Woonhuis, Halbertsmastraat 2

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

BLOCK OF 13 WORKERS' DWELLINGS, Halbertsmastraat 2-22, Nieuwe Hollanderdijk 2 and Hollanderstraat 1, forming part of the HOLLANDERWIJK COMPLEX.

The Hollanderwijk was built in 1915 on the commission of the Woningvereeniging Leeuwarden to the design of Willem Cornelis de Groot in Transition Style. The association purchased in 1912, to the south of the railway yard, a wedge-shaped piece of land of almost 3 hectares. In an initial design the architect filled the area with 201 dwellings in fourteen uniform north-south oriented building strips. The health inspector objected to the rigid approach and the next design with 177 dwellings was much more lively from an urban planning perspective. The urban planning approach provided reason also to vary the architecture. The 139 standard dwellings (with minor variations) are placed as terraced dwellings in the strips; the 38 larger dwellings (including two shop-houses) with markedly varied floor plans and architectural forms were created at the edges of the neighbourhood, on the corners and on the service street.

In 1980/'83 a complete renovation of the neighbourhood took place. The layout of the dwellings was thoroughly altered in the process. Kitchens/storage rooms were built out at the rear sides, which brought about urban planning and architectural changes, but these are nicely concealed from view by planting and disturb the whole only to a minor extent.

DESCRIPTION EXTERIOR: The building block of 13 workers' dwellings consists of 11 small dwellings and two corner dwellings. The dwellings are three bays wide, with one door and two windows. Both the width and height of doors and windows with fanlights, furnished with small glazing bars, are in balanced proportion with the facade surface. The dwellings are built of greyish-brown brick and enlivened with various ornaments of red pressed-brick. Brickwork courses at the height of the under and upper window sills are found on all dwellings, also in the gable tops. While the relieving arches above the facade openings already show diversity, the arch drums are filled with ever-changing brick mosaic with great imagination. Each street has been given its own characteristic mosaic pattern. Finely detailed zinc rainwater pipes with collection reservoirs further enriched the appearance; during renovation most were replaced by simple plastic examples. The side roofs visible from the street are covered with blue glazed Frisian corrugated tiles; the rear roofs with the half-hip tiles of this type. All attics are lit by roof dormers or windows in the gable tops. With this long building strip, an obviously feared monotony was also avoided by letting the building strip bend with the street. The roof outline was originally enlivened considerably by chimneys that were built from the roof pitch. During the neighbourhood renewal in the eighties most chimneys disappeared. The dwellings in corner locations are somewhat more spacious and have sloped gable tops.

INTERIOR: The small dwellings originally consisted of a room and a rear-lying alcove with fixed beds, a passage with steep stairs, a room under the roof and a small yard 5 metres deep with a lean-to roof and an outdoor toilet; the larger dwellings had an additional room or kitchen below and sometimes under the roof also an extra partitioned small room. In the renovation carried out from 1980 to 1983, the interiors of all dwellings were adapted to the requirements of modern living comfort. The passages retained their original form; some with the original tile floor or remains thereof. Apart from these floors, the interiors fall outside the protection.

VALUATION

The block of dwellings Halbertsmastraat 2-22, Nieuwe Hollanderdijk 2 and Hollanderstraat is of major general importance from a social-historical, architectural-historical and urban planning perspective

- as an element in the neighbourhood which holds an important place in the social and cultural history of workers' housing at the turning point from quantitative to qualitative approach;

- as a housing strip in the neighbourhood project which holds a prominent place in the oeuvre of architect W.C. de Groot as a neighbourhood with architectural unity that shows great variations in detail to strengthen urban planning liveliness, characteristic of Transition Style;

- as an element in the neighbourhood of a lively urban planning approach with striking and subtle spatial variations in the street layout and the placement of the dwellings.