Jan Buijs
Encyclopedia
Jan Willem Eduard Buijs, sometimes written Jan Buys (Surakarta
, 26 August 1889 – The Hague
, 19 October 1961) was a Dutch architect, best known for his De Volharding Building. His works include manufacturing, commercial, residential and municipal buildings. Stylistically, they usually combine New Objectivist
and De Stijl
features, and in his interiors, a Bauhaus
approach.
there before moving with his family back to the Netherlands in 1908. In 1909 he entered the Technical College at Delft (now the Delft University of Technology
) to study architectural engineering.
After graduating in 1919, he was engaged on the recommendation of Ad van der Steur as assistant architect in the Department of Public Works of the municipality of Haarlem
. Among other work of this period is the Stedelijk Gymnasium
, the city gymnasium
or Latin School (1923–24). He also designed a number of private residences, mostly in The Hague and Wassenaar
.
In 1924, Buijs formed the private architectural firm of Buijs and Lürsen in The Hague with Joan Lürsen, with whom he had become acquainted in Haarlem. Buijs was the designer and Lürsen oversaw construction.In addition to the commercial buildings for which he is known, he continued to design private residences, mostly in The Hague, Wassenaar and Voorschoten
. After the Second World War, during which he suffered badly from depression, his work included a number of factories, and blocks of flats in The Hague and Vlaardingen
. His unbuilt designs include the Free School in the Hague during the 1920s and the Troelstra mausoleum and the Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague in the 1930s. During the war he also produced a master-plan for arts institutions in The Hague, but Willem Marinus Dudok
's plan was adopted instead.
Buijs retired in 1955 because of poor health. His last buildings included several private residences and two office buildings in The Hague: for Het Nederlandsch Rundvee-stamboek (1951–52) and the Hoofdproduktschap van Akkerbouwprodukten (1953–55). Lürsen continued the firm with a new partner, A. van Haaren, before retiring in 1974.
Buijs was a member of the socialist Social Democratic Workers' Party
, but his political activities were confined to the arts: he taught art and architecture to workers' children and went with them to visit museums. He encouraged young artists and commissioned art works for his buildings, in particular a now lost relief by Rudolf Belling
on the wall above the staircase in the De Volharding Building. He collected modern art and also had a collection of crystals, which he displayed under carefully planned lighting.
Stylistically, Buijs' buildings usually combine De Stijl
and New Objectivist
approaches. He gave slide presentations on modern architecture, in which most of his examples were German. In his interiors, he preferred an approach reminiscent of the Bauhaus
, with unadorned, modern furnishings in gleaming metal; he was one of the first in The Netherlands to use Marcel Breuer
steel furniture.
's own architectural ideas; he studied Steiner's Goetheanum
for a month before designing it. The building is "unornamented, almost animistic" and uncharacteristic of Buijs.
, and clad entirely in glass. A light tower rises from the roof above a large sign which bore the name of the cooperative; these are in white, yellow and blue glass, the blue extending downwards to form a divider between the lift tower and the staircase tower, which consist of glass bricks, as does the strip above the ground-floor windows. The remainder of the façade consists of ribbon windows separated by opal glass spandrels, which can be reached from gangways and had lettering mounted behind the glass advertising the benefits of membership. In response to the client's requirement that he include as much advertising space as possible, Buijs designed a building the entirety of which advertised both the organisation and the cooperative movement itself. It was "a city-scale luminescent sculpture", an internationally famous example of architecture of the night
, "[p]robably the most frequently cited example for the potential applications of a future 'light architecture' in 1920s Europe", referred to in 1935 as "the most famous of all luminous buildings". However, it was criticised by some in the modern movement for combining expressionist elements and thus not being entirely devoid of ornamentation.
Except for partial illumination of one side in 1966 for the National Week of Architecture in the Netherlands, the building has not been illuminated since a few years after it was built; the exterior was altered in 1933 and 1938 and in 1974 it was renovated as an office building. Since 1988, it has been owned by Randstad Uitzendbureau (Randstad
Employment Agency).
(The Worker's Press) (1929–31) is in New Objectivist
style. The managing director of the company pronounced it "a building of truly impressive beauty" partly because the façade "in accordance with the stated requirements ... has no 'ornamentation' other than an extension to be used for advertising. This façade has no other pretension than being the front of a building in which work is done". However, the Amsterdam Beauty Commission objected to the building on stylistic grounds. It was Buijs' favourite of his works, perhaps because in it he was able to explicitly articulate his viewpoint as a socialist architect by building a "cathedral of labour". The building, known as 'the red fortress', was demolished in 1972.
Surakarta
Surakarta, also called Solo or Sala, is a city in Central Java, Indonesia of more than 520,061 people with a population density of 11,811.5 people/km2. The 44 km2 city adjoins Karanganyar Regency and Boyolali Regency to the north, Karanganyar Regency and Sukoharjo Regency to the east and...
, 26 August 1889 – The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, 19 October 1961) was a Dutch architect, best known for his De Volharding Building. His works include manufacturing, commercial, residential and municipal buildings. Stylistically, they usually combine New Objectivist
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
and De Stijl
De Stijl
De Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
features, and in his interiors, a Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
approach.
Life and career
Buijs' parents were Willem Roeland Buijs, an engineer, and Georgina Catherine Antoinette Kuypers. He was raised in Surakarta and attended the hogere burgerschoolHogere burgerschool
The Hogere burgerschool or HBS was a secondary school type in the Netherlands, existing between 1863 and 1974. The school, with a five or sometimes six year program, was continued in 1968 as havo and vwo. The last hbs diplomas were given out in 1974.-External links:*...
there before moving with his family back to the Netherlands in 1908. In 1909 he entered the Technical College at Delft (now the Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology , also known as TU Delft, is the largest and oldest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands...
) to study architectural engineering.
After graduating in 1919, he was engaged on the recommendation of Ad van der Steur as assistant architect in the Department of Public Works of the municipality of Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
. Among other work of this period is the Stedelijk Gymnasium
Stedelijk Gymnasium Haarlem
The Stedelijk Gymnasium Haarlem or the Latin School of Haarlem is an elite secondary school in Haarlem, The Netherlands. It is regarded as one of the most prestigious and academically rigorous schools in The Netherlands. The school was founded in 1389 and is therefore one of the oldest schools in...
, the city gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
or Latin School (1923–24). He also designed a number of private residences, mostly in The Hague and Wassenaar
Wassenaar
Wassenaar is a town in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. A fairly affluent suburb of The Hague, Wassenaar lies 10 km north of that city on the N44 highway near the North Sea coast. It is part of the Haaglanden region...
.
In 1924, Buijs formed the private architectural firm of Buijs and Lürsen in The Hague with Joan Lürsen, with whom he had become acquainted in Haarlem. Buijs was the designer and Lürsen oversaw construction.In addition to the commercial buildings for which he is known, he continued to design private residences, mostly in The Hague, Wassenaar and Voorschoten
Voorschoten
Voorschoten is a village and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. It is a smaller town in the Randstad, enclosed by the cities of Leiden and The Hague. The municipality covers an area of 11.59 km²...
. After the Second World War, during which he suffered badly from depression, his work included a number of factories, and blocks of flats in The Hague and Vlaardingen
Vlaardingen
Vlaardingen is a town in South Holland in the Netherlands. It is located on the north bank of the Nieuwe Maas/Nieuwe Waterweg river at the confluence with the Oude Maas...
. His unbuilt designs include the Free School in the Hague during the 1920s and the Troelstra mausoleum and the Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague in the 1930s. During the war he also produced a master-plan for arts institutions in The Hague, but Willem Marinus Dudok
Willem Marinus Dudok
Willem Marinus Dudok , was a Dutch modernist architect, best known for the brick Hilversum City Hall....
's plan was adopted instead.
Buijs retired in 1955 because of poor health. His last buildings included several private residences and two office buildings in The Hague: for Het Nederlandsch Rundvee-stamboek (1951–52) and the Hoofdproduktschap van Akkerbouwprodukten (1953–55). Lürsen continued the firm with a new partner, A. van Haaren, before retiring in 1974.
Buijs was a member of the socialist Social Democratic Workers' Party
Social Democratic Workers' Party (Netherlands)
The Social Democratic Workers' Party was a Dutch socialist political party and a predecessor of the social-democratic PvdA.-1893-1904:...
, but his political activities were confined to the arts: he taught art and architecture to workers' children and went with them to visit museums. He encouraged young artists and commissioned art works for his buildings, in particular a now lost relief by Rudolf Belling
Rudolf Belling
Rudolf Belling was a German sculptor.-Artistic theories:At the very beginning of the 20th century Rudolf Belling’s name was something like a battlecry. The composer of the "Dreiklang" evoked frequent and hefty discussions...
on the wall above the staircase in the De Volharding Building. He collected modern art and also had a collection of crystals, which he displayed under carefully planned lighting.
Stylistically, Buijs' buildings usually combine De Stijl
De Stijl
De Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
and New Objectivist
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
approaches. He gave slide presentations on modern architecture, in which most of his examples were German. In his interiors, he preferred an approach reminiscent of the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
, with unadorned, modern furnishings in gleaming metal; he was one of the first in The Netherlands to use Marcel Breuer
Marcel Breuer
Marcel Lajos Breuer , was a Hungarian-born modernist, architect and furniture designer of Jewish descent. One of the masters of Modernism, Breuer displayed interest in modular construction and simple forms.- Life and work :Known to his friends and associates as Lajkó, Breuer studied and taught at...
steel furniture.
Rudolf Steiner Clinic, The Hague
Buijs carried out the commission to build the clinic (1926–28) based on Rudolf SteinerRudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
's own architectural ideas; he studied Steiner's Goetheanum
Goetheanum
The Goetheanum, located in Dornach , Switzerland, is the world center for the anthroposophical movement. Named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the center includes two performance halls , gallery and lecture spaces, a library, a bookstore, and administrative spaces for the Anthroposophical...
for a month before designing it. The building is "unornamented, almost animistic" and uncharacteristic of Buijs.
De Volharding Building, The Hague
Built for a workers' cooperative by that name and designed to house shops, storage for products and a dental clinic as well as offices, the De Volharding (Persistence) Building (1927–28) is De Stijl or cubistic in conception, influenced also by Russian ConstructivismConstructivism
Constructivism may refer to:* Constructivist epistemology, the philosophical view* Constructivism in international relations* Constructivism , a philosophical view on mathematical proofs and existence of mathematical objects...
, and clad entirely in glass. A light tower rises from the roof above a large sign which bore the name of the cooperative; these are in white, yellow and blue glass, the blue extending downwards to form a divider between the lift tower and the staircase tower, which consist of glass bricks, as does the strip above the ground-floor windows. The remainder of the façade consists of ribbon windows separated by opal glass spandrels, which can be reached from gangways and had lettering mounted behind the glass advertising the benefits of membership. In response to the client's requirement that he include as much advertising space as possible, Buijs designed a building the entirety of which advertised both the organisation and the cooperative movement itself. It was "a city-scale luminescent sculpture", an internationally famous example of architecture of the night
Architecture of the night
Architecture of the night or nocturnal architecture, also referred to as illuminated architecture and, particularly in German, light architecture, is architecture designed to maximize the effect of night lighting, which may include lights from within the building, lights on the facade or outlining...
, "[p]robably the most frequently cited example for the potential applications of a future 'light architecture' in 1920s Europe", referred to in 1935 as "the most famous of all luminous buildings". However, it was criticised by some in the modern movement for combining expressionist elements and thus not being entirely devoid of ornamentation.
Except for partial illumination of one side in 1966 for the National Week of Architecture in the Netherlands, the building has not been illuminated since a few years after it was built; the exterior was altered in 1933 and 1938 and in 1974 it was renovated as an office building. Since 1988, it has been owned by Randstad Uitzendbureau (Randstad
Randstad
Image:Randstad_with_scale.png|400px|thumb|right|Clickable schematic map of the Randstadcircle 528 380 26 Schipholrect 426 356 498 436 Haarlemmermeerrect 399 166 479 245 Velsencircle 250 716 32 Delftcircle 220 642 60 The Hague...
Employment Agency).
De Arbeiderspers Building, Amsterdam
This headquarters building for the socialist De ArbeiderspersDe Arbeiderspers
De Arbeiderspers is a Dutch publishing company. The company was started in 1929 as a socialist press, and was housed in the building that also housed Het Volk, the newspaper of the Dutch Social Democratic Workers' Party. Currently it is part of a larger media conglomerate, the Weekbladpersgroep,...
(The Worker's Press) (1929–31) is in New Objectivist
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
style. The managing director of the company pronounced it "a building of truly impressive beauty" partly because the façade "in accordance with the stated requirements ... has no 'ornamentation' other than an extension to be used for advertising. This façade has no other pretension than being the front of a building in which work is done". However, the Amsterdam Beauty Commission objected to the building on stylistic grounds. It was Buijs' favourite of his works, perhaps because in it he was able to explicitly articulate his viewpoint as a socialist architect by building a "cathedral of labour". The building, known as 'the red fortress', was demolished in 1972.
C. J. Leembruggen residence, The Hague
This private residence built in 1935–36 is radically Objectivist in external style, with a striking interplay of rectangular forms and voids, a facade clad in yellow and grey glazed tiles, many balconies and a roof terrace, but conventional in interior layout.Sources
- Jan W. E. Buijs and Joan B. Lürsen. N.V. Drukkerij en Uitgeversmaatschappij De Arbeiderspers: 42 fotografische beelden uit het nieuwe gebouw. Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, circa 1932.
- Chris Rehorst. Jan Buijs: interieurs (1889–1961). Monografieën van Nederlandse interieurarchitecten 9. Rotterdam: Uitgeverij 010, 1991. ISBN 9789064501272