Artikelen

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  Rietveld als 'Lebensgestalter'

  Between 1929 and 1932, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld designed four dwellings for the Werkbundsiedlung architecture exhibition in Vienna. Mounted by the Austrian Werkbund in emulation of the German Die Wohnung exhibition of 1927, its initiator and organizer was the Austrian architect Josef Frank. The Werkbundsiedlung was located in a leafy suburb of Vienna and consisted of 70 fully furnished dwellings designed by 28 Austrian and 4 international architects, among the latter Rietveld. The Viennese model estate served as a manifesto for a new way of living and dwelling geared to an efficient use of space, a range of floor plan solutions and a modern interior design. After the exhibition closed the dwellings were offered for sale.

  Little has been published about these four Werkbund dwellings and the interior that Rietveld designed for one of them, even though it was his first prestigious international commission for single-family dwellings. He received the commission from a distinguished colleague, Josef Frank. Rietveld himself considered the result finer than the  Utrecht houses on Erasmuslaan and Schumannstraat that he had designed with Truus Schröder in the same period.

  In the Viennese plans Rietveld expressed his most important housing ideas in which light, air, flexibility, fitness for purpose and clarity of space were the main preconditions for a modern, active and conscious style of living. Rietveld would probably have liked to experiment with new building methods and materials, but  the construction requirements did not permit this. This explains why he did not use his concept of the  prefabricated core dwelling. Although Rietveld’s preferred layout with sliding doors was never implemented, this solution exemplifies his persistence in looking for ways to achieve his idea of a flexible dwelling within the specified requirements. He took full advantage of the limited freedom with respect to the size of the windows and balconies: no other Werkbund dwellings had so many continuous windows and wide balconies and thus so much (sun)light, air, warmth and space as those designed by Rietveld. Although his belief that modern human beings should ideally live in a small dwelling found no expression in the finished dwellings, it was present in the plans. His proposal to also design a smaller, 28 m² dwelling was rejected by Frank because of lack of time.

  For Rietveld the commission for the Viennese model dwellings was an ideal medium for experimenting on a scale of 1:1 and presenting solutions for an issue that exercised not just Rietveld but also many of his CIAM and Nieuwe Bouwen colleagues: what is the best way of living in the modern age? Although the dwellings were not very structurally innovative, and Rietveld was limited in his spatial choices, the modern living ideas expressed in his Viennese plans represented a notable contribution to the international architecture exhibitions of the 1920s and ’30s.

  Between 1929 and 1932, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld designed four dwellings for the Werkbundsiedlung architecture exhibition in Vienna. Mounted by the Austrian Werkbund in emulation of the German Die Wohnung exhibition of 1927, its initiator and organizer was the Austrian architect Josef Frank. The Werkbundsiedlung was located in a leafy suburb of Vienna and consisted of 70 fully furnished dwellings designed by 28 Austrian and 4 international architects, among the latter Rietveld. The Viennese model estate served as a manifesto for a new way of living and dwelling geared to an efficient use of space, a range of floor plan solutions and a modern interior design. After the exhibition closed the dwellings were offered for sale.

  Little has been published about these four Werkbund dwellings and the interior that Rietveld designed for one of them, even though it was his first prestigious international commission for single-family dwellings. He received the commission from a...

  Between 1929 and 1932, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld designed four dwellings for the Werkbundsiedlung architecture exhibition in Vienna. Mounted by the Austrian Werkbund in emulation of the German Die Wohnung exhibition of 1927, its initiator and organizer was the Austrian architect Josef Frank. The...

  Roby Boes

  185-203

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  Tuinbebouwing binnen de veste van Enkhuizen

  In 1592, the Enkhuizen town council decided to develop a sizeable urban expansion. As luck would have it, the growth that had justified that decision soon started to falter and the city entered a long period of decline  accompanied by a shrinking population. A growing number of empty plots appeared in both the old and new areas of the city. Over time, and especially in the 1592 extension, those empty plots were filled, not by houses, but by pleasure gardens, vegetable gardens and orchards. By the early nineteenth century there remained only a few streets of close-knit housing; large parts of the town were almost uninhabited.

  Probably from the seventeenth century onwards, a special type of garden house emerged in those abandoned or never developed streets: very shallow houses running the full width of the plot on which they stood formed a tall screen in front of the city gardens. Most of these ‘garden houses’ had a backwards-sloping lean-toroof. Such uninterrupted street frontages defined the streetscape of the uninhabited districts. The summer-houses fronting pleasure gardens had one or two bay windows, which are still known in Enkhuizen as ‘koepels’ (domes). The less fortunate inhabitants of Enkhuizen had corresponding, but simpler garden houses, sometimes made of wood. They used their gardens and orchards to grow their own vegetables and fruit; such crops probably made an important contribution to their livelihood. Only a few of these garden houses have survived, while still others are known only through old photographs. From the oldest cadastral map we learn that these houses are  representative of the garden house architecture that occupied large parts of Enkhuizen until the beginning of the twentieth century. The level of population decline experienced by Enkhuizen was unique in both the Netherlands and Europe as a whole. Although this type of garden houses was probably a genuine local phenomenon, there were similar developments later on in some other cities, including Amsterdam, where in 1682 a special garden district, the Plantage, was laid out.

  In 1592, the Enkhuizen town council decided to develop a sizeable urban expansion. As luck would have it, the growth that had justified that decision soon started to falter and the city entered a long period of decline  accompanied by a shrinking population. A growing number of empty plots appeared in both the old and new areas of the city. Over time, and especially in the 1592 extension, those empty plots were filled, not by houses, but by pleasure gardens, vegetable gardens and orchards. By the early nineteenth century there remained only a few streets of close-knit housing; large parts of the town were almost uninhabited.

  Probably from the seventeenth century onwards, a special type of garden house emerged in those abandoned or never developed streets: very shallow houses running the full width of the plot on which they stood formed a tall screen in front of the city gardens. Most of these ‘garden houses’ had a backwards-sloping lean-toroof. Such uninterrupted...

  In 1592, the Enkhuizen town council decided to develop a sizeable urban expansion. As luck would have it, the growth that had justified that decision soon started to falter and the city entered a long period of decline  accompanied by a shrinking population. A growing number of empty...

  Gerrit Vermeer, Klaas Koeman

  204-221

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  Hollands binnenhuis

  The article provides insight into the phenomenon of the ‘traditional Dutch room’ as an icon of the Dutch interior from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and its role as a research topic and source of inspiration for Dutch architects. Research into the neo-Renaissance in the Netherlands has tended to focus on Dutch architecture with the result that neo-Renaissance interiors, and examples of the historical interior in particular, have been largely overlooked. Nor has there been any general article linking the two together.

  This article provides the initial impetus for answering the question of why Dutch architects became interested in the history of Dutch interior architecture. Which Dutch designers were prominent in this area of study and design? Which examples were admired and why? What connection was there between study and design among the  various architects?

  From around 1875, the major nineteenth-century architecture journals and illustrated works reveal a rise in the number of pictures of Dutch historical interiors and interior elements, especially from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and of designs based on them. The articles, too, testify to a growing interest in the history of Dutch buildings and artefacts and a desire to incorporate Dutch motifs into contemporary design. Although pre-1875 publications contain examples of Dutch buildings, examples of interior elements, such as a ‘chimneypiece’, a ‘tochtpui’ (draught-excluding swing door) or a ‘curio cabinet’ are rare, witness the collection of architectural designs published by theMaatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst (MIJBB, forerunner of the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects) in the period 1844-1878. It is clear that in the final quarter of the nineteenth century there was a growing desire to investigate and document the interior aspect of the discipline of the Dutch architect and  ‘decorator’ and, in some instances, to use it as the basis for contemporary design.

  A number of examples of oak panelling were documented by architects quite early on, including in Afbeeldingen van Oude Bestaande Gebouwen (1854–1907), an illustrated work published by the MIJBB. One of the earliest examples is the panelling in the former ‘weeskamer’ (orphans’ estates chamber) in the Leiden town hall, that was measured and described by the architect J.H. Leliman in 1871. Unlike architects such as Karel Sluyterman, who had the same chamber photographed for his illustrated work Oude Binnenhuizen in Nederland (1908), Leliman did not treat the seventeenth-century interior as a direct model for contemporary design. However, while others continued to design ‘traditional Dutch rooms’, Sluyterman, after a sojourn in Paris, quickly moved on to French art nouveau, although the historical Dutch interior continued to play a role in his lessons at Delft Polytechnic, where he taught decorative art and the art of ornament from 1895 onwards.

  The article contributes to the history of ideas of Dutch architecture from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

  The article provides insight into the phenomenon of the ‘traditional Dutch room’ as an icon of the Dutch interior from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and its role as a research topic and source of inspiration for Dutch architects. Research into the neo-Renaissance in the Netherlands has tended to focus on Dutch architecture with the result that neo-Renaissance interiors, and examples of the historical interior in particular, have been largely overlooked. Nor has there been any general article linking the two together.

  This article provides the initial impetus for answering the question of why Dutch architects became interested in the history of Dutch interior architecture. Which Dutch designers were prominent in this area of study and design? Which examples were admired and why? What connection was there between study and design among the  various architects?

  From around 1875, the major nineteenth-century architecture journals and...

  The article provides insight into the phenomenon of the ‘traditional Dutch room’ as an icon of the Dutch interior from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and its role as a research topic and source of inspiration for Dutch architects. Research into the neo-Renaissance in...

  Barbara Laan

  222-242

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