The urbanization of Sub-Saharan Africa

Another day, another diagram. This time about urbanisation in sub-saharan countries. Since I visited Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania I am fascinated by urbanization processes in African countries. In most cases cities grow predominantly without any form of city planning and zoning regulation, the so called 'informal urbanization'. The dashed circle is the total population per country (the African countries with less than 9 million inhabitants are left out). The smaller circle inside is the urban population; people living in cities. The segment in red is the amount of people living in slums according to UN. Although statistics on urbanisation in Africa are generally rather unreliable it gives a good indication on how precarious these cities actually are. Keep in mind that the African cities are expected to mushroom over the next decades. Also important to realize is that the qualification 'slum' is somewhat relative. 

Diagram for piracy policies in the Netherlands

For my friend Bastiaan Vader I created today this diagram on the relationship among the different stakeholders involved in the struggle against piracy off the coast of Somalia. The diagram shows only the actors involved in the process in the Netherlands. Very interesting and difficult issue! Let's hope this diagram make this more clear.

Functionalism in Rotterdam 1927-1937

The city of Rotterdam is in the Netherlands famous for its modernist/functionalist architecture. Especially  between  1927 and 1937 a lot of buildings were realize in the style of the so called 'Nieuwe Zakelijkheid' (Dutch translation of the German term Neue Sachlichkeit). A group of progressive architects such as Johannes Duiker, Cornelis van Eesteren en Leendert van der Vlugt organized meetings and published a magazine called "De 8 & Opbouw", a collaboration between architects and engineers form both Rotterdam and Amsterdam. They played an important role in de CIAM congres of 1929.
An important player for the city of Rotterdam was J.J.P Oud, who designed in 1927 the functionalist housing project in the coast village of Hoek van Holland. The houses had were white plastered, and had the characteristic horizontal windows, typical for early modernist houses. But the most important architect in Rotterdam was without any doubt Leenderd van der Vlugt. His most famous buildings are the Van Nelle factory, a project that was finished in 1928 in collaboration with Jan Brinkman (son of Michel Brinkman) and Mart Stam.
Very important for the development of high-rise apartment buildings is the Bergpolderflat. The design was made in close collaboration between Brinkman & Van der Vlugt and W. van Tijen. The building was very important for the development of post-war high-rise social housing projects.
Despite the heavy bombing of Rotterdam in May 1940 by the Nazi air force, most of these functionalist masterpieces remain intact today. One exception is the Bijenkorf, a large department store at the Coolsingel designed by W.M. Dudok. The remarkable building was hit by a bomb and after the war the remains were destroyed.
The building activity before WWII came to and end with the construction of the Feyenoord Soccer Stadium. What is is interesting about the building activity in the Interbellum is the lasting influence these buildings had in the Dutch post-war architecture.