The Hof at Brick Level

The Transvaalhof was Buurman’s first major commission. Because his companion W.C. Mulder (1850-1920) was struck by illness, Buurman was appointed by the Vereeniging Werkmanswoningen to take care of the piece of land between the Mosweg and the tracks.

The Vereeniging voor de Bevordering van de Bouw van Werkmanswoningen, or short ‘Werkmanswoningen’, was founded in 1890 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik Lodewijk Drucker (1857-1917) and Hendrik Barend Greven (1850-1933), with the goal to bring about better houses for laborers. Rich people in Leiden supplied the funds to buy mortgages for the associations that were concerned with building houses for workers. In this way the poorly maintained ‘slopjes’ could be replaced by actual houses. The Transvaalhof was the capstone of the first wave of public housing improvement, which (temporarily) solved the housing shortage at the time. When the Transvaalhof became accessible in 1928, there were more houses available than strictly necessary, so the remaining 54 houses were sold on the free market. It is perhaps hard to notice right away, but Buurman was inspired by the Amsterdam School (fig. 1). There is no sign of the typical red brick or expressive architecture, but the round corners are characteristic for this style. Another source of inspiration for Buurman was the prairie house style of architect Frank Lloyd Wright (fig. 2). The protruding pipe and the plinth of red bricks on the bottom of the houses accentuate the horizontal lines (fig. 3) that clearly mark Wright’s work. These sources of inspiration led the houses of the Transvaalhof to be built in contemporary styles, something for the new residents to be proud of.

What stands out in Buurman’s designs are the yellowish brick and the recurring monk bond brickwork, two bricks as stretchers and one as a header, which can also be seen in the close-up in fig. 4. After Buurman applied this brickwork to his own house on the Cronesteinkade (fig. 5), the Transvaalhof was the first external project whereby he used the yellow brick and this pattern. Buurman was to employ this pattern more often during the 1920s and 1930s, also in his best known buildings. Now that you know this, you will immediately recognize buildings designed by him. Everywhere throughout Leiden there are real Buurmans, and the Transvaalhof is a proud part of his architectural stamp on the city.

Do you want to know what other buildings he designed? Read on in the longread below!