COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Villa Isola aan de Lembangweg bij Bandoeng TMnr 60026636

Charles Prosper Wolff Schoemaker (25 July 1882 – 22 May 1949) was a Dutch architect who designed several distinguished

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

buildings in

Bandung Bandung is the capital city of the West Java province of Indonesia. Located on the island of Java, the city is the List of Indonesian cities by population, fourth-most populous city and fourth largest city in Indonesia after Jakarta, Surabay ...

, Indonesia, including the Villa Isola and Hotel Preanger. He has been described as "the

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...

of Indonesia," and Wright had a considerable influence on Wolff Schoemaker's modernist designs. Although he was primarily known as an architect, he was also a painter and sculptor.

Early life and formative years

Wolff Schoemaker was born in , on the island of

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, Indonesia where he would spend most of his life. For his secondary school education, Wolff Schoemaker was sent to the KMA (Royal Military Academy) in the Dutch city of

Breda Breda ( , , , ) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southern part of the Netherlands, located in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant. ...

.Cor Passchier:''The quest for the ultimate architecture. Indonesia in the late colonial period'', 2008
Retrieved 29 July 2010 In 1905, he returned to the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

to work for the Royal Dutch East Indies Army as a military engineer. After leaving the job in 1911, he became the engineer for the Department of Civil Public Works in Batavia (present-day

Jakarta Jakarta (; , Betawi language, Betawi: ''Jakartè''), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta (; ''DKI Jakarta'') and formerly known as Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia until 1949, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia and ...

), and became the Director of Public Works in 1914. From 1917 to 1918, he worked for Fa. Schlieper & Co and took a study trip to the United States with the organization, where he came into contact with the work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Career

In 1918, in partnership with his brother Richard, Wolff Schoemaker established the

architectural firm In the United States, an architectural firm or architecture firm is a business that employs one or more licensed architects and practices the profession of architecture; while in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and other countr ...

C.P. Schoemaker and Associates in

. His firm blended traditional Indonesian architecture with modern European styles, incorporating traditional elements into the shapes and layouts of the buildings. Wolff Schoemaker deliberately applied a functionalist approach to his buildings. Among his most notable buildings were the ''Sociëteit Concordia'' building on

Braga Street Braga Street (, ) is a street in the center of Bandung, Indonesia, famous in 1920s colonial Indonesia as a promenade street. A European ambiance of chic cafes, boutiques, and restaurants along the street propelled Bandung to attain the Dutch ni ...

(1921), where the Asian–African Conference was held in 1955 (today known as '' Gedung Merdeka''), the Hotel Preanger (1929), the

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (, ) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax and rabies. Th ...

of Indonesia, the St. Peter Cathedral, and Villa Isola (1932), all located in Bandung. His own house, built in 1930 in a northern residential neighbourhood of Bandung, epitomized his architectural vision. The building had been under threat of being demolished in 1995, only rescued after the intervention of the Bandung Society for Heritage Conservation. The

adaptive reuse Adaptive reuse is the reuse of an existing building for a purpose other than that for which it was originally built or designed. It is also known as recycling and conversion. The adaptive reuse of buildings can be a viable alternative to new con ...

of the building, now converted into a bank, was carried out in 1996 with the help of local architects and students. The conservation of this local heritage has been awarded one of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards for Culture Heritage Conservation in 2000."UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards for Culture Heritage Conservation"
Retrieved 29 July 2010 In 1922, he became the professor of the '' Technische Hoogeschool Bandoeng'' (Institut Teknologi Bandung/ITB). While professor, he mentored

Sukarno Sukarno (6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of the Indonesian struggle for independenc ...

, who would become the first President of the Republic of Indonesia. With assistance from the young Sukarno, Wolff Schoemaker renovated the Hotel Preanger in 1929. Under Wolff Schoemaker's assistance, Sukarno also designed several houses in Bandung. One of Wolff Schoemaker's most significant works was the Villa Isola, built from 1932 to 1933 for the Dutch media tycoon Dominique William Berretty.Villa Isola
''MuseumStuff.com''. Wolff Schoemaker's design was influenced by indigenous Javanese philosophy; the orientation of the building is according to the north–south axis, where the building faces Mount Tangkuban Perahu to the north and the city of Bandung to the south. The building incorporates many circular shapes, such as a spiral staircase in the main lobby and an arch-shaped window in the family room.Villa Isola in Bandung by Charles Prosper Wolff Schoemaker
, ''Best House Design'', 17 November 2008. Last updated on 25 July 2010, 07:37:43 GMT. "Interior of the first floor consists of a lobby with a twisted staircase to the second floor, and a family room. A large window in a half-circled curve shape decorates the family room completed with an open balcony and steel bars." Wolff Schoemaker traveled to the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

in 1939, where he took a post 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 ...

until his retirement in 1941.The Dutch East Indies as a late Colonial Case Study
, ''RMIT University''.Op zoek naar de tropenstijl, Leven en werk van prof. ir. C.P. Wolff Schoemaker, Indisch architect
/ref> Wolff Schoemaker died in Bandung in 1949 and was buried in the Dutch War Cemetery Pandu.

Legacy

Wolff Schoemaker was considered one of the best Indonesian architects of his time. Throughout his career, he explored the relationship between European designs and Indonesian vernacular expression. His work developed a new modern language of forms based on tropical conditions and principles.

Works

File:Bandung - Gedung Merdeka (2025) - img 03.jpg, '' Gedung Merdeka'', Bandung File:Bandung - Bandung Cathedral exterior (2025) - img 01.jpg, Bandung Cathedral File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM s Lands Koepok Inrichting en het Instituut Pasteur exterieur van het gebouw Bandoeng. TMnr 60012974.jpg, Bio Farma, Bandung File:Bandung - Bethel Church of Bandung (2025) - img 11.jpg, Bethel Church of Bandung File:Jaarbeurs.JPG, Kologdam Building (Jaarbeurs), Bandung File:Bandung - Majestic Cinema (2025) - img 01.jpg, decorated with Classic Javanese ''kala'' head motif on its facade. File:Kodam III Siliwangi.jpg, Kodam III Siliwangi, formerly ''Het Paleis van de Legercommandant''

References

External links

Bethel Church
– Visual Database of Modern Dutch Tropical Architecture in Indonesia

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolff Schoemaker, Charles Prosper 1882 births 1949 deaths 20th-century Dutch architects 20th-century Dutch male artists 20th-century Dutch painters 20th-century Dutch sculptors 20th-century Indonesian sculptors 20th-century Indonesian architects 20th-century Indonesian male artists Art Deco architects Artists from the Dutch East Indies Dutch male painters Dutch male sculptors Graduates of the Koninklijke Militaire Academie People from Semarang Regency