Delft is a typical water city. Directly west of the old city of Delft in Holland lay
the polder known as Voordijkshoornsche Polder. in 1847 the railway connecting
Amsterdam via Harlem and Leyden with The Hague was continued to Rotterdam via
Delft. This city grew on either side of a canal (drainage channel) that was dug
between a natural creek -the Schie- and the Roman shipping channel known as
Vliet that connected the Rhine with the Gantel Creek near the mouth of the
Meuse. Such a drainage channel was known as a "delft" end was later
renamed Delftse Vliet. The railway cut off a section of the polder on the side
of the Delftse Vliet which was quickly developed for industrial use. In 1869
the engineer Jacob Cornelis van Marken, together with his wife Agneta Matthes,
founds the Nederlandsche Gist- en Spiritusfabriek (Netherlands Yeast and
Methylated Spirit Factory) between railway and shipping canal.
The socially conscious entrepreneurial couple not only
advocated reform, but took an active role in realising change. With this aim
they purchased part of the Altena Farm on the other side of the railway to
build better housing for their workers in 1881. The 9.9 acre plot was designed
as a model village with a large villa for the company director Van Marken and
his spouse and workers housing grouped together on one side of the site. The
layout was designed by garden architect L.P. Zocher, who created a typical
scaled down version of an informal landscape park with a central pond. The
whole site was surrounded by a deep ditch to improve drainage. The soil that
was excavated from the ponds and ditches was used to raise the sites of the
housing. This is again an example of urban design based on garden design
models.
In 1884 the NV
Gemeenschappelijke Gronden (Communal
land Limited) was founded by Van Marken with the aim of building and renting healthy houses, boarding houses, workshops,
shops, baths and laundries in the grounds of the Agnetapark. The housing was designed by architects E.H
Gugel -the German head of architecture at the Delft Polytechnic- and F.M.L.
Kerkhoff. Construction started that in 1884 and the first dwellings were ready
in 1885.
The model factory village of Agnetapark in its
context. The development comprises of two spatially distinct sections with the
oldest part directly adjacent to the railway tracks.The factory site is located east of the tracks near the Delftse Vliet, a shipping canal.
The enlightened industrialist Van Marken was closely
involved in both the business and the housing project. He translated his motto
"De fabriek voor allen, allen voor de fabriek" into practical
measures such as a work council (1878), profit sharing by workers and a collective
pension fund for all employees. The housing was also approached from the needs
of workers and included several classes of housing and amenities located in
three community buildings. De Gemeenschap (the community) housed a
kindergarten, elementary school, a gym and a canteen. De Tent (the tent) housed
two cooperative shops (green grocer and bakery) and a music hall. The third
building is the villa that was extended and converted into a domestic science
school for girls and a technical school for boys. The company also provided the
residents of Agnetapark and other workers with a playground, bowling alley,
shooting range, boathouse with rowing boats, bicycle club, a choir and brass
band. The third international cooperative congress was held in Agnetapark. As a
complete social scheme this project inspired later factory housing ('t Lansink,
Philipsdorp, Heveadorp).
This factory village, where every house had its own
garden, comprised of 78 dwellings. These were in part inspired by Mulhouse style housing known from workers colonies (in Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Genk,
Maasmechelen, Dorplein, Heerlen, Hoensbroek and Landgraaf) and by workers
cottages (again in Essen and in Britain). The whole was conceived as an
ornamental village (a hameau, or ferme orné) with lower and higher buildings
grouped together along curving streets on the edge of a pleasant park. There were
7 Mulhouse Quadrangles incorporated in the scheme with one taller block as a
double Mulhouse Quadrangle with 4 apartments
on each of the two storeys. These houses have been changed by halving
the number of dwellings per building. The other housing is typically in short
terraces with protruding sections at the corners or at the centre.
The so-called "Second Park" was developed
directly west of the first Agnetapark. Between 1925-28 a regular neighbourhood
of workers housing was built around a central garden with pond. Low housing
wraps around this square central space in regular fashion. On the side backing
onto the "first park" the housing is higher and comprises of
boven-onderwoningen (up - down dwellings). This section of Agnetapark took
inspiration from garden villages but has few Unwinesque design features, except
for the variable building line and the angled corners.
Most of Agnetaparks survives to this day. The park has
been changed, the surrounding ditch has been filled in and not all buildings have
survived. The old villa 'Rust Roest' which became a school (1) was demolished
in 1981; as was the boat house (6). The communal shops (2) have been changed
and the building has been extended. One block of semidetached cottages was
demolished to make way for the print shop (3) in 1890. The other two community
buildings 'De Gemeenschap' (4) and 'De Tent' (5) have been altered internally
but still show their original frontage. On the edge of the park a café (7) was
built. This has been extended, but remains in place. A few cottages along the
southern edge were never built (shown in orange), instead the large extension of
'new park' (8) was built on the west side. The southern section is included in
the conservation area of Agneta park and comprises of a few streets with
private housing (9). The land was set aside for development by Agnetapark to allow
middle class employees to build their own house. Agnetapark comprised solely of
rented housing.
Agnetapark is often called a garden village, but
predates the book by Ebenezer Howard, that is the official start of the Garden
City Movement and its spread. It is in fact a model village much like ones
known from Britain or model factory housing as known from Germany. Only the extension around the garden square
can be seen as (kind of) a garden village. As the earliest Dutch example of
paternalistic factory housing the whole estate was listed a monument and given
protected status. It is actually one of the top 100 monuments defined by the
Dutch Heritage Council. The houses have been lovingly restored and the combined
estate is well worth a visit!
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