Woonhuis, Weesperzijde 21 H

English translation

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Description

Introduction

Two identical TOWNHOUSES, designed by J.H.T. Löning, October 1883, in the style of Neo-Renaissance with both specifically Dutch and Italian characteristics. The client was Hibbelns glass factory. The rich decoration is executed in plaster. The townhouses, completed in 1884, form part of the nineteenth-century riverfront on the Amstel, Weesperzijde, developed at the end of the nineteenth century by private building contractors. Numbers 21-22 are the only houses in the row with a rear house and a void.

Description

Residential buildings constructed in orange brick in cross-bond, on a chamfered rectangular floor plan, over four storeys (basement, piano nobile and two upper storeys), each three window bays wide, with in the hipped roof three roof dormers, of which the central window bay is raised higher. The windows are straight-headed. The articulation follows a classical schema with a stone rusticated plinth in the basement, a plastered ashlar pattern on the piano nobile and a main cornice as a termination, consisting of an architrave, frieze and cornice. The latter supported by a block dentil course and consoles with acanthus leaves. On the corners of both buildings are plastered pilaster strips on which the ornamental bands (speckled courses) in the masonry terminate. The other horizontal layers, which connect the two buildings consist of the stone lintels of the windows, running through the piers, the profiled drip moulding above the first upper storey and the continuous balconies above the piano nobile. The balconies, which rest on heavy consoles with mascarons of male heads and acanthus leaves, have natural stone balusters and corner posts with diamond bosses. The stone rustication of the basement has diamond bosses above both windows. The upper edge of this layer serves as the drip moulding of the piano nobile. The ashlar pattern of the piano nobile runs through into the porticoes, accessed by stone steps. Panel doors with ornamental grilles and fanlights are placed in the porticoes. Above the semicircular arches of the porticoes are small male heads, above the windows on this storey small female heads.

On the first upper storey the central pediments, above the French doors, are triangular, whilst those above the flanking windows are curved. The same schema is followed on the second upper storey, where only windows are present. All pediments have guttae in the moulding. In the field below the windows on the second upper storey hang double festoons. The roof dormers have guttae (where still present) in the triangular, resting on consoles, pediments; the central ones contain a hoist beam. The rear facades of the rear houses are plastered in ashlar pattern, that of number 21 painted grey. In the transversely placed mansard roofs are simple roof dormers with three-sided pediments.

The interior has rich stucco ceilings in the front and rear rooms of the piano nobile, as well as some panel doors.

Valuation

Ensemble of two townhouses on the Weesperzijde from 1883-1884 of general importance because of the cultural and architectural-historical value as an unspoilt example of, developed by private clients, richly detailed, neo-renaissance residential buildings for the well-to-do classes. The residential buildings are of general importance in urban planning terms as a defining part of the late nineteenth-century riverfront on the east side of the Amstel.