The cultures of the Netherlands, Egypt, and Birmingham, Alabama (in the United States) vary greatly. Differing cities within each country had a unique view on sustainability, architecture, transportation, along with a myriad of other facets of modern civilization. In the Netherlands, the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Delft showed differences in infrastructure due to many factors, including history and geography, while maintaining a central focus on the prevailing cultural identity of the Netherlands. Cairo and Alexandria, in Egypt, also featured subtle differences due to the same factors. This review will detail the cultural milieu of the Netherlands and Egypt while comparing the countries' cities to each other and to Birmingham, Alabama.
Pragmatism and sensibility consume the atmosphere of everyday life in the Netherlands. A sense of camaraderie was built from the need to protect the land from the powerful seas (most of the Netherlands is under sea level) by building windmills to pump water back toward the ocean. This history has directly influenced Dutch culture and can be seen in the architecture of many of the cities in the Netherlands. Canals run through each major city in the Netherlands, connecting each city and giving water a means of which to travel back toward the ocean. Dutch innovation in the face of hardship can also be examined in Amsterdam architecture, where large hooks protrude from the tops of many of the buildings. Along with the protrusion of these hooks, most of these older Amsterdam buildings featured a characteristic “lean” towards the particular street that they face.
These two domineering characteristics of each Amsterdam building were present in order for individuals to lift heavy objects into homes and buildings for hundreds of years and is still used as a method to do the same thing today. The steep stairwells and narrow design of buildings in Amsterdam prevented people from simply carrying large objects directly into a building so the hooks at the top of each building were used as leverage and the characteristic lean in each building ensured that the object's sway, while being lifted, could not damage the building. In Rotterdam, buildings and architecture are more modern and feature a minimalist yet avant garde aesthetic. This change in design from Amsterdam is due mostly to the intense bombing of Rotterdam that occurred during the Second World War. This destruction forced the rebuilding of the city which is evident in the larger walking areas and taller buildings that Rotterdam has in relation to Amsterdam.
Rotterdam focuses on this history and continues to keep it as a visible part of its cultural identity by projecting film from WWII on a large billboard outside of the Central Station.
The make-up of the city of Delft largely is based on the university that lies therein, TU Delft. Even though this city features older architecture, such as that found in Amsterdam, TU Delft has created a hub of innovation and youth that permeates the city center.
Although there are a slew of differences between Birmingham, AL and the Netherlands, one of the greatest visible differences is the presence of reliable and diverse means of public transportation available in the Netherlands. The Netherlands features a very unique and extensive network of bike lane infrastructure in the city centers as well as the more rural areas and suburbs. The presence of trams, trains, and buses along with infrastructure geared toward traveling by bike throughout the country provides several reliable choices of transport for citizens. Also, the mostly flat topography of the country makes riding a bicycle for long distances very simple for the average person. There are also a large amount of charging stations for electric vehicles.
The Dutch culture is based primarily on pragmatic solutions rather than ideology. The aforementioned means of transportation and infrastructure are not only better for the environment but they are simple means of traversing large areas cheaply and effectively. This is the predominant attitude of the Dutch people, to determine solutions to problems that are practical, offering several pros to areas of efficiency, economy, and social structure.
Egypt is a country steeped in history and architectural/engineering knowledge. The engineering prowess of Egypt can be viewed throughout its history in the construction of the world famous pyramids, surrounding Cairo, to more modern structure such as the state-of-the-art library/museum in Alexandria.
The cultural makeup of Egypt is about as diverse as the Netherlands where Cairo features a more sprawling and huge urban landscape and Alexandria is indicative of a more Mediterranean culture with its proximity to the Mediterranean sea and countries such as Italy.
One major difference between Egypt and the Netherlands are the modes of public transportation and the problems with traffic and congestion that are more visible in Egypt. Cairo and Alexandria were also visibly more congested than the cities in the Netherlands, possibly due to geography moreso than anything else. The Nile river is a source of resources, energy, and life that civilization has built itself around.
Egypt, in general, is a more old-fashioned and conservative country than the Netherlands with a large amount of architecture dating back for centuries. There is a much smaller occurrence of electrical vehicles and alternative fuel options for energy use as well compared to the Netherlands. The mesh of old and modern methods of transportation is clearly evident in Cairo, where one can witness someone transporting produce on a horse drawn cart and large trucks transporting similar goods within close vicinity of each other.
One aspect of civilization that the Netherlands and Egypt feature the greatest chasm between is the architecture of both nations. Egypt's beautiful architecture features dome ceilings and other passive methods of cooling due to high temperatures. The architecture also dates back further in history than most places in the world and features many ornate and ostentatious displays that further accent the social milieu of Egypt and the Islamic culture. The mosques feature beautiful edifices and stone facades and many buildings show several spires that protrude from their respective footprints. More modern Egyptian architecture can be viewed in Cairo and Alexandria as well, but the dominant view of urban architecture that is evident is the use of single air conditioning units for each window of residential dwellings. Many apartment and residential structures feature balconies and air conditioning units for each apartment unit. The architecture in Egypt is much more vibrant and colorful than the majority of buildings that were witnessed in the Netherlands. Egypt's brilliantly colored buildings seem to reflect the festive leanings of the culture and are far removed from the drab, postmodernist architecture of many of the buildings in Rotterdam, for example.
Overall, Egypt is a nation that is determining a route towards sustainability and although Egypt does not yet have many of the advancements that the Netherlands features as far as sustainable design is concerned, Egypt has a long track record of sustainable architectural activity as evidenced in its history and approach to sustainability from a completely different practical standpoint, similar to the Netherlands.
In visiting these two countries, it's clear that sustainable design is not a new and innovative method for guiding the creation of new infrastructure in large cities. The Netherlands and Egypt have been implementing sustainable practices for generations and there respective pushes toward “greener” infrastructure vacillate between innovation and the perpetuation of tried and true methods implemented long ago. Both cultures are rich in the creation of innovative engineering and design throughout their respective histories and it is important to determine which of the characteristics of these places best mirror that of American cities, Birmingham, Alabama in the case of this study away opportunity, and apply each nation's respective methods of sustainable design to our own. It is clear that the most advanced and convoluted technologies do not always make for a better and more efficient experience. Sometimes, more traditional methods of infrastructure, such as the cobblestone roads in Amsterdam or the dome ceilings in Cairo, make for a more agile and malleable infrastructure that can evolve with the ever-changing tides of human behavior.
For this reason, both cultures are especially good case studies for the need for infrastructure management and sustainability. Birmingham would benefit best from paying attention to the shortcomings of each culture, where sustainability is concerned, and focusing on what not to do as well as focusing on a broader approach to sustainability that ignores ideology and embraces a more holistic frame of thought. I, personally, experienced the myopic thought processes of the usual dialogue that concerns sustainability in Birmingham while in the Netherlands. These processes, as presented by our own group, ignored social and cultural instabilities in Birmingham and focused on more abstract and ideological “solutions” to sustainability which included solutions that made no sense for our own problems, such as the desire to start cheese farms or other niche groups in Birmingham. This obviously does not solve or contribute to solutions for some of Birmingham's most pressing problems. Birmingham would benefit from a bottom-up approach to sustainable design by including the concerns and thoughts of Birmingham's public and, as mentioned earlier, applying a more holistic approach to sustainability. The Netherlands and Egypt both have issues with their respective infrastructures that prevent further innovations in sustainable design in the short term, such as the ubiquitous congestion and pollution issues in Egypt's larger cities and the waning innovations in clean energy production that the Netherlands is currently experiencing. If Birmingham can learn from the shortcomings and the triumphs that both Egypt and the Netherlands have both experienced, then Birmingham would be more poised for success.