Plan Van Niftrik

nr. 010035000002 It was in October 1866 that the city engineer Jacob van Niftrik submitted his plans for the extension of Amsterdam to the alderman responsible for the Department of Public Works. This grand plan was set out on a general map measuring some three by four metres. The smaller map we see here was done a few months later. The city fathers commissioned the publisher Loman to print two hundred maps, on condition that the city retained ownership of the entire edition.

The Van Niftrik Plan

In the second half of the nineteenth century a number of initiatives were undertaken aimed at modernizing and expanding the city. The town council realized that the time had come for them to come up with an integral plan for the extension of the city, and in 1866 they awarded the commission to the city engineer J. G. van Niftrik.

Features of the plan

Among the most striking features of the plan were:
  • the concentric extension, in effect a continuation of that carried out in the seventeenth century, when the canals were laid out;
  • the separation of residential and working areas;
  • considerable space reserved for green areas, although much less than available in the old city;
  • the checkerboard pattern in the neighbourhoods destined for workers and tradespeople;
  • the star-shaped squares in the residential areas for the wealthy;
  • the central station in the south, as a counterpart to the economic activity centring around the harbours in the north;
  • the broad streets and large squares.

A new plan

Van Niftrik also had very definite ideas on how best to realize the extension. In his view, a generous expropriation law was needed if the scheme was to be a success. Only then would the town council be able to realize the avenues and squares as outlined in the plan. However, the plan proved too expensive, and in the end it was rejected by the town council. The plan submitted by J. Kalff, the director of Public Works, several years later was approved. In several respects it was less radical than Van Niftrik’s plan, and also cheaper. It formed the point of departure for the nineteenth-century extension as it was ultimately carried out.

Townplan, J.G. van Niftrik, 1866

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