The Glaspaleis (in English: Glass Palace) is a modernist building in Heerlen, Netherlands, built in 1935. Formerly a fashion house and department store, Schunck, it is now the cultural centre of the city. The original name was Modehuis Schunck (Schunck Fashion House), but it was soon nicknamed Glaspaleis, which is now the official name.
The architectural style is largely according to what is in the Netherlands known as het Nieuwe Bouwen, which corresponds roughly to Modernism, Bauhaus and International style. The visually most distinguishing aspect is the free-standing glass that covers three sides, which makes it even more transparent than the famous Bauhaus building in Dessau and is part of the natural climate control.
In 1995, it was declared a National Monument for the purpose of historic preservation In 1999, it was put on the list of the 1000 most important buildings of the 20th century by the International Union of Architects during their World Congress in Beijing. In 2004, it won the first Bouwfonds Award in the category 'Vital Monuments'. In 2005, it won the Nederlandse Bouwprijs (Dutch Construction Award) in the 'Projects' category. In 2005, it also won the Nationale Renovatieprijs (National Renovation Award) in the 'Utiliteitsbouw' category.
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Planning
The Glaspaleis was commissioned in 1934 by fabric merchant Peter Schunck, who had studied architectural magazines and visited several department stores throughout Europe to find inspiration, together with Frits Peutz, a relatively young and somewhat controversial architect (because he was a modernist but not in a dogmatic way). They were especially inspired by the architecture of a department store in Nantes, France, Les Grands Magasins Decré (built 1932, and destroyed during a bombing raid in 1943), designed by Henri Sauvage (1873–1932) in Art Deco style. Another source of inspiration for Peutz was the 1930 Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam, a classical example of this style at the time.
A third player (next to Schunck and Peutz) who made this sort of building possible was the then mayor Marcel van Grunsven, who wanted to modernise Heerlen in avangardist fashion, thus ensuring the required permits were no problem, despite the fact that the local planning board had opposed precisely the innovative aspects of the design. But the City council gave the go ahead, apart from a few minor points. The job was given to Maastrichtse Betonijzerbouw (reinforced concrete builder) P. Knols, who had made the lowest bid at 184,500 guilders.
Like the old shop, the Glaspaleis was built bang in the middle of three squares in the centre of Heerlen, with the new Market Square ('de Bongerd') to the North, the Church Square to the West and the Emma Square to the South, behind the old shop, which was to remain in use and connected to the Glaspaleis. The market used to be at the Church Square, but when it moved to the new Market Square, the shop lost its strategic location, which was one reason for the move.
Department store chain Vroom & Dreesmann, who had opened a store right next to the site five years earlier ('B' in the overview), bought one of the houses at the opposite side of the location (Logister's umbrella shop - 'C') to hamper Schunck's efforts, but this was solved by simply building around it. Vroom en Dreesman never made use of the house, which was located in between the old shop and the new Glaspaleis, leaving it to decay. It remained an eyesore until well after World War II. Schunck only managed to buy it in 1960, for the exorbitant price of 2.000.000 guilders.
The buildings to the South (including the old shop) have since been torn down, creating the much larger Pancratius Square. The section to the West was given to the City and cleared, creating a pedestrian passage between the Pancratius and Market Squares. As a result, the Glaspaleis is now completely free-standing. The building to the East has been replaced by the music school annex.
Architecture
The purpose of the hypermodern, functional building was to create an atmosphere of a market, with all goods (cloth, clothes, carpets and beds) displayed in the shop instead of back in the stock-room, a rather revolutionary idea at the time, as were the shopping windows of the old 1894 shop (for such a rural town), an idea that was taken to the extreme in the new building. The result was a structure of stacked and covered 'hanging' markets, protected against the elements by the freestanding glass encasing on three sides (North, East and West).
The Glaspaleis is a good example of early modern architecture, made of glass, steel and concrete (except for some marble, wood and copper on the ground floor). Each floor has about 30 mushroom-shaped pillars, ever narrower as one goes up the floors. Part of the multifunctionality lies in the fact that, apart from the back, there are no walls inside the building, creating not only an open atmosphere, but also leaving more freedom in filling in the space. None of the walls are load-bearing, neither the ones at the back, nor the basement walls, even though they are made of reinforced concrete, to resist soil (6–9 m) and water pressure, insofar as the pressure has not been absorbed by the outer walls of the insulation gaps (covered at street level) that are meant to protect the building against traffic vibrations and noise and for ventilation of the basement.
There is no front as such - this is only defined by the fact that one side faces the market square. At the moment the building is completely free-standing, almost surrounded by three squares. What can be regarded as the back used to be connected to the former shop, but that and all the other buildings at that side have since been torn down to extend the Emma square to the Glaspaleis, thus creating the larger Pancratius Square.
The 30 x 30 m building consists of, from the bottom up, two cellars, ground floor, mezzanine, four more former shop-floors, two penthouse levels for the Schunck family, the lower of which was partly a semi-covered roof terrace with a restaurant, and an accessible top roof. At seven floors (eight floors in US parlance) and a height of 26.5 m, it was at the time the tallest building in Heerlen (not counting the tip of the church tower next to it). It has been called a 'palace for the people', especially for the miners, who formed an important factor in this coal mining town, also because they were well paid for manual labourers at the time.
The pillars are mushroom-shaped for two reasons. The first is utilitarian; the floors were constructed beamless for better daylighting and, thus, light reflection (beams cast very long shadows). This has the additional advantage of simplifying the placing and moving of cables and lighting fixtures. And the mushroom shapes give an impression of greater height. The second, constructional, advantage is that the steel bundle reinforcement in two directions makes the structure equally rigid in all directions. Since future mining activity was impossible to predict, a large resistance in all directions to sagging was desirable.
Although Peutz built largely according to the International style, he did not surrender completely to functionalism but used some wood for the interior and marble in the stairs at ground floor (which has since been removed). The columns are, for reasons other than functionality or construction, of different shapes and sizes at different floor levels - round on the ground floor/mezzanine and first floor and octagonal elsewhere and getting narrower as one goes up.
Artistic representations Peutz made several preliminary drawings of his design (fewer than usually though), in which he also showed an interest in the surroundings, with some drawings of a possible layout of the adjacent squares and others of the Glaspaleis itself, showing how, on dark days, the surrounding buildings would reflect in the glass. Architectural photographer Werner Mantz made sixteen photographs of the building in 1935, now kept at the Nederlands Foto Archief (Netherlands photograph archive) in Rotterdam. Being an icon for the firm, the building also featured prominently in advertisements, many of which appeared in the magazine de Mijnwerker ('the Mineworker'). And at the 75-year anniversary of the business, a fireworks representation of the Glaspaleis was built.
Glass
The name Glaspaleis stems from the fact that the building is clad in a free-standing encasing of glass (on three sides) around a concrete structure. Apart from the rear section, the penthouse and the basement there are no outer or inner walls, thus eliminating the separation between inside and outside as much as possible. Structurally, it is basically a collection of pillars, intersected by and supporting platforms, surrounded by a glass encasing, which is suspended from the floors. The unusually large size of the windows made the building even more transparent than the famous 1927 Bauhaus building in Dessau, which was praised for its transparency. The fact that the outer pillars are offset from the glass 'walls' makes them 'shadowless' (and loads the foundation slab in the most favourable way).
This structure also enables a 'natural ventilation' through the selective opening of windows. The 50 cm gap between the 17 cm thick floors and the glass encasing also allows for vertical ventilation, if needs be helped by opening glass hatches in the roof. And the glass allows for maximum entry of sunlight. Peutz reported after one year of use of the building, that experience had shown that the 50 cm gap was more than enough. In the early years, the gap has even been reduced in size in some places. In winter only the window flaps in the glass encasing need to be opened and the roof hatches can remain closed. During summer, on the sunny side the curtains should be closed and the hatches opened (note, though, that the south side is the one without glass). The result is a 'double wall' of glass on the outer side and curtains on the inner side, with an upward draft caused by the Sun's heat. This suffices for ventilation and the two surface ducts (as shown on the drawings) were partly intended for mechanical ventilation (with an exhauster fan), but this has turned out to be unnecessary. During winter, heating is done with a hot water installation (of course fuelled with coal) with natural circulation. The radiators along the windows now provide the heat for the circulation. The installed pumps have turned out to be unnecessary. The airtight glass walls have turned out to be better insulators than thought. Also, the mass of the concrete is such a good heat accumulator that extra time heating up the building in the morning has turned out unnecessary and there have never been any major temperature changes. This technology is being rediscovered and used, for example, by Canadian architect Chris Holmes in his energy-saving designs.
Wire mesh has been put in the gaps between the floors and the glass walls to prevent items from falling through. The balustrades along the projecting floor slabs, which are stiffened on the top side with a small upright projection, consist of a linked series of radiators. Hanging cradles on rollers are used for window cleaning.
Along the Market square there is a passage, flanked by display windows, leading to the main entrance in the middle. The 'outer' display is thus an 'island', that is accessible through hatches from the first basement, where the display workshop was located. The passage extends to mezzanine level, so the former offices above the 'inner' display got their daylight through the outer island display and the passage.
The 'rear'