Tuindorp 't Lansink: Stork Company housing

The Stork Company was founded in Borne in 1865 as the Machinefabriek Gebr. Stork & Co. It was preceded by other enterprises: Stork, Meyling & Co. (1859) in Borne and the  Weefgoederenfabrique C.T. Stork & Co. (1835) in Oldenzaal. In 1868 Charles T. Stork moved the company to the neighbouring town of Hengelo in Twenthe (Overissel, The Netherlands). The company was widely known as a social and innovative enterprise. In 1881 it was the first Dutch company to found a company pension fund for its employees. The directors were also concerned with schooling and housing for the workers. Stork Company built and maintained mechanical looms (Twenthe was an important textile-producing region), steam engines, steam vessels, steam boat engines and steam powered pumping stations. From 1898 business expanded and the company started to manufacture cranes, mechanical hoists and  winches. The Stork family also participated in many other companies and sometimes (partly) financed them. From 1883 onwards employees enjoyed co-determination and had a role in the management of the company through a workers council.

Charles T. Stork (1822-1895) who had started his first company at 13, held the view that workers should be provided for by their employers were (local) government failed. In Hengelo this meant better housing and better facilities. In 1867 he therefore founds the Hengelosche Bouwverening (Building Society of Hengelo). The society promptly acquired Lansink Farm with the funds provided by Stork. The 53 ha (212 acre) site was located next to the factories near the railway.

Building doesn't start until 1910 because of opposition from the town council who felt the proposed expansion with hundreds of houses was disproportional. Also other landowners, who had the ear of the local council, had plans for small-scale developments to meet the needs of the increasing population. Shortly before the firms of Dikkers & Co. and the Nederlandse Katoenspinnerij had joined the building society. This combined with the 1901 Social Housing Bill meant that the plans for a large garden village could be stalled no further. The Tuindorp 't Lansink was developed by both sons of C.T, Stork and was named after the original farmstead it replaced. For the design of the garden village that is effectively an expansion of Hengelo town, the architect Karel Muller was invited from Amsterdam to Twenthe.

The sand needed to raise the level in preparation for building was excavated on site. A small lake still remains where in 1932 a swimming en boating club was founded. At the heart of the new garden villa a large village square was designed incorporating pre-existing oak trees to enhance the village-feel. The central square was named after Stork senior as the C.T. Storkplein. On it a doctors practice, shops and a hotel for overseas guests and clients of the Stork Company were built. Schools were also incorporated into the design. What is a very noticeable feature of this early garden village is that the social classes are mixed (in accordance with the ideals of the Stork-family). The houses were built as detached and semidetached properties and short terraces of 3 to 8 dwellings.

The old rural roads were incorporated into the garden village. The area in between was parcelled with an Unwinesque treatment of the corners. As this was the first proper garden village in the Netherlands English examples were used in the design. Tuindorp 't Lansink features heavily in later publications on both social housing, company housing and the Garden City Movement in the Low Countries. This garden village in Hengelo also features in the book "Tuinsteden" by Feenstra as an excellent example of good design and planning. The houses were available to all working in Hengelo, but employees of the companies that guaranteed the loans of the Building Society were assured of placement.

The original design of Tuindorp 't Lansink shows the central square and the lake as pivotal features. [original in the National Archive of the Netherlands]