The Black House

In Utrecht's museum quarter, just south of the city centre, there was for many years a vacant plot on the corner of Lange Nieuwstraat and Vrouwjuttenstraat. This site in the midst of historical buildings is now occupied by 'Het Zwarte Huis' (The Black House), a complex containing six apartments with semi-underground parking and the new premises of Bakers Architecten. The streetscape is characterized by heterogeneous, lot-by-lot development with distinctive corner buildings. Het Zwarte Huis is a contemporary addition to the existing urban fabric, in which the notion of 'living above work' has been accentuated by placing the dwellings in a solid volume on top of a glazed podium. Lange Nieuwstraat begins at Domplein and runs via a gentle curve to the Centraal Museum. The site lies at the mid-point of the curve from where there is an overview of the entire street. This unique vantage point is fully exploited with a large bay window.