Voorhof, Delft — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Voorhof?

Van Embden brought high-rise to Delft. The Algemene Woningbouwvereniging Volkshuisvesting commissioned him to lay out a quarter on the Functional City model that was popular at the time, and what he built was a thousand dwellings and more. Eight blocks of eleven storeys stood at its core.

Four medium blocks of four storeys and a number of family houses filled in around them, and the whole of it went up in the 1960s. The Poptahof is the northern part. It is enclosed by the Papsouwselaan, the Martinus Nijhofflaan, the Prinses Beatrixlaan and the Westlandseweg, and the name Popta has been used in the area since the thirteenth century, though the ground was called Abtswoude before anything was built.

What is the history of Voorhof?

The Voorhof was built in the 1960s. Delft had nothing like it before, and the density the flats produced makes it the most crowded quarter in the city and one of the most crowded in the Netherlands. Renovation was decided in the 1990s.

The high Poptahof blocks no longer met the standard, and the plan was to open the ground up by demolishing the low blocks and rebuilding the tall ones completely. The low blocks came down first. That happened at the start of the twenty-first century, and stripping the first tower was meant to begin around the year 2000.

Shopkeepers held it up. Traders under the front blocks demanded replacement premises for the period of the works, so clearing began only from 2004 and started with the rear blocks instead. The work finished in 2013.

An estimate made in 2006 had put the end at 2014, but part of the flats were never renovated at all.

Where is Voorhof?

De Voorhof lies in Delft-Zuid, south-west of the Delft centre, bounded by the Westlandseweg to the north, the Kruithuisweg to the south, the Beatrixlaan to the west and the railway to the east.