Elswout: Orangery in Overveen, high contrast by Jeroen Somers

About "Elswout: Orangery in Overveen, high contrast"

by Jeroen Somers

About the artwork

ORANJERY. One of the most monumental examples of 19th century orangery architecture in the Netherlands, built in 1882/83 to a design by C. Muysken.

Elongated building, consisting of an approximately square central pavilion under a tent roof with curved shields and a vase-shaped crown, against which a low roofed annex is placed at the back, two lower and narrower side wings, of which the roofs also have curved shields, and at each end a greenhouse, composed of a flat-covered rectangular section and an apse under a quarter sphere.

The orangery turns its almost blind, invisible brick rear façade towards the moat running along the kitchen garden; the front façade, on the other hand, is clad in natural stone and is of course very open: it contains four glazed doors in each side wing and three in the central pavilion, the latter being enclosed in a shallow portico composed of three linked arches.

The façade, in which the central pavilion forms a far projecting risalit, is lined with Tuscan pilasters whose cushion-covered plinths form part of a lower horizontal articulation of the façade, which is otherwise formed by the also cushion-covered plinth area of the main pavilion and the closed feet of the doors; A second horizontal accent is formed by parts of an entablature and the door arch extending over the corner piers of the wings and the central pavilion and the central supports of the porch.