"Interesting article - just one small remark regarding the caption under Hans Wegner's chair: Wegner is Danish, not Dutch. "

"Registered just to chime in on this thread, though I've been reading Core77 for years now. So first off, Rain and company: kudos on your excellent work.Now, on topic; I have had the pleasure of living in Amsterdam and London. The former for the past decade, London between 2002 and 2004. In those years London was developing bike lanes, but they were few and far between. I had never cycled with a helmet (other than competitive or sports riding, be it on road or atb bikes) but London traffic made me reconsider. I also adopted a more aggressive, or rather: assertive riding style. I quickly figured out you needed speed and visibility in London traffic. No one (save the lone lunatic) will willfully try to run you over or off the road, but most drivers in cities like London simply do not anticipate cyclists.This is quite different in Amsterdam. Cycles are and have been for decades part and parcel of any city environment - or even any more or less built up area. So they are just there. This does not mean there are never any accidents, far from it, but by and large, drivers anticipate cyclists and cyclists know this and are fairly confident they will be seen.  In the 90s the government decided to up the legal protection for cyclists. In case of an accident it was up to the driver to prove they were not at fault. And even when they were not at fault they were still liable for 50% of the damage. Also, a fairly comprehensive separate infrastructure had been build for cyclists. We've long had dedicated bike lanes, but where possible they are now raised from the car level, and often separated from the car lane by parking spaces. Only on residential streets traffic is mixed. All this came about as a result of decades of steadily increasing bicycle traffic, which meant cyclists were not a bunch of spandex-clad activists but regular citizens on their way to work. And the numbers could not be ignored. So there was a critical mass which forced (and made feasible) the construction of additional infrastructure. It's a bit chicken and egg."