Colonies of Benevolence
The transnational serial property is an Enlightenment experiment in social reform. These cultural landscapes demonstrate an innovative, highly influential 19th-century model of pauper relief and of settler colonialism, which today is known as an agricultural domestic colony. The property encompasses four Colonies of Benevolence in three component parts: Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord and Veenhuizen in the Netherlands, and Wortel in Belgium. Together they bear witness to a 19th century experiment in social reform, an effort to alleviate urban poverty by establishing agricultural colonies in remote locations. Established in 1818, Frederiksoord (the Netherlands) is the earliest of these Colonies and home to the original headquarters of the Society of Benevolence, an association which aimed to reduce poverty at the national level. The other component parts were constructed between 1820 and 1823. In Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord, small farms along planted avenues were built for families and this Colony was referred to as ‘free’. Wortel is a hybrid Colony, first built for families and called ‘free’, later inhabited by beggars and vagrants and catalogued as ‘unfree’. In Veenhuizen large dormitory structures and larger centralized farms along planted avenues were built for orphans, beggars and vagrants that worked under the supervision of guards. This colony was called ‘unfree’. Each component part has a distinctive spatial character, connected to the target group for which it was built, and a specific organization of the work, with either family farms or institutions with working farms for groups of individuals. The Colonies were designed as panoptic settlements along orthogonal lines. They feature residential buildings, farm houses, churches and other communal facilities. At their peak in the mid-19th century, over 11,000 people lived in such Colonies in the Netherlands. In Belgium their number peaked at 6,000 in 1910.
慈善定居点
该跨境遗产地包括4个定居点，其中1个位于比利时，3个在荷兰。它们共同见证了19世纪的一场社会改革实验：通过在偏远地区建立农业定居点来缓解城市贫困问题。弗雷德里柯索德（Frederiksoord，荷兰）成立于1818年，是最早的定居点，也是致力于在全国范围内减少贫困的“慈善会”的原总部所在地。该项目的其他遗产点是荷兰的威廉米瑙德（Wilhelminaoord）和芬赫伊曾（Veenhuizen），以及比利时的沃特尔（Wortel）。由于定居点的小型农场收入不足，慈善会转而寻求其他收入来源，与政府签约来安置孤儿，随后又收容乞丐和流浪者，并因此创建了有大型宿舍和集体农场的“强制”定居点（如芬赫伊曾），使他们在警卫的监督下工作。这些定居点被规划成沿垂直道路分布的全景聚落，设有住宅楼、农舍、教堂和其他公共设施。在19世纪中叶的鼎盛时期，荷兰有超过11000人生活在这样的定居点。在比利时，定居点的人数在1910年达到了6000的峰值。
Source UNESCO WH website http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1555
1555bis-001 Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord Netherlands1555bis-002 Wortel Belgium1555bis-003 Veenhuizen Netherlands
