'The New Tradition' is an architectural reorientation on traditionalism. This reorientation is beginning to take place, both in construction practice and in architectural criticism and history.

Since the mid-nineteen nineties new approaches have arisen in architecture, urban construction and landscape architecture, in which continuity and building on tradition are central. The way in which such approaches relate to context, tradition and history is unmistakably contemporary, even though the results sometimes look like something we’ve seen before.

Contemporary traditionalism
This publication examines the scale and the significance (from both a historical and a contemporary perspective) of contemporary traditionalism. Through a number of general themes, the book presents a way of thinking, a perspective on houses, neighbourhoods, villages, suburbs, cities and landscapes.

'Traditional' architects
The book deals not only with the work of prominent architect and offices such as Sjoerd Soeters, Scala, Molenaar & van Winden, Krier & Kohl and Mulleners & Mulleners, but also with architects who are less often in the limelight, such as Diederik Six, Friso Woudstra, Peter Verschuren and Pim Hienkens.


This publication has been made possible through funding by the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

Vincent van Rossem works for the Office of Cultural Heritage in Amsterdam (Bureau Monumentenzorg) and is an expert on the work of C. van Eesteren. He also wrote about the work of Rob Krier in The Hague, H.P. Berlage’s plan for Amsterdam and on the post war urban areas.

Hans Ibelings is chief editor and founder of A10, Magazine for New European Architecture. Alongside  he became a specialist in writing architects monographs. In 2004 he wrote a book on contemporary traditional architecture in the Netherlands.

Photo: Hans Ibelings (left) and Vincent van Rossem, photographer: Roel Backaert