Museum building
The Grafisch Museum is housed in a former school building from 1928, designed by the city architect Siebe Jan Bouma. He designed the building in the style of the so called Amsterdam School movement. The building really stands out with it's yellow, white and red colours and stained glass windows. The building alone is worth a visit.
Siebe Jan Bouma (1899-1939)
Bouma was employed as a designer for the city of Groningen. He has left many marks in the city, such as public toilets, school buildings, transformer vaults, social housing projects and bridges.
The initial development plan: a primary school with 6 class rooms
The law on primary schooling (1920) incorporated a number of pedagogic building restrictions when building a school, one of which was the condition that the windows of every classroom should face the sun and the playground had to be enclosed by a brick wall, so the children wouldn't be distracted. Both conditions are to be found in this building.
The sculpted pelican above the entrance has a symbolic meaning. It represents the care and attention dedicated to children. Legend says that the pelican picked it's own chest in order to feed it's young his own blood. This story refers to the biblical story of Jesus dying for the people of the world.
In- and exterior
In designing the building Bouma was inspired by the Dutch architect Dudok who worked in a cubist-expressionist style. This becomes clear in the groundplan and the proportional scale. The building can be seen in the tradition of the Amsterdam School movement in details as the colours, the squareness of the building parts, the horizontal en vertical lines, the use of brick and corner solutions.
The building was supposed to have two floors. On the west side arises a towerlike chimney with three horizontal plates, used for the school bell. The entrance consists of a parabolic arch and a gate made of wrought iron. The sculpted pelican was designed by Ploeg-artist Willem Valk and serves as a keystone brick.
The original interior is still intact, complete with cream coloured tiles, black rims, stained glass windows and an impressive stairwell.
