Woonhuis, Harlingerstraatweg 61

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 a design 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 stood for simplicity of architecture; his buildings were intended to evoke an image from which one could read how the functional spaces fitted together and were also to show how they were built and which building materials were used. He called his buildings a very small amount of art. Following a commemorative exhibition after his death, it was written: "Precisely the unpretentious nature, the rejection of fashionable trends, the appreciation of own, sturdy character, is what makes the work of Meintema so attractive".

The complex of 70 dwellings is urban-planned in a lively manner 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 stretches nonetheless ensures strong architectural and spatial coherence. This lively grouping with front gardens of varying depth on streets with broad profiles for that time evokes somewhat the atmosphere of a garden city. During a renovation at the end of the seventies, the original arrangement of the dwellings was modernised without the layout suffering greatly. The new external doors and window divisions then received a different form, as a result of which the rhythm of windows and door lights no longer correspond.

Description

EXTERIOR: The triple dwelling forms part of a group of 15 dwellings on the Harlingerstaatweg and two on the corner of the Marssumerstraat which are slightly staggered in relation to each other. The dwelling block is two storeys high and built on a rectangular plan of two dwellings and a single dwelling on the Marssumerstraat which is considerably set back and is just coupled to the double dwelling on the Harlingerstraatweg. The groups of dwellings are staggered in relation to each other. Each has a single-storey brick detached shed with a pantile-covered hipped roof. The dwellings are provided with tent roofs with a fairly shallow roof pitch, covered with red Dutch interlocking tiles and provided with ridge chimneys and zinc gutters. The walls are laid in light blended red brick in Flemish bond without recessed jointing. The brickwork is enlivened in a restrained manner with slightly projecting and receding facade sections with brick patterning. For the upper storey, breastwork sections, supported and covered by header courses, project slightly and at the top of the upper storey, by way of a frieze, every third course one course of brick is laid, between which the windows are set, a horizontal plastic feature which is covered by a header course running across the full width and depth which above the upper windows forms relieving arches. The entrance bays are slightly emphasized with at the corners every three courses a stepped pattern and at the top here and there a projecting header. The wider and shallower corner dwelling on the Marssumerstraat has the entrance section in the middle with on either side a double six-light window and above four-light windows in the same rhythm. The original doors were replaced during the 1978 renovation with doors, likewise with four-light lights, but with different proportions; within the frames low, four-part fanlights. The facades are opened on the ground floor beside the entrance sections with double or triple six-light windows. On the upper storeys four-light windows in the same rhythm as below and above the entrance sections always a four-light window. In the side facades below a six-light and above a four-light window. In the rear facades below a four-part window opening with centrally opening doors and a rear (kitchen) door with a narrow vertical light. On the upper storey three four-light windows, two of which by way of side lights of a door with french balcony.

INTERIOR: The large dwellings originally had on the ground floor a layout of hall with staircase; behind it the kitchen and next to it the rooms en suite and on the upper storey a landing with in front and behind above the hall/kitchen two small and above the living rooms two large bedrooms. The suite structure has in virtually all dwellings been opened up to a large living room. The two wider, but shallower dwellings on the corner of the Marssumerstraat have a central corridor with stairs and on either side rooms and above large front and small rear bedrooms. The arrangement with inter alia panel doors is incidentally extremely simple. The interiors fall outside the protection. Furthermore, during the renovation several further alterations took place. For example, the canopies located 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-planning importance

- as a relatively early example of co-operative construction of middle-class dwellings shortly before the financial turning point in housing;

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

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

- because of the lively grouping of the dwellings, whereby the architect with block-wise, but also coupled 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 which was further shaped by the demarcations with privet hedges.