World Heritage monuments

© Unesco World Heritage Centre, Paris

According to the World Heritage Convention, "cultural heritage" is a monument, group of buildings or site of historical, aesthetic, archaeological, scientific, ethnological or anthropological value.

"Natural heritage" designates outstanding physical, biological, and geological features; habitats of threatened plants or animal species and areas of value on scientific or aesthetic grounds or from the point of view of conservation.

World Heritage monuments in Holland:

Schokland and Surroundings

Inscribed: 1995

Brief description:
Schokland was a peninsula that by the 15th century had become an island. Occupied and then abandoned as the sea encroached, it had to be evacuated in 1859. But following the draining of the Zuider Zee, it has, since the 1940s, formed part of the land reclaimed from the sea. Schokland has vestiges of human habitation going back to prehistoric times. It symbolizes the heroic, age-old struggle of the people of the Netherlands against the encroachment of the waters.

The Defence Line of Amsterdam

Inscribed: 1996

Brief description:
Extending 135 km around the city of Amsterdam, this defence line (built between 1883 and 1920) is the only example of a fortification based on the principle of controlling the waters. Since the 16th century, the people of the Netherlands have used their expert knowledge of hydraulic engineering for defence purposes. The centre of the country was protected by a network of 45 armed forts, acting in concert with temporary flooding from polders and an intricate system of canals and locks.

The Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout

© Paul Paris Les Images

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Inscribed:1997

Brief description:
The outstanding contribution made by the people of the Netherlands to the technology of handling water is admirably demonstrated by the installations in the Kinderdijk-Elshout area. Construction of hydraulic works for the drainage of land for agriculture and settlement began in the Middle Ages and has continued uninterruptedly to the present day. The site illustrates all the typical features associated with this technology – dykes, reservoirs, pumping stations, administrative buildings and a series of beautifully preserved windmills.

Ir. D.F. Woudagemaal
(D.F. Wouda Steam Pumping Station)

Inscribed:1998

Justification for Inscription:
The advent of steam as a source of energy provided the Dutch engineers with a powerful tool in their millennial task of water management, and the Wouda installation is the largest of its type ever built.

The Wouda Pumping Station represents the apogee of Dutch hydraulic engineering, which has provided the models and set the standards for the whole world for centuries.

The Wouda pumping installations bear exceptional witness to the power of steam in controlling the forces of nature, especially as applied to water handling by Dutch engineers.

Brief description:
The Wouda Pumping Station at Lemmer in the province of Friesland opened in 1920. It is the largest steam-pumping station ever built and is still in operation. It represents the high point of the contribution made by Netherlands engineers and architects in protecting their people and land against the natural forces of water.

Droogmakerij de Beemster
(The Beemster Polder)

Inscribed: 1999

Justification for Inscription:
The Beemster Polder is a masterpiece of creative planning, in which the ideals of antiquity and the Renaissance were applied to the design of a reclaimed landscape.

The innovative and intellectually imaginative landscape of the Beemster Polder had a profound and lasting impact on reclamation projects in Europe and beyond.

The creation of the Beemster Polder marks a major step forward in the interrelationship between humankind and water at a crucial period of social and economic expansion.

Brief description:
The Beemster Polder, dating from the early 17th century, is the oldest area of reclaimed land in the Netherlands. It has preserved intact its well- ordered landscape of fields, roads, canals, dykes and settlements, laid out in accordance with classical and Renaissance planning principles.

Rietveld Schröderhuis (Rietveld Schröder House)

Inscribed:2000

Justification for Inscription:

The Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht is an icon of the Modern Movement in architecture, and an outstanding expression of human creative genius in its purity of ideas and concepts as developed by the De Stijl movement.

With its radical approach to design and the use of space, the Rietveld Schröderhuis occupies a seminal position in the development of architecture in the modern age.

Brief description:
The Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht was commissioned by Ms Truus Schröder-Schräder, designed by the architect Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, and built in 1924. This small family house, with its interior, the flexible spatial arrangement, and the visual and formal qualities, was a manifesto of the ideals of the De Stijl group of artists and architects in the Netherlands in the 1920s, and has since been considered one of the icons of the Modern Movement in architecture.

Amsterdam’s 17th-century canal ring

© Paul Paris Les Images

Inscribed:2010

Brief description:

Amsterdam’s 17th-century canal ring  is   an icon of urban planning and architecture and was built during the Golden Age It was a model of large-scale and long-term town planning that involved extending the city by draining the swampland, using a system of canals in concentric arcs and filling in the intermediate spaces with the area’s characteristic canal-side estates and numerous monuments This urban extension was the largest and most homogeneous of its time. and served as a reference throughout the world until the 19th century