Tuinwijk Vredeburg: Dutch-inspired architecture in Kalmthout

After returning from Amsterdam, the Belgian architect Egide van der Paal started his own practice. In his work he shows a great influence of Dutch architects like for instance H.P. Berlage and W.M. Dudok. The same can be said of co designer Paul Smekens. The first commissions of this architect, who was also inspired by the French Beaux Art, were the garden villages of Vredeburg in Kalmthout-Heide and Essenhout in Kapellen. Their combined efforts in Tuinwijk Vredeburg are often erroneously referred to as "built in a cottage style", in actual fact their work is halfway between Traditionalism and Modernism.

This double villa presents itself as a single dwelling, but is in fact a semidetached property. This building takes inspiration from both vernacular villa architecture and the plasticity of Berlagean design.

The gable tops are coloured white in these designs by E. van der Paal. This provides a striking contrast with the main body of the building clad in brick. The small red brick detail in the gable top, shown on the right, shows the architect was familiar with Amsterdam School architecture.

This large semidetached property with its protruding corner bays and symmetrical treatment under a hipped roof is a more traditional design. The colouration of the facade (red brick and white render) ties this building in with the rest in the row.

Each of the buildings of the garden village was to be set in an ample green garden with hedges along its boundary. The entrances on the Kapellensteenweg have been emphasised by portals that give access to the drive way. Each originally had an intricate and ornate  gate (shown on the right) between brick column with a central section rendered white underneath a hipped roof with red clay tiles (as seen on the left).

Central in the first building phase the so-called Discotheque Vredeburg took pride of place. This social club was changed into a Boarding house soon after it was opened. Nowadays it has been changed into private housing with a business premises where once the large arched gate gave access to what was planned as the Garden village Vredeburg. The name can still be read on the facade. This building by Paul Smekens is more ornamental than the housing flanking it either side.

Tuinwijk Vredeburg: the garden village that was never built

The village of Kalmthout, north of Antwerp, once formed part of the Manor of Nispen, that was held by the Lord Baron of Breda. After the partitioning of the Low Countries in the 16th century, Kalmthout with Essen became part of the Spanish Netherlands whilst the rest of the Barony of Breda became part of State-Brabant within the Republic of the Seven United Provinces. Kalmthout remained a small agricultural village surrounded by moors and heaths until the arrival of the railways in the 19th century.

Belgium was the first continental country to build a railway network from 1835 onwards. In 1836 the initial line linking Mechlin and Brussels was extended to Antwerp. In 1852 the industrialist Gihoul from Lille, who owned a lot of land around Kalmthout, agreed to fund and build a new railway linking Antwerp and Rotterdam via Breda. This railway line cut right through the village and lifted its isolation. The new transport facilities gave rise to new ideas and people coming to this hitherto remote location.  

The inhabitants of the city of Antwerp are soon attracted to this spot by virtue of its green landscapes, clean air and possibilities for more relaxed social interactions. The result were hotels and cafés springing up everywhere and a steady influx of day trippers. This was followed by wealthy urbanites building summer residences and later permanent villa's in and around the old village.

Originally stations were built at Ekeren, Kapellen, Kalmthout and Essen. In 1897 a new halt was created at Heide, literally on the heath halfway between Kalmthout and Kapellen. This halt had been targeted at accommodating day trippers, but quickly developed into a leisure hub. Especially Jewish traders, bankers and businessmen were attracted to Heide and flocked there building wooden summer houses and operating bars, guesthouses and hotels. In 1911 Kalmthout-Heide got its present permanent station and developed into a place of residence. The vast majority of people moving to Heide were, apart from some Russian and Austrian citizens, Jews originally from Amsterdam. They developed Heide into a leafy suburb some 12 kilometres north of Antwerp.

The Amsterdam-connection is important as Heide wouldn't be merely developed for villa's, but also had two garden villages planed for middle class clerks and employees on either side of the railway. The Nieuwe Wijk (literally New Quarter) was developed west of the track. The garden village Vredeburg (a common name for country retreats meaning: safe and quiet place) was planned on the eastside on a triangular plot of land between existing roads. The ambitious layout designed by Egide van der Paal (Belgian) who had worked in the employ of Van der Pek in Amsterdam was commissioned in 1921. He also designed the houses. The communal facilities were designed by Paul Smekens (also Belgian).

The design of the layout of this garden village is clearly based on the schematics  G Feenstra included in his book "Tuinsteden" (Garden Cities) of 1920, that was published in Amsterdam. It shows an Unwinesque inspired treatment of the street space that is delimitated by hedged front gardens and buildings combined. As a middle class neighbourhood semidetached properties dominate, even on the small public spaces (2+7) and around the larger squares (4+6). The central square (5) with an apartment building or communal facility is very recognisably inspired by Feenstra. On the edge room is allotted for another facility (3) probably a school. The so-called Discotheque (1) stood along the main road as a formal gateway to the proposed garden village.

The first and only building phase to be realised comprised of 10 houses along the Kapellensteenweg (outlined above in red). These detached and semidetached properties flank the so-called Discotheque Vredeburg (1923) a social club with rented rooms above. As a result of the persisting demand for rooms for rent and holiday accommodation the widow Rifka Brunner-Hollander started the Pension Brunner in the Discotheque. She would run her boarding house here until the 1960s.

Snow City

Last weekend I woke up to a white world after a light dusting of snow had transformed the city around me...

HEMA, an icon

Voted the most loved brand in the Netherlands the HEMA -an acronym of Hollandsche Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam (literally: Holland's standard prices company of Amsterdam)- is a chain of retail stores that started life as a dime store (comparable to the present-day Poundland). The first store opened in Amsterdam in 1929 in the central shopping street Kalverstraat. It was set up by the owners of the luxury department store De Bijenkorf. The store stocks items for everyday use at relatively low prices that are often designed especially for the brand and are known for their simplicity, clear lines and durability. The HEMA, however, is most famous for its smoked sausages (rookworst), cakes, pigs in a blanket (saucijzenbroodje) and the iconic tompouce (a simple type of mille-feuille with only two layers of puff pastry typically found in Belgium and the Netherlands).

Every time I'm back in Amsterdam, I used to work there many years ago, I have to have a cup of tea with a tompouce (shown in the middle) at the HEMA on the Nieuwendijk.

Spaarndammerbuurt part 3: the expressive Amsterdam School of architecture

Characteristic of the Amsterdam School of architecture is the use of bricks as the main building material, combined with ornaments in either brick or carved stone. The often shapely buildings are crowned with steep roofs with a variable roofline coupled with extended gables, top gables, lifted roofs and turrets. The windows are highly variable in shape and are often arranged in series (either vertical or horizontal). At its most expressive the facades in brick have rounded shapes and symbolic elements. The Spaarndammerplantsoen complex shows the development of the most famous architect of the Amsterdam School, that was also the most experimental and expressive: Michel de Klerk. His earliest work was part of the larger complex for the HIJSM rail company. The apex is the triangular housing complex known as The Ship, that was commissioned by Housing Association Eigen Haard.

The Spaarndammerplantsoen (Spaarndam Public Garden) forms the heart of the development of the HIJSM complex that consisted of two superblock comprised of sections designed by 4 different architects. Te best known of these is M. de Klerk.

Michel de Klerk is the architect who designed the two long facades flanking the public garden on the north and south side. The northern block was completed in 1915 and uses brick as ornamental device. This is especially clear on the corners that are embellished with masonry motifs (shown on the left) and in the stunning top gables above the entrances (on the right).The possibilities of making rounded shapes is used to great effect here.

Viewed from within the park the long northern facade shows great regularity. Monotony is defeated by the use of high top gables above the entrances and above the arched gateways. The two top floors are part of what appears to be the roof, bus is in fact a vertical expanse of red clay tiles. A ribbon of windows light the lower portion, whilst the top level is lit by small square windows.

The southern facade flanking the Spaarndammerplantsoen was also designed by De Klerk and was completed between 1918 and 1919. Here the ribbons of windows are arranged vertically, as most features in the facade are. This building also lacks a pitched roof, instead the gables end in a fanciful and decorative trim of roofing tiles above a frieze of brick ornaments.

On the corners the building negotiates the characteristics of the adjacent architecture. On the corner with the Wormerveerstraat a towering building connects to the brick vale of the park facade. An insert of vertical windows provides the seam. The domed roof of the corner building is dramatised by the continuation of the roofing tiles on the top level of the building, thus creating the impression of a much more imposing roof. These vertical tiles tie in with the bands of vertical tiles above the entrances on the park facade.

The block of 1919 is clad in sand coloured bricks on a plinth of manganese purple-red bricks. All windows are arranged in vertical series of variable size and shape (shown on the left). The semicircular windows underneath a protruding brick column with two small windows at its base and a hoist iron above, shows how De Klerk made functional elements highly decorative. The same can be said of the triangular windows with scalloped edges and the entrances (shown on the right). The doors with their imaginative use of angles, the rounded central column topped with a carved stone capital resembling an ox head. Also note the wavy masonry above the door.

On a triangular plot adjacent to the HIJSM housing complex the Housing Association Eigen Haard commissioned De Klerk to build a "palace for social housing" which was quickly nicknamed "The Ship" due to its distinctive shape with outline resembling a barge. The round tower on its point once gave access to a post office. The complex also includes a school (that was already in place, De Klerk masterfully incorporated this building into his grand design) and communal spaces for the residents. The complex is thus very reminiscent of the Gartenhöfe of Vienna.

The architect has made great effort to segment the long and high facades. He does this by banding, the use of vertical series of windows and undulating edges executed in brick. This is especially evident in the facade along the railway tracks (shown left). The crowning glory of the complex is formed by this brick-built turret (on the right) that sits between to low wings of the complex on the backside facing the Zaanhof housing complex.

The front section of the complex is a sculptural showcase of expressive design with a complexly shaped roof and great variety in the windows. Roof tiles are used in imaginative ways to emphasise the shape and break up the mass of the building. This is enforced by the use of ribbon windows.