Iconic Houses in The Netherlands - Van Doesburg Rinsema House

• The back room of the Van Doesburg Rinsema House, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• The facade of the Van Doesburg Rinsema House at Torenstraat 3, photo Museum Dr8888.
• The Parrot District in Drachten, photo Jean Housen.
• Colour scheme for the staircase by Theo van Doesburg, September 1921. Watercolour with ink and pencil on paper, collection Museum Dr8888.
• Detail of the stairs on the ground floor, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• The hall with the striking staircase, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• Detail south corner Torenstraat, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• A glimpse into the kitchen, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• Detail of the outside window and the counter in the kitchen, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• The ground floor of the house museum, photo Jildo-Tim Hof.
• Municipal architect Cees Rienks de Boer, photo Museum Dr8888.
• Artist Theo van Doesburg, photo Museum Dr8888.

• The back room of the Van Doesburg Rinsema House, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• The facade of the Van Doesburg Rinsema House at Torenstraat 3, photo Museum Dr8888.
• The Parrot District in Drachten, photo Jean Housen.
• Colour scheme for the staircase by Theo van Doesburg, September 1921. Watercolour with ink and pencil on paper, collection Museum Dr8888.
• Detail of the stairs on the ground floor, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• The hall with the striking staircase, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• Detail south corner Torenstraat, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• A glimpse into the kitchen, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• Detail of the outside window and the counter in the kitchen, photo Mark Sekuur, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
• The ground floor of the house museum, photo Jildo-Tim Hof.
• Municipal architect Cees Rienks de Boer, photo Museum Dr8888.
• Artist Theo van Doesburg, photo Museum Dr8888.

An Icon of 'De Stijl' in Drachten

Natascha Drabbe takes us to the most iconic houses from the twentieth century in the Netherlands. One of the most important movements in architecture in the 1920s was De Stijl. A world-famous example of this movement is Gerrit Rietveld's Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht. The fact that colour and its effect on the perception of space were also experimented in the far north of the Netherlands, only became clear with the opening in 2018 of the Van Doesburg Rinsema House in Drachten.

Text: Natascha Drabbe

In 1921 Cees Rienks de Boer (1881-1966), a local architect, was commissioned by the municipality Smallingerland in which Drachten is located, to design sixteen houses and a school, as part of the expansion plan Stapenséa 1918. The residences of the so-called ‘Parrot District’ are middle-class housing. Through the mediation of the Drachter shoemaker and poet Evert Rinsema (1880-1958), a kindred spirit of De Stijl, artist Theo Van Doesburg was commissioned to design a colour scheme for both the exterior and the interior of this project. Van Doesburg (1883-1931) was during his military service duty befriended with Evert Rinsema. De Boer sent his designs to Theo van Doesburg, who together with architect J.J.P. Oud (1890-1963) tweaked them. Their comments led to adjustments and additions, such as the cubic bay windows. These homes and the new school Rijkslandbouwwinterschool (National Agricultural Winter School) were built on the former Eerste Parallelweg, Torenstraat, Houtlaan and Oosterstraat.

Colour Scheme
Van Doesburg designed a scheme is inspired and based on the typical use of colours in De Stijl: the primary colours red, blue, and yellow, along with the colours black, white, and gray for the houses. He also included the gardens of the houses in the colour scheme. He was given free rein and incorporated all kinds of theories into his plans. Sometimes he took architecture into account; sometimes he just did what he wanted. For the interiors, he used the open beamed ceilings as lines in his composition and for the walls, Van Doesburg used gray wallpaper to create areas of colour that remained separate from the ceilings and skirting boards. For the gardens he designed coloured areas with plants, coloured terraces, and garden paths.

	Theo van Doesburg designed a colour scheme based on the primary colours

The artist chose to use secondary colours such as green, orange, and purple for the school building, which forms a strong contrast with the primary colours of the houses. The plans clearly show all these aspects: architectural theories, classically coloured construction drawings, free interpretation of architecture and urban planning as coloured areas and subtle colour compositions with wall coverings and coloured paper.

Van Doesburg's controversial 'Parrot District'
This unique project to design sixteen medium-sized houses and a school turned out to be quite controversial. It was new for an artist to have such freedom to apply art to architecture. However, the inhabitants of Drachten were far from happy and the neighbourhood soon acquired the negative nickname 'de Papegaaienbuurt' (Parrot District), which is still in vogue to this day. It is said that the houses were painted over in 1922 because of the negative reactions. However, research has shown that this is not the case. The first colour change took place around 1928-1930, during regular maintenance. Based on historical photo material, it is even doubtful whether the colour scheme was completely abandoned at that time. The residents have probably already adapted their interior to their own taste before.

	The neighborhood nicknamed 'Parrot District'

Even today, the colour schemes are controversial. In 1988 the original colours were restored, and the Theo van Doesburg Drachten Foundation was established to maintain the restored designs. The Parrot District is a special residential area in the Netherlands and even more so for the province of Friesland. As an artist, Van Doesburg was involved in the design and implementation of the project from an early stage. It was a ground-breaking experiment for both the artist and the architect.

The architect De Boer was mainly known for his rather traditional architecture. Some of his projects, ranging from farms, homes, and business premises, can still be found in Drachten. He was interested in De Stijl but did not design white plastered walls for the Parrot District or used concrete as most important building material. At the time concrete was considered the epitome of modernity and, according to Oud and Van Doesburg, concrete was necessary to create the colourful windows to look good. This was most likely due to financial constraints, although De Boer was already struggling to get the very modern colour schemes approved by the local government. The proposal to finish the corners of the buildings with iron and glass never materialized

The Van Doesburg Rinsema House
In 2011, Museum Dr8888 made plans to restore one of the houses in the Parrot District and redevelop it into a house museum, the so-called Van Doesburg Rinsema House. The museum investigated whether this house, modelled on the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht, could serve as a satellite museum of Museum Dr8888. After extensive historical and architectural-historical research between 2012 and 2017, the house at Torenstraat 3 has been completely restored to its original state.

Research to the colours of residences is generally a difficult process. The project in Drachten proves that it does not have to be. Van Doesburg’s letters, in which he describes which pigments were to be used and what he thought of the result, were also examined. The first phase of the research, with help of the Rijksmuseum and the University of Amsterdam, into the in-situ paint layers showed quite clearly that the original layers of paint were still present underneath over a dozen later layers. Fragments of wallpaper were also found in the houses that correspond with Van Doesburg’s original samples and design drawings. Initially it was unclear whether Van Doesburg’s plans for the wallpapers were implemented and if so, in which manner. Through archival research, in-situ research, and reconstructions it could be concluded that the wallpaper was most likely implemented in the initial construction of the houses, but not entirely as envisioned by Van Doesburg.

	In 1988 the original colours were brought back

The Van Doesburg Rinsema House has been open as a house museum since 2018. Many of the sketches and designs for the interior and exterior by Cees Rienks de Boer and Theo van Doesburg are part of the collection of Museum Dr8888 in Drachten and can be seen there regularly. Just like the drawn designs and studies for Van Doesburg's stained glass windows in the school and the replicas of the furniture designed by Thijs Rinsema: brother of Evert, and also a shoemaker and active as an artist in his spare time.

Pioneers of the Dutch Modern House
For those who are curious about more stories about the developments in Dutch residential architecture in the twentieth century, Iconic Houses has made a video in which five specialists discussing the following topics:

• Hygiene and Health in the Modern Home by Hetty Berens, Curator of the Sonneveld House.
• Palaces for the People by Valentijn Carbo, Architectural Historian at Hendrick de Keyser Monuments.
• A Woman’s Place: Clients & Architects, by Natalie Dubois, Curator of Design at the Centraal Museum Utrecht.
• Experiments with Space by Robert von der Nahmer, resident of the Diagoon House.
• Home as a Self-Portrait: Architect ‘s Houses by Natascha Drabbe, Architectural Historian and owner of the Van Schijndel House.

The 1 hour video can be streamed via the webshop.

About the author
Natascha Drabbe, architectural historian and resident of the renowned Van Schijndelhuis in Utrecht, is Executive Director and Founder of Iconic Houses, the international network of owners and managers of architecturally significant houses from the twentieth century. This group of museum professionals, lovers of modern heritage and private owners of modern houses strives to preserve modern residential heritage. The website iconichouses.org serves as a platform for more than one hundred and fifty Iconic Houses around the world, of which no fewer than 24 are in the Netherlands. The houses can all be visited (some only by appointment) and in some you can even stay overnight.

This article previously appeared in Dutch Magazine Herenhuis #90, July/August 2022.

Posted September 20, 2022