WORLD HERITAGE SITE : DE BEEMSTER

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I tried to visit the World Heritage Sites as many as possible. But sometimes I forget to take a look the sites in my neighbourhood. I have found out that the Netherlands has seven world heritage sites, six are in the country and one is in Curacao, South America. So I decided that I will visit at least the six sites from now on.

The first site I have visited last Saturday (16 May) was de Beemster in the north of Holland. It used to be a lake called Beemster and in the early 17th century was reclamated into more than 7 thousand hectares. It was declared as a world heritage sites in 1999 as an example of man-made creative masterpiece to enable its inhabitants to live about 3,5 below the sea level. It took 43 windmills to drain the lake between 1607-1612. It was a giant's step forward in man's relationship with water. The success of reclamation of Beemster Lake has inspired many other reclamations both in Holland and abroad since that century.


The land was divided into symetrical and perfect squares. Farmhouses were built in a typical style of the area where all functional rooms were under one piramidal shaped roof. Country houses were also built with rythmically arranged facades and symmetrically laid-out gardens.



De Beemster was a mirror of the Dutch Golden Age and through ups and downs, it is relatively intact until today. The ring canal, the allotments and the townstructures of Middenbeemster and Westbeemster remain the same. The structure of perfect squares and quadrants has endured through the centuries and can be seen to this very day.

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