Sinking Cities, Gouda & Venice

What impact does subsidence have on how people live and work in a city? What does it mean for liveability? Have solutions been found? And what can other cities learn from this?

Sinking Cities Gouda is about the fight of the Dutch against the water. About adaptation, innovation and holding on to traditions. About problems and solutions. A trilogy that starts in Gouda’s historic inner city and ends in the deepest polders of the country, the birthplace of the famous Gouda cheese. What does it mean to live and work in a place that is sinking beneath your feet?

Exhibition Sinking Cities Gouda 
On 9 March, the Sinking Cities Gouda exhibition opened at the Watersnoodmuseum in Zeeland. It is a 'journalistic exhibition', using photography, video, text and data to draw attention to the subject of subsidence. Although the exhibition focuses on the Dutch city of Gouda, it makes clear that it is about a bigger story about the future of the Netherlands. Land subsidence touches on major social issues and is a global issue. The exhibition also briefly shows other cities in the project: Jakarta, Venice and Mexico City.