Interesting in Utrecht | Architecture

Gerrit Rietveld

Initially associated with The Style, he became a Modernist. In Utrecht he completed his famous Rietveld-Schröder residence.

Rietveld-Schröder residence

Arguably the most famous project of Gerrit Rietveld that you will be able to find in Utrecht is the Rietveld-Schröder residence. Both the exterior and the interior are worth absorbing. You can tour the house (with an audio tour, but the accompanying guides love to answer your questions) and enjoy the inventive ways of dealing with a limited amount of space. Make sure to make reservations early as the house is small and interest substantial! By the way, the Rietveld-Schröder residence is on the Unesco world heritage list.

Other projects by Rietveld

If, on exiting the Rietveld-Schröder residence, you go through an underpass you will find yourself on Erasmuslaan. These two blocks of townhouses were built in the thirties following the design of Gerrit Rietveld. After this, he built an almost identical block of four homes at Robert Schumanstraat 13 - 19 in Utrecht. As you can recognize, at this point ha has already left The Style movement and at this point considers himself a representative of New Realism and New Construction movements.

Near the Rietveld-Schröder residence you can also admire a little annex by Rietveld, intended for the private chauffeur of the van der Vuurst de Vries family, located at Waldeck Pyrmontkade 20. The square building contains a garage for the car on the ground floor and a small apartment on the next level. This is truly an interesting design; Rietveld attempted to apply a grid of 1 x 1 m² and used prefabricated elements. It was an interesting experiment, but the devil is in the detail: the place was known to be leaking all over.

You are probably familiar with the famous Rietveld chair, which can be admired in Centraal Museum; Rietveld started as a furniture and cabinet maker. But Rietveld has completed more projects in Utrecht. Centraal Museum offers an iPhone App with pictures and a route tracing his projects. Also, there is an interesting little guide by Willemijn Zwikstra with a bicycle route along the Rietveld locations in the city. The app or the guide is definitely not a luxury, as not all projects by Rietveld are as easy to recognize as Rietveld-Schröder residence.

An overview of many of Rietveld's works can be found at architectuurgids.nl.

Zoudenbalch Estate

This wealthy family's residence is located in a narrow street that you would just walk past. Don't do that!

The Zoudenbalch residence (known by locals as "the house with the red shutters") stems from the second half of the 15th century and is located on Donkerstraat, a side street of Steenweg (pedestrian zone). The Zoudenbalch family in those days was one of the richest families in the city of Utrecht. They also were the owners of Oudaen, a so-called city castle on the Oudegracht (currently bar and restaurant).

The Zoudenbalch residence consists of several buildings that have been joined. In Mariastraat you will find remains of a monumental gate that provided access to the rear courtyard of the residence.

Unfortunately, the interior of the house was gravely damaged during a fire in 1903. After several reconstructions the building now contains aparftments; as a result, the building does not provide public access. Maybe you can get yourself invited by one of the current residents!

Historical St James

St. James Church (Jacobikerk) is a treasure in Utrecht. Not quite as visible as the Dom, but worth a visit!

This building does not just provide a meeting place on Sundays for a living and dynamic religious community (Protestant Church of the Netherlands), it is worth a visit for other reasons as well: it is a beautiful building with a long history. The Reformation and the following removal of statues and paintings from religious institutions are the explanation for the white interior. When the sun shines through the tall windows (not guaranteed in the Netherlands), you will experience a fantastic sense of space.

And space is the very thing lacking in 'the vault', where hermit Alyt Ponciaens had herself locked in in the 15th century. A statue near the main entrance reminds us of her.

The gravestones in the church offer the names of old and rich Utrecht families. It takes quite an effort to decipher them.

Open to visitors

St James's church, together with other historical churches in the center of the city, is regularly open to tourists, provided there is no religious service or event scheduled; At this time of the year, guided tours, provided by volunteers from "Kerken Kijken" (visit their website at www.kerkenkijken.nl for an PDF in the English language containing descriptions of historical inner city churches, among them St James's), are available on Saturdays between 11:00 and 16:30. During summer months, the church is open to visitors every day.

Pilgrims

St James's is located on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostella. In this day and age there are still people who want to contemplate or de-haste and walk (or cycle) this route to North-Western Spain..