It is not a building or house that is the most important structure in the Netherlands, but fourteen dams and flood defenses that together form the Delta Works. A beautifully designed book tells the history of this technical ingenuity.
At first glance it looked like a cable car that takes you to the top of the mountain during winter sports. Only there were no skiers and snowboarders here, but huge concrete blocks that fell into the water with a splash to build the Grevelingendam. Because that is how part of this Delta work was built.
Despite the fact that a cable broke during the construction of the cable car, the whole functioned well and the Grevelingendam opened in 1965. After that, the famous cable car was removed, except for a small part that can still be seen. It is now a tribute to the remarkable way of building. The Grevelingendam is part of the Delta Works. They were built after the 1953 flood disaster, which gave their construction a major boost.
Egyptian stringed instrument
A total of fourteen new dams and flood defenses now protect our country against storm surges and major floods. All projects are discussed one by one in the new book that simply The Delta Works is called. It starts at the Algerakering, which was built between 1954 and 1958, and ends at the Maeslantkering, which was put into use in 1997. It was written by Marinke Steenhuis. She is a master teacher at Wageningen University and specialized in landscape architecture. She also worked on the book The Port of Rotterdam , which Kennislink discussed earlier.
Of course there is a lot of attention for the showpieces, including the Haringvlietdam between Voorne-Putten and Goeree-Overflakkee. One of the most interesting parts of this is the nabal beams. These are named after an Egyptian stringed instrument that has the same shape. But of course no music comes from the beams of the Haringvlietdam. They are not even visible, because they are built into the pillars (the poles on which a bridge rests).
The traffic road rests on the nabla beams, so you drive over them when you cross the Haringvliet. Without reading this in the book, I would never have known about their existence, nor did I know the interesting story behind them. Also beautiful is the attention to drowned Zeeland towns in this book, which lie on the seabed due to the many floods. They are silent witnesses of the great water suffering in the region.
Stunning footage
While reading you will gain even more admiration for the men and women who worked on these showpieces of Dutch hydraulic engineering. Such large structures to keep the water out had never been made before. The engineers therefore worked smart. First they built the smaller delta works to gain experience. If they knew more about whether a certain approach worked well, they only applied it to another Delta project. The interviews in this book with researchers who conceived and constructed the Delta Works are also well illustrated.
But that is not the case with everything covered in this book. Here and there the authors could have written it a bit more sparkling. The book also gets off to a slow start, because it starts with the first Delta Works, and they weren't that spectacular. Moreover, there is not much attention for criticism. There has been resistance from Zeeland, including against the impact of the Delta Works on the environment, but there is little to read about this in this book. It is touched on, but it doesn't quite come out well. That's a shame:more and more diverse voices would make this book even more beautiful and relevant than it already is.
Despite these critical comments, this book is highly recommended. It contains a lot of information and the visuals are stunning. It is richly filled with photos, drawings and blueprints. It has all been brought together in an excellent and well-arranged way. Since I've read the book, I've driven over a Deltawerk several times and I now see a lot more interesting things, such as a part of the funicular that isn't a real funicular after all, than before.