NovaTerra / jaargang 4 / nummer 1 / april 2004 / 35

jan klerks van de stichting hoogbouw

bericht over een thema omtrent hoog-
bouw in relatie tot meervoudig ruimte-
gebruik

Photo: Peter Hilz/Hollandse Hoogte

The wonderful ‘Hague Height’

Over the years quite a number of Dutch towns and cities have produced guidance on tall buildings.
Some of these are small towns, like Zwijndrecht (about 42,000 inhabitants) and Veendam (about
30,000), which are still in their high-rise infancy. While height is a relative concept, one can seriously
question whether these towns need such a document. Rotterdam and The Hague, of course, can make
a much more convincing case for having a tall buildings policy.

Frank van der Hoeven, TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture / Illustrations: Frank van der Hoeven

The development of high-rise urban areas is more strongly rooted
in their past, they have experienced greater development pressures
in recent years and most of their tall buildings are more than 50
metres high. But a closer look at the policies the larger Dutch cities
have in place leads us to question whether they are robust enough
to guide the development of high-rise urban areas.
Take The Hague’s policy for high-rise buildings (the Hoogbouwvisie)
as an example. Our analysis of this policy and developments on the
ground reveals that recent and future developments in the city are
moving in a different direction from that stated in the city’s policy.
The Hague’s policy is so far off the mark, it makes you wonder
what went wrong. Is the city unable to produce a policy document
of substance? Or has their document been distorted by political
compromises? And why did a professional organisation like The
Hague’s urban planning department decide to hide behind the
myth of a non-existent ‘Hague Height’? Although we cannot
answer these questions, we can take a detailed look at the
underlying issues. Y
NovaTerra / jaargang 4 / nummer 1 / april 2004 / 36
three main components
The Hague’s tall building policy is built around three main
components: the building heights in the city, the high-rise
developments in the different city districts, and possible future
developments. In this respect the document speaks about a distinct
‘Hague Height’ Haagse Hoogte): a typical building height between
50 and 70 metres that used to characterise the city’s skyline.
The policy gives a number of reasons why buildings did not exceed
this height. One reason is that older policies prohibited building
higher than 70 metres in the historic city centre, defined by a
strategic view from De Plaats, a square near the old Parliament
buildings. Another reason was the need to maintain an open
corridor along the Utrechtse Baan (Beatrixkwartier) for the
transmission of telecommunication signals. Both restrictions have
since been lifted. This is reflected in the new official tall buildings
policy, which permits buildings over 100 metres in this area, but
the policy still rules out the construction of buildings between 70
and 100 metres in the interest of preserving the integrity of the
established skyline in the historic city centre. The city cherishes
its ‘Hague Height’. The policy document even includes a full page
sketch of the city centre skyline to emphasise the point.
The intention is noble. There is one problem, though. When we take
a look at the actual heights of tall buildings in The Hague, there is
no such thing as a typical ‘Hague Height’ – at least not between
50 and 70 metres. There are several databases on tall buildings
available on the Internet, most notably the listings at
Skyscrapers.com (www.emporis.com/en), Skyscrapercity
(www.skyscrapercity.info) and The Hague Highrise
(www.hooghaags.nl). According to these sites, in 2001, the year
The Hague published its high-rise policy, the city already had eight
(rather prominent) buildings between 70 and 100 metres high, one
building was under construction and three more buildings in this
range were proposed. In the same year The Hague had only one tall
building over 100 metres, with three under construction and four
others proposed. How is it possible that this policy document is
so off the mark? An official document like this must have been
reviewed by the city’s planning officers, external experts and the
city council. How could they have approved it when it contains such
inconsistencies? Or are the on-line databases mentioned above
incorrect? In fact, the databases do use different definitions of
‘building height’: some databases take what we would consider the
true building height, the roof height; others take the structural height,
the height that can be artificially increased by the use of spires or
other ornamental elements. When faced with a choice of heights
we took the lowest value, the roof height, to be on the safe side.
Closer examination reveals some simple reasons why this policy
document does not present a true and comprehensive picture. To
start with, the document does not give a clear definition of high-
rise or tall buildings, which is a serious weakness. What is the value
of a policy document that fails to give a definition of what the
policy is about? Second, the document should contain an up-to-
date list of the existing and planned tall buildings above 50 meters
within the city boundaries, because those are the objects subject
to the guidance. Readers could then draw their own conclusions.
Although a list is the most common way to display this kind of
information, we made a scatterplot to give a clearer picture.
A scatterplot is a simple but efficient way to display the relation
between two types of quantitative data connected to a certain
number of objects.
height and time
Armed with data on the height and year of construction of the
tall buildings in The Hague, we plotted a graph of height (y axis)
against time (x axis). By including buildings under construction and
proposed buildings we created something like a timeline for high-
rise development in The Hague. This revealed that the development
of tall buildings in The Hague started in the late 1960s and
remained relatively constant for two to three decades thereafter.
Then, in the mid 1990s, building heights rose sharply, almost
doubling in less than a decade. The diagram clearly shows that
there is a context and a rationale for a strategic planning guidance
on tall buildings in The Hague.
We also coloured the scatterplot to represent the different height
categories identified by the municipality. First, we coloured the
buildings in the Hague Height of 50-70 metres, starting in 1969 and
continuing until the present day. Then we gave a different colour
to the dots in the new height range of 100-140 metres, starting in
1998, the year the first tall building over 100 metres was completed
(Castalia, 104 metres). As a first step this looks promising, but many
of the dots remain uncoloured. This is because the height ranges
used in The Hague’s tall buildings policy explain only part of what
is going on in the city.
If we want to develop a more comprehensive picture we should
first raise the ‘Hague Height’ to 80 metres, which encompasses
most of the buildings built before the mid-nineties. Next we have
to raise the upper limit of the other category from 140 to 150
metres, since the first building in that category, the Hoftoren
(2003), is 142 metres and the designs for the new Ministry of the
Interior and the Ministry of Justice buildings (planned for
completion in 2008) are both 146 metres. At the same time we
can raise the lower value of that range up to 120 metres. A clear
frontrunner group of six tall buildings now emerges, with a
dividing line between 110 and 120 metres that separates them from
the rest. This leaves us with some remaining dots. We can account
for these by assuming a third height category ranging from 80 to
120 metres, which emerged in the late 1990s.
NovaTerra / jaargang 4 / nummer 1 / april 2004 / 37

Left
Scatterplot tall buildings in
The Hague.
Right
Height categories coloured.

Left
Height categories adjusted.
Right
Third category introduced.

So, instead of two height categories (50-70 and 100-140 metres)
we may in fact be dealing with three categories (50-80, 80-120 and
120-150 metres). Although the scatterplot analysis makes this idea
look plausible, we would have a stronger case if we could verify this
observation. The way to do this is to combine the building heights
with the local topography and draw a map showing the location
of all the tall buildings in the city and colour in the municipal high-
rise zones. This allows us to establish whether the current and
future tall buildings fit into the zones or not. If not, we have to
construct an alternative zoning based on the patterns of the
existing and planned tall buildings in the city and submit this new
zoning to a similar test.
To start with, we mapped the high-rise zones according to The
Hague’s policy. Although the Hoogbouwvisie deals with two height
categories, 50-70 metres and 100-140 metres, it uses four different
colours to indicate where tall buildings would be appropriate.
In our drawings we reduced this unnecessary complexity back to
two levels. This reveals that the city’s largest transit hub, Central
Station, is the core element in the zoning: a crescent-shaped zone Y
NovaTerra / jaargang 4 / nummer 1 / april 2004 / 38

Left
Zoning in The Hague according tot he tall building policy.
Right
Tall buildings between 50m and 70m.

Left
Tall buildings between 70m and 100m and above 140m.
Right
Tall buildings between 100m and 140m.

Left
New outline capturing the The Hague high-rise urban area.
Right
Tall buildings between 50m and 80m.

Left
Tall buildings between 80m and 120m.
Right
Tall buildings over 120m.
NovaTerra / jaargang 4 / nummer 1 / april 2004 / 39
around the station is suitable for buildings between 100 and
140 metres tall. A secondary area adjacent to this high-rise zone
extends west to the city centre and south-east to the
Beatrixkwartier. These secondary areas are suitable for buildings
between 50 and 70 metres tall. Two ellipse-shaped areas mark
the strategic gateways to the city centre and can accommodate
buildings between 100 and 140 metres tall.
tall building policy tot the test
By constructing three simple maps we can put the The Hague’s
tall building policy to the test. The first shows the 50-70 metre
high-rise zone and all existing and planned buildings between 50
and 70 metres high. The second shows the zone and the buildings
between 100 and 140 metres tall. The third shows all the buildings
that do not fit into either category (70-100 metres and over 140
metres). What do we see?
First, the official policy fails to capture the developments in the
Laakhaven area near the Holland Spoor transit hub. A substantial
number of buildings in the range 50-70 metres have been built
here recently in conflict with the city’s zoning policy. The zone for
100-140 metre buildings does contain all existing and planned
buildings except one: Castalia. But these are just minor issues.
The real problem with the policy lies in the other categories:
buildings between 70 and 100 metres and the buildings above 140
metres. They should be absent in the city. The municipal council’s
policy clearly states that buildings in the 70-100 metre category
are unwanted because they disturb the skyline of the historic core,
and that the maximum height in the city is fixed at 140 metres.
Consequently, the tall building policy does not provide zones for
these categories. But the reality is different. We find a very
substantial number of buildings in these categories, most of them
concentrated in the current high-rise urban area.
As a second test we can perform a similar analysis with the
categories we identified earlier: under 80 metres, 80-120 metres
and over 120 metres. But before doing so we felt it necessary to
adjust the city’s zoning. We drew a new outline for the high-rise
urban area by using as few angles as possible and enclosing the
smallest possible area, while respecting the local topography and
capturing as many tall buildings as we could. We wanted to define
a simple but comprehensive zone. The result is two high-rise urban
areas centred around the city’s main transit hubs: Holland Spoor
and Central Station. These areas are Laakhaven-Holland Spoor-
Stationsbuurt and Centrum-Central Station-Beatrixkwartier.
We can adjust these new high-rise zones by locating the buildings
belonging to the three height categories we want to put to the
test. Buildings in the 50-80 metres range can be found throughout
both high-rise zones – and there is no problem with this. Buildings
in the 80-120 metres range are remarkably scarce. If the
municipality wants to maintain a certain height range free of
buildings: this would be the one. The 80-120 metres range is much
less cluttered with buildings than the 70-100 metres range. Finally,
buildings over 120 metres tall are tightly clustered around the
transit hubs themselves; we can carve out the adjacent high-rise
urban areas to accommodate them.
In the end, it does not seem too complicated to devise a model
that describes what is going on in a city in terms of high-rise urban
development. But it may look easier than it is. If we had not tested
our approach extensively for Rotterdam we would not have felt
confident enough to present the analysis in this article. Less than
80 metres, 80-120 metres and over 120 metres is a division that
works remarkably well in the south-western part of the Randstad.
It works better then the categories the cities themselves use.
safeguarding spatial quality
But is this all? The Hague municipal council has not developed
any criteria for safeguarding spatial quality and quality of life in
the city. The Hoogbouwvisie leaves us in the dark on how to deal
with matters like sustainability, the quality of architectural design
or the relation between tall buildings and public space. Since the
Hoogbouwvisie does not do a good job on building heights and
zoning and does not present guidance on quality issues, we feel
that it will not be very effective at all. What the document needs is
a thorough update. Although we might have painted a rather grim
picture, we do not feel we face a ‘mission impossible’. The tall
buildings in The Hague are much more international, diverse and
beyond modernism than similar buildings in Rotterdam. They are
also closely connected to the main transit hubs and to the city
centre and are not randomly located. Clearly, the city council must
have strong policies in this area. But for some strange reason it has
not stated them in its policy document. Why not?
For reactions: hoeven@nova-terra.net. Z