The Netherlands is a beautiful country! How lovely the Netherlands is! What marvelous cities! And look, what an incredible building! For those of us who live here, hearing such remarks is an everyday occurrence, as is seeing hundreds of stunning photos on social media capturing this land from every corner at every moment of the day. No one can resist the magical combination of old brick buildings with large windows reflected on a canal, a windmill, a quaint wooden bridge against a cloudy sky, or the vibrant red, white, or yellow of a tulip field.

But there’s also another Netherlands—or rather, fundamentally, there’s another Netherlands—which is often just a turn of the camera away from these perfect postcard scenes. It’s the everyday Netherlands that often escapes the demanding beauty standards of social media.

This vast land of the ordinary is the day-to-day reality of its 18 million inhabitants. It’s much more varied and rich than many might imagine—if you know how to look at it and appreciate it. Here, it’s not so much the architecture that matters, but the daily lives of its people.

For us, it’s our usual workplace. For an unsuspecting visitor who accidentally steps out of their Instagram-postcard bubble, this day-to-day city might appear as an endless repetition of terraced houses on monotonous streets filled with parked cars. They might get the same impression from the office or industrial zones where work and production happen daily from 8 to 6, or the bus stations and transport hubs with their perpetually futuristic-yet-neglected appearance. 

For all of this, architects and urban planners, among other professionals, work every day to find the best solutions. Cities are not postcards. They are only a small fraction of the complexity that makes up a city, with its housing, public transport, services, schools, hospitals, shops, and workplaces, to name just a few.

Some time ago, we visited IJmuiden, a small town near Amsterdam. It’s a relatively new town, created in 1870 when the North Sea Canal was excavated, located at its mouth. The town, which initially had 1,500 inhabitants, developed and grew with the arrival of metallurgy in 1918 and the activity of its four ports. It was destroyed during the war and later rebuilt. Today, IJmuiden has a population of 30,000.

It would be unfair to say IJmuiden is truly an ugly city. Nevertheless, it appeared in a peculiar travel guide published a few years ago in the Netherlands. According to the author, the guide explores the “most beautifully ugly” places to rediscover the country. It’s true that if you arrive there as a tourist and are dropped off at the entrance of the HEMA in the town center, the experience might feel somewhat disconcerting. Its center, built in the 1950s, barely updated and slightly run-down, looks like a postcard from that era. Some of its port neighborhoods resemble scenes from English crime and detective films set in the decayed areas of industrial cities.

But despite what tourists might think, those who live in a neighborhood learn to love and enjoy it. In these places, which are rarely—or poorly—depicted on social media, the most beautiful stories unfold, forming the memory of a community. Here, a young couple buys their first home. Children are born here, play in the streets, and bring color to the gray sidewalks. Every morning or evening, neighbors greet each other as they leave for work or walk their children to school—a school just a short walk from home, filling the neighborhood with the joyful sounds of children playing and running.

And we love working in this Netherlands, where people greet each other on the street and help one another in times of need. We are fortunate to work for these residents, who sometimes need a professional to organize their living spaces, expand their homes, or improve them technically. It’s often quite challenging to get that postcard or magazine-worthy photo, but we are much happier if we can solve that “small yet significant” problem a client has entrusted to us.