#jaap bakema

[brutalistinteriors]

Town hall, Terneuzen, Netherlands. Jaap Bakema.

[germanpostwarmodern]

Jaap Bakema (1914-81) without doubt was one of the most important and most prominent architects of postwar Netherlands whose work in collaboration with Jo van den Broek was received well beyond Dutch borders. At the same time Bakema not only through his architecture but also as one of the editors of the „Forum“ magazine and as professor at TH Delft influenced both the architectural discourse and a young generation of architects.

Last year Annette Jansen published her biography „Totale ruimte. Jaap Bakema 1914-1981 - In de voetsporen van een bouwkunstenaar“ with Querido Fosfor, a book that takes a closer look at the person behind the architecture. Bakema was born in Groningen and grew up in the first Tuindorp of the Netherlands in humble circumstances. At the age of 16 he entered the Hogere Technische School in Groningen in order to study civil, road and hydraulic engineering. During his time at the HTS Bakema also met his future wife who had very different, bourgeoise family background that had a great impact on the young Bakema. Especially his future father in law greatly influenced his intellectual formation with regard to architecture, music and politics.

After a brief stint in the office of Willem Reitsma and his military service Bakema in 1937 began his Hoger Bouwkundig Onderricht in Amsterdam, studies in architecture he completed cum laude under Mart Stam in 1941. Already in 1939 Bakema was offered a position in the Rotterdam office of Willem van Tijen and Hugh Maaskant, a chance he couldn’t let pass but one that was interrupted by the German occupation: in 1943 the Germans passed a law that obligated all Dutch men between 18 and 45 to do work in Germany. In order to avoid fatigue duty Bakema and his friend Jan Rietveld sought to escape to England but were caught in France and deported to a camp in March 1943. Miraculously and after passing through different camps the two were able to escape in Fall 1944 and returned alive to the Netherlands. For the first time Annette Jansen had access to Bakema's internment diaries which are reproduced in the book.

With the end of WWII Bakema got involved with the reconstruction of Rotterdam and in 1948 joined the office of Johannes Brinkman and Jo van den Broek. At this point the author starts to follow Bakema’s development by means of his most important buildings, e.g. the Nagele village, ’t Hool in Eindhoven or the Terneuzen Town Hall. For each project Jansen also interviewed former collaborators as well as Bakema’s children, a profitable approach as it allows for multiple perspectives on his architecture and the ideas behind it.

Annette Jansen’s book isn’t the usual architect’s biography but a well-written, elucidating exploration of an architect’s personality and ideals and how they show in his built work. A great read!

[afotw]

The Plan Pampus is the name of a proposal for an urban extension of Amsterdam made by the architectural firm of Jaap Bakema in 1964-1965. The plan envisioned an elongated archipelago that should have been built east of the city in the IJmeer and extended beyond the island of Pampus. In a sense, the plan can be seen as a precursor to IJburg, but where this occupied district only houses 18,000 residents, the Pampus plan provided housing for 350,000 people.

[constructies]

Jaap Bakema, City Hall Terneuzen

[constructies]

Library Rotterdam, Jaap Bakema, 1982 Faculty of History, Cambridge, James Stirling, 1964

[germanpostwarmodern]

Roof Pavilion (1956) of the Department Store “Galeries Modernes” in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, by Jaap Bakema

[mikasavela]

Hansaviertel Tower, Berlin. Jo van den Broek & Jacob Bakema, 1960. Axonometric drawing from Modern Housing Prototypes (1978) by Roger Sherwood.

[communedesign]

The Rotterdam Central Library

Not only is the Rotterdam Central Library one of the largest in Holland, it is also one of the most controversial. Built between 1977-1983 by Dutch architects Jaap Bakema and Carel Weeber as the result of a competition, the building is shaped like a cube with a cut-off corner, where a glass "waterfall" encapsulates the criss-crossing escalators which connects the six floors. The declining levels contain approximately 400,000 books in an open setting. The air-conditioning system, undeniably it’s most notable feature, are actually the yellow-painted pipes on the exterior.