130201 review final
1
68 BLUEPRINT FEBRUARY 2013 Right: Rotterdam’s Van Nelle Factory, by practice Brinkman & van der Vlugt, had a profound influence on architecture BRINKMAN & VAN DER VLUGT ARCHITECTS By Joris Molenaar NAi 010 publishers, £40 Review by Thomas Wensing >>BOOK The director of the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam, Kees van der Leeuw (1890-1973), found himself with an acute problem in 1925 – his architect Michiel Brinkman had died. With a new site bought and the existing premises bursting at the seams, a successor needed to be found urgently. Jan Brinkman, the architect’s son, was still studying civil engineering and deemed too inexperienced to take on the assignment. The young and talented modernist Leen van der Vlugt was approached, and the firm Brinkman & van der Vlugt was born. Even though the office had specialised in industrial buildings, the task was daunting and new staff were drawn from avant-garde circles to meet the high expectations of the client. After all, van der Leeuw had towering ambitions – he wanted a building which would still be modern in 25 years’ time. Brinkman & van der Vlugt, under the direction of van der Vlugt, became one of the leading and most prolific modernist architectural practices in the Netherlands before the war. With the unique combination of a progressive clientele and talented staff (most memorably the communist Mart Stam from 1926-28), it set out to create a string of remarkable buildings, and aimed to transform the future of Rotterdam. In doing so the practice was able to exert an international influence on architecture, of which the Van Nelle Factory is the most noteworthy example. The progressive influences on the architecture of Van Nelle were diverse; from Theosophy to New Objectivity, from Fordism to Russian Constructivism. It resulted in a project in which, as English architect William Curtis so eloquently put it, ‘the pragmatic was transcended, idealised, given a poetic, expressive presence... matters of which style is only an outward manifestation’. The factory attracted much attention, even before it was finished; it was included in the Die Wohnung exhibition of the Werkbund in Stuttgart in 1927, and in 1932 was adopted by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock as an example of International Style architecture. The canonisation of this single building in the historiography of modernism has had, of course, the unintended side-effect of drawing attention away from the other innumerable accomplishments of Brinkman & van der Vlugt, and from the larger historical and geographical contexts of these developments. The English language monograph Brinkman & van der Vlugt Architects – Rotterdam’s City Ideal in International Style, largely fills this lacuna, and specifically focuses on the role played by the office’s attempt to redesign Rotterdam along modernist lines. In doing so it offers a welcome addition to the literature available in English on these important topics, but in its aim to appeal to a wider audience accuracy and depth of interpretative analysis are lost. Molenaar, an architect who has beautifully restored many of Brinkman & van der Vlugt’s buildings, has been researching its work since the early Eighties and has made valuable contributions on the topic in many publications. As a researcher his stance is pragmatic and his attitude post-ideological. He is of the opinion that assessment of the work ought to be based on evidence and primary sources to avoid an ‘excess of ideologically motivated historiographical speculation’. While such a stance is laudable in principle, it runs the risk of overlooking the fact that the works were built in an era that was deeply ideological, and that you could rewrite history by omission or even through misrepresentation. The most troubling example of not fully acknowledging the complexity of different ideological positions is his freewheeling use of the term ‘International Style’ in the book. Ideology is inescapable in history writing, and the International Style of Hitchcock and Johnson is in itself a thorny bedfellow; they were, after all, pursuing an agenda by glossing over the leftist leanings of many of the modernist architects. Furthermore, Hitchcock openly rejected the functionalist adage to which many of the European architects subscribed. So the bringing together of many different strands of modernism under the misnomer of International Style unduly focused on formal expression, to the detriment of the polemical and programmatic substance of these works. If I were to follow the logic of using primary sources truthfully, I would refer to the architecture in the same manner as the architects would refer to it themselves, which is ‘Nieuwe Bouwen’ or ‘Nieuwe Architectuur’. The closest English translation would be ‘New Architecture’. It is a fact that van der Vlugt was first and foremost a builder and he detested ‘people who would like to skip building and start with urban planning and world reforming straight away’. He was not stylistically or theoretically dogmatic, and he gained respect from his contemporaries for his craftsmanship and technical skill. This neutral attitude is not the same as to imply that his position was mainly form-driven and stylistic, however; van der Vlugt’s concern was to make architecture both useful and beautiful, and sometimes he complained that his clients did not understand the sobriety of the New Architecture. Interestingly enough, he was offered positions in the USA, which he declined because he was of the opinion that American architecture was not modern enough. He died in 1936 at the age of 42, following a two-month visit to the USA. Le Corbusier remembered him thus: ‘It is an immense grief to know that we will not meet again and we will no longer see his talent flourish, especially at a time when, once again, the horizon opens itself up, and architecture is to become the predominant activity of a new society wishing to furnish itself in the service of man and man will no longer be grinding mechanically under the dominance of the power of money.’ A more beautiful riposte to the vacuity of Hitchcock and Johnson cannot be imagined. IMAGES COURTESY NAI 010 THE PRACTICE SET OUT TO CREATE A STRING OF REMARKABLE BUILDINGS AND AIMED TO TRANSFORM THE FUTURE OF ROTTERDAM
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Book Review on the Dutch modernists "Brinkman & van der Vlugt Architects"
Transcript of 130201 review final
68
BLUEPRINT FEBRUARY 2013
Right: Rotterdam’s Van Nelle Factory, by practice Brinkman & van der Vlugt, had a profound influence on architecture
BRINkmaN & vaN dERvLUgT aRchITEcTsBy Joris molenaarNai 010 publishers, £40Review by Thomas Wensing
>>BOOK
The director of the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam, Kees van der Leeuw (1890-1973), found himself with an acute problem in 1925 – his architect Michiel Brinkman had died. With a new site bought and the existing premises bursting at the seams, a successor needed to be found urgently. Jan Brinkman, the architect’s son, was still studying civil engineering and deemed too inexperienced to take on the assignment. The young and talented modernist Leen van der Vlugt was approached, and the firm Brinkman & van der Vlugt was born.
Even though the office had specialised in industrial buildings, the task was daunting and new staff were drawn from avant-garde circles to meet the high expectations of the client. After all, van der Leeuw had towering ambitions – he wanted a building which would still be modern in 25 years’ time.
Brinkman & van der Vlugt, under the direction of van der Vlugt, became one of the leading and most prolific modernist architectural practices in the Netherlands before the war. With the unique combination of a progressive clientele and talented staff (most memorably the communist Mart Stam from 1926-28), it set out to create a string of remarkable buildings, and aimed to transform the future of Rotterdam. In doing so the practice was able to exert an international influence on architecture, of which the Van Nelle Factory is the most noteworthy example.
The progressive influences on the architecture of Van Nelle were diverse; from Theosophy to New Objectivity, from Fordism to Russian Constructivism. It resulted in a project in which, as English architect William Curtis so eloquently put it, ‘the pragmatic was transcended, idealised, given a poetic, expressive presence... matters of which style is only an outward manifestation’.
The factory attracted much attention, even before it was finished; it was included in the Die Wohnung exhibition of the Werkbund in Stuttgart in 1927, and in 1932 was adopted by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock as an example of International Style architecture.
The canonisation of this single building in the historiography of modernism has had, of course, the unintended side-effect of drawing attention away from the other innumerable accomplishments of Brinkman & van der Vlugt, and from the larger historical and geographical contexts of these developments.
The English language monograph Brinkman & van der Vlugt Architects – Rotterdam’s City Ideal in International Style, largely fills this lacuna, and specifically focuses on the role played by the office’s attempt to redesign Rotterdam along modernist lines. In doing so it offers a welcome addition to the literature available in English on these important topics, but in its aim to appeal to a wider audience accuracy and depth of interpretative analysis are lost.
Molenaar, an architect who has beautifully restored many of Brinkman & van der Vlugt’s buildings, has been researching its work since the early Eighties and has made
valuable contributions on the topic in many publications. As a researcher his stance is pragmatic and his attitude post-ideological. He is of the opinion that assessment of the work ought to be based on evidence and primary sources to avoid an ‘excess of ideologically motivated historiographical speculation’. While such a stance is laudable in principle, it runs the risk of overlooking the fact that the works were built in an era that was deeply ideological, and that you could rewrite history by omission or even through misrepresentation.
The most troubling example of not fully acknowledging the complexity of different ideological positions is his freewheeling use of the term ‘International Style’ in the book. Ideology is inescapable in history writing, and the International Style of Hitchcock and Johnson is in itself a thorny bedfellow; they were, after all, pursuing an agenda by glossing over the leftist leanings of many of the modernist architects.
Furthermore, Hitchcock openly rejected the functionalist adage to which many of the European architects subscribed. So the bringing together of many different strands of modernism under the misnomer of International Style unduly focused on formal expression, to the detriment of the polemical and programmatic substance of these works.
If I were to follow the logic of using primary sources truthfully, I would refer to the architecture in the same manner as the architects would refer to it themselves, which is ‘Nieuwe Bouwen’ or ‘Nieuwe Architectuur’. The closest English translation would be ‘New Architecture’.
It is a fact that van der Vlugt was first and foremost a builder and he detested ‘people who would like to skip building and start with urban planning and world reforming straight away’. He was not stylistically or theoretically dogmatic, and he gained respect from his contemporaries for his craftsmanship and technical skill.
This neutral attitude is not the same as to imply that his position was mainly form-driven and stylistic, however; van der Vlugt’s concern was to make architecture both useful and beautiful, and sometimes he complained that his clients did not understand the sobriety of the New Architecture. Interestingly enough, he was offered positions in the USA, which he declined because he was of the opinion that American architecture was not modern enough.
He died in 1936 at the age of 42, following a two-month visit to the USA. Le Corbusier remembered him thus: ‘It is an immense grief to know that we will not meet again and we will no longer see his talent flourish, especially at a time when, once again, the horizon opens itself up, and architecture is to become the predominant activity of a new society wishing to furnish itself in the service of man and man will no longer be grinding mechanically under the dominance of the power of money.’
A more beautiful riposte to the vacuity of Hitchcock and Johnson cannot be imagined.IM
AgES
COU
RTES
Y NA
I 01
0
ThE PRacTIcE sET oUT To cREaTE a sTRINg of REmaRkaBLE BUILdINgs aNd aImEd To TRaNsfoRm ThE fUTURE of RoTTERdam
