For almost a decade the former gasworks in the west of Amsterdam (Westergasfabriek) had hosted all manner of cultural activities in and around its buildings. What was originally regarded as a 'temporary stopgap' has now become permanent. Gracing the former grounds is a breathtaking 14-hectare park to a design by the American landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson. The monumental 19th-century buildings designed by Isaac Gosschalk have been carefully restored. The Westergasfabriek can rightfully bear the name of cultural park - a park over which local residents have fought for decades. Westergasfabriek Cultural Park charts all these developments. The project is placed in the context of recycling former docklands and industrial areas. Lavishly illustrated, the book describes the history of the gasworks up to and including the often high-profile 'temporary stopgaps' of the '90s. The plans and designs for the park and the buildings are exhaustively documented with a separate chapter devoted to the exceptional forms of 'cultural enterprise' in the gasworks grounds.
The closing chapter enters into the quintessential condition for the success of complicated projects of this order, namely a flexible process that can respond to unexpected developments when only the contours of the end-result are known.
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