If you happen to have arrived in the Netherlands by plane into Schiphol airport, you actually landed at about 4m below sea level! The fact that you did not get cold and wet feet is due to centuries of Dutch engineering ingenuity.

 The Dutch have been reclaiming land in the peaty, boggy areas since the Middle ages, but started on much more ambitious projects of reclaiming land from lakes in the first half of the 16th century. Merchants that had been successful with their businesses in Amsterdam were seeking to reinvest some of their wealth in the country. Reclaiming land proved very successful both financially and as additional source of much needed agricultural land. Many more projects followed over the centuries.

It is well worth packing a picnic and taking your bicycle to look for the signs of these times. As you cycle out of the city of Amsterdam the surroundings quickly become much more rural and you can see the lay of the land. Much of the quiet land that is around you as you cycle towards the south-west once was lakes, and you are looking at areas that are well below sea level.  

At Haarlemmermeer, a canal was dug around the lake, called ‘de Ringvaart’ (Ring Canal), to carry the water that was to be drained as well as boat and ferry traffic that had previously gone across the lake. This canal was 61 kilometres long, and 2.40 metres deep, and the excavated earth was used to build a dike around the lake. The area enclosed by the canal was more than 180 square kilometres and the average depth of the lake was 4 metres. As the water had no natural drainage, it was calculated that probably 1000 million tons of water would have to be drained by mechanical means.

To this end, three pump stations were build with the new technology of the industrial revolution: steam engines instead of the traditional mills powered by wind. One of these former pump stations, the so called ‘Gemaal Cruquius’, can be visited. The building itself is an architectural rarity. It is build in the neo gothic style with the characteristic pointed arches. Inside a lot of cast iron ornamentation is used. This unique combination of cutting edge technology of its time with beautiful architecture make this industrial building worth a visit.

When it was build in 1849 its steam powered cylinder was the largest in the world. The cylinder powered 8 pumps and those could each move 8000 liters of water up to 5 m in height. Each pump could  be moved up to 5 times a minute. The three pump stations would drain the big lake in just 4 years between 1848 and 1852. No silence to be found here, while this colossus was at work! 

It is a different story today. This technological marvel of the Industrial Revolution has now fallen silent. Today the Haarlemmermeer polder holds a much different but highly important economic function for the country. We get a hint if we look up into the sky and realise the amount of planes that are above us at any one point. It is in this infrastructure that its value lies today. The polder is home to Schiphol airport, the largest airport of the country  and one of the largest in Europe. Many of the 63 mill passengers yearly are visitors and tourists. And some of them are my guests!

Photo credit: the photo was taken on an excursion to visit the pumping station with a picnic in the basket on what promised to be the first warm day of Spring.