Woonhuis, Marssumerstraat 4

English translation

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Description

Introduction

Row of four DWELLINGS forming part of a COMPLEX of 70 MIDDLE-CLASS DWELLINGS, realised in 1919-1921 in Interwar style for the Coöperatieve Vereniging Woningbouw after 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 tall, 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 an austerity of architecture; his buildings were meant to evoke an image from which one could read how the functional spaces were organised in relation to each other and were also meant to show how they were built and what building materials had been used. He called his buildings a very little 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 woven together in an urbane and lively manner within the larger context 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 strips nonetheless create a strong architectural and spatial coherence. This lively grouping with front gardens of varying depth along streets with broad profiles for that time evokes something of the atmosphere of a garden city. During renovation at the end of the seventies, the original layout of the dwellings was modernised without the internal arrangement being greatly altered. The new exterior doors and window designs took on a different form at that time, so that the rhythm of windows and door lights no longer correspond.

Description

EXTERIOR: The row of dwellings forms part of a group of 53 dwellings at Marssumer-, Franeker-, Menaldumer-, Bildtse- and Engelumerstraat of one storey with tall, broken roofs. The groups of dwellings are offset in relation to each other. The dwellings are built on rectangular ground plans. They have detached storage buildings of one storey and built of brick and provided with tiled hipped roof structures. The walls are laid in light blended red brick in Flemish bond without recessed joints. The brick courses for the relief of doors and windows are drawn through to a slightly projecting course across full width and depth. 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. Only the dwelling at Bildtsestraat 23 still has an original door with corner infills at the top of the lights. The dwellings are further opened on the ground floor with (renovated) double or triple six-pane windows. In detached end walls a six-pane window. The rear wall opened with French doors with glazing bars and a rear (kitchen) door with a narrow upright window. All dwellings have tall broken roofs where the lower roof slopes are slightly hollowed. The roofs are provided with zinc gutters. Each dwelling has a substantial roof chapel on front and rear slopes, provided with a double four-pane window with a wooden gable top and a saddle roof with overhang.

INTERIOR: The dwellings originally had on the ground floor a layout of passage adjoining stairwell; behind this the kitchen and adjacent to it the rooms en suite and under the roof three, fairly small bedrooms. The suite structure has been removed in nearly all dwellings to create a large living room. The interior fittings, including panel doors, are otherwise extremely simple. The interiors fall outside the protection. Furthermore, during the renovation some additional changes were made. Thus the canopies present behind the kitchen were removed.

VALUATION

The row of middle-class dwellings 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 corporate housing construction for middle-class dwellings shortly before the financial turning point in public housing;

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

- because of the externally virtually intact (except for doors and windows) Interwar style with a restrained and new, no longer historically styled architecture, whereby this type of dwelling is characterised by the remarkable broken roof;

- because of the lively grouping of the dwellings, whereby the architect with block-wise, but also coupled offsets 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 that has been further shaped by the demarcations with privet hedges.