Three canals to the west of the city centre of Utrecht, the Netherlands, delineate a roughly triangular area known as Oog in Al. This unusual name translates to “Eye on all” and stems from a 17th century estate built on the water and with an all-encompassing view over the city’s westward expansion.
It is there on a strategic location on the Merwedekanaal that a cooperative of 1,500 farmers established the Coöperatieve Stichtsche Olie- en Lijnkoekenfabriek (SOL) in 1908. The factory was to produce linseed oil and its precious byproduct, linseed cakes used by the farmers as cattle feed. To design their factory, the cooperative hired a noted Utrecht architect known as a builder of churches and mansions, Gerardus Adrianus (or possibly Antonius?) Ebbers. With its decorative brickwork, arched windows and turrets, the factory is representative of the elegant industrial architecture of the end of 19th century. Besides the main fabrication hall, the ensemble included an oil storage house, machine shop, smithy and a villa for the plant director. A concrete seed silo was added in 1932 in the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid (Dutch New Objectivity) style.
In the 1950s, the factory shifted from processing linseed to more lucrative soybeans, a move that backfired when intense speculation during the 1970s oil crisis shot up the price of soybeans and brought the cooperative to bankruptcy in 1973. Production on the site however continued after it was acquired by the US-based Central Soya, later Cereol Benelux. While the workers were happy to keep their job, neighbouring residents were less thrilled with the continued operation of the foul-smelling factory, and protests began to form. Eventually, all production seized in 2002 when the building was purchased by the city of Utrecht in response to growing public pressure, as well as to redevelop the area for residential use.
While such projects were being discussed, the site stood vacant and fell prey to vandalism, culminating in a large fire in 2008 that damaged most of the remaining interior, including all original wooden floors and cast iron supports. This incident galvanized efforts to save and redevelop this part of the city’s industrial heritage. BOEi, a non-profit organization specializing in the restoration and adaptive reuse of cultural heritage sites, acquired the Cereolfabriek in 2011 with the aim of transforming it into a cultural and community centre.
Completed in 2014, the transformed Cereolfabriek includes a branch of the Utrecht city library, as well as a restaurant, theatre, kindergarten and exhibition space. Set on the ground floor, the library is located partly inside the former 1930s concrete silo, whose grain hoppers still loom over the young adult section. Elsewhere, exposed brick walls still show signs of use and an original fuse box on the wall of the children’s section lends touches of industrial chic a hipster café designer would kill for. Busy with teenagers crowding around gaming PCs, children gathering for story hour and retirees reading the day’s paper, this library is however everything but a stale linseed cake.
The images shown here date from my visit in September 2023. Many thanks to the Utrecht city library for their welcome!
This post is part of a series on adaptive reuse in libraries. See the list of such projects I am maintaining or view other posts in this series.
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