Woonhuis, Engelumerstraat 1

English translation

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Description

Introduction

A 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 favoured a simplicity of architecture; his buildings were to evoke an image from which one could read how the usable spaces fitted together and also were to show how they were built and which building materials had been used. He called his buildings a tiny little bit of art. Following a commemorative exhibition after his death it was written: "It is precisely the unpretentious quality, the rejection of fashionable trends, the appreciation of its own, sturdy character, that makes the work of Meintema 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 stretches nonetheless provide a strong architectural and spatial coherence. This lively grouping with front gardens of varying depth on streets with for that time broad profiles evokes somewhat the atmosphere of a garden city. During a renovation at the end of the seventies the original layout of the dwellings was modernised without the arrangement suffering greatly. The new external doors and window arrangements were given a different form at that time, whereby the rhythm of windows and door lights no longer correspond.

Description

EXTERIOR: The dwelling, the only single dwelling of the complex, spatially well situated on the curved entrance of Engelumerstraat, forms part of a group of 53 dwellings on Marsummer-, Franeker-, Menaldumer-, Bildtse- and Engelumerstraat of one storey with large, broken roofs. The groups of dwellings are staggered in relation to each other. The dwelling is built on a rectangular floor plan. It has an adjoining storage of one storey, built of brick and provided with a small hipped roof with tiles. The walls are laid in light mottled red brick in Flemish bond without recessed jointing. The course-layers for relieving door and windows are carried through to a slightly projected course over full width and depth. The original door in the side gable was replaced during the 1978 renovation by a door, likewise with four-pane light, but with different proportions; within the frame a low, four-part fanlight. The dwelling is further opened on the ground floor with (renovated) double six-pane windows. In the gable end side elevation a six-pane window. The rear elevation opened with French doors with glazing bars and a rear (kitchen) door with a narrow vertical window. The dwelling has a high broken roof where the under-sections are slightly hollow curved. The roof is provided with zinc gutters. The dwelling has a substantial gable on side and rear sections, provided with a double four-pane window with a wooden gable top and a gabled roof with overhang.

INTERIOR: The dwelling originally has on the ground floor a layout of hallway combined with staircase; behind that the kitchen and next to it the rooms en suite and under the roof three, fairly small bedrooms. The suite structure has been removed in virtually all the dwellings to create one large living room. The furnishings with amongst other things panelled doors are otherwise highly simple. The interiors fall outside the protection. Further, during the renovation some further modernisations took place. Thus the awnings present behind the kitchen were removed.

VALUATION

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

- as a relatively early example of corporative construction of 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 leading architect Doeke Meintema;

- because of the externally nearly intact (except for doors and windows) Interbellum style in a restrained and new architecture no longer referring to historical styles, 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 staggering in streets already broad in profile 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.