Witte Huis

Witte Huis

The Witte Huis, which translates to White House building, was built in 1897-1898. The 11-storey structure was the first skyscraper of Europe. This building was built by the brothers van der Schuyt(architectureinrotterdam.nl).  They contracted Architect W. Molenbroek to carry out the work.

While American skyscrapers at the time used steel framework, the architect chose to build the Witte Huis building used thick load-bearing brickwork walls. The brickwork was glazed which made it better to maintain than other bricks. Due to the use of brickwork and not steel, the foundations of the skyscraper needed to be more resistant to the heavy structure. This also led to a lot of iron incorporated into the flooring.

On the left, you can see a simple representation of load bearing walls versus frame.

this structure was made practical only because a lift was incorporated which at the time was very new. The building also had gas, electricity and a central telephone which were considered modern at the time (ibid).

 Some of the moulding done in the building was terracotta. This was high quality clay, which is a substitute to stone. This type of clay weathers well when properly made and is not affected by atmospheric influences. Of course, if new material was proposed and the building was done today, a lighter steel framework without load bearing walls. This would make it faster to build and can be more easily manipulated.

The image presents terracotta moulding done on The Henry Cole Building at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

            The Witte Huis building suffered during World War II, and was only valued again after its purchase by Westermeijer Groep in 1977. This led to a refurbishment giving it a new lease of life. (ibid)

References

•       Architectuurinrotterdam.nl,. 'Architecture In Rotterdam | The White House'. N.p., 2015. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.