Woonhuis, Witte Rozenstraat 57

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, in Dutch. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

Description

Introduction

Detached gentleman's house built in 1913-1914 according to a design by Tatjana Afanasjewa (1876-1964) in a Late-Classical style which she knew from her youth in Saint Petersburg. Against her wishes, the interior was supplemented with a few Art Nouveau components which were not available in a more austere style. The house was intended as a residence for her family, consisting of herself, her husband Paul Ehrenfest and their children, with additional use of the large living room on the South-East as a colloquium room for her husband who had been appointed professor of physics at Leiden University in 1912, while already in the 1920s an attic room was reserved as a guest room, primarily for Ehrenfest's foreign colleagues, many of whom, among others Einstein and Niels Bohr, signed their names on the wall. Through the efforts of the Dispuut Huygens two memorial stones were embedded in the 1970s in the North-East wall facing the street in remembrance of Ehrenfest and Tatjana Afanasjewa. Since Ehrenfest could not obtain a professorship in Petersburg because of the intolerant regime but through the intervention of Einstein and his Leiden friends became professor here, the house is rightfully, as the Dispuut Huygens commemorates, a monument to freedom of speech in Holland.

Description

Almost cubic main design, somewhat longer along the street than deep towards the garden, covered with roof tiles laid parallel to the street ending at both sides in pediments with semicircular windows in the tympana which are divided by two posts like the windows of the classical baths in Rome. Covered with Tuiles du Nord. Gables plastered and sealed. The cubic main design is softened by a conservatory which projects into the garden on the South-West side and a very slight projection of the gable next to the conservatory over the total height, so that on the South-West side perpendicular to the hipped roof a similarly high but short hipped roof, also covered with Tuiles du Nord, could be placed, which also ends in a large triangular pediment, in which however no semicircular window has been placed but three rectangular windows, one fairly large and two small, since three attic rooms open onto it. The entrance is on the South-West side some metres into the garden. When the house was built, the end of the Witte Rozenstraat had just been demolished with a bend and numbers 55 and 53 had not yet been built, so the entrance lay visually on the axis of the straight section of the street. The house has a fairly high crawl space, partly fitted out as a basement, so that the main floor on the ground floor is raised by several steps. After the death of Tatjana Afanasjewa, the house was bought from the estate by her grandson Gijs van Aardenne who furnished it as a student house for nine female students with caretaker's accommodation. His alterations, among others the subdivision of larger rooms into smaller ones, have been largely reversed by the current owner who bought it after Van Aardenne's death in 1979 and has made some improvements to the installations and comfort, for example by adding a shower on the ground floor. Furthermore, the ground floor is practically in the state of 1914, with study room next to the entrance, followed by a garden room (originally the dining room) and the large living room-colloquium hall. Fine Art Nouveau ceiling light in the large living room and the original blackboard on which Ehrenfest wrote during colloquia. Heating elements according to the Russian system: no radiators but a thickening and back and forth running of pipes. Stucco ceiling with taut, straight and diamond-shaped drawn profiles. In the former dining room a réchaud built into a radiator with Art Nouveau tendrils on the doors. There and in the study room the original central light ornaments, as well as the mentioned one in the living room. Exceptional for the Netherlands is the easily traversable staircase, a gentle staircase, to the first and second floors. On the floor three bedrooms and a bathroom with the original bath on claw feet. Flat stucco ceilings without ornaments. A fourth, small bedroom fitted out around 1984 as a small kitchen. On the attic floor three bedrooms together with a kitchen and a bathroom, furnished by the second owner for the female students, both rooms are lived-in. On the wall of the guest room on the South-West corner the signatures of many physicists, including a number of Nobel Prize winners who have stayed here. Tatjana Afanasjewa was a mathematician, which is evident from the clear and rational layout. Very austere exterior, most rooms are oriented towards the garden, so that the street gable is largely closed. The mentioned triangular pediments give the house a remarkable character.

Valuation

The house is of general importance for its cultural and architectural historical value.

- The house is of general importance for the cultural historical value it has as a former dispuut location and lecture hall.

- The house is also of general importance for its architectural historical value. It is of importance because of its striking design and because of the special interior components.

- The house is moreover of importance because of the recognisability and soundness of its interior and exterior.