ABSTRACT

Probably the largest urban park created anywhere in the twentieth century, the Amsterdamse Bos – Amsterdam Forest – was conceived in the 1920s and formed an integral part of the General Expansion Plan for Amsterdam, 1935. Like much of the landscape of The Netherlands, it is completely human-made. Indeed, the fundamental concept of an urban forest could be construed as an oxymoron. Construction commenced in the 1930s under a work creation programme and was largely executed through manual labour assisted only by horses. This has left ‘an emotional bond between the people of Amsterdam and “their” wood . . . many Amsterdammers remember how their father or grandfather – or even they themselves – dug with their own hands the regatta course’ (Daalder 1999: 19). The symbolic final tree was planted in 1970.