What is lost
In June 1991, when I first arrived in Delft, the old historic town was full of remarkable places. The bakery on Oude Langedijk seemed to be unchanged since centuries. “Visbanken” was probably the oldest permanently used fish-market in the country. At one corner of Voorstraat and Kolk was a kind of grocery store. In addition to groceries and diary it sold “Dierenbenodigdheden”, however, it smelled more like used cat litter. I still liked to go there. The beautiful Jugendstil building across the water at Kolk and Geerweg was housing a Milk and Diary shop. It disappeared. At the time the weather was much worse, but the place to be for the few nice evenings was the tree-shaded garden of Cafe V. They cut down the trees and covered the yard. We did not go there any more. Another hangout was the Klooster. They had a brand of beer for everybody’s taste. Not long ago it was rebuilt into a noisy, crowded hangout for youngsters. The venue for live music was the Eland on Langedijk. We heard people like Herman Brood there. It closed. In the aptly named oude Kerkstraat next to the old church there was an arts shop. In a cramped space the owner had everything you imagined to need for your inspirations. He was old. I guess nobody wanted to take it over. If anything electronic was broken the legendary owner, Harry de Hoogh, of HEC Delft on Molenstraat was ready to repair it. It closed in 2019. The little bookshop “De omslag” on Wijnhaven closed recently. The computer shop more specialized in LEGO creations on Vrouwjuttenland disappeared. It was always fun to look at what they had built and displayed in their shop window. And they actually had good a good selection and advice on hardware and were able to repair your computer.
One of the biggest losses was the removal of the Vrije Academie in 2018. It was housed in a neoclassical building on Westvest 9, a Rijksmonument, built in 1865 for the Technical University. I had guitar lessons there and took part in the graphic workshops of Rinné Mervel. But the big central hall of the building also housed concerts and dance parties. On the ground-floor was an excellent Grand Cafe Verderop with beautiful art-deco decoration. The main feature was the fresco of a lighthouse in the style of Lionel Feininger or Oscar Schlemmer with the inscription “Verderop, your lichtbak”. The restaurant was the first to go down the drain. It was taken over by a guy who had to invest the money he had won in the lottery. The first thing he did was to destroy the fresco by hanging a panel with his Carnival Photos above it. Then the friendly staff left. The concerts and events in the hall stopped. And then the entire activities were moved away. Since the time the city was trying to find an investor. Since this was not successful they will now spend 10 million to turn it into an Erfgoed Hub.
Oude Delft in Delft with the Oude Jan
There are some other iconic places lingering on. Wilmer's Sigarenmagazijn is still there but I forgot about smoking a while ago. Erciyes’ butchery and grocery store, who already asked me 20 years ago how it is to be on pension. I must have looked depressed by worries then already. Cafe de Klok, where they drew the curtains after closing time early in the morning but you were allowed to get in via the back entrance. The record shop Velvet Music specialized in Vinyl where they ask you whether you really want to buy that or better first listen to it. When will they disappear and be replaced by a Barber shop, a Matcha cafe or a concept store?
Oude Delft at the base of Oude Jan
Last Sunday another of Delft’s old institutions closed their doors. In 1984, Annemiek van der Leck and Tijn Noordenbos bought the house on Oude Delft 140. On the ground floor there was space for a shop. It was far too expensive and therefore they rented out part of the ground floor to somebody run a cafe. Tijn is an artist who also builds furniture while Annemiek knows everything about clothes. They used the other part of the ground floor as gallery to present their art. The old glass shop sign testifies its former use in gold letters on black: “H. Bender “Luxe in huishuidelijke artikelen”.
Oude Delft and Uit de Kunst in 2018
The people who had rented the space on the ground floor extended it by building a conservatory in the little courtyard in the back. But although the space had now somehow been enlarged they did not have a lot of success. After a few years they stopped.
Tijn and Annemiek never had the idea of opening a cafe. But at the time they were young and full of energy and thought they could do it on the side. With the new combination of beautique and cafe they were 30 years ahead of time. The new cafe had a distinctly French appeal. This already started with the shop signs. In addition to the old signs described above a faded red on white wooden board “Café du centre” was added. Another red signs promises “Patisserie, confisserie, cafe”. The British “Stirling batterie services” adds to that. Above all resides a sign in Dutch showing Vermeer’s melkmeisje preparing coffee on a vintage coffee machine with the words “Koffie…. Het is niet ver meer”.
Entering the front guest room
Inside the narrow entrance a door to the right leads to a shop selling the design furniture and clothes produced by Annemiek and Tijn. To the left another door allows access to the guest room with an old fashioned bar for the coffee machine and glass cake display. Everything is styleful in here, wooden tables and chairs, design lamps and old shelves where a collection of national geographic is waiting for those who are not interested in the latest newspaper lying ready on a table. On the table the yellow and red sugar dispensers in a shape as oblique as the Oude Jan, the tilting church tower of the Delft’s old church next door.
The front room
I came here first after I had moved to Delft in 1991. My new house was in Voorstraat in the historic old town, more or less around the corner. A friend who had been living in Delft at the time showed me his favorite places, and this was one of them. A place where you could show up for a chat with friends, reading a book or one of the newspaper or magazines lying ready, or just watching the traffic on the kade, the lane along the gracht in front.
View from my favorite spot in 2018. On the table the famous sugar jars
The conservatory in the back had been turned into a unique place. It was full of plants like it should be in a greenhouse. The floor was covered with garden tiles painted in red, blue and yellow and the walls covered with painting. The space was full of stuff Tijn and Annemiek had collected somewhere. Emaille plates, one even with my name on it and interesting furniture. A yellow and red cupboard held a collection of French pastis water carafes. Part of the decoration was a rack holding a complete set of post-war Michelin maps and guide books. I have spent hours with my finger on the maps which showed all the destroyed bridges and the state of roads only a few years after the war had ended. Unlike the furniture of the front room food and drinks were served here on garden tables painted with an interesting red on yellow decoration and you sat on heavy wrought iron metal chairs.
They always played good music here. Several times I went to the great record store on Voldersgracht right afterwards when one of the relaxed servers had told me what it was I had been listening to.
The counter
The owners were rarely seen working in the cafe. With nice weather Anneniek was seen sitting with a glass of white wine next to the front door smoking a cigarillo. When Tijn was around he was first announced by hectic scratching and howling behind the door which led to their upper floor living space. He then appeared with a huge dog.
What do we order today?
The staff was very changeable. Sometimes they were very quick and very efficient. With others you got the impression that this was actually a self service place. I will miss the pear pie. The sandwiches became more elaborate with the 37 years they practiced on it. Coffee came with their self-designed semicircular cookies with “uit de kunst” imprinted on them. Another unique idea which to my knowledge so far hasn’t been copied anywhere. How I regret that I swallowed them first thing without appreciating that there would be a future without them.
The venue, in particular the conservatory, gave an arty but makeshift impression. The staff mostly were amateurs. However, this much added to the appeal of the place. It was relaxed. You were left alone to do what you had in mind… from reading a book to discussing politics with strangers.
From the conservatory you could look up to Oude Jan
The relaxed atmosphere became particularly important when I started to appear in Uit de Kunst with my too hyper-active little daughters. They loved to go there. We always had to sit next to the cage of the parrots. There was a selection of toys for little children, they had the time to draw or paint and the related mess was no problem for anybody. It became a kind of second home for them.
The conservatory in 2005
After some years the telephone cell appeared in front of the cafe above the murky waters of the canal. It displayed the headline “voor de kunst” and became Delft’s smallest arts gallery. Only now I learned that it appeared after the roof of an underlying tunnel had collapsed and the cell covers the hatch to the tunnel.
The telephone booth - the smallest arts gallery in Delft
Meanwhile I had joined the canoeing club at work and one of my standard lunchtime exercises was to paddle to Delft. It was handy that there was a staircase down to the canal right in front of cafe “Uit de Kunst”. I stopped there, pulled the canoe from the water and left it at the parking spot above the stairs. It would take me at least two hours to get there from work, have a light lunch, get back and have a shower before continuing to work. Nobody looked indignantly when you appeared at the cafe in your bathing suit or with wet shorts.
Meanwhile strange rumors had appeared. I never saw mice in the guest room. Neither did I have the chance to get down into the dark, mysterious basement to check whether it was true that it was home to a monster or a crocodile.
Over the years I have got quite some inspiration from the interior of “Uit de Kunst”. I stole the yellow and red design of the tables and the cupboard in the conservatory to paint a dressoir and a table for my living room. It was the time when one of the essentials of any trip anywhere was a map. Like in “Uit de Kunst” I got hold of a rack which I use to store my collection of maps although few are as old and as interesting as those in the conservatory of the cafe. I soon found out that Oude Jan the sugar tower was made by a pottery shop around the corner of the cafe and I still have got it – including the top. In my living room it is safe from parrots.
I used to take friends to Uit de Kunst to present it as one of the biggest unknown attractions of Delft. It also was a meeting point for interesting, arty people. There was always an interesting conversation lurking. I even made friends among the other guests. Sometimes when I went there with one or both of my grown-up daughters somebody recognized us and wondered how the little girls had grown.
An unusually large number of people in front of Uit de Kunst
There were signs that the activities in “Uit de Kunst” were down-scaled. First the parrots disappeared. Then the opening days were reduced. Next to the usual closing day on Monday it also shut down on Tuesdays first, later even on Wednesdays. They told me that the owners were getting too old to run it, that they were looking for a successor. I was somehow pleased to hear that they would only accept somebody who would run the place in the way we all were used to. However, few people seemed to be interested.
A song dedicated to the cafe and its owner
Last Friday I met a musician friend and asked him when he would be playing again. He answered that he would perform on Sunday afternoon in Delft, next to the last telephone booth in town. The booth “Voor de Kunst” on the occasion of the closure of the cafe. I was shocked.
Annemiek giving a short history of the cafe
I did not want to miss the farewell party on the street between the telephone booth and the entrance to the cafe. For that occasion the telephone booth served as a cockpit for the DJ. The major of Delft was there for the occasion. I have never seen him among the guests. Both Tijn and Annemiek held an entertaining and funny farewell speech disclosing secrets about the history of the café so far unknown to me. Some of their highlights I have included here. Under friends we have discussed were we should meet now. Which place offers the same kind of anonymous attention, the possibility to quietly sit for hours at the window or a road-side and watch what is going on without being watched?
But there was news: they have found a successor. But they are going to rebuild it. I hope it will not change….
No comments:
Post a Comment