Woonhuis, Menaldumerstraat 6

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

Row of four DWELLINGS forming part of a COMPLEX of 70 MIDDLE-CLASS DWELLINGS, realized in 1919-1921 in Interwar 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 favoured simplicity in architecture; his buildings were to convey an image from which one could read how the functional spaces related to one another and were also to show how they were built and which building materials had been used. He called his buildings a very small amount of art. Following a commemorative exhibition after his death it was written: "It is precisely the unpretentious quality, the rejection of fashionable trends, the valuing of its own, sturdy character, that makes Meintema's work so attractive".

The complex of 70 dwellings is woven into the urban fabric in a lively manner within the larger context of the neighbourhood. 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 nevertheless ensures a strong architectural and spatial coherence. This lively grouping with front gardens of varying depth along streets with broad profiles for that time evokes somewhat the atmosphere of a garden city. During renovation at the end of the seventies the original layout of the dwellings was modernized without the arrangement suffering greatly. The new external doors and window arrangements then took on a different form, whereby the meter of windows and door lights no longer correspond.

Description

EXTERIOR: The row of four dwellings, in two groups of two offset in relation to each other, forms part of a group of 53 dwellings on Marssumerstraat, Franekerstraat, Menaldumerstraat, Bildtsestraat and Engelumerstraat of one storey with large, broken roofs. The groups of dwellings are staggered in relation to each other. The dwellings are built on rectangular floor plans and possess attached sheds of one storey at the rear, built of brick and provided with small hipped roofs with tiles. The walls are laid in light variegated red brick in Flemish bond without recessed joints. The header courses for the relief of doors and windows are continued in a slightly projecting course over the full width and depth. The original doors were replaced during renovation in 1978 with doors, also with four-pane glazing, but with different proportions; within the frames low, four-light fanlights. The dwellings are further opened on the ground floor each with two (renovated) nine-pane windows. In detached side gables a six-pane window. The rear elevation opened with French doors with glazing bars and a rear (kitchen) door with a narrow vertical window. All dwellings have high broken roofs where the lower hips are slightly hollow curved. The roofs are provided with zinc gutters. Each dwelling has a substantial dormer on front and rear hip, provided with a double four-pane window with a wooden gable capping and a saddle roof with overhang.

INTERIOR: The dwellings originally had on the ground floor a layout of hallway combined with staircase; behind it the kitchen and alongside it the rooms en suite and under the roof three, fairly small bedrooms. The suite structure has been removed in virtually all dwellings to create a large living room. The fittings with amongst others panel doors are otherwise very simple. The interiors fall outside protection. Furthermore some modifications took place during renovation. For example, the loggias present behind the kitchen were removed.

ASSESSMENT

The row of four middle-class dwellings 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 construction of middle-class dwellings just 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 outwardly virtually intact (except for doors and windows) Interwar style based on a restrained and novel architecture no longer referring to historical styles, whereby this type of dwelling is characterized by the remarkable broken roof;

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