Agnetapark, section one: an ornamental mix of eclectic buildings in a verdant setting

The nineteenth century part of Agnetapark is both a factory village and a model village based on the ferme orné from garden design. It is a precursor to later factory housing and examples of the Garden City Movement. The oldest part of this housing estate was built between 1884 and 1892. The housing was completed in the first two years. The whole was designed as a settlement on the edge of a park with the directors villa taking centre stage. This model is comparable to Villa Hügel and the Siedlung Brandenbusch (of 1885) -albeit on a much smaller scale.

A view across the lawn of the park towards the spot where once the villa of the director of the Yeast and Methylated Spirit Factory stood. That building was converted to a school and extended in 1929, but was taken down in 1981. This lead to calls for the whole estate to become listed.

Jacob Cornelis van Marken and his wife Agneta Matthes founded both the factory and the housing estate for workers. Their busts have been placed within a small rose garden that now occupies the spot where first their villa 'Rust Roest' stood.

The core of the model village behind the villa was made up of several Mulhouse Quadrangles. The higher building at the centre originally comprised of 8 flats. The blocks around it are lower and were conceived as standard Mulhouse Quadrangles consisting of 4 separate dwelling under one roof. These buildings have been redeveloped with half the number of dwellings each.

This building known as "The Tent" replaces a wooden building on the edge of the serpentine lake. It was built in 1914 in brick to house the music hall and two cooperative shops. It's now used as a business premises.

This large block housed the park executive and workshops on the ground floor. It was built in 1886 and originally also housed a printing press. It is now home to a number of small businesses. The eclectic style of the building is typical of late nineteenth century urban architecture that combined reworked motifs with modern materials and structural innovations to create an aesthetic impression.

Behind the workshops new workshops were created in 1930 in this wooden building in the Holland vernacular known from the area north of Amsterdam (Waterland and Zaanstreek). The larger building housed the printing press. A cottage of 3 dwellings was demolished to make way for these buildings.

The Frederik Matthesstraat -named after the brother of Agneta Matthes - van Marken- curved around the Mulhouse Quadrangles. These are terraced cottages comprising 4 or 3 dwellings each. All have a small front garden with a privet hedge and identical wooden gates. These houses were completed in 1886. The cars lining the narrow street are indicative of the time this estate was planned [for factory workers that walked to work and didn't own any private means of transportation other than a bike].

The Mulhouse Quadrangles (now reduced to Mulhouse Doubles) are built in a similar style as the cottages with two colours of brick and arched features above the windows. The architecture references Dutch Renaissance architecture. A narrow street called Zierenstraat serviced the central dwellings of the Mulhouse Quadrangles and is now un unnamed path accessing the gardens.

Two larger block of terraced housing are located between the Mulhouse Quadrangles and the Pasteurstraat. The architecture is very similar to that of the cottages. The same privet hedges as used elsewhere create a semi-rural feel.

The cottages along the Pasteurstraat are identical to the other cottages. The front gardens are of a similar size and follow the narrow semicircular street. At the end of the Pasteurstraat a large ornamental gate reading AGNET APARK gives access to the park proper and separates the housing from the community building known as "De Gemeenschap". This building now houses a restaurant.

A view across the serpentine lake towards "De Lindenhof" (Lime House) the former community building. This building was erected between 1891 and 1892 in a style distinctly different from the rest of the housing estate. A turret indicates the entrance and gives this building its distinctive outline. All amenities were placed at some distance from each other around the park much like park follies or attractions.

Another view across the serpentine lake. Behind the (former) Mulhouse Quadrangles the buildings of the present yeast factory operated by DSM are clearly visible. The park itself is a standard small-scale landscape park with winding paths, clumps of trees groups of shrubs and areas of lawn. In some places early interest has been created by planting daffodils.

These semidetached houses were built to house overseers and more skilled workers. They are situates on the edge of the park. Originally more of these were planned, but it turned out that 5 of these dwellings were sufficient. The second development was partly built over these planned but never executed houses.

Agnetapark, Delft: the first garden village in Holland

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!

Model villages and other early examples of planned housing

In most cases historic urban development was a gradual process that also involved large-scale interventions. Most of the housing was the result of private initiative, but there are also many examples of speculative house building from the Middle Ages onwards. Urban development was often disorderly and non-linear. There are, however, examples of planned housing. These can include completely new settlements (villages, towns and cities), sometimes with a specific function, but also extensions or functional urban quarters (e.g. harbour with docks warehouses and housing for workers).

The term model village was first used by the Victorians to describe the new settlements created on the rural estates of the landed gentry in the 18th century. The term was transferred from the aesthetic to the functional to signify a type of often self-contained community built by industrialists to house their workers near the place of work. First to be built in England was Trowse (Newton) where in 1805 a model village was started on the edge of the Crown Point Estate which was later expanded by the owners of Coleman's Mustard Factory. The second one was Blaise Hamlet (1811) on the edge of the Blaise Estate not far from Bristol. Both should be seen as functional and decorative additions to the landscape park in the tradition of the hameau (a mock village that goes back to the ferme orné - the ornate farm). Some earlier examples can be seen in France (e.g. Hameau de Chantilly - 1774 and Hameau de La Reine - 1783) and Germany (e.g. Dörfchen Nymphenburg - 1764 and Dörfchen Schönbusch - 1789). In fact the model village Brandenbusch built for Albert Krupp near the Villa Hügel is fairly similar -although much later (1885).

Apart from these decorative spatial interventions, there was a long tradition in providing accommodation, especially in towns and cities. Convents and monasteries are a good example, although not open to the public. The beguinage has been mentioned before as a way of providing a safe living environment for unmarried woman in the medieval cities of the Low Countries. There were more of these semi-religious institutions, most notably the Gasthuis (literally Guesthouse, but more properly translated as Hospital or Hospice) and the Heilige Geest Huizen (Houses of the Holy Spirit) that were funded by church collections and were thus akin to almshouses. In the Netherlands the (protestant) almshouses were often modelled on (catholic) beguinages with terraced housing around a communal green or garden.

The City of London Freeman's Almshouses in Brixton were built to the same model as the beguinage, but more spacious. These buildings (1850-82) are still used to house retired or otherwise needy people as a form of sheltered housing.

In the 16th century attitudes to criminals changed and more emphasis was placed on preventing reoffending. For this workhouses were built in many cities (Bridewell London -1555, Spinhuis and Rasphuis Amsterdam - 1597). Also there were poorhouses which evolved into rehabilitation colonies for pauper far from the cities (Koloniën van Weldadigheid 1818).  In these reform housing colonies paupers, vagrants, prostitutes and pimps were housed to be retrained as farmers or farmhands. Apart from these large (gated) estates most charitable provisions were on a small scale as most people were left to fend for themselves.

Wortel-Kolonie was a reform housing colony where the central closed unit is still used as a prison. The whole estate was built on former heathland that was cultivated by inmates.

Most model villages were born out of necessity as during the industrial revolution many industries established themselves in rural spots with access to waterpower, raw materials or coal, but with little to no housing provision nearby. So industrialists started to provide small cottages from a paternalistic attitude. Most of the best-known model villages should be seen as a type of philanthropic housing. Dwellings companies also had social aims, but were at the same time aimed at making a profit from their developments of working class housing. By the end of the nineteenth century some city councils also started developing purpose-built housing for working class and middle class people whilst at the same time clearing slums (that were the result of unchecked development in the decades before). Examples can be found in London, Berlin, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, etcetera. Most councils don't involve themselves in this however as they wish not to interfere with private enterprise (an argument also used for privatising social housing).  

A separate category are the many colonies built to house miners and other heavy industry workers. These workers colonies initially provided no amenities only basic accommodation. Some of these colonies were built on land adjacent to existing settlements, others were built near isolated collieries. Influenced by social reformers and liberals industrialist adopted a more paternalist attitude towards their workers, creating housing in combination with leisure clubs, schools and such. This was well understood self preservation by the industrialists as this bound the workers to their employer with the added bonus of being able to prevent self organisation by claiming good working conditions. Workers colonies started to look more like model villages in a sense. Some even had a church, a community hall and leisure facilities. Many famous football clubs -Borussia Dortmund of the Ruhr Area, named after the Borussia Colliery- are examples of this. Typically model housing is mixed, but with some degree of segregation between workers, middle management and the directors and other higher personnel.

An example of commercial suburban development from the 1920s in Haringey. Street after street of houses that share the exact same floor plan but have some minor decorative differences to distinguish between streets.

From 1900 onwards the model village, the paternalistic factory housing, Lebensreform and the ideas of the Garden City Movement are fused into the development of special mixed neighbourhoods and housing developments that are often seen as exemplary for the Garden City Movement. In England these are typically low density, whilst in continental Europe they can also include flats and communal gardens. The low density neighbourhoods also form the staple of urban sprawl along urban railways, so in England it is often difficult to distinguish between garden villages and commercial suburban housing. Purely commercial developments always tend to be more samely, however, with little variation in floor plan and outside appearance.

Siedlung Brandenbusch, an ornate model village

The Siedlung Brandenbusch wasn't created to prevent social unrest or to provide better living conditions for the Krupp Company workers. It was built on the edge of the park of Villa Hügel, the Krupp family residence, as an ornate model village that housed essential villa staff, like chauffeurs, overseer, master carpenter, electrician, gardener, tailor, kitchen staff and cleaners.

The church is located on the street Am Brandenbusch on what used to be the edge of the first building phase of this model village. This evangelical aisleless church was built in 1906 after designs drawn by August Senz. Later a large community hall was added on to the side.

This open green space on the corner of Am Brandenbusch and the Eckbertstrasse is all that remains of the simple white buildings that once stood here as part of the first building phase. The parts of the model village that were destroyed during WW2 were never rebuilt.

On the edge of the second building phase -started in 1902- a small triangular village green open up along Am Brandenbusch. This informal space laid to grass sets off the buildings in an eclectic romantic style (Landhausarchitektur) beyond.

The buildings of the second building phase were larger and more modern than those of the first building phase. The buildings are typivally1,5 to 2 storeys high with a pitched roof. Large dormers and lunette vaulted roofs are used to create living space on the first floor. The facades are either rendered or brick-clad. Especially the gable end receives special treatment with horizontal wood cladding or ornamental wood beams reminiscent of half-timbering. Wooden window shutters add to the village feel of the place. Also note the decorative masonry work known as a dental course (shown right).

This large block stand opposite the small green. It contains several dwellings in a C-shaped volume with the central section rendered white and the ends in an eclectic mix of wood cladding, brick and decorative half-timbered beams. The architect Senz has used symmetry more often in his designs for this romantic model village, especially in semidetached properties.

In contrast the building around the green show great variety in asymmetrical treatment of the volume and the facade. The rendered houses often have contrasting bands of brickwork, often as a decorative band. In other buildings wood cladding is used to break up the facade and provide an appealing visual  contrast.

The houses are situated along the street in a repetition of stylistic types. Most houses are semidetached, like these on the Klausstrasse. Thought has been given to alternate the decorative types to prevent sameness and give some feel irregularity and spontaneity. The effect is similar to the Victorian model homes estates of the Artizans, Labourers and General Dwellings Company built in Greater London. 

The buildings were designed for their aesthetic effect with a limited number of design elements. Most houses have a simple pitched roof, some with a hip end (shown right) to create a more picturesque outline The model village has great unity through the use of few materials that are used repeatedly, sometimes in different ways. The green shutters being a good example.

A more picturesque silhouette is also achieved by using lower annexes and perpendicular roofs. Here the main body of these semidetached houses has been designed as most other houses with rustic eaves and bands of brick masonry dividing the rendered facades to great effect. In contrast the annex has a hipped roof and half-timbered walls on a brick plinth. 

In this block of semidetached houses the entrances are incorporated into a protruding section under a hipped lower roof that seamlessly extend into the pitched roof with hip ends. Two low sloping roof dormers emphasise the entrance. The facade is a variation on the type with a half-timbered protruding section, a ladder fries below the roof and brick courses above the windows.

These semidetached houses are one of two such blocks that have survived WW2 bombing. They are simple volumes rendered white under a pitched roof covered with orange clay tiles. These 19th century buildings are much less decorative than the ones from the second building phase.