Philipsdorp, factory housing as part of company policy

Gerard Philips studied under Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) at the University of Glasgow in 1886 aged 28. Originally a mechanical engineer trained at the Delft Polytechnic, Gerard Philips became very interested in the possibilities of artificial lighting. After gaining experience working in installation and sales, he decides his future is in manufacturing and sets up his own production plant for light bulbs. Funded by a loan from his father he buys an abandoned factory in Eindhoven on the city moat in 1891. This building was originally built as a steam powered nail factory in 1869. It became a buckskins factory from 1876. After a fire it was rebuilt in 1888 but quickly went into administration. Gerard Philips and his father Frederik started Philips & Co and manufactured incandescent light bulbs and carbon-filaments.

The tiny medieval city of Eindhoven at the confluence of the Dommel and Gender rivers was surrounded by 5 villages: Woensel, Tongelre, Stratum, Gestel and Strijp. Of these Woensel was the most important with more inhabitants than the neighbouring town. At the end of the 19th century the city attracted manufacturing, which was in part developed outside of the city limits on much cheaper land in one of the surrounding villages. Gerard's younger brother Anton Philips joined the company in 1899. After 1900 light bulb production quickly rose and the company needed more workers. For this the firm acquired the marshy land along the Gender opposite their first factory within the village of Strijp. This village would become the core of their activities in the following decades. A large new factory was built in 1909 (The Light Tower). As the company grew housing became an issue. There was little provision for factory workers, staff and researchers as most housing available in and around Eindhoven was very poor in quality. Housing provision by industrialists was small-scale, haphazard and ad hoc.

Anton Philips decided to set up a housing association: Thuis Best (best translated as "no place like home"). On the road linking Eindhoven and Strijp Philips acquires a large leasehold farm in 1909 with the aim to build workers housing here. The idea of a factory village incorporated the vision on the living conditions of the modern factory worker, such as a healthy dwelling, a kitchen garden, amenities and the workplace nearby. All amenities were to be located within the factory village e.g. company stores, industrial bakery, bath house, schools, sports pitches and music clubs. The aim was to provide a complete community, controlled by the employer to secure the loyalty of the workers to the company.

Gerrit Jan de Jongh was employed to draft the proposals for this new factory village. He drew plans for the streets, the positioning of the housing and the sewage system. This spatial plan was worked up into architectural drawings by others. G.J. de Jongh came from Rotterdam where he had gained a reputation as an urban planner for his work on the new harbour basins and the housing in Feijenoord and the Kralingse Bos. He had familiar ties to the company as his daughter Anna had married Anton Philips in 1898. Anton and Gerrit had visited Tuindorp 't Lansink and Port Sunlight for inspiration. They decided the factory village should have a relaxed village-feel with a lot of greenery to best accommodate the workers that mostly came from a rural background. Central (but spatially peripheral) in the design for the factory village is a large green with a football pitch, a small park and schools. Towards the train tracks allotments were made available.

Phase one was built directly next to the green with slightly curved streets named after women in the Philips family: Anna, Johanna, Henriëtte, Huberta and Elisabeth. The housing was designed by Louis Kooken, who was also responsible for the Volkssterrenwacht (Peoples Astronomical Observatory) and the Radiomonument. All housing was built in terraces of 4 or 8 with deep back gardens, but without front gardens. As a first for Strijp all houses were plumbed-in with gas and water and had a sewer connection. Phase 1 was completed in two building campaigns.

As a result of the great demand for housing, all houses in this first section had double the number of official residents by 1916, as families took lodgers and relations in. More housing was urgently needed. It would take until 1918 until the second building phase was completed. First the land that phase 1 wrapped around needed to be acquired by Philips. The streets until that time were cull-de-sacs of the Frederiklaan. After years of negotiations the industrialist Elias agreed to sell his field that was reached by a short dead end known as the Keerweerstraat (litterally: turn around street). On this land the Hulstlaan (Holly Lane) was laid out.

The houses along this street were intended especially for glass blowers that the company had brought in from elsewhere to work in the new glass factory on Strijp S. The houses on the Hulstlaan did have front gardens and a central reservation planted with trees. So did the roads along the "central" green where a small park, schools, a korfball pitch and a football pitch were built. This was part of a new vision on urban living in the rapidly urbanising villages around Eindhoven. The intention was to keep city dwellers connected with nature by bringing nature into the urban environment. for both aesthetic, and educational as well as recreational reasons. In 1920 the central city incorporated the adjoining villages to form Greater-Eindhoven.

Karel de Bazel was the man who was employed to design the subsequent expansion of the company village. He had worked with famous architects and had gained experience in social housing provision as the municipal architect of Bussum. His design for the Bredius Quarter were adapted for the next addition to Philipsdorp which was built from 1918 onwards. All housing was designed within a single aesthetic. The street was treated as an outdoor room with the facades of the buildings as the walls. This Berlagean concept doesn't differ much from typical Unwinesque urban design. The streets were named after trees, something that was started in the Hulstlaan. Streets named after trees were seen as more in keeping with the ideas of the garden village. In the Lindenstraat lime trees were planted. The name of the street thus corresponded with the natural element added.

De Bazel also starts work on the Area initially set aside for allotment. Here the cooperative bread factory (later ETOS an acronym of  Eendracht, Toewijding, Overleg en Samenwerking) was built in 1919. Behind it a small neighbourhood around a small square was developed. It is known as the Rowan Quarter after the central garden square named Lijsterbesplein. On the side of the park a double villa for engineers is erected.

The influence of Berlage is clearly visible in the layout of the forth building phase of Philipsdorp which  is built between the hamlet of Schoot, the village centre of Strijp and the large factory site known as Strijp-S. In 1919 De Bazel also submitted plans for this section of the factory housing project. His initial plan included a planned ring road that was never built here. Instead the Kastanjelaan (Chestnut Lane) is laid out is a wide avenue along the edge of the large factory site and the adjacent housing. This neigbourhood centres around a large garden square planted with London Plane trees; the Platanenplein (Plane Square). The houses are a copy of the housing in phase 3.

The final and fifth building phase includes the completion of the streets of the first two phases by developing an area known as De Bult (the heap) where until 1923 some slums had stood at the end of the Keerweerstraat. These houses were however not built by the company's housing associations, although the land was bought and provided to another housing association by the Philips Company. After 1920 on a triangle of land next to the factory site barracks were erected to house more glass blowers and their families. These were replaced in the 1930s by two schools: a company school and a technical college. On part of the terrain a public garden was planted, although this spot is known as the Essenplein (Ash Square).

Philipsdorp in Eindhoven-Strijp is dominated by the large football stadium built at the site of the original PSV pitch (1) in the small park (2) that has since been developed for housing and offices. On the edge of the community park the Philips School (3)  ULO school (4, a secondary school).On the edge of the company housing the Cooperative Bakery (5) was located. In several places ETOS shops (6) were to be located. Incidentally, all corner plots on the Frederiklaan were used as small shops. On a vacant lot  a small evangelical church was built (7) known as Van Prijt's Church.In the heart of the factory village a large M.T.S. or technical middle school (8) was built with beyond the multi-storey brick-modernist block of the Philips Company Training School (9), now a vocational college. The NatLab (10) was located on the edge of the factory site and housed the R&D department. Philipsdorp sits directly next to the old village centre of Strijp with the impressive Church of Saint Trudo. The Church of Saint Anthony (12), better known as the Steentjeskerk (Pebble Church) was built in 1919 as a daughter church of the St Trudo congregation.

Since 2010 the whole of Philipsdorp together with the other company village of Drentsdorp were given protected status as a conservation area. Both will be restored by the current owner a social housing association. As an important [part of the urban and industrial heritage of Eindhoven the city has designated Philipsdorp a listed area.The Elizabethlaan was torn down to make room for the enlargment of the stadium and a new thoroughfare.