Agnetapark, Delft: the first garden village in Holland

Delft is a typical water city. Directly west of the old city of Delft in Holland lay the polder known as Voordijkshoornsche Polder. in 1847 the railway connecting Amsterdam via Harlem and Leyden with The Hague was continued to Rotterdam via Delft. This city grew on either side of a canal (drainage channel) that was dug between a natural creek -the Schie- and the Roman shipping channel known as Vliet that connected the Rhine with the Gantel Creek near the mouth of the Meuse. Such a drainage channel was known as a "delft" end was later renamed Delftse Vliet. The railway cut off a section of the polder on the side of the Delftse Vliet which was quickly developed for industrial use. In 1869 the engineer Jacob Cornelis van Marken, together with his wife Agneta Matthes, founds the Nederlandsche Gist- en Spiritusfabriek (Netherlands Yeast and Methylated Spirit Factory) between railway and shipping canal. 

The socially conscious entrepreneurial couple not only advocated reform, but took an active role in realising change. With this aim they purchased part of the Altena Farm on the other side of the railway to build better housing for their workers in 1881. The 9.9 acre plot was designed as a model village with a large villa for the company director Van Marken and his spouse and workers housing grouped together on one side of the site. The layout was designed by garden architect L.P. Zocher, who created a typical scaled down version of an informal landscape park with a central pond. The whole site was surrounded by a deep ditch to improve drainage. The soil that was excavated from the ponds and ditches was used to raise the sites of the housing. This is again an example of urban design based on garden design models.

In 1884 the NV Gemeenschappelijke Gronden  (Communal land Limited) was founded by Van Marken with the aim of building and renting healthy houses, boarding houses, workshops, shops, baths and laundries in the grounds of the Agnetapark.  The housing was designed by architects E.H Gugel -the German head of architecture at the Delft Polytechnic- and F.M.L. Kerkhoff. Construction started that in 1884 and the first dwellings were ready in 1885.

 

The model factory village of Agnetapark in its context. The development comprises of two spatially distinct sections with the oldest part directly adjacent to the railway tracks.The factory site is located east of the tracks near the Delftse Vliet, a shipping canal.

The enlightened industrialist Van Marken was closely involved in both the business and the housing project. He translated his motto "De fabriek voor allen, allen voor de fabriek" into practical measures such as a work council (1878), profit sharing by workers and a collective pension fund for all employees. The housing was also approached from the needs of workers and included several classes of housing and amenities located in three community buildings. De Gemeenschap (the community) housed a kindergarten, elementary school, a gym and a canteen. De Tent (the tent) housed two cooperative shops (green grocer and bakery) and a music hall. The third building is the villa that was extended and converted into a domestic science school for girls and a technical school for boys. The company also provided the residents of Agnetapark and other workers with a playground, bowling alley, shooting range, boathouse with rowing boats, bicycle club, a choir and brass band. The third international cooperative congress was held in Agnetapark. As a complete social scheme this project inspired later factory housing ('t Lansink, Philipsdorp, Heveadorp).

This factory village, where every house had its own garden, comprised of 78 dwellings. These were in part inspired by Mulhouse style housing known from workers colonies (in Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Genk, Maasmechelen, Dorplein, Heerlen, Hoensbroek and Landgraaf) and by workers cottages (again in Essen and in Britain). The whole was conceived as an ornamental village (a hameau, or ferme orné) with lower and higher buildings grouped together along curving streets on the edge of a pleasant park. There were 7 Mulhouse Quadrangles incorporated in the scheme with one taller block as a double Mulhouse Quadrangle with 4 apartments  on each of the two storeys. These houses have been changed by halving the number of dwellings per building. The other housing is typically in short terraces with protruding sections at the corners or at the centre.

The so-called "Second Park" was developed directly west of the first Agnetapark. Between 1925-28 a regular neighbourhood of workers housing was built around a central garden with pond. Low housing wraps around this square central space in regular fashion. On the side backing onto the "first park" the housing is higher and comprises of boven-onderwoningen (up - down dwellings). This section of Agnetapark took inspiration from garden villages but has few Unwinesque design features, except for the variable building line and the angled corners.

 

Most of Agnetaparks survives to this day. The park has been changed, the surrounding ditch has been filled in and not all buildings have survived. The old villa 'Rust Roest' which became a school (1) was demolished in 1981; as was the boat house (6). The communal shops (2) have been changed and the building has been extended. One block of semidetached cottages was demolished to make way for the print shop (3) in 1890. The other two community buildings 'De Gemeenschap' (4) and 'De Tent' (5) have been altered internally but still show their original frontage. On the edge of the park a café (7) was built. This has been extended, but remains in place. A few cottages along the southern edge were never built (shown in orange), instead the large extension of 'new park' (8) was built on the west side. The southern section is included in the conservation area of Agneta park and comprises of a few streets with private housing (9). The land was set aside for development by Agnetapark to allow middle class employees to build their own house. Agnetapark comprised solely of rented housing.   

Agnetapark is often called a garden village, but predates the book by Ebenezer Howard, that is the official start of the Garden City Movement and its spread. It is in fact a model village much like ones known from Britain or model factory housing as known from Germany.  Only the extension around the garden square can be seen as (kind of) a garden village. As the earliest Dutch example of paternalistic factory housing the whole estate was listed a monument and given protected status. It is actually one of the top 100 monuments defined by the Dutch Heritage Council. The houses have been lovingly restored and the combined estate is well worth a visit!