Woonhuis, Harlingersingel 13

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

Block of APARTMENT BUILDINGS comprising five lower and five upper dwellings and a townhouse, built in 1898 in Neo-Renaissance style. Based on the handwriting of the preserved floor plan drawings, architect Zijtze Siewert Feddema may have provided the design.

Outside the Vrouwenpoort, at the beginning of the road towards Marssum, there stood from time immemorial the inn adjoining a coffee house and stables called De Groene Weide, a stopping place for travellers and especially on market days for farmers who stabled their vehicles there. With the relocation of the cattle market and the arrival of new means of transport, the need for stabling space at the inn diminished. Around 1900, shortly one after another, a tramway to the west and a local railway to the north-west were established. De Groene Weide became a stopping place for travellers. H.J. Albers, owner of De Groene Weide from 1894 to 1909, had a series of dwellings built in 1898 on the northern part of his land, but significantly set back to retain sufficient parking space and after approval of the building plans by the municipality, which were to form the Harlingersingel in important ways spatially. It became a substantial building block with five lower, five upper dwellings and one townhouse on the corner of the Marssumerdijk, later called the Harlingerstraatweg. These were the first apartment buildings (not counting shop and other business dwellings) in Leeuwarden. The foundation stone in the middle of the parapet reads: "D.E.S.G. through Petrlla J.C. Albers aged 12 years 29. 6. 1898". The little street in front of the dwellings remained private property for a long time. Although at other entrances near the city centre, especially after World War II, there was strong pressure on representative dwellings to be converted to office or other business use, these have been able to retain their original purpose. Only in the townhouse on the corner has an estate agency been established.

Description

EXTERIOR: The housing block is built on a rectangular ground plan and is two full storeys high on the front with a hipped roof; built to three storeys at the rear. The lower dwellings have rear extensions on the garden side in which originally two bedrooms were accommodated. The sections with the entrances project somewhat; the entrance bays are wider than the window bays. The northern corner section is closed off and built up to a roof truss at the gable; the northern side gable has several extensions of various forms. The building is constructed of greyish-brown brick, enlivened with decorations in artificial stone. The parapet on the ground floor has a substantial natural stone plinth and is finished with the profiled window sill band. The gables are interspersed with bands at the height of lower, middle and upper window sills. The gables are finished with cornices, consisting of profiled moulding, consoles and intervening sections of brick mosaic, followed by a profiled gutter. The rear gable is entirely smooth rendered with, on the first and second storey above the windows, recessed segmental arch drums and thinly carved relieving arches.

Each lower dwelling is two windows and an entrance door wide; each upper dwelling is three windows wide. All sash windows and entrance sections stand in recessed niches, relieved by segmental arches with corner notches and voussoirs with diamond heads enclosing arch drums with brick mosaic. Through the projecting sections, the niches of the entrances are deeper. Within these are the doors with fanlights for the lower and upper dwellings always coupled in one frame assembly with a decoratively carved central mullion with consoles above the astragal and a Flemish spiral to scrollwork. Carved doors with lights furnished with wrought-iron grilles and a register of three fanlights, most still provided with coloured stained glass. The townhouse on the corner (number 23) possesses a side section projecting three times, partly two storeys, and a central section crowned by a balustrade of three storeys in irregular articulation and detailing. All windows, segmentally or round-arched relieved, possess corner notches and voussoirs. The carved door with wrought-iron grilles in the first side element has stained glass in Art Nouveau style, as does the tall three-part fanlight. The next built-out tall element contains the stairwell; it has a flat roof with a balustrade. The next, slightly lower element with shell roof contains the kitchen below and side rooms on the storeys. On the enclosed corner a window and on the storey a bay window resting on richly carved braces of richly carved stile and rail work. Behind the braces are consoles, furnished with a male and female head carving. On the second storey of that corner a chapel built out of the roof with a double door set in a round arch behind a small balcony.

The framed front hipped roof is covered with slate in Spanish bond. Above the entrance projecting sections, a substantial brick box gable is placed each time with flanks, pilasters, consoles, tympana and crowning balls. On the intervening hipped roofs stand small wooden chapels crowned by pinnacles. On the northern side hipped roofs stands such a small one and moreover a larger chapel.

INTERIOR: The lower dwellings originally had a layout of a front room, an alcove and a living room at the rear with next to it a passage leading to the kitchen at the rear. Moreover they have a rear extension of a single storey with flat roof in which at the time two adjoining bedrooms with windows to the garden side were accommodated. The suite structure with alcove is still present in number 13; most others have been lost in modernisations. In number 13 the front room has a stuccoed ceiling with moulding, corner and central ornament, a black marble fireplace, a framed panelled door, solid panels in the sash doors which still retain the original hanging and closing hardware. The other rooms have a simple profiled moulding on the stuccoed ceilings; in the back room soft board has been installed. In that room a simple black marble fireplace and sash doors to the alcove with glazed panels. The bedrooms built out into the garden are still in their original state; the first with a sash window, the second with French doors to the garden. Kitchen with one garden door and window; modernised. The fireplace section, framed with a fluted pendant with console and Flemish spiral, is original. Deep and large cellar with floors.

The upper dwellings originally have a similar room suite, but without alcove. Some dwellings, including number 13 above, still possess the suite bay with cupboards, side panels and solid sash doors provided with panels. The upper dwellings have a kitchen on the rear of the passage and on the front, above the stair opening, a small side room which in some dwellings have been taken into the front room. All rooms have stuccoed ceilings, in the passage provided with a profiled edge band, otherwise plain; in some dwellings the ceilings have been lowered. Stair furnished with railings with balusters and carved newels. In the roof storey originally five rooms were fitted out.

The townhouse on the corner (number 23) has a richly decorated interior. The vestibule has ornamental stucco work on the ceiling and side wall. Not only does the door and fanlight contain stained glass in Art Nouveau, the large side window with fanlights also has glass in this style. On the ground floor the suite structure with sash doors and with conservatory at the rear has been broken out into one office space. The panelled doors still present are framed and from the front room the decoratively stuccoed ceiling with mouldings, rounded ornaments and rosettes is still present. The stucco ceiling of the back room is concealed under a system ceiling. The passage with marble tiles on the floor has arched passages topped by pilasters to gateways. Similar gateways are also on the storey passages. The original stairwell is spacious and is lit by windows with Art Nouveau stained glass. The continuous staircase has railings with carved balusters and, arranged around the square stair opening, newels developed into exuberantly carved and running from bottom to top styles. The stucco ceiling of the stairwell is decorated with panels and hanging balusters. On the storeys original fixtures are still present. On the first storey the suite doors have been boarded up. In both salons decorative stucco ceilings and fireplace sections with chimneypieces. The front room has on the enclosed corner a bay window built out of finely carved stile and rail work and large windows with stained-glass fanlights in Art Nouveau style. On the second storey simply finished rooms, but always provided with panelled doors.

VALUATION:

The block of lower and upper dwellings with a townhouse is of general historical, architectural-historical and architectural importance

- as an early block of apartment buildings on the city edge and early object of property development on a site that became vacant through a change in transport systems;

- because of the striking place that the housing block occupies in the varied oeuvre of the presumed architect Z.S. Feddema;

- because of the stylistically pure Neo-Renaissance that is still completely intact externally and internally, in particular in the lower and upper dwelling number 13 and in the townhouse number 23 still largely so, and in the latter in a particularly richly decorated manner and moreover detailed with Art Nouveau, is present.