Leeszaal, Coöperatiehof 16

English translation

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Description

Description

READING ROOM (library) and MEETING HALL located in the southern part of the Coöperatiehof, with a MEMORIAL on the south side placed against the rear facade, all designed by architect P.L. Kramer. The whole consists of three segments arranged one behind the other. The main building comprises a symmetrical, sculptural two-storey building on a ground plan composed of rectangles. On the ground floor were originally, besides service spaces, the meeting hall; on the first floor originally the reading room with lending library. The whole is covered with a complex of flat roofs with a single rounded-brick chimney and above the entrance on the Coöperatiehof side a tall and steep truncated hipped roof with red tiles. Here a wooden drip moulding with overhang above the side facades lifted up with boarding. Brick facades in alternating header and stretcher courses and on the rear side with a straight facade termination with concave and convex-placed tiles. On the middle section a tapering square bell tower with lead cladding on composite three-sided ribs, a bell opening on all four sides and with reduction at the top on which a cube-shaped structure with clock faces. On the Coöperatiehof side the central entrance with double opening wooden doors with mullioned four-light windows and with roundings in the flanking brickwork at the corners. Above the entrance a relief stone panel with symbolic representation relating to the socialist attitude towards the church. On either side of the entrance section is a broad window unit with six mullions and four continuous glazing bars. These windows overlap the brickwork that forms a connection between the main building and the workers' dwellings on either side. This brickwork, finished with a single row of tiles, rises slightly near the junction with the reading and meeting hall. Near the junction with the dwellings on either side a gateway under brick stretcher with double opening gate doors with wooden lattice work. On the corners and above the entrance narrow and mullioned windows in wooden frame under the overhang. The side facades of the taller middle section and the smaller building at the rear have tall and multi-pane mullioned windows. The memorial in remembrance of Mayor J.W.C. Tellegen is placed against the rear facade and is located in the central sight line of the P.L. Takstraat at a small green space. Against the side facades of the residential blocks on the Burgemeeester Tellegenstraat are low and partly encompassing walls with natural stone rounding placed. This tile-covered brickwork connects the rear facade with the residential blocks on the Burgemeester Tellegenstraat. The Tellegen monument comprises a natural stone plinth with semi-circular bed with natural stone bands of varying length and thickness against the brickwork. On it the text: 'Mayor Tellegen', '1859-1922', 'Founded in 1924 by the Amsterdam Housing Association out of gratitude for the work carried out in the interest of public housing'. Centrally a blue-black hardstone plaquette with the relief portrait 'in profile' of J.W.C. Tellegen and further figurative decoration in bas-relief partly inspired by Egyptian art. Higher up in the facade plane in a vertically laid brick band a set of six projecting square and rectangular natural stone facade stones with figurative representations.

In the interior a stairwell with natural stone stair treads, a tiled wainscot in green and reddish-brown tiles with black joints. The toilet rooms on the first floor have granito floors, tiled wainscot and upper walls. The original doors and windows have (panes with) a horizontal glazing bar division. Double opening internal doors with five-light panes and four-sided tapering lights.

Assessment

Reading and meeting hall of the Coöperatiehof with external memorial from 1926-1927 of general importance for its social, cultural and architectural-historical as well as typological value, as a substantially well-preserved and representative example of a general neighbourhood facility. The memorial to the advocate of social housing, J.W.C. Tellegen, forms an important additional and art-historical value. Further important for its silhouette value and ensemble value as an essential component of the surrounding buildings in this part of Berlage's Plan Zuid and for the stylistic coherence with the surrounding housing complexes.