Jan Willem Eduard Buijs, sometimes written Jan Buys (26 August 1889 – 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 ''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a bod ...

features, and in his interiors, a

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 2 ...

approach.

Life and career

Buijs' parents were Willem Roeland Buijs, an engineer, and Georgina Catherine Antoinette Kuypers.Ch. M. Rehorst
"BUIJS, Jan Willem Eduard (1889-1961)"
at ''Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland: 1880-2000'' online edition, updated 13 March 2008, retrieved 12 August 2011 He was born and raised in

Surakarta Surakarta ( jv, ꦯꦸꦫꦏꦂꦠ), known colloquially as Solo ( jv, ꦱꦭ; ), is a city in Central Java, Indonesia. The 44 km2 (16.2 sq mi) city adjoins Karanganyar Regency and Boyolali Regency to the north, Karanganyar Regency and ...

and attended the '' hogere burgerschool'' 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 ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...

) to study architectural engineering.Chris Rehorst, "Jan de Buijs and De Volharding, The Hague, Holland", ''Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'' 44.5, May 1985, pp. 147–60
p. 147
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 The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's ad ...

and

Wassenaar Wassenaar (; population: in ) is a municipality and town located in the province of South Holland, on the western coast of the Netherlands. An affluent suburb of The Hague, Wassenaar lies north of that city on the N44/A44 highway near the Nort ...

. 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 () 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, Wassenaar and The Hague. The municipality covers an area of of whi ...

. 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 () is a city in South Holland in the Netherlands. It is located on the north bank of the Nieuwe Maas river at the confluence with the Oude Maas. The municipality administers an area of , of which is land, with residents in . Geogr ...

. 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 (6 July 1884 – 6 April 1974) was a Dutch modernist architect. He was born in Amsterdam. He became City Architect for the town of Hilversum in 1928 where he was best known for the brick Hilversum Town Hall, completed i ...

'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). He died in The Hague, aged 72. 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

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

, with unadorned, modern furnishings in gleaming metal; he was one of the first in the Netherlands to use

Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981), was a Hungarian-born modernist architect and furniture designer. At the Bauhaus he designed the Wassily Chair and the Cesca Chair, which ''The New York Times'' have called some of the most ...

steel furniture.

Notable buildings

Rudolf Steiner Clinic, The Hague

Buijs carried out the commission to build the clinic (1926–28) based on

Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as ...

's own architectural ideas; he studied Steiner's

Goetheanum The Goetheanum, located in Dornach, in the canton of Solothurn, Switzerland, is the world center for the anthroposophical movement. The building was designed by Rudolf Steiner and named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It includes two perfo ...

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,Cooperative Society De Volharding
at ArchitectureGuide.nl. the De Volharding (Persistence) Building (1927–28) is De Stijl or cubistic in conception, influenced also by Russian

Constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...

, 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.De Witt, p. 261."Selected Projects", ''Architecture of the Night: The Illuminated Building'', ed. Dietrich Neumann, Munich/New York: Prestel, 2002, , pp. 132–33. 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, " obably 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 Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, a ...

for combining expressionist elements and thus not being entirely devoid of ornamentation. The building inspired the design of

Boston Manor tube station Boston Manor is a London Underground station at the boundary of the boroughs Hounslow and Ealing. The station is situated on the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly line, between Osterley and Northfields stations, in Travelcard Zone 4. The sta ...

which open in 1934 on the London Underground, and imitates the illuminated tower. 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 The Randstad (; "Rim" or "Edge" City) is a roughly crescent-shaped conurbation in the central-western Netherlands, consisting primarily of the four largest Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht); their suburbs, and many tow ...

Employment Agency).

De Arbeiderspers Building, Amsterdam

This headquarters building for the socialist De Arbeiderspers (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.

C. J. Leembruggen residence, The Hague

Villa Leembruggen - Nyelantstraat 6, 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.Private House Leembruggen
at ArchitectureGuide.nl.

References

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.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buijs, Jan 1889 births 1961 deaths Dutch architects People from Surakarta Delft University of Technology alumni