Woonhuis, Harlingerstraatweg 49

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

Triple DWELLING forming part of a COMPLEX of 70 MIDDLE-CLASS DWELLINGS, realised in 1919-1921 in Interbellum style for the Coöperatieve Vereniging Woningbouw according to designs by 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 advocated simplicity in architecture; his buildings were to evoke an image from which one could read how the functional spaces related to each other and also had to show how they were built and what building materials had been used. He called his buildings a very small bit of art. Following a commemorative exhibition after his death, it was written: "It is precisely the unpretentious character, the rejection of fashionable trends, the appreciation of its own, sturdy character, that makes Meintema's work so attractive".

The complex of 70 dwellings is urban-design-wise vividly woven into the larger whole of the district. The characteristic architecture of both the large and small dwellings and the lively articulation in staggered blocks of two and four dwellings and some longer rows nonetheless provide a strong architectural and spatial coherence. This lively grouping with front gardens of varying depth on streets with broad profiles for that period somewhat evokes the atmosphere of a garden city. During a renovation at the end of the seventies, the original layout of the dwellings was modernised; Harlingerstraatweg 51 still possesses the original layout. The new external doors and window designs were given a different form at that time, so that the rhythm of windows and door lights no longer correspond.

Description

EXTERIOR: The triple dwelling forms part of a group of 15 dwellings at Harlingerstraatweg and two at the corner of Marssumerstraat that are staggered in relation to each other. The housing block is two storeys high and built on a rectangular floor plan. Each has a detached storage building of one storey built of brick with a hipped roof covered with tiles. The dwellings are provided with tent roofs with a fairly shallow roof pitch, covered with red Dutch ridge tiles and fitted with ridge chimneys and zinc gutters. The walls are laid in light mixed-hue red brick in Flemish bond without recessed jointing. The masonry is enlivened in a restrained manner with slightly recessed and projecting facade bays with brick plasticity. At the first floor, parapet bays project slightly, supported and topped by header courses, and at the top of the first floor, by way of a frieze, every third course one brick course is laid out beyond the others, between which the windows are set, a horizontal plastic element that is topped by a header course running the full width and depth which forms relieving arches above the upper windows. The entrance bays project slightly with on the corners every third course a toothing and at the top now and then a projecting head. Dwelling no. 49 has a door in the eastern side gable. This entrance element is enclosed by a broad band of slightly projecting brickwork which beside the door is partly worked vertically and contains sidelights; a brickwork element that does not continue over the first floor. The original doors were replaced during the 1978 renovation with doors, likewise with four-light panels, but with different proportions; within the frames low, four-part fanlights. The facades are opened on the ground floor beside the entrance elements with double or triple six-light windows. On the first floors four-light windows in the same rhythm as below and above the entrance elements always a four-light window. In the side gables below a six-light and above a four-light window. In the rear gables below a four-pane window with centre-opening doors and a rear (kitchen) door with a narrow vertical light. On the first floor three four-light windows, two of which by way of sidelights of a door with French balcony.

INTERIOR: The large dwellings originally had on the ground floor a layout of corridor combined with stairwell; behind it the kitchen and next to it the rooms en suite and on the first floor a landing with in front and behind above the corridor/kitchen two small and above the living rooms two large bedrooms. The suite structure has been removed in virtually all dwellings to create one large living room. No. 51 still has the original layout. This interior falls under protection; those of numbers 49 and 53 do not. The layout with, among other things, panel doors is moreover extremely simple. Furthermore, several further improvements were made during the renovation. For example, the awnings behind the kitchen were removed.

VALUATION

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

- as a relatively early example of corporate construction of middle-class dwellings just before the financial turning point in public housing;

- because of the important place the complex dwellings occupy in the oeuvre of the prominent architect Doeke Meintema;

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

- because of the lively grouping of the dwellings, whereby the architect with block-wise, but also linked staggering in streets with already broad profiles and especially at the corners has suggested so much space that a garden-city-like result has been achieved, an image further shaped by the delimitations with privet hedges.