Woonhuis, Waling Dijkstrastraat 1

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 5 TENEMENT HOUSES, Waling Dijkstrastraat 1-5, Hollanderstraat 22 and Wijnhornsterstraat 10, forming part of the HOLLANDERWIJK COMPLEX.

The Hollanderwijk was built in 1915 on the instruction of the Housing Association Leeuwarden (Woningvereeniging Leeuwarden) according to the design of Willem Cornelis de Groot in Transitional style. The association purchased in 1912 a wedge-shaped piece of land 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 next design with 177 dwellings was much more lively from a town-planning perspective. The town-planning approach provided 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 shop-houses) with strongly varied floor plans and architectural forms came into being on the edges of the neighbourhood, on the corners and on the access street.

In 1980/'83 a comprehensive renovation of the neighbourhood took place. The layout of the dwellings was substantially altered in the process. At the rear sides kitchens/storage areas were built out which brought about town-planning and architectural changes, but which have been nicely concealed from view by planting and disturb the whole only to a minor extent.

DESCRIPTION EXTERIOR: The building block of 5 tenement houses consists of 3 small dwellings and 2 corner dwellings. The dwellings are three bays wide for 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 with the facade surface. The dwellings are built of greyish-brown brick and enlivened with various ornamental features of red pressed brick. Spaced courses at the height of the under and upper sills of the windows are to be found on all dwellings, also in the gable tops. While the relieving arches above the facade openings already show diversity, the arch soffits are filled with great imagination with ever different brick mosaics. Each street received its own characteristic mosaic pattern. Finely detailed zinc rainwater gutters with collection tanks similarly enriched the appearance, but during renovation most were replaced with simple plastic examples. The side slopes that are visible are covered with blue-glazed Frisian corrugated tiles; the rear slopes with the blind tiles of this type. All attics are lit by dormer windows. The outline of the roofs was originally enlivened not a little by chimneys built from the roof ridge itself. During the renovation of the neighbourhood in the nineteen-eighties most chimneys disappeared. The dwellings on the corner sites are more spacious. Wijnhornsterstraat 10 has a half-hipped gable top and a chapel built out from the roof with a half-hipped roof-piece; Hollanderstraat 22 has a hipped roof with a conservatory under the projecting roof slope and a chapel built out from the roof with a gable top.

INTERIOR: The small dwellings originally consisted of a room and a rear alcove with fixed beds, a passage with a steep staircase, a room under the roof and a yard space of 5 metres deep with a lean-to and a toilet; the larger dwellings had an additional room or kitchen below and sometimes also an additional separate small room under the roof. During the renovation carried out from 1980 to 1983 the interiors of all dwellings were adapted to the requirements of modern residential comfort. The passages retained their original form; some with the original tiled floor or remnants thereof. Except for these floors the interiors fall outside the protection.

VALUATION

The block of dwellings Waling Dijkstrastraat 1-5, Hollanderstraat 22 and Wijnhornsterstraat 10 is of great general importance from a social-historical, architectural-historical and town-planning perspective

- as an element in the neighbourhood which occupies an important place in the social-historical history of public housing on the turning point from quantitative to qualitative approach;

- as a row of dwellings in the neighbourhood project which occupies a notable place in the oeuvre of architect W.C. de Groot as a neighbourhood with unity in architecture that shows great variations down to details to strengthen the liveliness of town-planning, characteristic of Transitional style;

- as an element in the neighbourhood of a lively town-planning approach with striking and subtle spatial variations in the course of the streets and the placement of the dwellings.