Woonhuis, Starterstraat 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 6 WORKERS' DWELLINGS, Starterstraat 2-8, Hollanderstraat 16 and Wijnhornsterstraat 7, forming part of the HOLLANDERWIJK COMPLEX. The Hollanderwijk was built in 1915 by order of the Housing Association Leeuwarden according to a design by Willem Cornelis de Groot in Transitional style. The association purchased in 1912 a wedge-shaped plot of almost 3 hectares to the south of the railway depot. In an initial design the architect filled the area with 201 dwellings in fourteen uniform north-south oriented building strips. The inspector of public health objected to the rigid approach and the following design with 177 dwellings was much more lively from an urban planning perspective. The urban planning approach was the reason to also vary the architecture. The 139 standard dwellings (with minor variations) are placed as terraced houses in the strips; the 38 larger dwellings (of which two shophouses) with strongly varied floor plans and architectural forms came into being at the edges of the district, on the corners and along the access street.

In 1980/83 a comprehensive renovation of the district took place. The layout of the dwellings was thoroughly modified at that time. Kitchens/storage rooms have been added at the rear which have brought about urban planning and architectural changes, but which are reasonably obscured from view by planting and disturb the overall appearance only to a minor extent.

DESCRIPTION EXTERIOR: The building block of 6 workers' dwellings consists of four small dwellings and two corner dwellings. The dwellings are three bays wide with a door and two windows. Both the width and the height of doors and windows with fanlights, provided with small glazing bars, are in balanced proportion to the facade plane. The dwellings are built of greyish-brown brick and enlivened with all manner of decorative features of red pressed brick. Decorative bands at the height of the under and upper sills of the windows are found on all dwellings, also in the gable tops. Whilst the relieving arches above the facade openings already show diversity, the arch voussoirs are filled with great fantasy with ever-changing brickwork mosaic. Each street has been given its own distinctive mosaic pattern. Finely detailed zinc rainwater pipes with collection baskets also enriched the appearance, but during renovation most were replaced by simple plastic ones. The side roofs that are in view are covered with blue glazed Frisian curved tiles; the back roofs with the half-timbered tiles of this type. All attics are lit by roof dormer windows. The contour of the roofs was originally enlivened not a little by chimneys that were built up flush from the roof line. During the renewal of the district in the nineteen-eighties most chimneys disappeared. The dwellings on the corner locations are somewhat more spacious. Wijnhornsterstraat 7 has a half-hipped gable top and an extra side bay; Hollanderstraat 16 has a hipped roof under which an entrance canopy is provided through a recess in the building block and a half-hipped gable top on the side.

INTERIOR: The small dwellings originally consisted of a room and a rear-lying alcove with fixed beds, a hallway with a straight staircase, a room under the roof and a yard 5 metres deep with a lean-to and a privy; the larger dwellings had an extra room or kitchen downstairs and sometimes under the roof also an extra partitioned-off small room. During the renovation carried out from 1980 to 1983 the interiors of all dwellings were adapted to the demands of modern living comfort. The hallways retained their original form; some with the original tile floors or remnants thereof. Apart from these floors the interiors fall outside the protection.

VALUATION

The block of dwellings at Starterstraat 2-8, Hollanderstraat 16 and Wijnhornsterstraat 7 is of great general importance from a social-historical, architectural-historical and urban planning perspective

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

- as a dwelling block in the district project which occupies a striking place in the oeuvre of architect W.C. de Groot as a district with a unity in architecture that shows great variations down to details to reinforce urban planning liveliness, characteristic of the Transitional style;

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