Handsome double-wide brick buildings line the Herengracht's banks, their corniced façades reflected on the water's surface. Interspersed among the new homes are spaces, like gaps in a young child's smile, where vacant lots have yet to be developed.
For the Dutch architect Koen Olthuis, the painting serves as a reminder that much of his country has been built on top of the water. The Netherlands (whose name means "low countries") lies in a delta where three major rivers-the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldtmeet the open expanse of the North Sea.
More than a quarter of the country sits below sea level. Over hundreds of years, the Dutch have struggled to manage their sodden patchwork of land. Beginning in the fifteenth century, the country's windmills were used to pump water out of the ground using the hydraulic mechanism known as Archimedes' screw.
Parcels of land were buffered with raised walls and continuously drained, creating areas, which the Dutch call "polders," that were dry enough to accommodate farming or development. The grand townhouses along Amsterdam's canals, as emblematic of the city as Haussmann's architecture is of Paris, were constructed on thousands of wooden stilts driven into unstable mud. As Olthuis told me recently, "The Netherlands is a complete fake, artificial machine.
"The threat of water overtaking the land is so endemic to the Dutch national psyche that it has inspired a mythological predator, the Waterwolf. In a 1641 poem that coined the name, the Dutch poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel exhorted the "mill wings of the wind pumps to "shut down this animal."
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 01, 2024 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 01, 2024 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
THE SPACE BETWEEN
\"Janet Planet.\" The first time we meet Janet in \"Janet Planet,\" a wondrous début feature from the celebrated playwright Annie Baker, she is standing on a rural road a little way from the camera.
LABOR PAINS
Lucy Kirkwood's \"The Welkin\" assesses women's work.
OFFLINE
Lizzy McAlpine on the power and pitfalls of viral fame.
HEAT RISING
The era of the line cook.
UNSHATTERED
How the philosopher Charles Taylor would reënchant the world.
THE PLAGUE DOCTOR
Anthony Fauci on what's ailing America.
the buggy RODDY DOYLE
There were people at the far end of the beach. Some adults, a lot of children.
GHOSTS ON THE WATER
Glass eels are mysterious creatures—and worth a fortune to those who catch them.
THE CRACKDOWN
Fighting drug gangs, a young President declares war within his own country.
SMALL WONDER
How will nanomachines change our lives?