Woonhuis, Harlingerstraatweg 45

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

Double DWELLING forming part of a COMPLEX of 70 MIDDLE-CLASS DWELLINGS, realized in 1919-1921 in Interbellum style for the Coöperatieve Vereniging Woningbouw according to the design of Doeke Meintema. 17 large dwellings of two storeys with shallow hipped roofs at Harlingerstraatweg 45 to 73 and Marssumerstraat 1 and 2 and 53 small dwellings of one storey with high, broken hipped roofs at Marssumerstraat 4 to 18 and 3 to 9, Franekerstraat 68 to 74, Menaldumerstraat 2 to 18, Bildtsestraat 7 to 25 and 14 to 32 and Engelumerstraat 1 to 15.

Architect Doeke Meintema favoured simplicity of architecture; his buildings were intended to convey an image from which one could discern how the functional spaces fitted together and also should show how they were built and which building materials had been applied. He called his buildings a very small piece of art. Following a commemorative exhibition after his death, it was written: "Precisely the unpretentious character, the rejection of fashionable trends, the appreciation of its own, sturdy character, is so attractive in the work of Meintema".

The complex of 70 dwellings is woven together in an urbane manner within the larger whole of the neighbourhood. The characteristic architecture of both the large and small dwellings and the lively articulation in offset blocks of two and four dwellings and some longer rows nevertheless provide a strong architectural and spatial coherence. This lively grouping with front gardens of varying depth on streets with wide profiles for that period evokes somewhat the atmosphere of a garden city. During a renovation at the end of the nineteen seventies, the original layout of the dwellings was modernized without the distribution being greatly affected. The new exterior doors and window divisions then took on a different form, whereby the rhythm of windows and door lights no longer correspond.

Description

EXTERIOR: The double dwelling forms part of a group of 15 dwellings on the Harlingerstraatweg and two at the corner of the Marssumerstraat which are slightly offset in relation to each other. The housing block is two storeys high and built on a rectangular ground plan. Each has a detached storage building of one storey built of brick with a hipped roof covered with tiles. The dwellings are furnished with tent roofs with a fairly shallow roof pitch, covered with red Dutch pantiles and provided with ridge chimneys and zinc gutter pipes. The walls are laid with light mottled red brickwork in Flemish bond without recessed pointing. The masonry is enlivened in a restrained manner with lightly recessed and projecting gable sections with brick ornamentation. For the upper storey, parapet sections, supported and covered by headers, project slightly and at the top of the upper storey, by way of a frieze, every three courses one brick course is laid out, between which the windows are set, a horizontal plastic articulation that is covered by a course of headers running the full width and depth which form reliefs above the upper windows. The entrance bays project slightly with on the corners every three courses a dentilation and at the top here and there a projecting head. The original doors were replaced during the 1978 renovation with doors, likewise with four-pane lights, but with different proportions; within the frames low, four-part fanlights. The façades are opened on the ground floor next to the entrance sections with double or triple six-pane windows. On the upper storeys four-pane windows in the same rhythm as below and above the entrance sections always a four-pane window. In the side façades below a six-pane and above a four-pane window. In the rear façades below a four-part window display with centrally opening doors and a rear (kitchen) door with a narrow vertical light. On the upper storey three four-pane windows, two of which serve as side lights to a door with a French balcony.

INTERIOR: The large dwellings originally had on the ground floor a layout of hallway combined with stairwell; behind it the kitchen and beside it the en suite rooms and on the upper storey a landing with small bedrooms front and back above the hall/kitchen and two large bedrooms above the living rooms. The en suite structure has been removed in virtually all dwellings to create a large living room. The interiors are outside the scope of protection. The furnishings with, among other things, panelled doors, are moreover extremely simple. Further, some renovations took place during the renovation. For example, the awnings behind the kitchen have been removed.

APPRAISAL

The double middle-class dwelling is as an element of the complex of 70 dwellings of general historical, architectural historical, architectural and urban planning significance

- as a relatively early example of cooperative middle-class housing construction shortly before the financial turning point in public housing;

- because of the important place the complex of dwellings occupies in the oeuvre of the leading architect Doeke Meintema;

- because of the externally virtually intact (except for doors and windows) Interbellum style with a restrained and new architecture no longer referring to historical styles, whereby the large, austere dwellings received some brick expressionism;

- because of the lively grouping of the dwellings, whereby the architect through blockwise, but also coupled offset configurations in streets that already had wide profiles and especially at the corners has suggested so much space that a garden city-like result has been achieved, an image that was further shaped by demarcations with privet hedges.