Fabrieksgebouw, Enkalaan 1

English translation

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Description

Description component 4: BITTER SALT WAREHOUSE.

Introduction

Located to the south of the west wing, a WAREHOUSE (indicated as number 4 on the accompanying map) with BRANCHING RAILWAY TRACK, built in 1926 according to a design by J.M. van den Bosch of the Enka Central Building Department, also responsible for the design of the old block and the west wing, and constructed in a corresponding style, characterized by a rational layout with strictly horizontal and vertical articulated facades provided with a few soberly executed expressionistic details. The total building costs were estimated at 67,628 guilders.

The building was originally built as a bitter salt warehouse (magnesium sulphate), and from the early 1940s onwards also served as a cellulose warehouse, and from the 1950s onwards was used again for the storage of chemicals. Chemicals and cellulose were of great importance for the manufacture of synthetic silk. From the chemical reaction between sulphurized cellulose and lye, a viscose liquor was produced, which hardened when passed through an acid bath. After much experimentation, it proved possible to spin from this a thread with properties comparable to natural silk. Along the southern and northern longitudinal facades, two railway lines originally branched off from the central railway complex for the loading and unloading of raw materials. From the east facade of the warehouse, a conveyor belt ran all the way to the acid cellar on the south side of the old block.

Description

The former bitter salt warehouse has a rectangular floor plan and comprises two storeys under a flat roof, laid with bitumen. It has a similar facade arrangement as the west wing, with masonry pilasters vertically articulating the building mass into a volume of 15 bays long and 3 bays deep. Corner and intermediate pilasters project above the roof line and are finished with concrete pyramidal caps. The facades are horizontally articulated and enlivened by a decorative masonry dentil moulding, a concrete coping plate for edging the roof line, but especially by loading and unloading platforms with canopies above running along both longitudinal facades to enable dry handling. Platforms as well as adjoining step ladder executed in reinforced concrete, provided with iron bumpers and supported by transverse, cantilevered masonry brick walls. Canopy of wooden plank sections, laid with bitumen and supported by a truss structure of riveted steel profiles. Per bay, a green double rolling door with panels beneath concrete lintels and above it two white-painted wooden nine-pane windows with one-and-a-half-brick stretches and brick offsets. All door openings in the south facade are filled in on the inside. Gable facades detailed accordingly, but particularly provided with windows (four per bay) as aforementioned. Along the south side the railway track is still present, with its supports on either side. The interior layout is virtually unchanged and consists of several large, open spaces. The wooden ceiling, finished with white-plastered metal mesh, is supported by various riveted solid-web lattice girders with diagonal web strut pattern (V-girders). Floor now laid with Stelcon slabs. Along the longitudinal facades, remnants of a transport system.

Valuation

The former WAREHOUSE is of general importance:

- the object has cultural-historical values as a particular expression of the quantity and nature of raw materials required for synthetic silk production and constitutes in that capacity an illustrative example of a factory building from the second industrial revolution. The railway track serves as an important supply route for the production process;

- the object has architectural and construction-historical values due to the construction technique employed with solid-web lattice girders and due to the aesthetic qualities of in particular the platforms, canopies, rolling doors and applied concrete and brick ornamentation;

- the object has urban planning and ensemble values due to its functional siting on the site, close to the south-west corner of the old block where synthetic silk production commenced, and due to its functional relationship with the other components of the factory, of which the remnants of the transport system and the railway track currently still testify.