Woonhuis, Ubbo Emmiussingel 19

English translation

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Description

Introduction

DOUBLE TOWNHOUSE, separated by firewalls from the adjoining properties, situated in the almost closed, consisting of late nineteenth-century townhouses northern facade of the Ubbo Emmiussingel, built in 1883 on behalf of banker C.C. Geertsema and jurist W.J. Quintus according to the design of the architect G. Schnitger, originating from Oldenburg (Ger.), in the architectural style of Neo-mannerism. The building is currently in use as office, practice and residential space. Components of the rich interior have been preserved.

Description

The monumental building is constructed on a U-shaped ground plan and consists of a basement with two storeys under a truncated hipped roof, covered with Dutch tile. A few roof dormers in the front roof shield are provided with 'witches' hats', covered with slate and crowned with roof tiles. The facade is closed at the top by a running frieze, alternately filled with flat and fretwork, or small attic windows and a moulded roof gutter on brackets. The broad building is entirely symmetrical in design. The one bay wide entrance sections on the outermost sides are placed well within the building line. A middle section four bays wide lying within the building line is flanked by projecting sections two bays wide; these latter are crowned with stepped gables. The facade brickwork of the ground floor is enlivened with brick courses; on the storey sandstone window sill bands are installed, which project slightly from the facade work. The ground floor storey is closed off by a cordon moulding of natural stone running around all projecting and recessed sections. All straight-closed facade openings are decorated with sandstone string courses and keystones. The storey windows possess window sills on false consoles. The richly carved entrance doors with fanlight are crowned by aedicule arrangements carrying scrolled cartouches of sandstone with inscriptions. The doors are flanked by fluted sandstone pilasters with blocks and Corinthian capitals. The stairs of the stepped gables are covered with scrollwork, volutes and pediments and additionally decorated with date cartouche and shields. The windows of the eastern half still possess the authentic zinc-driven sun-shade boxes. The layout of the rear facades is still original. No. 19 contains a broad conservatory. The interior of no. 19 is partially original. Of importance are amongst others the very richly executed wooden staircases with round-arch openings in neo-Mannerist style, white marble floors in the passages with ceramic small fountain and the piano nobile with very richly ornamented ceilings which are partly executed in wood and painted in wood-imitation techniques. The monumental fireplaces decorated with rich woodcarving in both no. 19 and no. 21 are presumably from a demolished Groningen manor house. The fireplace mantel in no. 21 contains in the centre a grisaille.

Evaluation

Double townhouse, finely designed in a neo-Mannerist architectural style, typical of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, according to the design of the architect G. Schnitger, originating from Oldenburg (Ger.), of general importance due to its cultural-historical and great architectural-historical value due to the high-quality aesthetic qualities of the design, the proportioning, the careful choice of materials and the ornamentation and due to the particular coherence between exterior and interior (components). Moreover the building with its strongly plastic articulation forms an exceptionally valuable and intact component of the high-value urban-planning structure of the ring-canal row along the south side of the inner city of Groningen.