Woonhuis, Bildtsestraat 21

English translation

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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 the design of 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 had to evoke an image from which one could read how the functional spaces fitted together and also had to show how they were built and which 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: "Precisely the unpretentious quality, the rejection of fashionable trends, the appreciation of its own, sturdy character, is so attractive in Meintema's work".

The complex of 70 dwellings is urban-design-wise vitally woven into the larger whole 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 sections nonetheless provide a strong architectural and spatial coherence. This lively grouping with front gardens of different depths on streets with for that period broad profiles 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 without the arrangement suffering greatly. The new exterior doors and window divisions then took on a different form, causing the metre of windows and door lights no longer to correspond.

Description

EXTERIOR: The dwelling block forms part of a group of 53 dwellings at Marsummer-, Franeker-, Menaldumer-, Bildtse- and Engelumerstraat of one storey with large, broken roofs. The groups of dwellings are staggered with respect to each other. The dwellings are built on rectangular floor plans, with two combined in one block and the third, number 32, set well back, but nonetheless attached. They possess detached sheds of one storey, built of brick and provided with hipped roofs with tiles. The walls are laid in light mixed red brick in Flemish bond without recessed jointing. The bond courses for relief of door and window openings are extended to a slightly projecting course over full width and depth. The original doors were replaced during the 1978 renovation with doors, likewise with four-pane light, but with different proportions. Within the door frames are low, four-pane fanlights. Only the dwelling at Bildtsestraat 23 still has an original door with corner fillings at the top of the lights. From no. 23 several original windows with hinges and latches are also still present, and even panes of cylinder glass. The dwellings are on the ground floor further opened with (renovated) double six-pane windows. In gable-end walls a six-pane window. The rear facade is opened with casement doors with glazing bars and a back (kitchen) door with a narrow vertical window. Only Bildtsestraat 23 still has a glazed awning resting on a wall and a prop. All dwellings have high broken roofs where the undersides of the lower slopes are gently curved. The roofs are provided with zinc gutters. Each dwelling has a substantial gable on the 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 hallway adjoining stairwell; behind it the kitchen and next to it the rooms en suite and under the roof three, quite small bedrooms. The suite structure has in virtually all dwellings been broken through to form a large living room. In dwelling no. 23, where more original aspects have been preserved, the suite structure can still be recognised in the beam ceilings. In this dwelling the window at the front is framed with a cupboard portal of panelling and with panel doors for the cupboards. On the upper floor most rooms still have beam ceilings and built-in cupboards in the walls. The layout with amongst other things panel doors is otherwise extremely simple. The interior of Bildtsestraat is included; the remainder are excluded from protection. Furthermore, some alterations took place during the renovation. For example, the awnings located behind the kitchen were removed.

ASSESSMENT

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

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

- because of the externally virtually intact (except for doors and windows) Interbellum style based on restrained and new architecture, no longer referencing historical styles, whereby this type of dwelling is characterised by the remarkable broken roof;

- because of the important exterior and interior original aspects which only the dwelling at Bildtsestraat still possesses;

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