*Celebrating Spatial Planning at TU Delft: 2008-2019. Edited by Stead, Bracken, Rooij & Rocco

106 Spatial Planning & Strategy
History and Heritage
Dimensions of SPS
CAROLA HEIN, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING, DEPARTMENT OF
ARCHITECTURE, BOUWKUNDE.
Fig. 67: Rashid Ayoubi, a student in the
MSc2 Studio Architecture and Urbanism
Beyond Oil led by HAUP, provided a most
critical and dystopian interpretation of
Energy Landscapes in 2019, when we
focused on the city of Dunkirk in Northern
France where local refineries have closed.
He imagined a past and future where four
‘companies’— Oil Arch, GreenLeaf, Every
Drop Matters, MADInc. — created a giant
mountain over an abandoned refinery for
the production of the last drops of oil.
While the refinery satisfies the society’s
needs for petroleum as a component in
medicine, this hidden back end serves
the people of Dunkirk, who use the global
container trade and additional green energies
to devote themselves to superfluous
consumption and play.
Long before coming to TU Delft
in 2014, I was familiar with the
internationally recognised
publications of Vincent Nadin,
and other scholars in the Section
of Spatial Planning and Strategy
(SPS) at TU Delft. Shortly after my
appointment as Chair of History of
Architecture and Urban Planning
(HAUP), the Department of Urbanism
kindly invited me to a meeting
of their management team to
discuss common interests. Since
then, I have had the pleasure to
work closely in multiple areas
with SPS. Our shared interest in all
dimensions of planning was made
evident by the strong participation
of urbanists in the International
Planning History Society (IPHS)
conferences in Delft in 2016, and
in Yokohama in 2018. The importance
of history for planning, and
particularly for planning transitions,
is also a regular theme that
HAUP is bringing forward at AESOP
conferences, with the support
of SPS. The Section’s interest in
issues of urban heritage has led to
collaboration through the Design
and History research group, which
brings together faculty members
from the heritage chairs in AE&T,
and from the HAUP Chair in the
Architecture Department.
Collaboration in grant applications
around themes of heritage have
brought us together even further.
Issues of planning for water
and questions of water heritage
connect us in research, publications,
and teaching, as evidenced
in a forthcoming special issue on
Water Resilience: Creative Practices
Past-Present-and Future.
Shared interest in education at
our Faculty further increased
this exchange and conversations
on co-led courses beyond the
existing collaboration in History
and Theory of Urbanism promise
new perspectives. Working with
Vincent Nadin on the supervision
of the master thesis by Karishma
Asarpota on Spatial Planning for
the Energy Transition in Dubai was
a pleasurable experience, and a
meaningful addition to my work
on questions on energy landscapes.
I am convinced that this
great working relationship will
continue in the future. The recent,
almost parallel, publication of the
“Routledge Handbooks of Planning
History and the Routledge
Handbook on Informal Urbanisation”,
with editors Hein and
Rocco located in both sections,
documents our shared interests.
I am sure that Vincent Nadin will
continue to play a major role as
advisor and sparring partner.