The Spaarndammerbuurt
in the Amsterdam borough West takes its name from the Spaarndammerdijk, a former sea dyke that connected the Harlem Gate
(Haarlemmerpoort) with the dam in the
river Spaarne (Spaarndam) near Harlem.
Until the towpath canal (Haarlemmertrekvaart)
was dug this winding dyke was the main connection between the cities of Harlem
and Amsterdam. Until the area was annexed by Amsterdam in 1877 it formed part
of Sloten. After the emplodering of the IJ-bay the Houthaves (Literally: Wood harbours) were built to accommodate the
wood trade from Scandinavia and the Baltic. The harbour workers should be
housed nearby. As a result the Spaarndammerbuurt was developed by private
developers as tenement blocks along the Houtrijkstraat
(Wood Empire Street), a street that ran parallel to the former sea dyke. At the
entrance to this harbour neighbourhood a church was built in 1891: the church
of Mary Magdalene.
The Spaarndammerbuurt consists of an older core of
so-called Revolutionary Builds* that follow a layout drawn in 1880 as a grid of
streets parallel to the lowered former dyke that became known as
Spaarndammerstraat (S1). The 2e Spaarndammerstraat (S2, Houtrijkstraat), 3e
Spaarndammerstraat (S3, Polanenstraat) and Spaarndammerkade (K,
Wormerveerstraat) ran between 3 cross streets: 1e Spaarndammerdwarsstraat (d1,
Zaandijkstraat), 2e Spaarndammerdwarsstraat (d2, Assendelftstraat) and 3e
Spaarndammerdwarsstraat (d3, Knollendamstraat). All streets were named after
villages north of Amsterdam. The area west of the former dyke (shown in yellow)
was part of the Overbraakspolder and is now known as the Spaarndammerbuurt. The
area to the east of the dyke was new land and here the Zeeheldenbuurt (Maritime
Heroes Neighbourhood) was developed from the 1880s onwards. The hatched
portions were redeveloped in the 1980s.
In the years after the Housing Act (Woningwet 1901) the socialist-dominated
city council promoted slum clearance and the building of affordable housing to
improve the quality of life for the working classes (that this would result in
greater electoral support for the labour party was of course a well understood
side effect of this). The ideal was to provide good living conditions for
inhabitants of the city and locate the labourers near their place of employment
-in the Netherlands this was translated as: easily reached by bicycle. The
workfolk had to be freed from the factory housing, that often served as a way
of controlling the workforce, and relocated to modern housing befitting the new
self-conscious labourer- as the socialist saw this. This progressive stance
also translated in the choice of accommodation, think for instance of the
garden villages of Amsterdam-North and the employment of architects, designers
and artists that chose to work in new styles and idioms. The city council and
the municipal Housing Service Amsterdam asserted a strong influence, even if
the new housing was to be developed by Housing Associations or Housing
Cooperatives, as was promoted by central government from the 1920s onwards.
Between the nineteenth-century grid and the railway
line to Zaandam lay a rural remnant along the Notweg (a common name in Holland
for a cattle track across other peoples pastures) that was auctioned off in 1875
as small plots to be used for vegetable gardening (warmoestuinen). This fragmented ownership caused the city council
to disappropriate all the land in 1914 as negotiations with individual owners
had proven troublesome. In 1915 the land was made available for development to
three Housing Associations, although it remained the ownership of the city of
Amsterdam. The HIJSM-Woningbouw -the Building Society of the Iron Railways
Company Holland- was to develop the area near their railway tracks. No less
than 4 architects were commissioned to design part of a large complex around a
central communal garden. These Superblocks were a novelty from Germany and
Austria where they are known as Gartenhof.
Building work started in 1915 around the Spaarndammerplantsoen. For a
triangular piece of land the Housing Association Eigen Haard (One's own Hearth) employed the architect Michel de
Klerk, who had previously worked on the buildings that flank the aforementioned
public garden. This housing complex has become known as Het Schip (The Ship). In 1918 and 1919 the housing complex known as
Zaanhof was built after designs by Herman Wahlenkamp for Woningbouwverening Het Westen (Housing Association The West). He
had previously built the apartment blocks north of the Le Maire Harbour in the
Zeeheldenbuurt for the Vereeniging tot
het Bouwen van Arbeiderswoningen (Society for the Construction of Workmen's
Housing, founded 1880). Between 1922 and 1927 the northernmost complex
Zaandammerplein was built after designs by Karel de Bazel. This complex was
developed by the Gemeentelijke Woningdienst Amsterdam (Municipal
Housing Service Amsterdam).
The design of the social housing is clearly inspired
by the Austro-German Gartenhof and consists of apartment buildings around a
communal garden or green square. The project was divided into three building
campaigns with a different architect responsible for each section. On the other
side of the former sea dyke we find an earlier example. The buildings of HIJSM
not designed by De Klerk are indicated with an outline. Every project had a
central public green space: Spaarndammerplantsoen (Sp), Zaanhof (Zh) and
Zaandammerplein (Zp). The last one started as a garden, became a guarded
playground and is now a paved square. The other two are park like gardens.
The three complexes of social housing have been
restored, and are for the most part still social rented housing. In 2003 these
expressive designs by M. de Klerk, K.P.C. de Bazel and H.J.M. Wahlenkamp, all proponents
of the Amsterdam School**, were given
the highest conservation status of Rijksmonument
(national heritage).
*The term Revolutiebouw (Revolutionary Builds) applies to the large-scale,
quickly and often poorly built housing for the lower paid in the rapidly
expanding cities during the age of industrialisation in the Netherlands. These
tenement blocks were not revolutionary in their aspiration, construction method
or design, the name is derived from the revolution in building opportunities as
a result of the banking reform of 1870, which made it possible for banks to
provide loans to builders with no other collateral security than the land that
was built on or the finished building itself.
Examples could be found in all major cities, although many have been
torn down in the 1980s.
** Besides the Amsterdam School
of architecture (expressionism), that was mainly influential in the 1920s and
1930s and had its central focus in Amsterdam and outlying area, although
examples of this style were built throughout the Netherlands, there were two
more schools of architecture that would prove influential. The Delft School of
architecture (1925-1960) fronted by M. J. Granpré Molière, was in effect a
traditionalist reaction to the expressionism of the Amsterdam School. This
style, that originated at the Delft Polytechnic, was widespread and the style
of choice for reconstruction of war-damaged towns and villages and small-scale
housing estates. From this school sprang the Bossche School of architecture, a
rationalist movement focussed on proportions that had its centre in 's-Hertogenbosch (or Bois-le-Duc) and
was particularly influential in the catholic south in the years after WW2
(1946-1975).
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