Employing digital tools in historical research: Bloemstraat goes 3D
/On a quiet morning on the 14th of April, in the midst of the COVIC-19 lockdown, we set out to the Bloemstraat in the Jordaan area together with members of the 4D Research Lab to start scanning the facades of the buildings for a historical 3D reconstruction. In this blogpost Gamze Saygi explains why we did this and how this helps us analyse historic street life.
Why 3D reconstructions?
Is it possible to digitally time travel to the premodern age? Is it possible to digitally represent the genius loci [spirit of the place] of the neighbourhood? [1] Can we recreate the lost spirit of a streetscape by not only recreating the physical setting but also everyday life and learn from that?
One of the key aspects of both my digital urban history project and also the Freedom of the Streets project at large, is to explore the spatial history of premodern Amsterdam digitally through virtual three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions of early modern streetscapes.
We use visualization [tools/techniques] to digitally analyse the usage of spaces and mobility in streets and at neighbourhood level. We are working to expand the emphasis on the “horizontal” dimension in the analysis of historical urban patterns (typically in the form of maps) as we argue that the street can only be fully explored and understood by 3D experience, covering both material and immaterial culture. To do so, we employ 3D digital reconstructions to visualize our findings in third dimension. This allows us to virtually walk through premodern streets of Amsterdam, spatially analyse and experience the street including architectural features, social actors (people, animals), and their activities, as well as for example environmental conditions (weather, time of day) affecting the urban experience.
The idea derives from the holistic understanding of the street as the urban grain as a comprehensive phenomenon far beyond being a simple road connecting two places. [2] The street as an urban space is a place of activity, an artery for various forms of mobility, a platform for social connection and information flow amongst many social attributes people associate with the place.
Why the Bloemstraat and the Jordaan?
We chose to focus on the Bloemstraat, a street in the centre of the Jordaan for several reasons. The Jordaan was chosen primarily because it symbolises an area with more modest living quarters for the social low and middle classes. It was built as part of the enlargement project of 1613 to the west side of the city, just outside the canal belt (“grachtengordel”) designated for the elite. This canal belt, and also other parts of the inner city including the areas surrounding the Dam and river Amstel, represented the wealth of early modern Amsterdam and functioned as the economic hub and administrative centre of the premodern city. [3] The Jordaan by contrast represents an area outside the monumentality of the city and its economic centre, instead it can be seen as representing the very core of everyday life. Today, the Jordaan is a famous neighbourhood that all Dutch people know by heart regardless where they live, and it is in the list of all tourists visiting Amsterdam. The area now houses upscale galleries, shops and residential facilities. Despite all architectural and urban renewals especially after 1870s in the buildings or at the facades, its scenic streetscapes give a sense of wonder and makes us want to know more about the social life, cultural setting and architectural style to fully understand this historic urban space. [4]
We made the choice to study the Bloemstraat based on two main reasons. Firstly, one can consider this street as an average or maybe even a typical street in this area of Amsterdam. The Jordaan consists of sections that were highly industrial, sections that were more residential, sections that were fairly wealthy and very poor. The Bloemstraat can be seen as average: its residents were neither extremely poor nor wealthy, its economic functions were mixed, the types of buildings that lined the street too. A second, and equally important reason was that the historical evidence on the Bloemstraat is very rich: we have collected several observations on life in the Bloemstraat within context of the Amsterdam project and further extensive archival research gives us plenty of clues about social life, events and activities happening in the street. [5] Below, we discuss the reasons for choosing Bloemstraat in greater detail:
Geographic setting: Roughly at the east-west axis, Bloemstraat reaches a canal (“gracht”) at both ends. At the western end, the street meets the Lijnbaansgracht which formed the edge of premodern Amsterdam beyond which fields and an area filled with windmills for the wood industry. At the eastern end, the street reaches Prinsengracht – a principle canal specifically designated for housing social upper class. Across the canal we find the Westerkerk, a well-known landmark. [6] Considering the location within the north-south axis of the Jordaan, the Bloemstraat is located at the middle of the neighbourhood.
A drawing of Bloemstraat by Herman Schouten in 1778 looking towards Prinsengracht ith the Westerkerk at the background. Two corner houses and vibrant street life is depicted including various people such as a vegetable seller, maids, and animals (Source: City Archives of Amsterdam).
Spatial features: The street is narrow and comprises modest scale buildings which share similar features of openings, roofs and staircases which is the very identity of the area at the premodern period. It also houses a rich variety in building types based on functions lined up together such as small businesses, houses, ale house (today’s Café Chris) and a church (Mennonietenkerk). Despite the homogenous features at the outer envelope, the volumetric compositions cover a variety of Dutch premodern architecture with rear houses, back houses, front houses, backyard gardens. There are also significant number of narrow alleys (“gangen”), typical for the Jordaan. These led to inner courtyards and can be found across the area in the 18th century.
Material culture: The narrow streets of the Jordaan accommodated small houses and businesses made of timber construction defined by regulation or masonry with brick layers. Architectural style of the period is featured at the facades such as stepped gables and frame facades. The architectural elements also coherently represent the period’s style, for instance the use of big windows on the first floor, wooden shutters or as in wooden staircases led to the entrance.
A Drawing by etching technique by Cornelis Pronk from 1729. The church of the Mennonite 'Jan Jacobsvolk' in the Bloemstraat between the Eerste and Tweede Bloemdwarsstraat which was standing (Today’s Bloemstraat 49-51). At the left side (Bloemstraat 47), there is a woman looking out and at the right side, stepped gabled house (Bloemstraat 53) is depicted (Source: City Archives of Amsterdam).
Windows and mirrors: The Jordaan was, and to some extent still is, famous for its street life. A big part of that street life were women, who, often sitting in their windows, watched the streets below and chatted to their neighbours in the opposite window. These practices have a long history, including some of the tools they used such as the spy mirrors which date back to the 18th century. The mirrors attached at a particular angle to the second floor of the building façade allowed people to look out and watch the people and the events discreetly. [7] Although only a few of them can now still be seen on the well-preserved historic buildings, the windows have continued to be a powerful interface for social exchanges.
In this photograph taken in 1921, we can spot a woman leaning over the windowsill from the first floor of Bloemstraat 48 whereas there is a female group standing in front of the building. A spying mirror is also visible within the photograph frame at Bloemstraat 46 (Source: City Archives of Amsterdam).
[1] The term derives from the Roman religion representing the protective spirit of a place. The terms evolved throughout the history. In historical urban space and architecture, “genius loci” has implications for place-making, concerns the physical and cultural characteristics of each space that evolve through time. Norberg-Schulz (1979) discuss the phenomenology of architecture extensively in his book Genius Loci.
[2] The theory of grain introduced by Stones (1970).
[3] Abrahamse (2010) discuss the impact of major urban expansions (3rd and 4th wave) and building booms along 17th century.
[4] Feilden (2003) coins this phrase for historic buildings and townscapes emphasizing the emotional value -an impact related to cultural and identity and continuity.
[5] Maroesjka Verhagen, research assistant in the project, has conducted a close inspection on Bloemstraat in the 18th Century using the digital collections available at the City Archives of Amsterdam.
[6] The Westerkerk was seen as "a work of great importance" when constructing and was one of the prestige projects built at five different locations in the seventeenth-century enlargements. The Westerkerk together with the Eilandskerk, the Noorderkerk, the Amstelkerk and the Oosterkerk built at distance from each other and defined the “middle” of the inhabited areas being about halfway between the old and the new city boundary (Abrahamse, 2010).
[7] Dutch “spinnetjes” most likely to be the derivation point for street mirrors (which are also known as spying mirrors or gossip mirrors) at European and Scandinavian historic towns starting from the 18th and 19th Century. For scholar works on the topic please see, Ylimaunu et al. (2014) and in particular to Dutch practice Vera (1989).
