Elinkwijk: I'd honestly never heard of it until a few years ago. I always counted it as part of Zuilen. But Elinkwijk really is a very special little neighbourhood. The houses there are full of character. You have huge gardens, and from there you can easily head out into nature or to Amsterdam. INDEBUURT.nl once wrote a piece about Elinkwijk too.
Contents
- How Elinkwijk came about
- Julianapark
- Buildings in Elinkwijk
- Plenty of room for sport
- Developments around the neighbourhood
- Looking for a home in Elinkwijk?
How Elinkwijk came about
Elinkwijk was built between 1915 and 1927. The neighbourhood was built for the senior staff of the metal industry firms Demka & Werkspoor. The land could be acquired at a favourable price from the landowner W.H.A. Elink Schuurman. The condition, however, was that it had to become a ’garden village’. For “Elinkwijk”, architect Karel Muller translated the underlying principles of this English idea by Ebenezer Howard. The curved street pattern is spaciously laid out and designed with attention to the right sightlines. It mainly consists of handsome single-family homes.
Julianapark
The Julianapark is the oldest park in Utrecht. It was laid out in 1903. The history of the Julianapark begins with the Kol family. In 1903 the Kol family commissioned the firm Copijn to landscape the grounds around the farm as a park. Everyone in the area knows the park as Kol's garden. In 1928 the heirs sold the park to the Municipality of Utrecht. They would only sell it if it remained a park for at least 100 years. The municipality named the garden the Julianapark. A public park for all the people of Utrecht.
Buildings in Elinkwijk
Elinkwijk was built for staff of ‘Werkspoor from Amsterdam’ and the ‘Demka factory from Groningen’. A housing association was set up for the lower classes. Elinkwijk is accessed from the Amsterdamsestraatweg, Bessemerlaan, Wattlaan and the Dieselweg. The entire street pattern is characterised by curved streets with (only) T-junctions and staggered connections. In the middle of the neighbourhood is a small central square, the Werkspoorplein. Most roads run north–south, and the houses are positioned so that the living room is on the sunny side. The main roads are 12 metres wide, the other roads 10 metres. That's nice and wide, so you don't just look straight into the neighbours' homes. Two detached houses on the Bessemerlaan, set at an angle to the Amsterdamsestraatweg, form the introduction to the neighbourhood. Most people know these characteristic houses. The buildings consist of single-family homes, most of them in short terraces. In addition, there are detached (double) houses here and there, intended for supervisors and employees in similar senior positions. There are no closed building blocks; even with longer terraces, the corners have been left open so that you can see through to the inner areas. The corner houses all have a garden all the way round, and the other blocks mostly have front gardens; only where it was architecturally desirable or the streets were too narrow was the front garden left out. They all have back gardens. The back gardens were intended for growing vegetables, fruit and herbs.
The architecture of phase 1 (1915-1917) has the most characteristic stylistic features, such as timber-clad gable tops, rendered and/or white-painted façade sections, inward- and outward-curving gables, wide overhangs and details such as window shutters. Some of the detached houses in particular have very characteristic architecture. Wattlaan 7, 8, for example, is a fully rendered detached house with spout gables, and on the Wattlaan side the bay windows have been extended into a double bell gable.
The buildings from the second phase (1922-1925) are plainer and more uniform in design. The terraces mostly consist of single-storey homes with a roof parallel to the street and end houses with a roof perpendicular to the street. The materials used here are mainly brick, wood and red Old Dutch roof tiles. Contrary to the original plan, the shops were concentrated on the Amsterdamsestraatweg instead of on the Werkspoorplein. The community building originally planned on the central square was never built.
The neighbourhood is a protected cityscape. That's due to the diversity of its architecture. The buildings have a fine appearance. The homes have front and back gardens and are richly decorated. You can see a lot of German and English architectural influences here. Architecturally, the neighbourhood is still fairly intact. It is still largely as it was intended.
Plenty of room for sport
Do you love sport? Then this is a top location too. There's a huge amount of room for sport in the area. Football club Elinkwijk is the best-known amateur club in Utrecht. Bordering Op Buuren are large sports parks. Something for everyone. You can also walk, cycle and run along the Vecht. A really great route.
Developments around the neighbourhood
There's plenty in development around Elinkwijk. Should the market collapse after all because of the health crisis, the neighbourhood is in any case very much in development. And you have a house with a lovely garden. Rather nice if we have to spend a lot of time at home in the coming period.
Amsterdamsestraatweg
The Amsterdamsestraatweg: shabby chic. Hip shops, restaurants, fresh food shops and green spaces. Discvision has drawn up a report on the changes to the Amsterdamsestraatweg: ‘The Amsterdamsestraatweg is going to buzz again’. Together with a number of other business owners, we're helping to think about the future of the Amsterdamsestraatweg: where are the opportunities, what kind of shops do we want to see, what should it look like? Money is being invested in the road surface and green spaces, and advertising signage will be strictly controlled. With the arrival of the new-build project Wisselspoor, even more people will make intensive use of the Straatweg: what does that mean for the neighbourhood?
Wisselspoor
Wisselspoor: the first phase has been sold. Prices for the smallest apartments start at €210,000, and the largest have a v.o.n. price (including transfer costs) of €560,000. The townhouses range from €475,000 to €865,000. Wisselspoor is buzzing on all sides. A haven for trying, inventing and surprising. For designing and doing business. In Wisselspoor you'll find all sorts of different homes. Residents get the freedom to decide for themselves what their house or apartment will look like inside. Utrecht is a city of well-kept secrets, ideas and crafts. Of surprises on every street corner. In Wisselspoor, too, you'll soon be drinking that one beer on that one terrace. Popping into that one little shop. And picking up your croissant in the morning.
Cartesiusdriehoek
The Cartesiusdriehoek is one of the largest and last redevelopment sites in the centre of Utrecht. As the crow flies, it's only 1 km from Utrecht's old city centre. It's a unique location of cultural-historical value, expressed above all in the redevelopment of the municipal monument, the CAB building. The future area development provides for 2,200 to 2,600 homes and around 25,000 m² GFA of facilities, including a school, a hotel, food and drink venues and a commercial programme. Besides this urban programme, there's also plenty of room for greenery: the Cartesiuspark.
All this with high ambitions in the field of mobility and healthy urbanisation: it's set to become the most public-transport- and cycle-friendly neighbourhood in the Netherlands, with its own railway station, Utrecht Zuilen. These and other ambitions are set out in a policy document backed by the municipality. It came about through a careful process, together with stakeholders in the area, including tenants and local residents.
Looking for a home in Elinkwijk?
Let us know and keep an eye on our listings. With Gusto Casa Zoekt you can let sellers know that you're looking for a house. Would you like to sell your house in Elinkwijk? Great!
