S. (Sae) Matsuno, MA

Office Hours: Monday to Friday

Research Interests

Urban planning, architecture, history of everyday life, domestic cultures, group cultures.

Teaching

• In Period 1 in 2009 - 2010: ACVA
• In Period 1 in 2009 - 2010: a guest lecture for Major Architectural History

Research

From 01-11-2008 onwards: PhD research The City of Tomorrow in Development: Implementation of H.P. Berlage’s Plan Zuid and the Urbanization of Dutch Cities during the Interwar Period (1918-1940)

This PhD research examines the implementation of Plan Zuid, an urban extension plan for Amsterdam South during the interwar years. I will analyze the project’s significance as a test case for urban extension in Dutch cities by surveying its two important characteristics: 1) a social experiment by the municipality of Amsterdam and 2) development of a new housing market. Attention will also be paid to the project’s relation to the (inter)national urban policies of the time; Rotterdam, Vienna and Hamburg are taken as comparative case studies.

One of the main goals of implementing Plan Zuid was to improve the workers’ housing. The class division (the first- to the third-class housing) was thus introduced in H.P. Berlage’s second proposal (1915), and he designated approximately 75% of the housing area for the third class, following the ideal and policies of Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij. In the course of the years, however, the original plan was realized to a limited extent. In the 1920s and 1930s, Plan Zuid provided a new housing market mostly for the middle to upper-middle class residents. The questions that arise from this transformation: 1) When, why and how was their pursuit of social reform adapted to the political and economic realities, first in the 1920s, and then in the 1930s? 2) What were the initial intentions and strategies? 3) What problems occurred afterwards and how did the local authorities try to solve them? 4) What consequences did their decision-making bring to the following phases of the plan implementation? Exploring these questions, I will examine the spatial planning, housing development and domestic culture of Amsterdam South, and then compare them with those of Rotterdam, Vienna and Hamburg.

Publications

• ‘Jac Hurks, een architect met een bijzondere band met Roosendaal’, translated by Erlynn Pasenéa, Monumenten, Katern Roosendaal, Jg. 29 (2008), 15-17.
• ‘Het Amsterdams Lyceum van architect Herman Baanders, een poort naar de stad van morgen’, translated by Erlynn Pasenéa, to appear in Amstelodamum, Jg. 101 (2009).