3 Spatial qualities The Amsterdam Defence Line is UNESCO World Heritage
Green city Amsterdam is a green city and has devoted a great deal of attention to greenery in urban planning since the early 20th century. In the General Extension Plan (1935) by Cornelis van Eesteren, green space was one of the structuring elements. Besides a rich tradition of creating and landscaping parks, there has always been plenty of consideration for integrating the city into the landscape. To the north, for example, there is a sharply defined boundary between the city and Waterland, a centuries-old tract of reclaimed peat meadows. By contrast, built-up areas protrude into the green areas like fingers to the west, south and southeast. Amsterdam’s urban form could be described as a ‘finger plan’, like the exdevelopment separated and surrounded accessible and provide large areas of reinhabitants and visitors. The former tended fingers of a hand, with lobes of by wedges of green space that are easily creational space for Amsterdam’s defence line circling through the region is now a connecting element between these wedges. 23 Ditches determine the landscape’s texture