Papaverhof
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.
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.
Wils configured the Papaverhof housing units as two horseshoes around a lawn square, creating the spatial effect of a garden city.
In the Papaverhof interior design, Wils created a rhythmic composition of cubes and planes without a specific front nor back.
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.
The technical innovations of the Papaverhof design are demonstrated by the pivoting windows, intercom for the main door, automatically dimming lights and waste disposal chutes.
The German journal Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst wrote in 1921 that the Papaverhof grouped houses were very detailed and innovative.
“The houses don’t have facades anymore, but each building part is expressed in detail and brought into relation with the surroundings through proportion and dimensions in contrast and harmonious in the same time.” The Papaverhof design may contain references to other contemporaneous architects.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Lexington Terraces (1894) project in Chicago, Illinois are often linked with the Papaverhop design, as this housing complex with light wells is also configured around a rectangular courtyard.
