2 - Theming the cityscape of a village in the leafy greenery

The Willemshof

With Willem II, the orientation shifted from Paris to London and Oxford. From individual monuments in the old city within the canals toa park courtyard outside the canals. In addition, the new king, and his consort Anna Paulowna (1795-1865), sister of the Russian tsar,brought the magnificent court culture to The Hague. Willem and Anna lived at Kneuterdijk Palace during the short reign from 1840 to1849. For his building plans, Willem II bought the Sorghvliet estate on 30 December 1837 and united it with his previously purchasedestates Hanenburg and Houtrust.

In the following years he bought the estates Buitenrust, Valkenbosch, Meerdervoort, Cranenburg and Rustenburg so that the RoyalDomain covered more than 600 hectares. They formed a contiguous area north and west of the city. His plan was to build theWillemshof near Sorghvliet (Goekoop, 1953). He did his own architectural work with his friend and adjutant Merkes van Gendt. Theking had all kinds of works carried out according to his own architectural ideas and plans, which did not exactly benefit thearchitectural quality. The king’s and hobby architect’s difficult dealings with The Hague architects contributed to the rapid decline ofhis own designed buildings (Ubels, 1966), (Blijstra, 1968).

For his most prestigious project, the Willemshof, he attracted the English architect Henry Ashton (1801-1872). Ashton had worked on the Windsor Palace, made improvements to Victoria Street, and designed some of the finest buildings on that street (Blijstra, 1968)(Van der Laarse, 2010). The Goekoop family, who would later buy the Catshuis, found in the attic with about twenty designs byAshton from the spring of 1838 for the Willemshof palace (Goekoop, 1953). In preparation for the construction activities for the Willemshof, Van der Spuij changed the course of the Haagse Beek. The old Beekmolen near the Zeestraat, which pumped the water from the Haagse Beek to the Hofvijver, had insufficient capacity (HGA gr.1028). At his own expense, the king had a steam pumpingstation built at Hanenburg and a canal built to lead the water from the Delftland bosom to the Haagse Beek. The flow of water on hisestates and in the city should start again (Goekoop, 1953), (Laarse, 2010). Van der Laarse claimed about the plans for the enormousneo-Gothic palace:

“[it] should, however, have become a very monumental palace complex by Dutch standards on the domain of the former Bentinckproperty Zorgvliet (the current Catshuis). Directly connected to the Binnenhof and its palaces in The Hague, this ‘Willemsparkhof’seemed intended in size, scale, and allure as a full-fledged counterpart to the great European parks of Versailles, Sanssouci(Potsdam), Schönbrunn (Vienna), and Windsor Castle.” (Van der Laarse, 2010: 174-175).

However, it remained with Ashton’s paper fantasies because the erratic client endlessly interfered with every detail. Van der Laarse(2010) further argued that the transition from neoclassicism to neo-Gothic in palace construction was mainly motivated by the positionof the Oranges in the European power play. Willem II’s plans must above all be seen in a European context. ‘[The] Hague plans, however, should have far exceeded this. Willem II’s ideal was to recreate The Hague, just like Brussels, as a city of culture. Despitehis earlier preference for the empire, his second building campaign in The Hague therefore seems to have been intended as a stylisticresponse to this court style continued in the South, of which his ‘looted’ Brussels palaces were rather a glorious symbol. He, the son-in-law of the Tsar of Russia and nephew of the King of Prussia, who above all wanted to be a different monarch from his authoritarianfather, now chose as head of state a neo-Gothic palace complex with a castellated character. Van der Laarse further argued that:

“It therefore seems certain that the Dutch Orange Prince wanted to compete with the European park courts with his constructioncampaigns in The Hague. However, the new national context after the Belgian Secession opposed a continuation of the neoclassicalpalace style. This was probably the reason why Willem II orientated himself on English neo-Gothic architecture, as it was mainly usedfor churches and garden buildings in the previous period. All over Europe, in this romantic period of cultural nation-building, the needfor a monumentalizing of one’s own past grew. The neo-Gothic glorified the newfound medieval prehistory and the chivalrous heroismof kingship.” (Van der Laarse, 2010: 178).

The European context certainly played an important role, but the social position of the king in a changing Dutch state system and in aturbulent period of Dutch and European history should not be overlooked.

Palace Quater

In addition to the park itself, it was also the surrounding buildings that partly determined the image. Between the palace cluster (Noordeinde, Kneuterdijk) and the Alexander barracks (1841/48) and the Alexanderplein (or field) where the cavalry did its exercises,the walking and riding park was started in 1843 with a riding school for Willem II. The old palaces on the Noordeinde and theKneuterdijk were connected by a combination of new intermediate buildings. In the garden of Kneuterdijk Palace the Gothic Hall wasbuilt and on the Noordeinde the Gothic Gallery, these were inaugurated in 1842, designed and executed by the architect G. Brouwer(Rosenberg, Vaillant & Valentijn, 1988) (HGA 0.51133).

An impressive collection of paintings purchased by Willem II and originating from Brussels was housed here. With that park, onecontinuous green space was created from the Kneuterdijk to the Willemshof. Some streets were already partly built up, such as the Zeestraat, in the extension of the Noordeinde, which led to the village of Scheveningen. Where the Javastraat is now located, was atthe time a country road: the Laan van Schuddegeest, where the Alexanderveld was located with the barracks under construction inutilitarian architecture behind it. Here Hussars with horses were established, the cavalry that was part of the light cavalry. In 1875 the Third Regiment ’the Red Hussars’, later the ‘Court Regiment’ settled permanently in the Alexander barracks with 400 to 800 men andhorses. The Haagse Beek around the barracks was straightened and transformed into a system of canals and ditches. The architectwas Jhr. J.G.W. Merkes van Gendt, a colonel of engineers and aide-de-camp to Willem II. The barracks were demolished in 1971.

In the wake of the park construction, a fairy tale neo-Gothic urban bathhouse was built on the Zeestraat between 1842 and 1852, a castle-like building with towers and battlements. After only a few years, the building was replaced by luxury villas by the developer-architect Delia.

‘Au bon Marché’

In the year 1843, the Groote Koninklijke Bazar or Grand Bazar Royal (1843-1882-1927) (HGA kl.B 1723) was opened at Zeestraat80-82, a kind of department store museum for exotic products from all corners of Europe and the colonies. Probably the firstdepartment store appeared in Paris in 1851 ‘Au bon Marché’ and was a new concept where ‘small shops’ were merged into oneuncluttered space. Originally, the Bazar was a low-width one-story building with two naves, but in 1882 it was converted into an open and light building in an eclectic style with an open façade. Between the pilasters were wide shop windows where citizens couldadmire all the exotic merchandise of the world on the Sunday walk to Scheveningen. The entire building exuded the openness,freshness, and lightness of a warehouse. Gram (1906: 161-164) described the rise and fall of the bazaar, a building full of curiositiesand exotic wares. It was a combination of museum and shop in curiosities from Europe and the colonies. In 1927 this first bazaar inthe Willemspark was closed. The center of gravity had already shifted to the city center, where a variety of bazaars and warehouseswere built on the sites where seventeenth-century houses with workshops and shops once stood.

The riding school and barracks

Along the park on Nassaulaan, the architect Brouwer of Merkes van Gendt designed and built the riding school for the king in 1845, which also gave the park a wall on this side (HGA 5.24337). On the map of the Belinfante brothers, which was produced in 1845 andpublished two years later, there was no mention of the start of the park construction (HGA kl.0444). The new riding school was already signed as built and the construction of the Nassaustraat was in preparation, given the demarcation of the route. This streetwas exactly in line with the entrance of the Oranjekazerne so that a coherent urban ensemble was created between the two barracksand the park.

In 1846, houses for the officers of the Frederikskazerne were built next to the riding school on Nassaulaan, so that the wall wascompleted (HGA 0.49391). In 1862 a connection was made between the Laan van Schuddegeest (later called Javastraat) and theFrederikstraat. The three barracks were now easily accessible to each other and the street network around the park became morefine-meshed. After the death of Willem II in 1849, the buildings, gardens and parks of the Oranges were sold in 1855 and the parkpassed to the municipality. Already in 1863, the riding school was converted into a church by Saraber. The construction of the parkand the riding school resulted in a new building along the edges of the Zeestraat and later after 1857 also on the Javastraat and theMauritskade, but not in the neo-Gothic architecture of Willem II. The map of Ary van der Spuij, director of the private domains of KingWillem II, from 1857 showed the ensemble of the park, the riding school, the edge buildings with the bathhouse, the bazaar, and thebarracks in their original context (HGA gr.1028).

The Neo-Gothic Architecture of Willem II

Why did Willem II force a break with the Hague court architects of his father Willem I? Willem II was strongly oriented towardsEngland and was inspired for his neo-Gothic architecture, as in the Gothic Hall, by the Tudor hall in Christ Church College, Oxfordwhere he had studied (Blijstra, 1968). The soft yellow color of brick and sandstone of Willem II’s buildings seem to refer to Oxford, which was largely built with these materials and gives the city image its own unique atmosphere.

In the years before Willem II became king, in 1836-1837, the Houses of Parliament in London were built by the architects AugustusWelby Pugin (1812-1852) and Charles Barry (1795-1860). The work was a critique of Enlightenment rationalism and burgeoningindustrialization. It was also a critique of neoclassicism, the architecture of the Enlightenment, an architecture that also symbolizedthe Republic. Pugin recalled the ‘true ethos’ of the Middle Ages in north-western Europe where the monarch, like the church, stillstood among his subjects. In books such as: Contrasts (1836) and The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841),Pugin described his social and architectural ideas in detail (Bank & Van Buuren, 2000: 155-164).

Pugin’s criticism did not mean abolishing the achievements of industrialization and capitalism, but he advocated a restoration of the long-lost medieval community ideal with a place for the sovereign. Early industrialization in England drove people apart and deprivedthem of historical awareness and awareness of the common origin. Especially in this troubled period of continuous uprisings in European cities and reform of the polity in the Netherlands under Thorbecke, the historical connection of the people with its monarchwas questioned by more and more people. Utensils reproduced as industrial mass products were signs of decline for Pugin (andpresumably also for Willem II). One had forgotten the authentic original of the product, just as one had forgotten the original societyfrom which one came. Pugin felt that the quality of the articles could be improved if they were designed and manufactured by artistsinstead of producing industrially, and thus endlessly repeating the original.

Pugin was supported by Henry Cole, who strongly encouraged the arts and crafts and helped organize the London World’s Fair in1851, where handicrafts from all over the world were exhibited. Cole’s pupil, Gottfried Semper had a major influence on architecturein the second half of the nineteenth century (including Berlage). Pugin, Cole and Semper did not reject industrialization but wanted toperfect it by restoring it by the artist’s hand and thus a common origin as it was assumed in the Middle Ages and the Gothic.

Seen in that light, the ideas of Pugin cum suis offered a perspective for both the Oranges and the people in the long run. GivenWillem II’s interest in art and England, it is certainly plausible that he was aware of the political and social significance of the Neo-Gothic in the sense of Pugin and Cole in architecture.

Only after the death of Willem II did another follower of Pugin’s ideas, John Ruskin, take a much more extreme position in his bookThe seven lamps of architecture (1849). He rejected all industrial products and use of machines and glorified craftsmanship andartistry. At the local level, the Oranges were sensitive to Roman Catholic emancipation, especially when the issue of the cemeterythat had been laid out in 1824 was high and the Catholics had to pay a toll to get to their final resting place. The Oranges supportedthe influential Catholic middle-class families in The Hague such as Drees, Peek, Krul, Smulders, Kaiser etc. (De Regt, 1986: 58-61).A few years earlier, the court architect Tollus had already built a chapel on the cemetery (1833/38).

The steam pumping station at Hanenburg

The construction of the expensive steam pumping station at Hanenburg and the canal of the Vliet there also showed that Willem IIhad an eye and nose for the needs of the city where the stagnant flow after raising the water level in 1825 saddled the city withstench, diseases, and death. A worthy monarch who imagined himself among his people had to intervene, even if it was symbolic.

In the year 1848 the Communist manifesto appeared and in February a revolution broke out in Paris because of the economicdepression and social unrest, which quickly spread to other European cities such as Vienna and Berlin. There were also fierceuprisings going on in The Hague, which were put down by the garrison. Willem II would die in March 1849 and be succeeded by hisless visionary son.