Ohabe Thora

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

RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION BUILDING, with a caretaker's residence on the ground floor, built in 1905 in the Transitional style with the striking decorative use of materials characteristic of the Renewal style in the front facade, designed by W.C. de Groot and executed by contractors Oudendijk and Nauta in the half-closed facade wall of the narrow street. In July 1905 this striking building of the Jewish pious society 'Ohabé Thora' could be inaugurated.

W.C. de Groot (1853-1939) was in the broad turn-of-the-century period one of the most striking architects of Leeuwarden and its wide surroundings, all the more because he was the permanent architect of many institutions. Before the turn of the century he designed mainly in a decorative Neo-Renaissance style; afterwards he moved into a renewal style that sometimes showed Art Nouveau features. In this period he made evident pleasure use of new, colourful building materials with which he could indulge his representational decorative ambitions. The Gabbemagasthuis in the Wybrand de Geeststraat in Leeuwarden is the most striking example of this, but the Ohabé Thora building is also an example of this approach. Even in the complexes of early social housing that De Groot designed for the Woningvereeniging Leeuwarden, with the Hollanderwijk as the finest example, he applied this style.

Description

EXTERIOR: Building with a main volume on a virtually rectangular base and a small, older, irregular rear extension, interwoven into the rear extension of the monumental building at Eewal 43. Three bays wide and two full storeys with a high roof truss with front and rear gables high. The eastern side facade is built of mottled yellow brick, not neatly finished and clearly not intended to remain exposed.

The representational front facade is executed in strikingly colourful building materials in decorative forms. Chamfered hard stone plinth and breast wall, otherwise brickwork of red and yellow facing brick, enlivened with components of green glazed brick. The wall piers are of red brick; between these piers and windows and door recessed yellow brickwork. The wall piers carry on the second storey at the level of the lower sills a band of glazed stone and at the level of the intermediate sill glazed, profiled bands for double corbelling after which the brickwork is entirely of yellow facing brick. On the ground floor right-closing sash windows with fanlights with traces of imitation leaded glass. Hard stone lower sills and lintels of artificial stone. Front door with arched closed door light and fanlight. On the second storey above breast walls of latticework with yellow headers and red tiles, arched closed sash windows with fanlights with yellow coloured decorative glass between small glazing bars. The fanlights with relieving arches and arises entirely framed with green glazed stone. Green glazed profile moulding by way of indication of a cornice. Substantial roof overhang, supported by six paired, carved, brace-shaped corbels. Front gable with blue glazed Frisian undulating tile. Two substantial dormers provided with windows with small glazing bar divisions and with reading desks with the same tiles.

INTERIOR: The wall between Speelmansstraat 2 and the monument Kleine Hoogstraat 8 is largely broken through and again closed with a partition of non-stone material. Also the wall between the ground-floor room and the passage to the stair for the upper hall is removed, with a steel I-beam taking the structure. Below original window frames and some doors; otherwise some traces from which the housing structure can be deduced, including from an alcove bed. Under the rear extension a deep cellar with a built spiral stair with one sandstone tread and other old traces, including a side door. The upper hall over the full width and nearly the full depth, the hall for the meetings of the Jewish pious society, partly in original condition, but damaged in parts. Ceiling of collar beams and principal rafters with boards in the bays; under the beams keystone pieces with scrollwork in the Neo-Renaissance style, all dark-lacquered. Broad window frames with cornices and corbels and panelled doors, all dark wood. Around the walls a grooved wainscoting moulding with above it a decorative band painted with floral motifs in Art Nouveau style of approximately 40 cm high. Large fireplace against the east facade, only a few tiles remaining, boxed in and provided with a wedge-shaped tapering, framed mantel, on which traces of a disappeared aedicula-shaped superstructure. Original roof truss structure, boarded in at some places.

VALUATION

Religious society building of general historical, cultural-historical and architectural-historical significance because of

- the religio-historical significance as an Israelite study centre, of which the hall for the meetings on the upper floor is still present to an important extent, but partly damaged;

- the well-preserved representational front facade executed in colourful building material in decorative forms in Transitional style;

- the remarkable place that this building occupies in the oeuvre of the characteristic architect W.C. de Groot.