Bijgebouwen, Deelen/Vrijland-Noord Arnhem

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

Building 21 stands detached at the far eastern side of the Vrijland-Noord site, on the north side of the unpaved extension of the southern east-west running road, close to the Hoenderloseweg. Building 21 is a reinforced concrete connecting bunker, which may also have been built for 'Nahverteidigung', that is to say for close-range defence. The location corresponds entirely with the checkerboard pattern of lanes and grounds existing on Vrijland-Noord. Building 21 was constructed in 1941 and at macro level forms part of a large military airfield structure from the period 1940-1945, at meso level of a sparse complex of buildings arranged in a rectangular-geometric structure, and at micro level it is a relatively solitary structural mass. The bunker is now virtually entirely clad with profiled metal parts and only facade openings are visible; it functions among other things as a bat roost.

Description

Approximately four and a half metres high reinforced concrete BUNKER, presumably a connecting bunker and possibly a close-range defence bunker, which is built on an almost square floor plan and is covered by an almost flat monolithic reinforced concrete roof. In the northern facade on the left an entrance opening, containing a slightly recessed modern door. The western facade contains two large embrasures placed adjacent to each other which are spared out by incisions in the wall thickness; both have later been provided with grillwork and double timber windows with four-pane division; the left window of the right embrasure meanwhile provided with an air pipe. The southern facade contains one comparable embrasure, which besides grillwork is also closed by means of a grate, through which a rectangular pipe with downward-curved end. The eastern facade contains on the right a slightly projecting section, but is executed blind.

Valuation

BUNKER, of general importance as a recognizable component of a military camp stemming from the Second World War and set up by the German occupier as part of a large military airfield, on account of: urban-planning, military and cultural-historical and complex and ensemble values, which can be demonstrated inter alia through the components and details characteristic for the building period, through the artificially established geometric settlement structure closely adhering to the pre-existing spatial layout, and through the coherence of and with the total military airfield concept and the spatial main lines and components of the camp.