Amsterdam Then & Now #1 : De Dageraad

I live in a neighbourhood in Amsterdam that isn't as touristic as the city centre but has lots to offer. Since a large part of this area is build during the Amsterdam School movement (1910-1930), you will find many interesting examples here. Many of these buildings are nowadays protected monuments. I dug up some old photos to compare them and see how much has changed over the years.

"De Dageraad" is one of the highlights of the Amsterdam School. It was designed by the Dutch architect Piet Kramer, who also designed about 200 Amsterdam bridges. The Amsterdam housing association asked Kramer to develop 294 homes and 6 shops in this area, mostly meant for labourers. In the days these houses were considered rather comfortable, with 3 or 4 rooms.

I love the Amsterdam School since it makes the exterior of architecture very pleasing to the eye. The organic forms combined with the hard brick gives it a little extra. You might be able to imagine that there was a lot of critiques too. The Amsterdam alderman Wibaut had to defend the "squandering" of money for "unnecessary pimping" of the street views. I am happy that he did, and so was a large part of Amsterdam. He now has a bust in the area.

Nonetheless, eventually, this style of expressionistic architecture lost popularity during the 1930s. During the economic crisis, the people thought the style was unnecessarily expensive. After the 1970s it finally became popular again and thankfully not too many of these houses were lost in that period.

As you can see, not much seems to have changed in the last almost 100 years. They have build a few more houses in the area and the clock is gone. The roads are busier but that's about it. On the inside, a lot has changed though. These blocks were originally built without bathrooms, and over the years the interior just didn't work anymore. The houses are no longer just for labour. Most of these apartments have been sold and are rather expensive because of the popularity of the area and the architecture.

Amsterdam housing association
"De Dageraad"
start July 1918 finished March 1923

Is it a native American or just a man? The other building has a bird/hawk statue instead

The waved tower

This whole area is pretty symmetrical in general. Across the street, there is another building like this one. I couldn't help myself but to create a tiny planet...

Tiny planet (I had to)