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Design fot the planned government building

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Design fot the planned government building

Hart, Abraham van der

Title Leupe: Plans, platte gronden, opstanden voor gebouwen voor de nieuwe stad, het gouvernement enz.

This drawing is part of the plans designed by Abraham van der Hart for the Society of Berbice in the years 1779-1781. The depicted government building is indicated with number 1 on Van der Hart’s general plan for the new governmental complex on map VEL1662.42. The draft of the beam constructions is apparently an adjustment of the design which Jean-Guillaume d’Arnaud drew in 1773. The most important amendment in relation to d’Arnaud’s original plan was the raising of the building’s front elevation to two floors, designed to give the building as a whole a more representative appearance. The construction of the new administration building never got much further than the laying of the foundations for the main wing on the front side. When, in 1779, Van der Hart was requested by the Society to act as advisor for the further execution and to submit new plans to that end, he was expected to proceed in such a way that it would be possible to continue building on these minimal existing walls. This drawing shows his plans for doing so and, in addition to the beam constructions and roof profiles, also provides a floor plan.

Due to the British conquest of Berbice in March 1781, only part of the other plans for the complex could be sent to the Republic in November 1780. After Berbice had been returned to the Society in 1784, the first plans for a completely new main town at the confluence of the Berbice and Canje Rivers followed in the very next year and Van der Hart’s 1779-1781 project was abandoned altogether.

Scale-bar of 150 Rhineland feet = 12 'strepen'.

Please contact Nationaal Archief for reuse and copyrights.

Sources and literature

Heijer, H. den, Grote Atlas van de West-Indische Compagnie = Comprehensive Atlas of the Dutch West India Company, II, de nieuwe WIC 1674-1791 = the new WIC 1674-1791 (2012)