Photo: Dudok Architectuur Centrum

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Police post
1919 / W.M. Dudok

Kleine drift 17, Hilversum

In 1915, J. van Olst, the chief of the Gooische Stoomtram, wrote a letter about the railway to the mayor, the head of the municipal police, on behalf of a large number of residents of the district. The neighborhood was almost completely devoid of police surveillance, despite regular riots. Hardly anyone in the neighborhood had a telephone, so the police could not be warned in time. Moreover, the riots could not be solved by one agent.

Indeed, the surveillance in the neighborhood was insufficient, especially after a new neighborhood was built at the end of the Laarderweg. The design for a police post was made by the new director of Public Works, W.M. dudok. In 1917 the Volksbond Bouwvereniging Hilversum also asked for a police post for the tenants of the 54 houses on the Laarderweg. Nevertheless, the municipality decided not to start construction before 1919. When submitting the design of the police post with storage space for a hose truck and bicycle stretcher, Dudok stated that this would at least make a start in improving the buildings in this extremely ugly neighbourhood. The small building was designed in the style of the Amsterdam School and contains curved shapes and decorative details. The floor plan was arranged in such a way that the two punishment cells also benefited from the heating of the waiting room. The building served as a police post until 1945.

Source: Annette Koenders, Hilversum. Architectuur en Stedenbouw 1850-1940, Zwolle (2001).