On September 28, the ‘Stichting Monumentenfonds Aruba’ received the welcome news that Uncle Louis Store had won the prize of the ‘Erfgoed Duurzaamheidsprijs 2023’ awarded by the ‘Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed’ together with the ‘Nationaal Restauratiefonds’ and the ‘Nederland Monumentenland’. The winners in the Netherlands received their prize from the Secretary of State Gunay Uslu. The monument to Den Bosch Tuighuis won in the business category and the monument to Culemborg that was the home of Huub van Oorschot won the prize in the private category.
The Uncle Louis Store project is the only Monument outside the Netherlands that has participated along with forty-two other monuments and thanks to the public that has actively voted, we have been able to win the public prize. This is already the second award received by the Stichting Monumentenfonds Aruba for the Uncle Louis Store building. In 2022 he received the Pieter van Vollenhovenprijs which is a repurposing price and now this year he gets an Erfgoed Duurzaamheidsprijs from the public.
The Uncle Louis Store is a monument built in 1951, is now the most sustainable monument of Aruba. Several sustainability measures have been applied at the monument. To begin using a building, is sustainable measure. Besides this during restauration the original tiles were discovered, which were reused. The solar panels were installed to mechanically cool the building. Also to collect the condensate water from the mechanical system and reuse it to flush sthe toilets and to be used for the plants of the garden in the future. The complete building has LED lights and in the original wooden jealousy window bent glasses were placed inside to be able to want the low temperature inside the building. Inside the windows there are recycled plastic panels for insulation and to create more privacy. As for social sustainability, artists were allowed to make use of this building in the center of San Nicolás while it was empty, before the restoration. You can still see pieces in the building that were left as a reminder of this period. He made the building handicapped accessible with an emphasis on visually impaired people. The interior was created in an “open office” concept to create more space and stimulate contacts and collaboration among the employees of Directie Natuur en Milieu.
This project has certainly known its challenges seeing that unfortunately Aruba is dragging itself backwards so sustainability measures are addressed especially in the field of monuments. Materials are often more expensive and difficult to find. For the restoration they followed the richtlijnen of restoration of Aruba which in contrast to the Netherlands are a little stricter in what is or is not allowed. All this means that cune has to be very creative when it comes to a restoration in order to do it in a sustainable way. Stichting Monumentenfonds Aruba is certainly very proud of the result of the Uncle Louis Store project which also forms an example for other projects such as Steenweg 19 and pronto casa Veneranda.
The SMFA is very proud of these achievements for Aruba and thanks one and all those who have been part of this project: Directie Natuur en Milieu, Archiosa N.V., Van Kessel Havenbouw N.V., RBC Royal Bank (Aruba), FAVI, Ateliers 89, relatives of Uncle Louis and the Nisbet family, the SMFA team and the Aruban community who voted and showed how proud we are of our monuments.