Papaverhof

The Papaverhof is a housing complex in The Hague that was designed by Jan Wils. Built between 1919 and 1921, the project was Wils' breakthrough as an architect. Today the Papaverhof is a Rijksmonument that is one of the Top 100 Dutch heritage sites. The complex was restored in 1958, 1971, 1989, and 2006.

The Papaverhof includes 128 middle-class homes built in horseshoe fashion around a sunken garden. Besides the communal garden in the middle, each home has its own yard with enclosing wooden fence and cement flower pots in matching architectural style.

The architect of the Papaverhof, Jan Wils (Alkmaar, Netherlands 1891 - Voorburg, Netherlands 1972), was the son of a building contractor in Alkmaar. Wils worked extensively with his father and took evening courses for construction drawing. In The Hague, he worked for Hendrik Berlage, who encouraged Wils' social engagement and introduced him to Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. In 1916, Wils established his own architectural firm in The Hague, hiring hired Piet Zwart as a drafter in 1919.

In 1917, the Cooperative Residential Construction Association Garden City Neighborhood ‘Daal en Berg’ decided to build the Papaverhof, a complex of houses and apartments between The Hague and Loosduinen.

The association originally planned to sponsor a competition for the project design, but the association commissioner, Hendrik Berlage, objected to it. The association originally chose M.J. Granpré Molière and P. Verhagen to be the architects. However, their design was missing a municipal extension plan. At Berlage's suggestion, the association finally selected Wils' design for Papaverhof. The cooperative had great respect for Wils, allowing him to design atypical housing for that period.

Wils configured the Papaverhof housing units as two horseshoes around a lawn square, creating the spatial effect of a garden city. The inner ring contained 68 two story high family houses. The outer contained 60 apartments. Wils placed the units in a ‘back to back’ configuration that multiplied the facades with light and air supply for the kitchen and bedrooms without lowering the density of the neighborhood.

In the Papaverhof interior design, Wils created a rhythmic composition of cubes and planes without a specific front nor back. The interior breaks as well with the classical patterns of an underused best room and tiny back room by designing one big living room of 7 x 4,25 meter. Because of the 60 centimeters interior floor difference between the side entrance and the living area, also the exterior detachment of the main mass jumps out. With the repetition of the module it creates a rhythmical collective façade with two singular ends.

The builders used cinders concrete for the first 30 Papaverhof homes. However, the poor quality of this material and its minimal cost benefit moved them to change to brick for the remaining houses. The builders then covered the brick family houses with cement to make them look like the cinder concrete houses.