the floating houses they show. Not sure how that scales (or if we want it to scale) and for sure that is going to be an expensive maintenance option.
There are plenty of buildings that look amazing when they are first built (or even worse when they are simply drawn) but give it 5 years, some water staining, a few unruly residents etc....
I don't want to be negative because I often wonder about much better living environments/thinking but I think that the social side of things is often overlooked (at least in the UK) so that affordable housing in my friends new estate meant drug dealers and large white vans parked up and down her small road next to her nice house. You don't want to be a snob but when you work hard to afford a nice place to live, you also don't want to be imposed upon by those who aren't so bothered about their community.