(from the introduction)

"We honored Adriaan Geuze for the urbanism of the Borneo Sporenburg residential development, those two peninsulas of incomparable urban beauty shimmering in Amsterdam’s harbor. I call them incomparable because, simply put, there is nothing else like them. We certainly cannot claim to have made a discovery here; the project is well known to everybody in the business of urban design. It has been published many times and in many languages, and many important critics have written many pages about it. But we can certainly say useful things about Borneo Sporenburg that either have not been said or need further amplification. To talk about this project is easy, because the story of its making is complex and the results (the public places, the houses, the feeling of civility in the air, etc.) are wonderfully rich. Whatever the speaker’s point of view or intellectual tastes, there is always something thoughtful and provocative to be said about Borneo Sporenburg."