De IJsbreker

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

CAFE-RESTAURANT with DWELLINGS above, designed by A.L. van Gendt in 1884-1885, in the style of Neo-Renaissance, the decoration executed in plaster. The IJsbreker, named after an old inn of the same name on the same site, forms part of the nineteenth-century riverfront on the Amstel, Weesperzijde, developed at the end of the nineteenth century by private building contractors. The building was constructed on the orders of N.V. Bouwmaatschappij de IJsbreker. Founded by the hotelier A.W. Krasnapolsky (also client of Weesperzijde 33). Today the building still houses a café and alongside it a music venue. Above the café is the (double) dwelling, with the porticoes on either side of the café section.

Description

Constructed in red/grey brick in cross-bond, on a chamfered rectangular floor plan, a building over four storeys, six window bays wide. The low hipped roof of the gently sloping, kinked pitched roof has on the corners two corner dormers with spout gables, which break through the cornice and between them two smaller roof dormers with small hip roofs and pediments. The upper roof line runs around the coping plates of the spout gable. In the masonry are ornamental bands (speckled courses) and, in the outer bays, setting blocks. The beam layers on the first and second upper storeys have wrought-iron scroll anchors. The stone lintels of the windows run through in a profiled drip moulding. The straight-headed windows have predominantly T-windows with two-light fanlights. Between the outer, by pilaster strips defined, bays are on the ground floor three large semicircular arches of the café, with above them, in the residential section four window bays. The symmetrical facade is accentuated by the outer bays with spout gables and a vertical band. The shallow porticoes on the ground floor have a main cornice, carried by stone Doric columns with triglyphs, on which an aedicula rests with double fanlight. This aedicula has corner blocks with ball ornaments, torches and a curved pediment. The doors, on either side of a central mullion have ornamental grilles and oculi. Above the porticoes are balconies on decorative consoles. The framing of the balcony doors has torches, a main cornice with curved, console-supported pediment with eolipiles. The framing of the window on the storey above is similar, but without balls and with a triangular pediment. At the height of the mezzanine on the right is a cartouche with the building year '1885' and on the left one with the word 'anno'. In the top gable is a framed, round window (oculus) under a hoist beam.

The central semicircular arch of the café-restaurant rests on free-standing piers. At the birth of this arch are below the plate shields. The plastered arches have, like the (corner) piers, diamond bosses. The (corner) piers rest on stone bases with between them ornamental wrought-iron railings. The left semicircular arch contains the entrance to the café. The keystones of the arches carry a profiled drip moulding. The windows on the first upper storey are identical to the windows of the outer bays on the second upper storey, only without torches. The railings are recessed in the facade plane and are accentuated by the continuous window mullions. The windows on the second upper storey have in the plastered segmental arches keystones and setting stones and also recessed railings. The windows in the mezzanine have two-light windows and the same segmental arches as on the second upper storey, but thinner. An ornamental band connects the upper lintels. In the frieze are simple diamond-shaped motifs.

Interior The café hall has cross-ribbed vaults, which rest on piers in ashlar pattern. The floor has simple mosaicking. In the present music hall are two free-standing columns with main capital. These Corinthian columns are provided with mannerist decorations.

Valuation

Café-restaurant De IJsbreker with associated dwellings above from 1884-1885 is of general importance because of the cultural and architectural-historical value as well as the typological value as a largely unspoilt example of a late nineteenth-century hospitality establishment and centre of cultural activities, as well as because of the historical-functional relationship with A.W. Krasnapolsky. The ensemble is of general importance in urban planning terms as a defining part of the late nineteenth-century riverfront on the east side of the Amstel.