Prof.ir. Max van den Berg, past president of ISOCARP, our dear friend and colleague, passed away on the 3rd of February at the age of 77.
During his studies in Delft Max greatly enjoyed the teachings of Prof. Cornelis van Eesteren. Later on in his professional career he served as a town planner and urban designer for the City of Amsterdam, and subsequently held leading positions with the National Spatial Planning Agency, the City of Amsterdam and the Province of North-Holland. Between 1987 and 2003, he combined his professional and academic activities as professor in spatial planning at the University of Utrecht.
Max van den Berg joined ISOCARP in 1975. He was General Rapporteur of the ISOCARP congress in Prague in 1994 and emphasized the importance of recognizing the different roles of politicians, experts, entrepreneurs and citizens as the main actors needed to make planning effective. As president of ISOCARP (1999-2003), he guided the society through a period of reflection by initiating new activities and giving the younger generation of planners in ISOCARP, at the time operating as TAN – the Temporary Autonomous Network, the opportunity to prepare the congress that he hosted at his university in Utrecht in 2001, entitled ‘Honey I shrunk the Space – planning in the information age’.
In his State of the Profession at the ISOCARP congress in Cairo in 2003, Max van den Berg reflected on the actual changes in regional and urban planning of his time. He observed that planning is a dynamic profession that needs to be re-invented and re-animated on a regular basis. He also noted that professional practice and the academic world had grown too far apart and, in his opinion, both worlds should profit more from each other. Under his leadership, ISOCARP has evolved into a global platform that encourages the exchange of major planning issues, ideas, thoughts, planning products and visions, planning tools, methods and instruments among practicing spatial planners in an open and collegial way.
Max van den Berg remained active in spatial planning as a consultant, lecturer, tutor and author and he regularly contributed to the ISOCARP network. Often Max followed invitations to Universities to share his wide experience. He spoke with passion and humour and touched the audience with his integrity and authentic wish for a better way of Planning. In 2006 he was invited at ETH Zürich as an expert for a review of Spatial Planning in Switzerland. In 2007 he held a keynote speech to inaugurate an initiative for Spatial Sciences, where he inspired promising academics for the profession of Spatial Planning. Max also participated in the Zürich Limmattal UPAT workshop in 2008 and he chaired the ISOCARP 50th Anniversary Celebration Committee in 2013, initiating many of its activities until his illness forced him to hand over his activities to Jef Van den Broeck. In spite of his condition he wrote his personal view on Fifty years of ISOCARP, Past, present and future, developments in planning (link to: https://isocarp.org/50-years-isocarp-past-present-future-development-of-planning/), that enables us to understand and revisit the history in order to develop new visions for the future, including the future of ISOCARP, the society that was so very close to his heart. In this paper he also emphasised the direct relationship between the social-political context and the development of space and place.
With Max’s passing we lose a kind, charismatic, dedicated and enthusiastic planning professional, who played a leading role in guiding the Society to where it stands today. Max hoped and expected that ISOCARP will remain an active contributor to creating and sharing knowledge, skills and visions for cities and regions, and in the improvement of the living conditions of people in a diverse world.
Max will be greatly missed by Paula, his wife, his children and grandchildren. His friends and colleagues in ISOCARP will remember him with great respect and fondness.
Jef Van den Broeck, Martin Dubbeling, Peter Jonquière, Bernd Scholl