Same viewpoint, different century
A century of pictures of one building runs into a plain problem. Many surviving photographs show the corner's setting, not the building: the polder, the street filling in around it, the crossing rebuilt past its door. The plates below run in date order, each dated and credited as its catalogue record gives it. When a picture identifies no. 169, the text says so, and when it shows only the district, it says that too.
The building itself, 1907
The oldest known image of the corner comes from an illustrated trade-press interview of 11 January 1907, "Over Meubelfabricage: Firma Van Duffelen & Pelt te Rotterdam." Its caption, VOORGEVEL FABRIEK EN MAGAZIJN, means "front elevation of factory and store", and the article places Van Duffelen & Pelt at Rochussenstraat 169 around 1900.
The address appears in the article's own text:
Header: INDUSTRIAL WEEKLY. 255 Title: ON FURNITURE MANUFACTURE. — The firm VAN DUFFELEN & PELT of ROTTERDAM. Article body: For years the furniture trade — or rather the joiner's trade — was a handicraft in which no tools were used other than the simple hand-operated saw, plane, drill, etc. But in this field too, the old-fashioned workshops, where one or two journeymen were employed, have for the most part been replaced by factories fitted out as required, and the application of steam as motive power, together with the use of more perfected machinery, has brought about a great evolution. World cities such as Berlin, Paris and Vienna have led the way in this, and it is above all the capital of the German Empire that has furnished eloquent proof of this relatively rapid transition; in 1861 only 1/20th of the furniture-makers established there worked in factories, whereas thirty years later — in 1891 — only 1/6th of the 17,000 tradesmen were still to be found in smaller workshops. That evolution has done the furniture industry good service; indeed, an inquiry that was instituted showed that in this trade too, [Photo caption:] FRONT ELEVATION OF FACTORY AND WAREHOUSE. contrary to popular belief, poor, flimsy, tasteless work does not originate from the factories but precisely from the smaller workshops that do not possess the modern tools: the circular, band and fret saws, the grooving, planing, boring and moulding machines. By applying these tools the factories can turn out better work than the best workman with inadequate aids. [Photo caption:] MACHINE WOODWORKING. And if the latter wishes to compete on price with the former, he finds himself forced to resort to inferior kinds of wood. The furniture industry on our own soil has reached a high degree of development, both through sound workmanship and through the artistic sense (kunstzin) that speaks from it. In the period of French rule, and for another half-century afterward, our countrymen valued only what came from the City of Light [Paris], but the last 25 years have changed this state of affairs, which may be attributed in part to our excellent trade and craft schools, which have also supplied the furniture trade with a body of capable young men who have succeeded in demonstrating an independent character, a distinctive modern direction. We were again convinced of this when we recently paid a visit to a well-appointed furniture factory in Rotterdam. Messrs G. J. van Duffelen and C. Pelt, who act as the managers of this factory, went into partnership in 1889 and began their business at Lange Warande nos. 75 and 77. Already four years later the premises proved no longer sufficient to carry out all the work ordered, and it became necessary to look for a more suitable location, which was found at Haagscheveer no. 34. There too they soon faced the same situation. The abundance of work allowed them to spread their wings more broadly, but the cramped space of the workshops made this quite impossible. Still, being cautious men who did not like to leave the stable too hastily, they remained where they were for some time yet. Eventually, however, the pressure of circumstances proved too strong, and plans had to be made for a factory equipped with power-driven machinery. Seven years ago now, the inner city was accordingly left behind in order to move into a substantial building at Rochussenstraat no. 169, where — as the first occupants of a new street development in the West — they could breathe freely and enjoy space and light without hindrance. It was in this building that we took a look around on one of the last days of last year. Immediately on entering the warehouse we noticed a certain simplicity, entirely in keeping with the character of the managers, which favourably distinguishes itself […] (sentence and article cut off at the foot of the page; continues on p. 256)
The open edge, 1909–1932
For the next quarter-century the camera stays at a distance. It catches the western fringe of the district, still half-built, with no. 169 somewhere at its edge but never identified in the frame.
In 1909 a cow grazes in the foreground of open polder meadow, with a villa and a row of sheds along the far tree line. The catalogue places the picture near the 's-Gravendijkwal and Rochussenstraat, but where exactly the camera stood is not established. The 1912 view shows a terrace of four-storey brick houses on the Rochussenstraat, lace curtains in the windows and a woman in a doorway. No house number can be read. This is an ordinary residential street, not an identified view of the corner factory.
Between 1918 and 1927 the district fills in. The 1918 plate has a bare sandy foreground and a market stall halfway along the block. By 1926 there are open, unpaved lots beside the Rochussenstraat, and in 1927 the terraces of the 's-Gravendijkwal. The catalogue records name the streets, but no frame singles out no. 169.
In 1930 the frame shows a young man on freshly laid brick pavement, with bare earth on either side and a printing works behind him; how the picture relates to no. 169 is not established. The 1932 glass lantern slide gives a high oblique panorama over the rooftops of Rotterdam-West. There is a harbour with barges to one side, and church spires line the horizon, but no single building, no. 169 included, can be picked out.
The building again, 1937–40
The next frame that very probably shows the building has a furniture shop in it.
It is a winter street scene: a brick frontage, bare trees and a strip of grass in front. In the large ground-floor shop window at the right-hand end of the tall central brick front hangs the glazed sign J. A. van Duyn — MEUBELEN · TAPIJTEN · STOFFEN. The picture is dated only to a range, 1937–40. Van Duyn's firm is recorded at 169 in the 1938 telephone directory, but that listing does not settle the photograph's exact year. Given the address and the showroom windows it is very probably no. 169 itself. In date order it is the next view of the building after the 1907 plate, and it was the earliest one known until the 1907 plate was found. The photograph is not reproduced, because its current record is rights reserved and permission is required before publication.
The crossing remade, 1938–1956
The setting changes faster than the building. Works for the Maastunnel scheme reach the corner's surroundings, the bombed city is cleared in Rotterdam-West, and post-war building and entertainment fill the junction.
The 1938–39 colour frame is full of timber hoardings and scaffold poles, with two men riding one bicycle and a garage sign for Autobedrijf Victoria. Its catalogue links it to the Maastunnel works and the Rochussenstraat. Yet the documented 1938 excavation lay at the scheme's southern end, not at Rochussenstraat 169, and tracks at street level still appear at the corner in 1945. In the 1940 plate labourers tip brick rubble down the side of an excavation in Rotterdam-West. Where exactly is unsettled, so it stays here as context, not as a view of the corner.
In the wartime drawing a low, streamlined pavilion lettered cascade sits in the foreground, with a long brick factory block and a chimney behind. The catalogue gives the sheet to Beem in 1941 and puts the Cascade pavilion at the Rochussenstraat and 's-Gravendijkwal. Artist, date and place all come from that catalogue history, not from the drawing itself.
The first 1945 frame catches a festive liberation procession on a cobbled crossing, with a costumed dragon and a banner reading "…nederla[nd]…". Which crossing it is has not been confirmed. In the second, a guard of the interior forces, armband on and rifle slung, stands on the tram tracks beside a concrete German blockhouse marked "46", with a handcart and a knot of men behind him. The NIMH record places him at the 's-Gravendijkwal crossing in May 1945.
The view, catalogued to the junction in 1956, shows a broad post-war traffic crossing with zebra stripes and mid-century cars. The curved pavilion is lettered CASCADE — CABARET · BAR, and modern office slabs rise behind it.
The van Duyn corner, 1965–1981
In the later views the corner is a furniture shop with its name painted across the top.
A 1965 catalogue photograph, rights reserved and so not reproduced here, shows a busy cobbled junction with VW Beetles and the corner shopfront lettered PULLMAN MATRASSEN, J. A. van DUYN and MEUBELEN · TAPIJTEN. The house number cannot be read in that frame; the also describes the picture and its signs.
In 1980 the camera looks across the sunken 's-Gravendijkwal works to the corner building catalogued as Rochussenstraat 169, its fascia still carrying J. A. van Duyn — MEUBELEN with PULLMAN MATRASSEN above.
The 1981 frame shows a street corner with a traffic light and a van Duyn shopfront lettered MATRASSEN / VAN DUYN / TAPIJTEN. The firm, the corner and the trade are certain. The image alone cannot settle whether this stepped-gable corner house is no. 169 itself or a neighbouring van Duyn premises, and it is shown here with that doubt stated.
From the air, and after, 1987–2020
The last stretch is seen mostly from above, and mostly shows the crossing rather than the door. Research into aerial photographs has turned up a 1952 Stadsarchief aerial that should show the building, but it is an in-copyright press photograph and is not among the material held for this project.
The aerials of 1987 and 1988 take in the wider road-junction landscape around the Maastunnel traverse and the dense pre-war grid of Middelland. Neither singles out no. 169.
In 1992 the camera looks along the Rochussenstraat from the Zimmermanweg, with a brown office tower behind a planted traffic island. The 2017 frame shows the street's eastern reach and the mirror-glass Hogeschool Rotterdam. In 2020 the view runs along the ivy-clad, sunken 's-Gravendijkwal traverse as new apartment towers rise beside the avenue. All three show the street and its corridor, not identified views of no. 169. Separately, the national buildings register records the 1901 building as in use.
The plate that is not here
One 1987 Stadsarchief photograph catalogued for this corner is left out. The owner of no. 169 says the boarded-up facade it shows is not his building, so it stays off the site instead of standing in for the house. The sets out the dispute and what would settle it.