Jeruzalem settlement (Amsterdam)

Jeruzalem settlement, 2011

The Jeruzalem settlement is a row house settlement built between 1950 and 1954 in the garden city ( Tuindorp in Dutch ) Frankendael in the Watergraafsmeer district , which belongs to the Amsterdam-Oost district. It was conceived in the second half of the 1940s and was one of the first city expansions of Amsterdam after the Second World War. In 2007 the housing estate , which was popularly known as Jerusalem because of its flat roofs and white facades , was included in the top 100 Dutch monuments 1940–1958 ; since 2010 it has been a Rijksmonument .

history

Jeruzalem settlement, 2011

Jeruzalem settlement, 2011

The development of what was then the Watergraafsmeer district was already included in the plans for the city expansion of Amsterdam from 1935. Due to the Second World War , it was not until 1947 that the municipality of Amsterdam had sufficient funds to begin planning the garden city of Frankendael, southeast of an 18th century palace of the same name. The first terraced houses were built between 1950 and 1954. In the following years, other buildings with similar architecture were built in the neighborhood.

In 2007 Jeruzalem , as the settlement was now called, was included in the Top 100 Dutch Monuments 1940-1958 presented by the then Minister for Education, Culture and Science Ronald Plasterk . On February 11, 2010, the minister visited the district to officially give the settlement Rijksmonument status. Jeruzalem is the first post-war residential area in the Netherlands to be listed as a historical monument as an overall urban planning concept . The status includes the six north-west L-shaped terraced house blocks including green areas and a school in double H-shape.

Since 1992, the housing associations Rochdale and De Key have drawn up several concepts for the renovation and demolition of the estate . Committed residents prevented this and only agreed on a compromise with the owners in 2008, which provided for the preservation and renovation of the six listed terraced house plots with 391 apartments. Other blocks were to give way to modern new buildings with a total of 455 apartments. In November 2010 it became known that the construction and demolition work planned from 2011 onwards could not be carried out for financial reasons.

architecture

Jeruzalem settlement, 2011

Jeruzalem settlement, 2011

Even in the city expansion planned from 1935 onwards, rational and organic development in a green environment played a central role. The planning of the garden city Frankendael, which was not carried out until 1947 to 1949, was taken over by the architects and town planners Cornelis van Eesteren , Jakoba Mulder , Ben Merkelbach, Ch. JF Karsten, PJ Elling and M. Stam. The garden architecture was designed by Mien Ruys , the playgrounds by Aldo van Eyck .

In the garden city of Frankendael , the decision was ultimately made to build rectangular gardens around which two L-shaped row houses were arranged. The construction method, with which an optimal use of the solar radiation was achieved, was used in many new building areas in the Netherlands until the 1960s. In addition, Jeruzalem was one of the first system building settlements made from industrially prefabricated assembly parts made of aerated concrete (assembly system: Dotremont-Ten Bosch ).

Due to the housing shortage after the war, the terraced houses consisted of so-called duplex apartments, single-family apartments that were divided into two small apartments. On the upper floor there was a three-room apartment with a size of just 40 m², intended for a family with children. On the ground floor there was a two-room apartment with 30 m² for childless, mostly elderly couples.

According to the original plans, the apartments were supposed to be put back together after about ten years, but so far this has only happened to a small part of the houses. The wood and clinker cladding at the ends of the rows of houses comes from a renovation in the 1980s, during which the original structure was handled very carelessly. Among other things, the roof edges were changed and plastic window frames were used. In the planned renovation of the listed building blocks, the original building and garden architecture is to be restored.

Web links

Commons : Frankendael / Jeruzalem (Amsterdam)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gemeente Amsterdam: Frankendaal / Jeruzalem  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   . As of April 28, 2011.
2. ^ Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed: Jeruzalem as first naoorlogse wijk rijksmonument . As of April 29, 2011.
3. ↑ Het Parool : Renovatie wijk Jeruzalem voorlopig van de baan . As of April 28, 2011.
4. ↑ KEI Kenniscentrum stedelijke vernieuwing: Amsterdam, Jeruzalem in Tuindorp Frankendael . As of April 29, 2011.
5. ↑ Nederlands Architectuurinstituut : Arbeiderswoningbouw Frankendael Kruislaan eo Amsterdam  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   . As of April 29, 2011.

Coordinates: 52 ° 20 ′ 51.5 ″  N , 4 ° 56 ′ 1.5 ″  E