Joan (Jo) Melchior van der Mey (19 August 1878,

Delfshaven Delfshaven () is a borough of Rotterdam, Netherlands, on the right bank of river Nieuwe Maas. It was a separate municipality until 1886. The town of Delfshaven grew around the port of the city of Delft. Delft itself was not located on a major ri ...

– 6 June 1949, Geulle) 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 ...

best known as the originator of the Amsterdam School style of architecture. His most famous work is the landmark Scheepvaarthuis (Shipping House) building in

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 ...

located at Prins Hendrikkade, 1912. Van der Mey was a student of Eduard Cuypers from 1898, won the Dutch

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

in 1906; he was taken on by the city of Amsterdam as an "Aesthetic Advisor". In 1905 Amsterdam was the first city in the world to impose a building code, and later they hired van der Mey as their civic building artist. In this capacity he developed the facade for the 1912 Palm House at the Hortus Botanicus among other buildings. That same year brought the commission for the Scheepvaarthuis, a large cooperative building for six Dutch shipping companies. Van der Mey sought the assistance of his former colleague-architects

Michel de Klerk Michel de Klerk (24 November 1884, Amsterdam – 24 November 1923, Amsterdam) was a Dutch architect. Born to a Jewish family, he was one of the founding architects of the movement Amsterdam School (Expressionist architecture) Early in his ca ...

and

Piet Kramer Pieter Lodewijk (Piet) Kramer (Amsterdam, 1 July 1881 – Santpoort, 4 February 1961) was a Dutch architect, one of the most important architects of the Amsterdam School ( Expressionist architecture). From 1903 to 1911 Piet Kramer worked in th ...

, and the architect ''Adolf Daniël Nicolaas van Gendt'' was responsible for engineering the concrete structure. Van der Mey's job was to coordinate the extensive symbolic art and sculptural program, inside and outside. Much of the sculpture is the work of Hildo Krop and H. A. van den Eijnde, but a large group of well-known artists contributed. The Scheepvaarthuis is regarded as a highlight of the

Amsterdam School The Amsterdam School (Dutch: ''Amsterdamse School'') is a style of architecture that arose from 1910 through about 1930 in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam School movement is part of international Expressionist architecture, sometimes linked ...

of building. Michel de Klerk went on to become its most important representative. Van der Mey also designed bridges and housing complexes in south Amsterdam and around the city's Mercatorplein.

External links

Photos of figural architectural sculpture on the Scheepvaarthuis
1878 births 1949 deaths Brick Expressionism Architects from Rotterdam Expressionist architects Prix de Rome (Netherlands) winners {{Netherlands-architect-stub