The corner before the corner

Long before a building stood at the corner of Rochussenstraat and the 's-Gravendijkwal, mapmakers drew the ground as fields and waterways. The avenue it faces follows a dyke recorded in 1358 as 's-Gravendijk, in the ambacht (manorial district) of Cool¹. The plates below show that district surveyed, drained, planned and at last cut into streets. They trace a changing district before there was a building to photograph; they do not tell the later plot's story map by map. From 1835 the land east of the avenue formed the Van Hoboken estate, privately held until the city bought it in 1924². That later ownership helps explain why the eastern frontage stayed open after nearby streets began to close in, and the estate has its own deep dive. Three Dutch words keep coming back here, ambacht, polder and wal, and a short glossary explains them.

The earliest plate, a surveyor's map of about 1625, shows farmland. Here are the Ambacht van Cool (manorial district of Cool) and West Blommersdijk, with their dykes, mills and field-roads, and the walled town of Rotterdam small at the lower right. The road highlighted across the sheet is the "Cruis wech" ("Cross Road"), whose line the Kruiskade still keeps. The map sets the rural scene of the later district, but it does not locate the future corner.

A century and a half later, Dubreuil's 1784 map of Rotterdam "en omlegende landeryen" ("and surrounding lands") draws the same picture with a finer hand. The compact city sits on the Maas, ringed by named polders, the Ambacht van Cool among them, and west of the walls the land is still open farmland. At this scale the later corner cannot be pinpointed.

Sheet H of the 1832 cadastral minuutplan records the parcel survey. What can be read is the survey's own framework: "Gemeente Rotterdam" ("Municipality of Rotterdam"), "Sectie H" ("Section H"), "DEN DIJK" ("the dyke"). The small parcel numbers cannot be read securely at the resolution we hold, so we claim no single plot here and no link to any later property. The sheet shows a survey, and no building yet.

By 1858 the city was planning to grow into the ring of polders. This ontwerp (design) for Rotterdam's expansion tints proposed new quarters and basins over land that was still fields. It labels the north-west block "de Kool" ("the Cool"), the Coolpolder in which the corner lies. The scheme is an early design from the drawing board, and it shows westward expansion now being planned.

The 1865 plan of the whole city names the Coolsche Polder. It gives the wider rural setting, but no plot-level position for the future corner.

In 1875 this plan of the whole city still shows the western polder as open ground.

A city plan of 1882, "met plan voor uitbreiding" ("with a plan for expansion"), shows numbered wards 1 to 21, with "Polder Cool" labelled outside them. It shows the area before development and does not locate the future corner.

On the 1884 plan, next in the sequence, Rochussenstraat has not yet appeared.

Above its frame, in plain capitals, this 1887 sheet calls itself a revised plan for the Coolpolder by G. J. de Jongh. A broad band across its middle is labelled "Geprojecteerde Haven", projected harbour.

According to the archive catalogue, this Coolpolder plan was never carried out. At the resolution we hold, the sheet cannot identify the 's-Gravendijkwal, Rochussenstraat or the future corner. It records one proposed alternative for the open polder, and it cannot establish the street grid that was built or a 1892 approval.

The Commons source attributes this coloured 1887 design plan to G. J. de Jongh. It is a different image from the archive sheet above. It pictures a proposed scheme at district scale, not a street plan that was carried out, and it does not locate the corner.

The same year brought drainage as well as planning. This 1887 engineering plan, put before the council on 14 July, shows a roadside ditch on the Nieuwe Binnenweg that a landowner asked to have filled in. The ditch and the existing sewer are picked out in colour, the wooden culverts in dashed line, and the abutting owners are named along the strip. It is one local proposal for drainage and street works in the wider growing district. It does not identify the future corner or prove that its parcel could be built on.

By 1890 the private land companies had their surveyor's grid ready: "ontworpen stratenaanleg op de terreinen van de eerste en tweede maatschappij voor grondbezit" ("proposed street layout on the grounds of the first and second property companies"). A fan of lettered blocks, A to T, spreads over the old field pattern around the Nieuwe Binnenweg. Cross-sections show pavement, roadway, tram and bridle-path. The sheet traces the district's development around the Nieuwe Binnenweg, but it does not label Rochussenstraat or locate the future corner. The avenue the corner faces was still called the Schietbaanlaan, its name before it became the 's-Gravendijkwal³.

By 1900 the plans name the corner's own street. This council appendix of 23 August 1900, "stratenaanleg ten westen van den Schoonebergerweg" ("street layout west of the Schoonebergerweg"), proposes streets for Rotterdam-West at 1:2500. Its legend marks ditches to be filled ("te dempen sloot") and streets to be laid ("aan te leggen straten"), and the Rochussenstraat is printed among the proposed streets. The building belongs to the same years: its first stone was laid on 3 June 1899 and it was completed in 1901^4 5.

This crop comes from the 1900 Gemeentewerken overview plan, a different sheet from the council appendix above. It frames the whole of Middelland, with the Land van Hoboken still open beside it.

The last plate follows the new grid to the street's western reach. In this detail of the 1900 Gemeentewerken overview plan, where the Rochussenstraat meets the Heemraadssingel, streets run beside open ground and "watering" (watercourse), towards Het Park and the harbours. Drawn at district scale, the plan marks no single plot; at its western edge it shows the street grid beside watercourses and open parcels. Why the building's address began as high as 169, and not at 1, is its own question.