A hundred years, a handful of lines
The municipal material examined here centres on two cards in the Rotterdam city archive. Each is a pandkaart, a municipal building-registration card: one for 169a, one for 169b, the two sub-addresses they cover. On the front, a survey of the rooms. On the back, a short printed form with three headings, Stichting, Nadere opgave and Bestemmingswijziging, filled in with the few permits the address carried. Both cards were made out on the same day in April 1943, for a building already more than forty years old, and their dated entries run from 1899 to 1987.
The card for 169a
By 1943, 169a was the office-and-warehouse half of the building. In the surveyor's shorthand, the front of its card gives the whole premises over to office and warehouse, on a ground floor raised 45 centimetres above the street, under a flat roof of mastic and gravel.
> [header:] Rochussenstraat 169a · Block no. 13 · Ward (Wijk) 18 · Cadastral Delfshaven Section C no. 4453 > Year of establishment 1899 · Date of survey 14 April 1943 > "The premises contain: entirely office and warehouse" > Ground-floor level +0.45 m relative to the street · flat roof (mastic and gravel) with a front pitch (voorschild) > Rear building-line: municipal sheet no. 4/1922 > [lower table:] "Layout and number of rooms" — 169a: ground floor and 1st–3rd storeys.
On the back, the permit history fills three rows. The first, Stichting or founding, puts the building's origin and its completion inspection on one line: built under permit 786 of 23 May 1899, passed at a completion inspection on 31 January 1952 and entered on List A of 25 March 1952. The middle row, the Nadere opgave or supplementary entry, is blank on this card. The last row is a change of designated use in 1987, filed as B1-305-'87. Below, a ruled technical grid with rows for bedsteads, hearths, privies, water and stairways was left entirely empty.
> [column heads:] Description · Registry number · Date and number of the permit · Completion (Date · List No.) · Date of habitability > Founding — 23 May 1899; B&W (permit) 786/1899 — Completion: 31 Jan 1952 · List A, 25 March 1952 > Further entry — [closure] > B.P. change of designated use — B1-305-'87 (1987) > [technical matrix headings, rows a–l blank:] bedsteads · hearths · privies · water supply · drainage · fire separations · fire escape · passages/stairs/porches · dwelling area · storey height · general impression.
The card for 169b
The 169b half held the dwellings, and the front of its card counts them. There was a home on the ground and first floors with an office and a day-room. On the ground floor were two rooms and an alcove, let at thirteen guilders and forty-six cents a week; on the first floor, three rooms and a bathroom.
> [header:] Rochussenstraat 169b · Block 13 · Ward 18 · Cadastral Delfshaven Section C no. 4453 > Year of establishment 1899 · Date of survey 14 April 1943 > "The premises contain X dwellings: a ground-floor (and 1st-floor) dwelling, office + day-room; [struck: interior 169a]; 2nd and 3rd floors … 169a (warehouse)." > Ground-floor level +0.45 m to the street · flat roof (mastic and gravel) with a front pitch > Rear building-line: municipal sheet 4/1922 > [room table:] row f — 169b, rent ƒ13.46/week, ground floor: 2 rooms, 1 alcove, meters, kitchen (a) / storage (b), 1 business space · row g — 1st floor: 3 rooms, 1 bathroom.
The back repeats the founding and the 1952 completion inspection word for word. Here, though, the middle row is filled in: on 23 August 1977, under permit V 774/48c, the first floor of 169b, together with the floor named before it in a hard-to-read abbreviation, was entered as converted to office use. That is the only later work entered on either card after 1952, and the card then closes, like the one for 169a, with the same 1987 change of use.
> [column heads:] Description · Registry number · Date and number of the permit · Completion (Date · List No.) · Date of habitability > Founding — 23 May 1899, B&W (permit) 786/1899 — Completion 31 Jan 1952 · List A, 25 March 1952 > Further entry — 169b upper + 1st floor office · permit V 774/48c, 23 Aug 1977 > B.P. change of designated use — B1-305-'87 (1987) > [technical matrix, rows a–l blank.]
The furniture trade at the corner ended that same year. In the autumn of 1987 Firma J. A. van Duyn, the furnishing house that had held 169 since 1938, ran its closing-down sale and left.
After the cards
A search of the city's current address index of building files turns up two later dossiers for the corner, both opened in 2002. One was to alter and partly renew the buildings at 169 and its neighbour 171, including the front and rear elevations, with work to improve the foundations; the other was for wooden garden sheds behind 169A. Neither 2002 file has been read for this account, and neither has the 1977 or the 1987 permit. They appear here only as lines on the cards and entries in the address search. Seven years after the last of them, the block was converted into owner-occupied flats.
The same search turns up no files explicitly labelled for the arrival of Firma J. A. van Duyn, for the children's theatre that opened in 1989, or for the music venue that opened in 1994 . A limited search like this cannot prove that no such file was ever opened. The 1977 and 1987 dossiers are still unread, and the archive series that might hold work from the venue years has not yet been described for this account.
What the cards settle
Both cards give 1899 as the year of founding and permit 786 of that year as the founding permit; the building itself was up by 1901. On their own, the cards record a completion inspection in 1952, an office conversion in 1977 and a change of use in 1987. They do not record what worked inside the rooms, or . A hundred years of use, on the building's own cards, comes down to a founding, a completion inspection in 1952, one office conversion in 1977 and a change of use in 1987, the same dates that appear among .