kantongerechtsgebouw

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

Large rectangular building of two high storeys and a high, truncated hipped roof, built in 1879 as a national office with on the ground floor the Weights and Measures Office and on the upper floor the District Court according to the design of government architect C.H. Peters in Neo-Dutch-Renaissance style with Neo-Gothic characteristics.

During almost the entire nineteenth century the city administration had been searching for a suitable location for a new grain exchange to be built. A considerable plot of land became available after the demolition of seven dwellings between Oosterkade and the Gedempte Keizersgracht and on the corner of Droevendal was reserved for that purpose in 1858. In 1878, when the construction plans for the exchange had been moved in the direction of the Wirdumerpoortsdwinger, the State came forward with the wish to build a Weights and Measures Office on the Oosterkade. After the introduction of the law on measures, weights and weighing instruments, the Weights and Measures Office was moved to a rear building in the Grote Hoogstraat. However, it did not suffice and in 1878 the government decided to establish a new office. That office, which was primarily to serve for the calibration of gas meters, which had to be done at ground level, need only have a single storey on the spacious building plot, but the municipality did not consider this desirable for aesthetic reasons. The municipality itself came up with the idea for a function for an upper floor.

After the judiciary had undergone radical reorganisation during the French period, the justice of the peace remained resident in the town hall at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1845 the district judge with his organisation was able to move to the upper floor of the newly built Hoofdwacht behind the town hall. Because of impending space shortage, the municipal government indicated that above the Weights and Measures Office the District Court could possibly be realised. The idea was incorporated into further planning. The design of government master builder for finance C.H. Peters was soon ready and the tender took place on 30 September 1878. The work was awarded to contractor Van der Veer for f 33,565.- and was completed at the end of 1879. In the summer of 1880 both offices could be taken into use.

The office is not only a building of exceptional value, but also a milestone in the (Frisian) architectural history. As far as is known, this is Peters' first project in Friesland in his capacity as government architect. He returned to Friesland through this commission, the province where he had begun his architectural training and also started his career. Cornelis Hendrik Peters, born in Groningen in 1847, left the gymnasium in his birthplace after the fourth year and was apprenticed to the Sneek architect and director of the gas works A. Breunissen Troost. There he learned various aspects of the profession and acted as supervisor of the execution of the works of the headstrong architect Troost. After three years Troost mediated to have Peters placed from 1866 at the office of P.J.H. Cuypers. Cuypers had such confidence in the 22-year-old young man that he entrusted him in 1869 with the supervision of, among others, the construction of the Sint-Vituskerk in Blauwhuis, the first church Cuypers designed for Friesland. Later came supervision of the churches in Sneek and Wijtgaard. Peters settled in Bolsward and was able there, again thanks to Troost's mediation, to become director of the gas works. He went there to give drawing lessons and carried out his first design commissions. In 1876 Peters came at the recommendation of Cuypers and Victor de Stuers as an architect in government service at the Ministry of Finance, where he could immediately work on the design for the Ministry of Justice at the Plein in 's-Gravenhage. Soon after he received the commission for the double office in Leeuwarden, where he had to deal not only with his own ministry, but again with justice.

The supervisor on the construction, who played a prominent role in the local architectural history, is also well known: J.H. Brevet. Brevet was a Zealander who spent ten productive years in Leeuwarden. At the age of 21 he already obtained the diploma of civil engineer in Delft and could immediately come to work for the Ministry of Public Works, the ministry that also had national buildings under its care. He became part of the new bureaucratic elite. At the age of 40, Brevet came with the high administrative position of chief engineer first class from Maastricht to Leeuwarden because a number of national projects were in development, which he was to supervise during construction. First the earliest post office which was built in 1870/'71 according to the design of the Leeuwarden architect Herman Rudolf Stoett on the corner Wortelhaven/Eewal and subsequently in 1870/'76 the extensive penal institution, a design by government master builder J.F. Metzelaar. Finally Brevet was also involved in 1878/'80 in the construction of the Weights and Measures Office and District Court, which may also have been designed by Metzelaar. In the Leeuwarden associational life Brevet was active and often acted as a building advisor. He thus played an important role in the prolonged discussions about the plans for a Harmonie to be built.

The building underwent internal renovations in 1951, 1958 and 1985. These were the result of changes of function: the district court gradually needed more space, the weights and measures office less and even disappeared, after which the greater part of the ground floor first became an office for gold hallmarking and subsequently the brokers' exchange.

Description

EXTERIOR: The rectangular structure is erected on a wide but not too deep plot of land that adjoins the buildings on the south side, but is surrounded by streets on the other three sides: Oosterkade, Droevendal and Gedempte Keizersgracht. The building has two high storeys and a high broken hipped roof. To accentuate somewhat the entrances of the two functions those sections project slightly, for the Weights and Measures Office at the quay with a section two window bays wide, crowned on the roof shield by a brick cabin, and for the District Court on Droevendal with a section one window bay wide, crowned before the roof by a gable top. Otherwise the spatially modest structure has some modest extensions on the alley on the south side. The relatively austere building volume is enlivened to a great extent with plastic around the windows and doors and at the gable crown. The facades are built of a greyish-brown brick, at the level of the upper and intermediate lintels of the windows enlivened with decorative bands. The plinth is built up in detail and covered with profiled stone that forms a ledge and between the storeys a cornice with some decorative brickwork is applied. The reveals of the round-headed window openings have a multiple profile of concave and convex mouldings, built of shaped stone with an alternation of red, light yellow and black sooted or painted colours. The semicircular arch drums are filled with brick mosaic in varied patterns. The cross windows have heavy intermediate lintels and central mullions in the form of small columns. Both entrances stand in a broad niche which have the double depth of the windows and thus also a more exuberant profiling of the reveals. Above the sections with double sculptured doors, that of the Weights and Measures Office segmental, the other square-headed, form in the round arch registers of tall round-headed window lights fanlights in the colourfully striped brickwork. In the double-wide entrance bay of the Weights and Measures Office stand to either side of the door niche two small round-headed niches with windows above which stand sandstone scrollwork cartouches with 'ANNO' and '1889'. Above this stands in the middle between the windows a large recumbent lion of sandstone holding the coat of arms of the State. The entrance bay of the District Court is slightly narrower, but of the same embellishment. On the upper floor of this section the facade is opened with a broad three-light window with an arch drum of brick mosaic where a trefoil is worked in. All facades are formed with the same care, all are enriched with iron-wrought ornamental wall anchors and decorative clamps for the rainwater pipes. The facades are crowned with a round-headed frieze that is formed of terracotta consoles within which tableaux of four tiles each are placed with in blue and white alternating representations of the sword of justice, the balance (of justice and perhaps also of the calibration) and the litre measure and weights of the calibration system. A symbol for the calibration of gas meters was apparently not available. On the roof shield at the quay side a cabin with a spout gable with shoulders and double-light opening is built in brick and stand two wooden roof cupolas formed with decorative trefoli. On the Droevendal side stands the gable top before the roof shield, a spout gavel with shoulders, wrought-iron hoisting beam above the three-light window and a wrought-iron crown. Also on this side and that of the Gedempte Keizersgracht side do wooden cupolas rest. The visible high roof shields are laid with slates in Meuse bond and the slightly sloping sections after the break are covered with zinc.

INTERIOR: "On the ground floor one finds the weights and measures office for the calibration and recalibration of measures and weights. In this one also finds departments for the calibration of weighing instruments and gas meters. For some years these instruments have no longer been calibrated here and a part of the space for the calibration of weighing instruments has for the time being been taken from it to be fitted out as an office for the official of the Public Ministry at the district court. The district court, which is completely separate from the weights and measures office and which has its entrance in the northern wall, whereas the door of the weights and measures office is in the front, is located on the first floor of the building. It contains, apart from the district judge's office, the rooms for the registry and the office of the official of the Public Ministry, a spacious courtroom, a waiting room and the dwelling of the caretaker". (R. Visscher 1908, p. 114.). The original layout can still largely be found, but renovations took place in 1951, 1958 and 1985 which resulted in internal changes. These were the result of changes of function. Openings of rooms on the south-east side, both on the ground floor and on the upper floor are the result.

The former weights and measures office has behind the entrance section a vestibule with large doors with glass panes. This porch immediately shows the careful interior approach that is characteristic of the entire building and which through Peters' teacher Cuypers is based on the rationalist teachings of Viollet-le-Duc. The walls are finished in fair-faced brick mosaic: a dado of brown stone with black bands and crosses and above it yellow stone decorated with brown crosses. The small high space has a barrel vault on iron beams, built of yellow stone with red edges and crosses. The hall following the vestibule has the same finish. On the north side a sunken space reached via the corridor, originally storage, now space for central heating. On the south side is now a broad, heavily framed opening to a narrow public space which is united with the calibration chamber. The original separation of the two spaces can still be seen in remains of walls, but especially in the different vaults: the first section has a seamless cross vault; the other a vault in small barrels. Walls and vaults in this room(s) are finished in stucco. After a wooden panelled window wall with door comes the corridor which runs over the full width of the building. Walls and vaults again possess the same decorative finish in fair-faced work, but the corridor is also articulated by three arch segments resting on pilasters springing from the walls. All rooms have original painted panelled doors. The south-west room, originally a workshop, no longer has its original fitout; the original fuel room was renovated in the fifties to a kitchen and toilet. This is followed by the servants' room with original folding doors and the measuring room with a low barrel vault glazed panelled door. This latter room adjoins a low intermediate hall – under the landing of the stairs to the district court – whose flat ceiling is covered with blue-white tiles with acanthus ornament. In the north wall two glazed panelled doors, one of a cupboard, the other as a passage to the stair hall of the district court. On the east side of this hall the office of the master calibrator, whose walls and ceiling are stuccoed, again with a barrel vault. The corner room on the north-west side on the ground floor belonged as an administration room to the district court; this is also plastered and barrel-vaulted. The spacious stair hall of the district court has a floor of hard stone flags, a broad, spiralling staircase of hard stone steps; under the stair treads built-out console-shaped supports. The stair railing is of ornamental wrought-work curls topped with broad, profiled wooden handrails. The railing runs above along the stairwell. Both below, stair-stepped upwards and above in the hall the walls have dadoes of fair-faced work, provided with colourful decorations and finished with a bead moulding. At the landing small windows to the intermediate hall below, fitted with a wrought-iron screen. The ceiling under landing and passage consists of hard stone plates with bead mouldings that rest on a surrounding, multiple profiled built-up course. The passage along the stairwell and the subsequent corridor has a hard stone floor. The hall has a coffered ceiling that rests on a frieze with tiled meander edge. The rooms on the west side, still in their original condition, are connected to each other with a few suite doors and all have original panelled doors and coffered ceilings with pearl rebates and partly still original counter cupboards. From north to south: the writing room, the administration (with original dado of pearl rebates), the room for the bureau chief (with marble corner fireplace and double sound-proof door) and that for the registrar (with marbled fireplace). The corridor running over the full width has a marble floor and, like below, barrels on pilasters. On the southern side a double glazed panelled door, one leading to the toilets, the other to the attic staircase. At the quay side, east, were located the courtroom, a waiting room and next to the stair hall the slightly narrower office of the district judge. These spaces are opened up, with pieces of wall remaining and the old structure readable. The space of the original courtroom has a painted coffered ceiling and a dado, the others similar ceiling and dadoes, but then painted. Large parts of dadoes that disappeared in the opening are on the attic. The court railing is still present. Against the south wall the veined marble fireplace is incorporated in a timber lining of cupboard doors.

The attics, subdivided with wooden partitions into archive rooms, are in their original state.

VALUATION

Office building of general historical, cultural-historical, architectural-historical and urban planning significance

- because of the history of this national building with dual function;

- because of the external and internal fine stylistic purity in the decoratively rich Neo-Renaissance with Neo-Gothic influences characteristic of national offices for that time;

- because of the marked place of the building, as the first, extensive independent commission in his capacity as government architect, in the oeuvre of the characteristic architect for that time;

- because of the urban planning location as the most important structure in the quay frontage.