In Alkmaar there is a Monumentsloods where you can find things to renovate your house in a historically responsible way: a Gamma or Praxis avant la lettre, so to speak. The shed is full of doors, stained glass windows, stones, roof tiles or that one door handle you were looking for. “A conduit for historical building material from before 1940.”
The shed is part of the Alkmaar Historical Association. You can bring old stuff there or buy it for a reasonable price. The condition is that it is given a good destination with a private individual, and preferably in Alkmaar. Traders are shunned.
“It’s a candy store here”, laughs one of the customers who is looking for a matching handle for the panel door he has just found. Jos Stroomer, one of the volunteers who runs the ‘hardware store’, recognizes that feeling. “People are often dumbfounded, and say: ‘how beautiful, how much’.”
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Monument Shed Alkmaar – NH Nieuws/ Anne Klijnstra
The Monument Shed is a side street of the Edisonweg. They were assigned that place by the municipality after their previous building on the Torenburg in the city center turned out to be too dilapidated. “We are fine here for the time being, with enough space to sort things and there is parking space.”
The founding father
Stroomer emphasizes that the foundation for the shed was laid by Henk Krabbendam. “He is now retired, but is the ‘founding father’. He has collected most of this stuff over the past thirty years. Then he went on a cargo bike along old buildings to pick up materials.”
Walking around the hall, Stroomer points to all kinds of things, from a wrought iron nameplate from a saddlery on the Achterdam to a complete kitchen: “A Bruynzeel from 1910, with everything on it. The only thing that is missing is the curtain under the sink. We actually have a treasure trove.”
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