20’s Concrete!
I was cycling through Rotterdam when I noticed a housing complex that stood out. Besides from the fact that it has been renovated in a good way and that it’s colorful, I realized this had to be a special site, hidden between the ordinary houses of Rotterdam Hillesluis.
The housing complex is situated at the Hendrick Croesinckstraat and was the result of the first initiative in the Netherlands to use concrete in houses, other than industrial buildings. Of course Rotterdam lead the way, as it often did and still does.
The houses were built in 1923 by the NV Internationale Gewapendebeton Bouw (IGB), which was lead by Carel Lambertus Stulemeier, who was born forty years earlier in Rotterdam, but moved to Breda when he was just a kid after his father died.
IGB applied the Isola construction technique, using hollow concrete blocks, which were manufactured nearby the construction site, to build the houses. The blocks are 50×25 cm and are 10 cm thick. The facades were painted and entrances, alcoves and balconies were thus situated that the facade looks plastic. (i.e. the distances between the different elements are calculated through the formula of the ‘plastic numer’ - 1:1, 3:4, 4:7, 3:7, 1:3, 1:4, 3:16 and 1:7) Using colors and cornices to accentuate the horizontal lines in the building, the architects J.M. van Hardeveld en J.A. Pauw really succeeded in making the building contrast with its surroundings.
The fact that I stopped to take a closer look and to take photographs proves that they were right!
