De Inktpot, the biggest building in brick from The Netherlands
Last week I did a tour in “De Inktpot” (which means ink pot, because of the dark nature of the building) in Utrecht (The Netherlands). The tour was organized on the occasion of 175 railway in The Netherlands. This remarkable building was build from 1918 till 1921 and was designed by the architect of the Dutch railway George van Heukelom. The building contains 22 million bricks. Considering the amount of stones and the way the building was built (with lots of bows), it’s building time was astonishing short. There were 200 men laying 500.000 bricks a week! Hard work!
Other remarkable facts
Besides all the brick, the building contains a lot of oak wood. The railway bought a forest in Limburg, in the south of the Netherlands for this. Concrete is very sparsely used. Only when there where no other options. The foundation of the building was made with used rails to create a stable foundation on the pretty wet sand soil the building is standing on. Rails were also used in the ceilings. They clearly worked as much as possible with the materials they had. From 2000 - 2002 the building underwent a large renovation to modernize it to todays standards for a office building. For more images of this building (especially the outside) look here.
Warm regards
John
