The Beemster

We now count ten UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the Netherlands. Since 1996, the Defence Line of Amsterdam has been on this prestige list and in 2021 the New Dutch Waterline was added. Together, these two lines now form the world heritage Hollandse Waterlinies. Droogmakerij de Beemster was added to this list in 1999. Why exactly De Beemster, you might think. After all, the Netherlands has many more polders. And indeed there are, but De Beemster was the first large-scale landscape project in the world to fully apply Da Vinci's Golden Section principle. An allotment pattern consisting of squares and thus, according to classical notions, a completely harmonious whole.

Amsterdam merchants provided the financing and Jan Adriaanszoon was engaged to oversee the construction of 43 mills that were to reclaim Lake Bamestra. The reclamation was completed in 1612. The reclaimed land was 3.5 metres below sea level and appeared to consist of fertile clay that was parceled out in a grid of squares. Today, anyone who visits the Unesco World Heritage Site Droogmakerij De Beemster in North Holland will come across the geometric pattern everywhere in the landscape. Unfortunately, the water mills, which grinded things dry here at the time, have not stood the test of time. But if you want to see how this reclamation was done, you should visit the Museummolen in neighbouring polder the Schermer. The only mill you can still see in the Beemster landscape is De Nachtegaal in Middenbeemster. An octagonal windmill from 1704 that still serves as a corn mill.