Aldo van Eyck (; 16 March 1918 – 14 January 1999) was a Dutch

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

. He was one of the most influential protagonists of the architectural movement

Structuralism Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns t ...

Family

He was born in Driebergen,

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

, a son of

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

and

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

Pieter Nicolaas van Eyck or van Eijk and wife Nelly Estelle Benjamins, a woman of

Sephardic Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

origin born and raised in

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

. His brother was poet, artist and art restorer Robert Floris van Eyck or van Eijk. He was married to Hannie van Rooijen, also an architect. She assisted him in several projects.

Early life and career

His family moved to the United Kingdom in 1919 and he was educated at Sidcot School, Somerset, from 1932 to 1935, after which he finished his secondary school in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

between 1935 and 1938, and went to study at the

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

. He graduated in 1942, after which he remained in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

until the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, where he entered the circle of many other avant-garde artists around Carola Giedion-Welcker, wife of

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

Sigfried Giedion Sigfried Giedion (also spelled Siegfried Giedion; 14 April 1888, Prague – 10 April 1968, Zürich) was a Bohemian-born Swiss historian and critic of architecture. His ideas and books, '' Space, Time and Architecture'', and ''Mechanization ...

. He taught at the

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

Academy of Architecture from 1954 to 1959 and he was a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

from 1966 to 1984. He also was editor of the architecture magazine ''Forum'' from 1959 to 1963 and in 1967.

Later career

A member of CIAM and then in 1954 a co-founder of "

Team 10 Team 10 – just as often referred to as Team X or Team Ten – was a group of architects and other invited participants who assembled starting in July 1953 at the 9th Congress of the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne, International ...

", Van Eyck lectured throughout Europe and northern America propounding the need to reject Functionalism and attacking the lack of originality in most post-war Modernism. Van Eyck was as co-editor of the Dutch magazine ''Forum'' between 1959 and 1963, alongside Herman Hertzberger and

Jaap Bakema Jacob Berend "Jaap" Bakema (8 March 1914 – 20 February 1981) was a Dutch modernist architect. He is notable for design of public housing and involvement in the reconstruction of Rotterdam after the Second World War, and especially his work with ...

. This helped publicise the "Team 10" call for a return to humanism within architectural design. Van Eyck received the

RIBA ''Riba'' (, or , ) is an Arabic word used in Islamic law and roughly translated as " usury": unjust, exploitative gains made in trade or business. ''Riba'' is mentioned and condemned in several different verses in the Qur'an3:130

Royal Gold Medal in 1990. He died at Loenen aan de Vecht, aged 80.

Structures

* Design for village of Nagele, Noordoostpolder, 1948–1954 * Housing for the Elderly, Slotermeer, Amsterdam, 1951–1952 * Amsterdam Orphanage, Amsterdam, 1955–1960 * Primary Schools, Nagele, Noordoostpolder, 1954–1956 * Hubertus House, Amsterdam, 1973–1978 * ESA-

ESTEC The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) is the European Space Agency's main technology development and test centre for spacecraft and space technology. It is situated in Noordwijk, South Holland, in the western Netherlands, alth ...

restaurant and conference centre,

Noordwijk Noordwijk () is a town and municipality in the west of the Netherlands, in the provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of of which is water and had a population of in . On 1 January 2019, the f ...

, 1984–1990

Sources

Raphaël Labrunye, L'orphelinat d'Aldo van Eyck ; De la réception de l'œuvre à la genèse du projet, Paris, Métis Presse, 2016, 256 p.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eyck, Aldo 1918 births 1999 deaths Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne members Academic staff of the Delft University of Technology Dutch Jews Academic staff of ETH Zurich Jewish architects Van Eyck, Aldo People from Driebergen-Rijsenburg Recipients of the Royal Gold Medal Structuralists Wolf Prize in Arts laureates 20th-century Dutch architects ETH Zurich alumni