Woonhuis, Eigen Brood Bovenal 66

English translation

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Description

Introduction

Block of eight WORKERS' DWELLINGS, Eigen Brood Bovenal 66-80, forming part of a complex of 64 workers' dwellings of 'Oud Eigen Brood Bovenal', consisting of eight blocks of eight dwellings each. This block was built in 1870 in Craftsman traditional building style designed by architect Jacob Izaäks Douma for one of the earliest housing associations in the country and the first in Friesland.

Description

EXTERIOR: The eight dwellings, grouped in a block, are built in a highly simple Craftsman traditional building style. The block belongs to the second construction phase and is located on the narrow street Eigen Brood Bovenal. The little houses measure 6 by 6.3 metres. Each house is provided with a bleaching green or garden of five metres deep, originally mainly bounded by wooden fences and nowadays largely by privet hedges. The block is not connected back-to-back with the block behind it, but there is an alley of one metre width between, whereby the dwellings can receive somewhat light and air from both sides. Per group of eight came a large rainwater tank and per 24 dwellings they were also jointly provided with a well with pump. Outside the door came groups of privies and indeed separate ones for women and men. These extra facilities were accommodated in the dwellings in later times and the outbuildings have disappeared.

The front facades are per dwelling a double window bay and a non-projecting door bay wide. Above a plastered plinth the walls are built of reddish-brown and brown brick. The straight-closed wall openings are covered by header courses. With the last renovation the renewed double windows lost their glazing bars and the fanlights were provided with casement or awning windows. The originally solid doors were then replaced by glass-panel doors. Above in the wall sit rose anchors. The rain gutters rest on modest moulded small blocks. The rows of dwellings have slightly pitched hipped roofs with renewed, black-glazed curved tiles. On the roof stand series of roof dormers with swept roofs, added in 1935. The bleaching greens at the front, once bounded by wooden fences and nowadays mostly by privet hedges, are laid out as individual gardens.

INTERIOR: Originally the small dwellings received a layout of a room of 5.6 by 4.4 metres, including two bed alcoves and a cupboard, a substantial hallway and a workshop of 1.8 by 2.1 metres which could be used as a kitchen. There is a fixed staircase to the attic. Under the stairs was a cupboard and below it a small cellar that was accessible via the storage or washing place behind it. Philips Kooperberg noted in 1888 that the attics were usually fitted out as sleeping quarters or rooms for homework: "The roofs are not boarded and too flat, so that the attics are not free from moisture". The interior of these workers' dwellings has been repeatedly rebuilt and from the 1930s onwards adapted to contemporary living comfort. The interiors therefore fall outside the protection.

VALUATION

The block of eight WORKERS' DWELLINGS, Eigen Brood Bovenal 66-80, forming part of the complex of 64 workers' dwellings of 'Oud Eigen Brood Bovenal' is of general importance from a social-historical, architectural-historical and urban planning perspective

- because of the prominent place the block occupies as part of the complex in the local and regional (and a very early place in the national) history of organized public housing;

- because of the exterior somewhat disrupted by renovation, but nevertheless balanced and restrained Craftsman traditional building style;

- because of the characteristic urban planning layout in strict bands which has resulted in a clear complex in a nowadays somewhat frayed environment.