1975-2001: Dutch History Photo Commissions > Life in post-war neighbourhoods
Exhibition: 1986-1987
After the war, the housing shortage was public enemy number one. Extensive building projects were devised to get rid of the shortage. But over the years ideas about house-building changed fundamentally, causing the post-war neighbourhoods to be all very different. In the sixties building costs went up, a reason to look for cheaper and faster construction techniques. Modular construction was the solution. Because of increasing affluence in the course of the seventies the focus shifted from cheap and fast to quality and diversity. Frugality and pragmatism returned with the economic recession in the eighties.
Photographers Theo Baart and Cary Markerink were commissioned to capture life in the post-war neighbourhoods in the eighties. Baart did this by focusing on the resident's daily life and the interaction between residents and their living environment. Markerink highlights the relationship between architecture and the daily use of buildings by their occupants.
