Berlage and Housing, 'the most significant modern building type'

Author(s): Helen Searing

Source: Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek (NKJ) / Netherlands Yearbook for
History of Art , 1974, Vol. 25, H. P. BERLAGE 1856-1934: Een bouwmeester en zijn tijd
(1974), pp. 133-179
Published by: Brill
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 Berlage and Housing,
'the most significant modern building type'

Helen Searing

Berlage's designs for housing are seldom illustrated or discussed. This is not
surprising, perhaps, since they have never evoked the admiration accorded to
the Bourse, the Lodge at Hoenderloo, or the Gemeentemuseum. Yet in
seeking to evaluate the career of this extraordinarily versatile man, one
should consider his contributions to the building type he himself believed
was the most significant for the development of modern architecture.1 Such
an examination can lead to a deeper appreciation of the special quality of
Berlage's genius, which lay in his intense commitment to architecture as a
social as well as creative activity and in his willingness to struggle, as a
socialist, for the reform of society at the same time that he fought, as an
artist, for the renewal of architecture.2
Housing presented a particularly meaningful challenge to Berlage because it
brought into play the political as well as architectural implications of his
theory. His definition of architecture was two-fold: it is the social art par
excellence, and it is the art of space, which meant for Berlage the enclosure
of sublime dimensions.3 Housing, the most democratically oriented building
type, is pre-eminently suitable to fulfill the first condition; but the second
is not particularly applicable to a program which requires the putting
together of a repetitive series of small rooms. As will be seen, Berlage was
able to come to grips with this problem to some extent, in both the practical
and theoretical spheres, although there existed inconsistencies which always
bedevil the profound mind in dealing with complex issues.
While he stated in 1918 that 'modern architecture has clearly achieved the
most in the area of the dwelling' 4, housing formed a relatively small part
of Berlage's own practice, especially when he is compared in this respect to
some of his colleagues. The Stock Exchange remained the socialist's most
important work, and the Christian Science Church is better known than the
anticleric's housing schemes.5 Nevertheless the role which Berlage played
in housing cannot be dismissed. His entry into the field was described by
one specialist as crucial for encouraging other talented architects to 'dedicate
themselves to that part of architecture which in the nineteenth century had
been left entirely to those without expertise'.6 Furthermore, his housing
commissions cast light on Berlage's own stylistic evolution, as well as on his
activity as a city planner, and indeed may have affected both. Therefore it
seems fitting to offer an account of Berlage's major housing schemes 7,

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 SEARING

which spanned the years from 1904 to 1927, their connection with his
theory, and their relation to general housing practice in the Netherlands
at this time. Perhaps a consideration of Berlage and housing will help to
elucidate the broader history of modern Dutch architecture as well.

Housing throughout the nineteenth century had been the province of the
speculative builder. Berlage in Gedanken über Stil had written feelingly
about the pervasive ugliness of nineteenth-century cities with their dreary
districts of mass-produced housing, which were the products of this specu
lation.8 While bad housing conditions were not unknown before the in
dustrial revolution, the urbanization which accompanied industrialization
brought a mounting heap of slums. Urban blight came later to the Nether
lands than to England, France, and Germany, but after 1870 the same cycle
of overcrowding and decay was experienced by Dutch cities.9 The quarters
for the working class which began to grow around the core of existing
towns presented a particularly depressing aspect of endless rows of mono
tonous, flimsily built structures which provided minimum accommodation
in terms of space, light, ventilation, and sanitation.
In 1901 the Liberal government in The Netherlands succeeded in passing
the Woningwet (Dutch Housing Act) 10 to halt the growth of slums and
improve housing conditions. Its framers attacked the complex ramifications
of the housing problem on several fronts. First, in order to break the
monopoly of the speculators and at the same time insure that there would
be funds available for construction, the government offered loans to two
types of organization, the municipality itself, and a special housing society
(woningbouwvereniging,) set up 'exclusively for the purpose of improving
housing'.11 Secondly, to insure that the new dwellings would be of high
quality, the law required the municipalities to enact building codes which
set minimum standards. Cities were given powers of condemnation and
expropriation to facilitate slum clearance. Finally, cities larger than 10,000
or growing at certain rate, had to prepare extension plans at least once
every ten years.
While the Woningwet did not legally require that architects be involved in
housing design, it made it possible and advisable for them to be drawn into
the process. The high cost of money and the short term of loans had made
it unlikely that the ordinary speculative builder could spare funds to hire
an architect. But the new bodies, whose concern was quality, not profit,
were willing to pay architects' fees and could afford them because they
could borrow at a relatively low interest rate for a relatively long period—
50 years. Further, it became not only possible but also prudent to consult
an architect because a number of cities enacted codes which only a trained
expert could meet.12 The necessity for extension plans gave a boost to the
fairly recent profession of city planning and architects, including Berlage,

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 Berlage and Housing

began to carry out this responsibility as well, which is so inextricably linked

with housing.
Once drawn into the housing field the architects remained, and indeed
during the second and third decades this building type sustained the prac
tice of many a designer and firm. Even when government funding drastically
diminished after 1923 and the private sector again became the main supplier
of dwellings, local policies often insured the maintenance of professional
involvement. While Berlage, as the doyen of Dutch architects, continued
to receive a variety of commissions and never made housing the dominant
part of his practice, he too wielded his skills during the first quarter of the
century in the service of the dwelling.

The dwellings designed by Berlage present no startling innovations in

terms of his own stylistic evolution; on the contrary their interest lies in the
fact that Berlage approached their design in the same spirit as he approached
all his other commissions, for he believed in one general architectural style
for all building types. Thus the problem of the dwelling deserved the same
serious thoughtfulness, the same care for basic aesthetic values, as the most
lavish public or private commission. His first ventures in the field, between
1904 and 1908, comprising flats for the middle class, show clearly the hand
of the architect of the Bourse and the Villa Parkwijk. By then his work had
attained the striking severity which distinguished it from that of his con
temporaries, but after 1910 there is a further development toward sobriety
and simplicity. In his worker's dwellings from the first half of that decade,
the austerity might be explained by the need for strict economy, but that
quality permeates other works of the period, such as his own house of 1913
and his proposals for the Pantheon der Menschheid, and may be understood
as the natural corollary of his theory. He had repeatedly called for an end to
historicism and emphasized the importance of clarity of construction and
truth to materials. While admitting decorative details to his architecture,
for he saw their contribution to raising the building above mere functional
considerations13, he demanded that they grow out of and enhance the
construction itself. Rejecting the Scheinarchitektur 14 which was character
istic of the nineteenth century and continued into his own time, where
building types were differentiated by being clothed in various historical
trappings, he showed that aesthetic values resided in the fundamental and
enduring properties of Order, Unity, and Repose, rather than in irrelevant
ornament borrowed from other cultures. In his own work, he applied his
theory more and more rigorously, paring away all non-essentials, returning
to the basic roots of the building craft, in order to renew architecture. His
housing and planning complexes of the second decade in many respects
illustrate most dramatically the full implications of his aesthetic theory for
his own practice.

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 SEARING

Having reached the irreducible foundation of architecture, Berlage in

1920's relaxed the severity of his earlier work, and a sense of freedom, eve
a disciplined fantasy in the massing, distinguish the buildings of th
decade. The blocks of flats on the Mercatorplein of 1925—27, wh
represent his last direct involvement with housing, demonstrate Berlag
attainment of the balance between the constructive and aesthetic demands
of the social art, and reveal his mastery of the urbanistic requirements of
the spatial art.

Berlage's first experience with dwellings was in 1904, when the then free

1 Η. P. Berlage, Hobbemastraat,
dwellings, 1904.
(Leliman, Het Stadswoonhuis,
1924).

2 Η. P. Berlage, Hobbemastraat,
dwellings: groundplan, 1904. EERSTE
4 , ] EERSTE I , *<. II A,;
■/ <J, TWEEDE
! TWEEDE
(Leliman, Het Stadswoonhuis, VERDIEPING: |Γ' |j"' 'Τ| |VERDIEPING
VERDIEPING: | VERDIEP,N
1924). 1. Trapportaal.
1. Trapportaal. II J
2 22 #
S ?1 I* 2JI l.Trapportaal
1. Trapporta
2. Kamer.
2. Kamer. "LjLj-~L———f—8
fr-4—■ 2. Kamer.2. Kamer.
Keuken. |"I"1
3. Keuken. *1"1 J"
" 11'-j*X'A"I~|3,
3. Badkamer.
Badkamer.
4. Balkon. fj - J 2 | 4. Balkon.
4. Balkon.
5.
5. Binnenplaats.
Binnenpiaats.

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 Berlage and Housing

standing block of generously-sized flats with shops below (figs. 1-3) arose
on the Hobbemastraat in the elegant Museum quarter of Amsterdam, which
had been developed in the late nineteenth century. The medievalizing
vocabulary of this building is consonant with other works executed between
1898 and 1910 and the decorative embellishments, which are necessarily
subordinate to the main structural lines of the building 15, are clearly
Berlage's. Bricks of lighter hue weave a geometric band under the shallow
eaves, creating an ornamental effect integral with the building material, as
on the interior of the Bourse. Stone trim, sometimes incised with simple
patterns, articulates the terminations of the building, frames the flat brick
arches over the windows, and characteristically is kept within the plane of
the wall. The bay windows are capped with the same stepped pyramidal
\ - 4 forms which crown sections of the Stock Exchange. Viollet le Due, whose
illustrations of medieval architecture were such a rich source of inspiration
B»ol for Berlage at this time, seems to have been consulted, for the shape of the
F
11 angled bays and the profile of the corbels below them are based on plates in
the Dictionnaire raisonné,16 Yet the details wrought in stone by medieval
French masons have become transformed when executed in brick, because
Berlage has introduced a prismatic faceting particularly appropriate to his
native material.17 Despite the restrained ornament, these are plainly luxury
IB] flats, as the plans reveal, and allowed the architect to work his way gra
dually into the problems of this new functional type.
Notwithstanding the resemblance to his other works, there is a new element
i
here. The handling of the fagade with its angular projections is more power
fully plastic than is usually the case in Berlage's buildings of this period,
when the massing generally is enlivened at the roof line only. The closest
antecedents are the Villa Henny of 1898 ls, the Villa Parkwijk of 1900 19,
where the living room similarly is expanded by a triangular bay, and the
office building in Leipzig of 1902.20 Also while the Hobbemastraat flats set
a precedent for his subsequent workers' housing as well as for his office build
ing of 1910 for De Nederlanden van 1845 in Rotterdam 21, which its force
fully three-dimensional elevation. Yet none of the buildings cited makes such
3 Η. P. Berlage, Hobbemastraat,
dwellings; detail of fig. 1, 1904. an aggressive gesture to the street as do the dwellings of 1904, or as the
(Unless a source is indicated, pair of housing blocks on the Linnaeusstraat of the following year (figs. 4-6).
all photographs are by the author).
The twin buildings of 1905, situated in a less wealthy section east of the
Amstel, the African quarter (Afrikaanse buurt, fig. 7), are more modest
but no less impressively three-dimensional. Indeed, because of their in
genious relation to the site, they are still more prophetic of Berlage's later
housing designs. They lie to either side of the Praetoriusstraat, inflecting
inward to make a triumphal frame to that street. Bold polygonal and cur
vilinear projections over the entries counter the recession of the site plan,
and ease the transition from plane to plane. While the design shares
elements with Berlage's earlier office buildings for De Nederlanden van

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 SEARING

1845 22, the massing is more active and more positive in its relation to the
site. Such details as the machicolations and the pared-off stone capitals
the mullions (fig. 5) as well as the stepped pattern on the gables are typica
of Berlage's developed style and supply simple decorative motifs which
not negate structural honesty. The plan is expressed as well, for changes in
window size signal different functions: narrow lights for the stairs, gener

4 Η. P. Berlage, Linnaeusstraat,ones for the dwellings.

dwellings, 1905.
The curious doughy capitals which support the corner bays (fig. 6) seem
be a three-dimensional treatment of profiles such as those illustrated
Viollet le Due; that is, Berlage has taken the outline of the stone moldi
which edge the shop windows and extended it 240 degrees to make a
engaged capital, a rational solution perhaps, but not a very attractive o
a judgment Berlage apparently shared since this motif does not appear agai
in his work. In all, despite their somewhat greater austerity, the Linn
straat dwellings fit firmly into the canon of Berlage's high, medievaliz
phase and are not specifically a prototype for the more severe and simplif
workers' housing to come.
But a few lessons were learned which would help Berlage in future c
missions for dwellings. By working with an identical pair of buildings
has proved that repetition need not signify monotony or visual impoverish
ment but can bring a sense of monumentality to even the humblest buildi
type. He has also discovered how to use the building mass to shape a
activate urban space and thus has extended his conception of the pri

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 Berlage and Housing

-Jl

5 Η. P. Berlage, Linnaeusstraat, architectural activity of space-making into a larger context. This transference
dwellings; detail of fig. 4, 1905.
of spatial emphasis from interior to exterior will be particularly important
6 Η. P. Berlage, Linnaeusstraat, for Berlage's extension schemes, which must be kept in mind in any con
dwellings; detail of fig. 4,1905.
sideration of his contributions to the objectives of the Woningwet. Berlage's
work in housing is connected with his growing practice as a city planner,
which forced him to be concerned with the overall dwelling complex as
well as with the individual blocks.

Berlage's Woningwet housing is located exclusively in the hoofdstad,23 This

is not surprising since Amsterdam in the teens and twenties was known
internationally as the 'Mecca of housing'. Because the Woningwet was de
pendent on the individual municipalities for its execution, the zeal of local
governments determined the extent to which the national legislation was
utilized in a given city. In Amsterdam, the social democratic faction was
particularly powerful and the members of the SDAP (Sociaal-democratische
arbeiderspartij) made housing their special concern.24 Two of the out
standing figures in the housing field were social democratic leaders in the
hoofdstad: F. Μ. Wibaut 25, the alderman for housing (wethouder voor de

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 SEARING

volkshuisvesting) and Ary Keppler 26, director of the Municipal Housi

Service (Gemeentelijke Woningdienst). They not only supported the r
quests of the housing societies for Woningwet funds, but were instrumenta
in the adoption of a policy of municipal construction of housing in 1915.27
Berlage received commissions from both the housing societies and th
municipality. His first executed housing was for the Algemene Woni
bouwvereeniging (henceforth AWV), the sixth Woningwet society to
founded in Amsterdam. Its membership was drawn from the ranks of t
SDAP and indeed it was Ary Keppler who took the initiative in organizi
it (although he withdrew from membership on the board because of h
municipal position). At the first meeting on March 23, 1910, 32 of tho
present agreed to become members by paying a small weekly sum towa
the purchase of a 25-guilder share; today the AWV is the largest soci
democratic housing society in the Netherlands.28
It must have been Keppler, with his architectural and technical background
who urged the fledgling society to go directly to the foremost mode
architect in Holland for its first complex, and indeed the memorial leaf
issued by the society in 1960 commented on the aesthetic boldness of t
move ('certainly not a choice marked by conservatism').29 Perhaps the f
that Berlage was a socialist and for a time was a member of the Amsterdam
Public Health Commission (Gezondheidscommissie) 30 also dictated the
choice. Berlage would design more than 400 dwellings for the AWV,
three locations: on the Tolstraat in Oud-Zuid (figs. 8-10), around the Tra
vaalplein (figs. 7, 11-16) in the East, and in the streets around the Leeuw
riksstraat in the area north of the IJ (fig. 18). In the latter project, Berlage
7 Amsterdam, Afrikaanse buurt, had working under his direction J. C. van Epen (1880—1960) 31, w
map.
would become the chief architect for the AWV at the end of the second
(Dienst Publieke Werken,
Afdeling Stadsontwikkeling). decade.

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 Berlage and Housing

The other housing society for which Berlage worked was somewhat dif
ferent in nature and resembled the philanthropic societies of the nineteenth
century 32, for it was established not by the working class but for them, by
well-intentioned housing reformers [it was thus composed of disinterested
(belangeloze) rather than interested (belanghebbende) parties]. This society
was De Arbeiderswoning and its special goal was to provide housing for
workers with large families whose income was at the bottom of the wage
scale. Such unskilled and semi-skilled workers could not afford to belong
to the ordinary woningbouwvereniging, whose members were the elite of
the proletariat.33 Yet their needs were particularly pressing because they
had to spend most of their earnings on food and clothing which left little
remaining for rent. De Arbeiderswoning was set up via the Woningwet to
assist such families; in order to do so it not only received loans to build the
dwellings, but was granted a subsidy from both the national and local
governments as long as it was in existence, so that it could operate the
dwellings at a loss (the rent which the tenants could afford was not suffi
cient to cover costs of interest, maintenance, etc.). In 1918, however,
scarcely more than a decade after its founding, when two huge schemes
totalling 553 dwellings were already in operation, the directors requested
that the city take over the buildings and debts of the society. It was not
only the financial burden which the members felt unable to bear, but the
difficulties of operating large-scale housing complexes for families who
often had little experience with urban living. The Woningdienst, under
Keppler's direction, had special supervisors to teach such families to be

88Η ΡΗ.
Berlage
P. Tolstraat
Berlage,considerate neighbors and good housekeepers and was therefore better
Tolstraat,
Housing
Housingof the Algemene
of the suited for such responsibilities.34 The blocks erected by De Arbeiders
Algemene
W oningbouwvereeniging;
Woningbouwvereeniging; woning are still owned and operated by the municipality.
groundplan,
groundplan, 1912—1913. 6 . ,
1912—1913.
(Wendingen,
(Wendingen, 1919). The directors
1919). of the ph

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 SEARING

early modern Dutch architecture to execute their schemes. K. P. C. de Bazel

(1869—1923) designed 304 dwellings on the van Beuningenplein in the
Staatsliedenbuurt (fig. 19), an area in the western section outside the three
canals, which already included dreary rows of late nineteenth-century
speculative housing (revolutie-bouw). The complex was completed in
1918.35 Berlage was commissioned to design 70 dwellings on the Zaag
molenstraat, between the first and second Hugo de Grootdwarsstraat, also
in the Staatsliedenbuurt (fig. 20), and a complex of 169 flats in the Indische
buurt (figs. 22-27), the eastern quarter of the city which was one of the
first to be developed with Woningwet funds. Berlage's dwellings were
ready for occupancy in 1915.36
That same year, after numerous debates in the council, the municipality
decided that it too would enter the housing field. It planned to provide
dwellings for those workers who could not afford the shares and the rents
required by the housing societies, thus for essentially the same constituency
served by De Arbeiderswoning. Like the first housing societies, the city
went directly to the best known and most experienced architects, all of
whom practiced in a straightforward and rationalist style. For the 3,500
municipal dwellings which were projected in three different areas of Am
sterdam, the architects selected were De Bazel, J. C. van der Pek (1867—
1919) 37, an adherent of Berlage's principles and the first Dutch architect
to concentrate his practice in the housing field, and Berlage. When the
choice was being debated in the city council, some of the members voiced
disapproval because only Van der Pek lived in Amsterdam, and they thought
it unwise to employ architects who resided outside the hoofdstad (Berlage,
who lived in The Hague, thought so too at first, for originally he declined
the commission on that basis). Wethouder Wibaut, who with Keppler was
responsible for the selection, defended the choice of Berlage, and cited the
architect's previous success with workers' housing. He said that he often
spoke with the directors and tenants of De Arbeiderswoning and all were
full of praise for the dwellings Berlage had built for them, and he alluded
to 'the great name that Berlage had made in the area of workers' housing'.38
So Berlage, along with De Bazel and Van der Pek, received approval. His
commission was for more than 800 dwellings in the Transvaalwijk (figs. 7,
28-29), not far from his housing for the AWV on the Transvaalplein. Due
to previous commitments, however, Berlage found it necessary to collabo
rate with another firm, and chose that of Gratama and Versteeg. Berlage's
contribution is the site plan, which will be discussed below; Jan Gratama
(1877—1947), whose work bridges the rationalism of Berlage and the pictur
esque fancy of the Amsterdam School, was responsible for the designs of
the buildings themselves.39
The first of Berlage's Woningwet commissions to be completed were the
48 dwellings on the Tolstraat and the 178 units around the Transvaalplein

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 Berlage and Housing

9 Η. P. Berlage, Tolstraat,
Housing of the Algemene
Woningbouwvereeniging; view,
1912—1913.

for the AWV. The designs were begun in 1910, and finally approved
together with the society's request to the city for land and a loan of 540,000
guilders, in 1912. They were put out to bid in mid-1912 and were occupied
the following year.40
One's first impression of Berlage's building on the Tolstraat (which was
extended to the corner after the same design by Van Epen) may suggest
that the architect has been too frank in acknowledging the budgetary
restrictions faced by the housing society. Even the reticent decorative details
of his dwellings on the Hobbema- and Linnaeusstraat, and on the Sarphati

10 Η. P. Berlage, Tolstraat,
Housing of the Algemene
W oninghouwvereeniging;
detail of fig. 9,1912—1913.

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 SEARING

11 Η. P. Berlage, Afrikaanse
buurt, Housing of the Algemene
W oningbouwvereeniging;
site plan, 1912—1913.
(Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland,
1921).

straat of 1908 (not illustrated here) have been purged. But a closer lo
reveals the positive aspects of the design, which are the logical consequence
of Berlage's desire to renew architecture. He believed it necessary to
ruthless in stripping away all inessentials from the body of the building so
that the construction would truthfully be revealed41, and that he ha
accomplished. Thus the segmental arches over the entries with their br
pilasters and stone trim (fig. 10) add interest to the fagade without bei

12 Η. P. Berlage, Transvaalstraat,
Block III;
view from Laing's Nekstraat.

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 Berlage and Housing

structurally superfluous. The bay windows clad in wood and the balconies
supported on faceted-brick corbels also modulate the expanse of the fagade,
adding texture and plasticity, but this is justified as well by the needs of
the program.
Although he has turned toward extreme zakelijkheid 42, Berlage has not
abandoned certain subtleties characteristic of his 'high' style. The brick
projections above the entries, which enclose stairs, bedrooms, or kitchens
according to the apartment type, are flush with the eaves, and establish
thereby a basic foreground plane, which throws other details, such as bal
conies and lintels, into high relief. As one's eye travels downward, it en
counters a peeling away of planes until finally, at the base, the background
plane is reached. The uppermost bay window, too, is slightly in advance of
its neighbors below; this gives Berlage the opportunity for a miniature
corbel which echoes the more pronounced ones which support the balconies.
Despite its measured sobriety, Berlage's design attracts attention because
it displays a three-dimensional power and a satisfying sense of order.
Pieces of the Tolstraat elevation appear again in the complex in the Trans
vaalhuurt (fig. 11), as if to confirm the AWV's identity through recogniz
able architectural features. Block IV, on the Smitstraat, most closely
resembles the Tolstraat design; in Block III (figs. 12-14), Berlage has re
peated the balcony design and has handled some of the entrances similarly.
In this part of Amsterdam, however, the architect was working with a much
larger area and he had to utilize his experience as a planner as well. The
fact that the AWV did not have one large site, but had to be content with
discrete strips of terrain 43, must have challenged Berlage's ingenuity. He
succeeded in establishing a design in which each block of dwellings could be
viewed as a self-contained entity at the same time that its relationship to the

fm :

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aum Um■

13 Η. P. Berlage, Transvaalstraat,
Block Ill
detail of fig. 12, looking east.

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 SEARING

other parts of the complex was never obscured.

The long streets of workers' housing in pre.-W oningwet Holland were
unified only in their monotony. They were clearly composed of a series of
separate premises or parcels (opstal, perceel), consisting of one vertical stack
of dwellings. This was the result of numerous individual contractors build
ing alongside one another; even when an entrepreneur erected several
adjacent premises, each tended to be treated separately. Woningwet housing,
however, could be constructed by the housing societies on a much larger
scale, with one society often in control of an entire street or group of
streets. The architect now had to treat the block as a whole rather than a
a collection of accumulated parcels and simultaneously design it so that it
did not resemble a prison or a warehouse (menschenpakhuis).44
Berlage sought to achieve unity within each block through repetition of
details and a fundamentally symmetrical arrangement of the parts. Block
III, for example, is treated in the manner of a seventeenth-century palace
with the taller portions at each end acting as pavilions to frame the center.
Variety has been sought through projection and recession, and through
changes in the skyline. As Block III steps inward, therefore, it also de
creases in height. Throughout the complex building heights vary; the
dwellings on the north side of the Transvaalstraat are three and four stories
while Block II (fig. 16) on the south side, consists of two stories plus attic
To complement the third block, Berlage has inflected the second one away
from the street, which regularizes the oddly-shaped site and creates a tre
lined plaza (today a playground). By his arrangement of the various build
ings which make up the project, Berlage has avoided the dreary impassivity
of the straight streets generally found in workers' districts and by his
manipulation of the massing of each block, he has formed a more interesting
urban fabric.
While the overall massing is effective, the elevations might be considered
to lack repose, a quality repeatedly emphasized by Berlage as fundamental
to architecture. The openings are not always in vertical alignment and the
balconies seem crowded against each other. One cause of the lack of co
hesiveness is the number of dwelling types provided, since the plan determ
ines the elevation to a large degree. The demands of the building code and
the need for cheap and rapid construction tended to lead to a few standard
ized plan types. But in his first Woningwet commission, Berlage has at
tempted to provide a wide range of choices, and also to introduce a few
personal touches into his plans. In the housing on the Tolstraat and in the
four-story portion of the block on the Transvaalstraat, the wall angles out
at the rear to create a polygonal room, which serves as a kitchen or a bed
room. In the two-story block (fig. 15), the kitchens extrude a semi-diamond
shape such as appeared in earlier works like the Henny and Parkwijk houses.
Berlage has been quite ingenious in arranging the apartment groups in

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 Berlage and Housing

14 Η. P. Berlage,Transvaalstraat,
Block III;
elevation drawings and plans,
type E.
(Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland,
1921).
Note: A. Living-room, V. Parlor
FIB*®
(voorkamer), Β. Bedroom,
C. Kitchen, D. Entry, gob .
E. Storage space.
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five flats. Two are on the gr
angular kitchen, and two la
housing reformers tried to ge
or voorkamer, which was so
disappear from working class
entered directly from their ow
are doors which lead to the u
bay-windowed parlor and one

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 SEARING

15 Η. P. Berlage.Transvaalplein,
Ice
£cg.nne
ΑΠ Ε G
gawn
arm

Block II; plans, type A.

(De Woningwet, 1902—1929,
1930).

kitchen; two additional bedrooms are in the attic st

apartments on the second story has been inserted a th
bedrooms of the two ground-floor dwellings. It co
bedroom, and kitchen on the second story and two
The necessity for an entrance to this fifth flat somew
metry of the fa?ade (fig. 16).
These plans have been examined in some detail beca
not immediately discernible and because the intricacies
must have devoted a great deal of time to working
the dwellings for the AWV.45 Because of this organiza
and second stories do not coincide, which is unu
parate the flats from one another, while fireproof
them internally. In future commissions Berlage wo
dwelling types, to the benefit not only of the budget
The multiplicity of entrances requires an explanatio

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 Berlage and Housing

16 Η. P. Berlage, Transvaalplein,
Block II; view looking east.

with this peculiarity of Dutch housing—the demand for one's own front
door. Housing societies tried to keep to a minimum the number of dwellings
accessible from one entrance, because disease and immorality were thought
to rise in proportion to the number of families which were served by each
entry and thus came into close contact in the hall. In the AWV complex
in the Transvaalbuurt, 108 dwellings had direct access, 28 shared entry
with another dwelling and 90 with two other dwellings.46 As has been
shown, each apartment in the low portion has its own door; in the taller
section across the way, one sees a similar plethora of entrances. The pro
jecting portion on segmental arches shelters four doorways; the two outer
ones lead to the ground floor apartments, the inner ones to the stairs. The
stairhalls are duplicated as well, so that one set serves only three apartments
(rather than six). In programs with lower budgets this luxury often had to

17 Η. P. Berlage, Τransvaalplein,
Block II; detail of fig. 16.

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 SEARING

18 Η. P. Berlage, ]. C. van Epen,

Over 't I J, Spreeuwenpark,
Housing of the Algemene
W oninghouwvereeniging,
1913—1914.

be curtailed but it is a noticeable feature of Dutch housing. It grew out

the system of opstallen described above, p. 146, and provided a way t
humanize the scale of the long fagades.

Berlage's last housing complex for the AWV (fig. 18), was designed in
collaboration with J. C. van Epen. It lies in the area north of the river I J,
which the city was planning to develop as a garden suburb for workers.
this end the height was restricted to two stories plus attic, so that t
variation in height which was so successful in the Τransvaalbuurt and whic
was imitated elsewhere in Amsterdam 47 was not possible. Other fami
elements have been retained, however—the wooden-clad bay windows, t
serrated brick planes, the projections resting on segmental arches, and
pavilion-like corners. But the design is more disciplined and restful. T
entire aesthetic burden is borne by the varied yet orderly massing and
the structural materials which are handled with the utmost directness; the
'naked wall in all its straightforward beauty' 48 is revealed in these worker
dwellings no less than in the Bourse.
The treatment of the entrances, where the stepping-out of the brickw
emphasizes the nature of the material, grows out of Berlage's designs
De Arbeiderswoning (fig. 26). Despite a more restricted budget and mo
specialized requirements 49, Berlage's buildings for this society, comple
in 1915, are an advance on those for the AWV, particularly when th
architect's own criteria of Order, Repose, and Unity are applied. The bu
activity of the elevation on the Transvaalstraat has been replaced by a mor
repetitive and harmonious system which results in greater monumentality
For economic reasons, the housing blocks had to be the maximum allow
height and therefore Berlage could not vary the silhouette. There is a u

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 Berlage and Housing

form skyline, and the masses of the building rest calmly under the sloping
tiled roof.

The precise authorship of the original plans is unclear. Plans attributed only
to De Arbeiderswoning and not to an architect were published in 1910 50,
when the society was beginning its negotiations with the municipality for a
loan for land. Berlage's drawing of the plans, very similar to those published
in 1910, is dated July, 1912.51 Interestingly, both versions of the plans are
based on a rather old source, the Prince Albert Model Dwelling of 1851.52
The proportions have been changed, and the position of hall and scullery
reversed but in other respects the layout is almost identical. The plans for
the model dwelling appeared in a slightly later issue of the very same
periodical in the same year (fig. 21), accompanying an article by Keppler
in which he pointed out that they had certain laudable features which sixty
years later were still lacking in many a workers' home. These included the
private toilet and scullery for each family, and the provision of two bed
rooms in place of a parlor. Keppler recommended that 'it should still be
considered when creating our modern worker' housing' 53, and may have
urged its use as a model on the directors of De Arbeiderswoning. They in
turn, or Keppler directly, may have suggested to Berlage that he take the
Prince Albert dwelling as a starting point. Certain aspects of the plan as it
was finally executed by Berlage, such as one entry for eight flats, the small
scullery (spoelhok met gootsteen) instead of the full kitchen, and the distri
bution of the spaces, appear in de Bazel's dwellings for the society, which
were under construction in 1915.
Although Berlage's plans may have certain affinities with the model dwell
ing, the final buildings do not. Black-and-white photographs cannot convey
the power and handsomeness of the blocks themselves. The color of the
brick is a beautiful vibrant rose, and is shown to great advantage because of
the simplicity of the handling. Structural needs provide the main occasion
for detailing the surface. The bricks above each window are laid vertically,
as a flat arch, and inserted in the wall between the arches are two rows of
rough-textured brick in a slightly lighter color, resembling thin pieces of
quarry-faced sandstone. These serve as tracés regulateurs 54, which create a
sense of horizontal continuity across the fa5ade and visually lock together
window and wall. Berlage apparently continued to use a proportional system
of determining the elevations. If one superimposes on his elevation drawing
a grid similar to that used for the Bourse, taking the proportions of the
isosceles triangles which make up the grid from the field formed by the
blank end walls and the horizontals of rough brick, one discovers that the
placement and size of windows and doors, and the divisions into stories,
accord with the intersections of the grid.55
The rather random dsposition of openings found in the AWV dwellings on
the Transvaalstraat does not occur here, for the fenestration is vertically

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 SEARING

19 Κ. P. C. de Bazel,
Van Beuningenplein,
Housing of De Arbeiderswoning,
c. 1916.

^3^
i

aligned. The projecting masses are more disciplined also; the protrusions of
the stairhalls, for example, are distributed with measured gravity. The
brickwork is finely executed, and dentils and corbels (fig. 26) cast shadows
which model the surface and stress the depth of the bearing wall. A com
parison with the adjacent housing on the Balistraat (fig. 25), which belongs
to Het Oosten, another Woningwet society, makes clear how unusually
solid Berlage's dwellings appear. This solidity, a distinguishing trait of his
personal style, also contributes markedly to the sense of repose.
In the Indische buurt, Berlage had a site in which the housing units could
be treated as complete blocks (bouwblokken) rather than as strips. Accord
ingly, these have become the basic elements of the entire scheme. The
building which runs around the circumference of a site and includes com
munal interior space (see, for example, fig. 27) became the key ingredient
of Dutch extension plans after 1915, and remained so until the German
Zeilenbau replaced it at the end of the 1920's. The perimeter block, as it
is sometimes called, was not a Dutch invention 56, but it was very much
at home in Holland. Its use was encouraged by the Amsterdam building
code, which regulated rear as well as front building lines, and by Woning
wet funding, which made possible construction on the large scale necessary
for the perimeter block. Berlage's growing interest in city planning allowed
him to see how important the perimeter block could be, and its presence is
one of the characteristics that distinguishes his second plan for Amsterdam
Zuid from his first. In the Indische buurt, he had his first opportunity to
study the urbanistic implications of the bouwblok. His utilization of it
accorded with his growing preference for regular, classical planning solu
tions over picturesque ones.57
Berlage seems to have exercised a greater degree of control over the street

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 Berlage and Housing

20 Η. P. Berlage, Zaagmolenstraat,
Housing of De Arbeiderswoning,
1915.

pattern than was generally the case in the extensions laid out by the Depart
ment of Public Works. Usually, Blocks II and III would have been one
building but Berlage, by creating Street A, has made two free-standing
units (fig. 22). Originally, Streets A (today the Langkatstraat) and Β
(Benkoelenstraat) were closed to heavy traffic, and formed a pair of pe
destrian steets between the Bali- and Javastraat.58 The special nature of
these passages was stressed by the indentation of the buildings at the corners
to make a frame (simultaneously the indentation enhances the mass of each
block.) This organization of streets, with some designed for heavy traffic
and others more suitable for pedestrians and recreation, would be a feature
as well of Berlage's plan of 1915 for Amsterdam South. The complex for
De Arbeiderswoning thus allowed Berlage to experiment with two impor

cr.-A-'.-.'i

Ur— ————— 6 j 3 ———— ·»{

21 Prince Albert Model Dwelling;
groundplan, 1851.
(De Bouwwereld 1910). GELIJKSTRAATS
GEUJKSTRAATS VERDIEPING
VERDIEPING

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 SEARING

tant urbanistic devices: the hierarchial street arrangement, and the perime
block.

Berlage's dwellings for the same society on the Zaagmolenstraat (fig. 2

are similar in plan to those in the Indische buurt,59 However, the build
is not free-standing, the stairhalls do not project so dramatically from the
main mass, and the corners are less distinctly indented and lack gables. The
result is less powerfull than the massive blocks on the Javastraat. There, on
has the effect of a solid but handsome fortress where the working-man ca
find a peaceful retreat with his family. The buildings are not the barra
so often associated with the bouwblok, but works of architecture whe
repetition and simplicity are not monotonous but contribute to that se
of unity sought by Berlage in all of his creations.
In the last Woningwet project with which he was associated, Berlage ac
primarily as a planner. In his scheme (fig. 28), completed in 1919, for t
municipal housing in the Τransvaalbuurt, he married picturesque and cl
cal principles of urbanism. The picturesque aspect, which derives from
alternation of two-and-a-half and four story units 60, has been discipli
by the major axes which unite the various parts of the complex, and by th
symmetrical ordering of individual portions of the scheme. While th

22 Η. P. Berlage, Indische buurt,

Java- en Balistraat,
Housing of De Arbeiderswoning;
site plan, 1912—1915.
(Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland,
1921).

buildings no longer present the unbroken blockfronts of a few years earlie

they still define the inner courts, the streets, and the squares. The western
most court is very large and is open to the public, for it provides the
for two schools. The central section along the Kraaipanstraat, with its shor
rows of low units which inflect inward to make a pleintje, seems indeb
to English garden suburbs of the early twentieth century (fig. 28).61 T
plan is a masterful creation of a definable neighbourhood within the c
and offers refreshment for the eye which no system of grid-iron streets
do. At the same time, it avoids the confusing vagaries which characteri

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 Berlage and Housing

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23 Η. P. Berlage, Indische huurt,

fava- en Balistraat,
Housing of De Arbeiderswoning; BQ CSS
plan type B, 1912—1915.
(Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland,
1921).
tti
Berlage's first plan for Amsterdam South, as w
izing plans of the period.

Berlage's experience in housing design would be

this building type from a theoretical standpo
housing do not loom large in his written work, t
dwelling had become such a burning issue in
Berlage felt obliged to address himself to it. His
topic are to be found in Normalisatie in Woni

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 SEARING

his opinions were qualified in a later work, Bouwkunst en Socialisme, whic

should also be briefly examined. In general, Berlage's remarks on hous
and planning were consonant with the ideas expressed throughout the rang
of his theoretical writings and they allowed him to bring together w
special force his beliefs about art and society.
Like many of his writings, Normalisatie in Woningbouw began as a lecture
Its genesis should be outlined before its argument is analyzed, because
lecture was a response to a specific situation. In February, 1918, the ne
constituted Instituut voor de Volkshuisvesting held a housing congres
Amsterdam. A number of experts had been asked to prepare reports
advance on various problems connected with housing; these were to fo
a basis for discussion at the meetings. One of the reports dealt w
standardization and had been written by J. van der Waerden, at that t
Director of the Bouw- en Woningtoezicht of Amsterdam. While the ot
reports met with amiable accord, Van der Waerden's aroused sharp att
from the architectural and working-class representatives at the congr
attacks so negative that Berlage felt called upon to defend the autho
thesis. He gave a lecture before the important professional club, Arc
tecture et Amicitia 63, which was then issued, together with van der W
den's proposals, in a slim, paperback volume. Berlage did not in fact d
directly with the problems raised by Van der Waerden's report, but u
the idea of standardization as the occasion to apply his general theorie
„ „ „ , T , , , the joint problems of housing and planning.
24
24 H.
Η. P. P. Berlage,
Berlage, Indische
Indische huurt, buurt, , , , .
Housing
Housing of De Arbeiderswoning;
of De Arbeiderswoning; Today, Van der Waerden's propo
Block
Block III and
IIIII, and
View on the
II, View on the servative: in order to build housing
favaplein
Javaplein and Molukkenstraat, . . . . . . . . ... . , ... , , .
and Molukkenstraat,
^2 1914 during the crisis resulting trom the lirst world war b4, there must be stand
1912—1915.

■ΒΒΗΗΒΗΒ

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 Berlage and Housing

ardization on two fronts—of the plan, and of the structural parts of the
dwelling. Standardization of building elements such as beams, doors, win
dows, and stairs, would make possible mass production with its attendant
advantages of speed and economy. Pre-fabricated elements of fixed measure
ments would require plan types adapted to those measurements and stand
ardized plans would, in addition, save time in the drafting room. Already
a certain amount of standardization existed; pre-cut timber products in
popular sizes were available, for example. And as Berlage would note his
lecture, building codes and the lessons learned through erecting large num
bers of dwellings via the Woningwet had led to the development of certain
efficient plan types which architects tended to follow. So the idea of stand
ardization was scarcely novel.05 But it was the degree envisaged by Van der
Waerden that caused disquiet among the participants in the congress. He
proposed that the government control the manufacture and distribution of
all building materials and that almost no choice among details be permitted
—thus only one style of door would be available. As for the plan, only one
basic type was suggested, with a slight variant for corner dwellings.

Van der Waerden's conclusion was that a uniform dwelling type for the
25 Η. P. Berlage, Indische huurt, working-class family be erected throughout the country. It would consist of
Housing of De Arbeiderswoning;
living room, kitchen, toilet, and three bedrooms. The rooms would be of fixed
Block II and I, View along the
Balistraat. size, and there would be identical sinks and chimneys, doors and windows,
Note: Τ he entrance doors have
been altered.
stairs and floors, cornices and frames. All the rooms had to be rectangular
in format and all the blocks had to have 90-degree angles at the corners.
26 Η. P. Berlage, Indische huurt, This uniform dwelling type could be arranged in rows of two, three, and
Housing of De Arbeiderswoning;
Block II and I, detail of fig. 25. four stories, or it could be a free-standing unit; it was only in the composi

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 SEARING

tion of the units that the architect, and his clients, could assert their
individuality.66
The vision of a monotonous and infinite series of identical units rising
across the Dutch nation horrified most of the housing reformers, architects,
and workers present at the congress. Practical arguments were advanced
against the uniform dwelling type. Despite its small extent, the Netherlands
comprises regions quite different in geography, type of economy, etc., which
would make a uniform type impractical. Families vary in size as well, so
that the type proposed might be too small for some and too large for others.
Van der Waerden admitted that 10 % might have to be specially designed
for large families and childless couples, but he stood by his assumption that
mass production automatically saved time and money and therefore was a
necessary prerequisite for solving the housing emergency.
The crux of the matter was not practical, however, but 'psychological
aesthetic' as Berlage noted. The architects felt that their creative powers
were threatened and the workers feared that the level of housing would be
lowered and they would be forced to live in barracks scarcely better than
prisons, all personal choice denied them.67 One worker explained that his
comrades wanted suitable and healthy dwellings but did not wish to be
piled up in warehouses and that, realistically speaking, this is what the
proposal came down to. The Woningwet, as pointed out above, encouraged
development along aesthetic as well as technical lines and standardization
was regarded as a threat to beauty. One worker cried that such a degree of
standardization would be an 'assault on our personality, freedom, and
humanity'.68
Van der Waerden struggled to defend his proposals against the attacks. He
noted that there would still be a choice: 'in the grouping in relation to the
site, the alternation of low and high building, and the color. In this regard,
our national brick gives opportunities for varied combinations and ways to
serve exterior beauty. The character of the architectural style of the last
decades has been sobriety, strength, and expression of the truth of construc
tion, showing the value of the material in its own nature' 69 and this style
accords with the concept of standardization.
The words have a familiar ring and one is not surprised to learn that two
architects at the congress supported Van der Waerden. Both had attained
stylistic maturity at the end of the nineteenth centruy, and had reacted
against historicism and the excess of the Art Nouveau. Both had eschewed
needless decoration and complexity, developing a sober style based on truth
to materials and the rational organization of spaces. Both had also submitted
themselves to the discipline of designing according to geometric systems
and were thus at ease working according to fixed proportions. Believing in
simplicity and order, both had trained themselves to create within a narrow
range of choices and to erect their art painstakingly on the basis of a few,

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 Berlage and Housing

repeated elements. Throughout the theory of the one there repeatedly ran
the idea of achieving, as nature did, infinite variety through a limited number
of basic geometric forms.70
So Berlage and K.P.C. de Bazel rose to counter the arguments of the others,
insisting that beauty as well as efficiency could be achieved through strict
standardization. De Bazel pointed out that 'there already exist complexes
in which the two necessary qualities of liveliness and functional uniformity
are united'.71 And when a member of the Arnhem city council called upon
Berlage to add his voice to those who believed the proposal endangered
everything the working class had fought for in housing, the renowned
architect agreed to speak. He was greeted by loud applause, but he surprised
those present by championing Van der Waerden. He insisted that if the
standardized elements were put together with talent, rather than lifelessly
(doodambtelijk), there would be nothing wrong with the results, func
tionally, socially, or aesthetically. He then promised an illustrated lecture
on the subject, which became Normalisatie in Woningbouw.'72
Berlage moved the argument away from the technical and rather rigid pro
posals of Van der Waerden, and decided to tackle only the psychological

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27 Η. P. Berlage, Indische buurt,

Housing of De Arbeiderswoning;
Block III, view of communal
garden.
(Amsterdam, Gemeentelijke dienst
V olkshuisvesting).

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 SEARING

aesthetic question, which he rightly perceived was the crux of the matt
As one observer has remarked, 'what Berlage wanted was not standard
tion in the sense that the concept was used in industry. He only want
repetition of the same dwelling type on a restricted scale with full particip

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28 Η. P. Berlage, J. Gratama, tion of those involved'.73

G. Versteeg, Transvaalwijk,
Berlage noted at the start that the very idea of standardization means
Municipal Housing, 1919.
(Het Bouwbedrijf 1924). bringing order and regularity to the unformed and that in itself is a very
human activity. In art the regular, i.e. the objective, is primary to style and
the irregular, i.e. the personal, is only secondary. 'The value of each art
form ... is the realization of . . . the eternal in its objective generality. The
individual art form, on the contrary, is the realization of the temporal in
its subjective particularity'.74 This is one of Berlage's favorite concepts, and
when dealing with housing, he can justify it economically as well as aesthe
tically. Mass production, which 'brings objectivity to the fore as of its own
accord' 75, is sound economic practice. Furthermore, those who live in the
same dwelling type regard themselves as social equals, so standardization is
democratic as well.

Berlage uses historical and social themes to bolster his arguments, which
deal with standardization on various scales—the dwelling type, the housing
block, and the city plan. Whichever of these one looks at, one finds that
regularity has been sought since the earliest times. This is true not only for
planned cities such as Carthage and Piraeus, but for the dwelling type itself,
because similar 'economic situations yield similar results' 76, and housing
has always been a basic need. Such regularity can be a positive factor, for
it is precisely the repetition of the same dwelling type which provides the

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 Berlage and Housing

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29 Η. P. Berlage, ]. Gratama, charm of earlier cities. The core of every architectural style rests on the
G. Versteeg, Transvaalwijk;
rhythmic ordering of the same units.
view along the Τransvaalkade,
1919. He admits that at the moment many are beguiled by the charm of the
varied and restless cityscape, but he sees this as socially and artististically
reprehensible, and as an 'unbearable manifestation of bourgeois individual
ism'.77 During the nineteenth century society developed in the direction of
hyper-individualism and because there was no social idea of unity, neither
was there any stylistic unity. If only a common culture could be recovered,
a unified architecture would result. There would cease to be squabbles
about uniformity, for a style, which should always be marked by Order and
Repose, would have been found once again.
Already there has begun to develop in the worker' dwelling a certain
uniform concept lacking in other building types, thanks to the democratic
spirit of the working people and their participation in the planning and
execution of Woningwet projects. The evolution of a distinct dwelling type
is the expression of a collective culture and can form the basis for a new
architectural order.
Just as the development of a standardized dwelling type is both a socio
economic and an aesthetic necessity, so is the adding together of that type
into the larger unit of the bouwblok. This is not a new invention but has
historical roots in middle-class as well as workers' housing in pre-industrial

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 SEARING

ized cities. The utilization of the bouwblok, examples of which include th

Rue de Rivoli in Paris, and Regent Street in London in the nineteenth
century, is not only inescapable on economic grounds but can offer th
architect an opportunity for the most powerful means of expression at his
command, the grouping of masses. Monumentality can be achieved through
stringing together the dwellings into low rows or piling them up into taller
blocks. The rhythmic repetition of the same motif is a primary aesthet
activity, as opposed to the inferior one of always working with differen
types: 'Architecture salutes with true delight this way of expression, as
reaction against that orgy of architectural individualism which lies behin
us. It can now achieve greater scale and thus rediscover a beauty attaine
in previous times'.78

From dwelling type and housing block, Berlage moves to a discussion o

city planning and indeed Normalisatie in Woningbouw constitutes one o
his chief contributions to a subject which increasingly concerned him. H
describes how to create the grand lines of the straight street and the
rectangular plaza (plein) by utilizing the bouwblok, and asserts that modern
city planning is not concerned with individualizing the single building b
rather with giving identity to the townscape. As the architect must pu
together the dwelling units to create the block, so must he rhythmical
compose the blocks to form the solid elements of contemporary city arc
tecture. Berlage has recognized from his own practice, as well as from h
studies of ancient cities like Priene and medieval ones like Montpazier, that
30 Diagram for a large number
of the same dwelling types around
buildings and street plans are the positive and negative of the same entity,
a square. and therefore housing blocks must be considered as an integral part o
(Normalisatie in de woningbouw,
1918).
urban planning.
Berlage's arguments hardly answered the questions raised by Van der
31 J. ]■ P. Oud, Rotterdam Waerden's opponents because he did not deal so much with the employment
(Spangen), Municipal Housing,
1918—1920. of an exclusive dwelling type as with the basic problem of how one work
(Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland,
with a few simple forms to create architecture. His arguments will be
1921).

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 Berlage and Housing

familiar to those acquainted with his other writings. Just as nature fashions
her myriad wonders from a restricted number of motifs, so does the archi
tect create buildings from a series of dwelling types and cities from a series
of similar buildings. The restriction was not a negative factor but a liberat
ing one, for through it the architect could attain Repose, the key ingredient
of style and one sadly lacking in the restless seeking after novelty found in
the nineteenth century, which was born of an individualism as unbearable
aesthetically as it was socially.79
As has been noted, Berlage defined architecture as the art of social utility,
and the art of space. It is clear that housing allows Berlage to deal very
pointedly with architecture and social use, and he addresses himself to the
workers as often as to the architects, trying to allay their fears about the
consequences of standardization and stressing the link between a certain
degree of uniformity and democracy. But when faced with the spatial aspect
of architecture, Berlage must move away from his usual discussion of
architecture as embodied in a single building and must shift his concern
to the larger unit of the city. For it is rather difficult to speak of enclosed
space when confronting a standardized plan consisting of small, separate
rooms. The notion of space must move from interior to exterior and the
architect must practice his art as an urban planner. It is through the inter
relationships of the larger units of the housing block, through changes of
height, through the shaping of streets and squares, of wide and narrow and
short and long plots, that the architect reveals his mastery of space. Nor
malisatie in Woningbouw, then, signaled Berlage's theoretical recognition
that in the twentieth century city planning is a fundamental activity of the
architect.

This lecture also codified Berlage's conversion from picturesque to classical

principles of planning. This development would seem logical, given the
values of Order, Regularity, and Repose, that he espoused for architecture,
and can be seen in his own planning work. In his first extension scheme for
Amsterdam Zuid, for example, he was under the spell, as were so many
followers of Camillo Sitte 80, of the irregular, medieval city with its curving
streets, closed vistas, and intimate plazas. The street plans seemed conceived
in vacuo and the sites produced were leftover pieces of land which were not
particularly suitable for the new, larg-scale bouwblok. But in the second
decade, perhaps under the influence of A. E. Brinckmann 81, and certainly
because of his own growing experience with planning problems, he turned
for prototypes to the more regular plans of antiquity and the Baroque which
seemed more appropriate to the conditions of the modern city. His revised
plan of 1915 for Amsterdam Zuid is far more geometric and ordered.
Within the broad major traffic arteries lie narrower and shorter streets for
slower traffic which are intimate, to be sure, but they are not random or

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 SEARING

32 Μ. de Klerk,
Spaarndammerbuurt,
Housing of Eigen Haard,
1917—1920.

A
d

irregular, and show the use of the ruler and the T-square. They also
conceived as the complement of the perimeter block, the large-scale buildin
composed of fairly uniform dwellings.
In Berlage's less extensive schemes one discerns a similar evolution, whi
was connected with his changing attitude towards the housing block. T
site plan of 1911 for the AWV still contains picturesque elements, and each
group of dwellings consists of an unusual variety of plan types. In h
housing in the Indische buurt the following year, however, Berlage worked
with only three plan types. The layout itself is more classical and regu
and was based on the perimeter block. Finally, in the site plan for th
municipal project, which was in the planning stage when Berlage gave
lecture, he followed those principles of order and repetition enunciated
Normalisatie,82

Berlage illustrated only one of his own projects in his publication. This
was the housing for the AWV north of the IJ, designed with Van Epen,
which provided an example of 'a row composed of the same dwellings with
a variant solution for the corner'.83 Examples of row houses and bouw
blokken from earlier periods were drawn from varied sources but all the
contemporary examples are Dutch and English. An unidentified English
scheme (fig. 30) bears an interesting relationship to part of Berlage's plan
of 1919 in the Transvaalbuurt (fig. 28).
Berlage's aim in Normalisatie was not to present a new theory but rather
to sanction an approach to architecture and planning which already was
changing the face of many Dutch cities. Not only his own housing schemes
but those by Van der Pek, De Bazel, Gratama and Van Epen in Amsterdam,

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 Berlage and Housing

33 Μ. de Klerk, P. Kramer,
Amsterdam 7.uid,
Housing of De Dageraad,
1920—1923.

W. M. Dudok in Hilversum 84, and M. Brinkman 85, L. C. van der Vlugt 86,
and J. J. P. Oud 87 in Rotterdam (fig. 31), testify to the aesthetic success
as well as the socio-economic wisdom of Berlage's position, which exalted
universality, regularity, zakelijkheid, and constructive rationalism. During
the first quarter of the century this attitude dominated progressive archi
tecture in the Netherlands.

But even as Berlage was delivering his lecture, the battle was being joined.
For a time the rampant individualism which characterized nineteenth
century historicism and fin-de-siècle Art Nouveau had been subdued, but this
powerful impulse surfaced again at the beginning of the first World War,
and manifested itself precisely in the area of housing. A talented group of
young architects were entrusted with a number of Woningwet commissions
in Amsterdam, and the results seemed to be everything that Berlage con
demned: subjective, extravagant, irregular, individualistic. Architects re
presenting this tendency fought against Van der Waerden's proposals with
special vehemence, and the very club where Berlage was defending the basic
principles of standardization was the breeding ground of its enemies in the
Amsterdam School.88

Two projects for housing societies may be used to illustrate the style of the
Amsterdam School: Michel de Klerk's housing on the Zaanstraat for Eigen
Haard (fig. 32) 89, and De Klerk's and Piet Kramer's designs in Amsterdam
South for De Dageraad (fig. 33).90 Not only did the fagades display bound
less variety (some might say eccentricity), with their many individual
details—handformed bricks, oddly-shaped sash, and bizarrely decorated
doors—which had been fabricated on special order, but the plans also were

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 SEARING

replete with atypical touches. In some housing blocks a dwelling type would
be repeated only once or twice, and the placement of the stairhalls wou
alternate between front and rear fagades. Because they were not based
standardization, the dwellings designed by members of the Amsterd
School were relatively expensive. Yet those financially responsible for their
erection, social democrats like Wibaut, Keppler, and the members of t

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34 Amsterdam West, site plan,

1925.
(Het Bouwbedrijf 1925).

housing societies, defended the extra cost, because this housing answered
the workers' demand for an identifiable and humane environment, that
demand which was so repeatedly and poignantly echoed at the congress.91
The ever-generous Berlage did not deny the brilliance of many of the visual
effects attained by members of the Amsterdam School, but he thought the
designs were unsuitable for housing. After De Klerk's death, he wrote that
it was unfortunate that De Klerk never had received the opportunity to
work with a program other than housing, for the subjectivity of his style
ran counter to the requirements of the multiple dwelling. He noted that in
De Klerk's work, the form came before the construction, and that the most
complicated solutions to architectural problems, rather than the most direct,
were sought. Berlage's final indictment was that De Klerk failed to fulfill
the social obligation of the architect to serve the community, because in his
work artistic effects rather than functional requirements came first.92
De Klerk in his turn had deplored the rationalistic emphasis of his Dutch
colleagues, believing that they produced buildings which though well
constructed could lay no claim to being considered as works of art. He
believed in striking forms and complex details, not only as an outlet for
personal talent, but as a means of giving appropriate character to a building.
He turned his energies less to finding efficient solutions to planning and
structural problems than to expressing the nature of a particular program
through the design of the building envelope.93 His main quarrel with the

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 Berlage and Housing

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35 Η. P. Berlage, rationalists lay in the area of expression; on the occasion of Berlage's six
Amsterdam 'West,
Housing on the Mercatorplein, tieth birthday, De Klerk wrote that 'as with the majority of Dutch arch
1925—1927. tects, his work totally lacks representational character. His townhouses ar
(Wendingen 1927).
not differentiated in essence or type from his country houses or his workers
dwellings'.94
It is doubtful that Berlage would have found this accusation unwelcome.
His position derived as much from his political as his architectural beliefs.
His socialism was not based on class warfare; indeed, he abhorred this
concept, believing as he did in universal brotherhood.95 He wished his
architecture, through its general and objective character, to express the
fundamental equality of all men rather than their differences. It was
natural, therefore, that he should seek to obliterate stylistically any class
distinction in housing. Berlage thought that the social democrats' approval
of the dwellings of De Klerk and his followers, which were conceived as
'monuments to the class struggle' 96, revealed that many socialists were still
corrupted by bourgeois values. For Berlage, a style that was subjective,
showy, and offered constant novelty was a manifestation of a capitalist
society.97
Although he criticized the Amsterdam School for its 'ornamental over
loading', Berlage was no more pleased by the architecture of the opposing
tendency which matured in the early 1920's, that of the International Style,
with its 'dry, intellectual form'.98 He regarded so-called 'international

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 SEARING

36 Η. P..
Amsterdam West,
Housing on the Mercatorplein,
1923—1927.

architecture' as the parallel of dogmatic Marxism; neither had grown

the people but both represented a movement of intellectuals directed tow
the realization of a materialistic goal. He believed that an architecture bo
from socialism in the deepest sense could only grow from a religiou
spiritual, view of life and never from economic teaching." It was Ber
genius to realize that while architecture should be rational and objecti
must also contain elements of feeling and personal creation, so long as th
did not lead it into meaningless subjectivity. Logic and intuition wer
and could not be mutually exclusive. His criticism of the Nieuwe Zak
heid, which he identified with international architecture, was that it rem
us of business. Every emotional element has disappeared: 'Hence its i
national application, because the technical mind reveals itself everywhere
the same way'.100
He admitted that the International Style lent itself particularly well to t
solution of the painful housing problem, but disliked the mechani
character which resulted from mass production. This point, made in
may help to clarify those thoughts on standardization which he decl
in 1918. It was not a standardization based on mass-produced parts w
Berlage recommended, but one which grew out of the methods he
always followed—the creation of variety from a few basic forms w
were faithful to the planning and structural needs of a given building ty
and historic period.
Berlage may seem somewhat inconsistent at times. On the one han
insisted on rationality and objectivity, on the other he reminded his read
of the importance for art of feeling and the personal element. He defend
standardization, but when it was carried too far, he found its applic

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 Berlage and Housing

37 P. Kramer, Amsterdam West,

Hoofdweg, Housing, 1924—1925.

dreary and materialistic and therefore unsuitable for the ideal socialist
society. Fundamentally, however, his theory is consistent. Because he was
neither dogmatic nor narrow-minded, but took many different factors into
consideration, he achieved a balanced and far-ranging view. Reason and
feeling, construction and decoration, unity and variety, these were his goals.
There was a period in the 1920's when this laudable balance was in fact
attained in housing, not only by Berlage but also by his younger Amsterdam
colleagues, and a rapprochement between rationalism and fantasy took
place. The principles enunciated in Normalisatie in Woningbouw triumphed
in a way that satisfied the desire for standardization without lifelessness,
order without monotony, and expression without subjectivity. The evidence
of this is Amsterdam West, where the last of Berlage's large-scale housing
schemes is located.

Amsterdam West was not the usual Woningwet project. In 1920, the con
servative government, which had come to power in 1918, decided that
private enterprise should be encouraged to help solve the housing problem.
It initiated a system of grants (premies) to be paid to private builders who
erected dwellings of a certain size and type. Portions of Amsterdam South
were developed on the basis of such grants and in 1922, a consortium of
private builders, led by H. van der Schaar, proposed that the premie-system
be used to create 6,000 dwellings in the western part of Amsterdam. The
government approved the premies, and the municipality, in addition to
leasing the land, also decreed to guarantee a healthy percentage of the
mortgages contracted by the builders.101
In addition to the technical supervision which the city exercised through
its Department of Building Inspection, it was to have aesthetic control as

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 SEARING

well, through a special committee of three which was placed in charge of

the plan and of the overall aesthetic direction of the project. The committee
comprised Gratama, his partner Versteeg, and the chief of the buildings
division of the Department of Public Works, A. R. Hulshoff. The plan
devised by the committee (fig. 34) follows remarkably closely Berlage's
ideas about the necessity for using the bouwblok on a broad scale and the
need for a rectilinear street network.102 Plan West consists of long, straight
avenues and rectangular plazas, which have been created through the
medium of the perimeter block.
Sixteen architects, including such stars of the Amsterdam School as Kramer
and H. Th. Wijdeveld 103, were commissioned to design the housing blocks.
In contrast to their activities for the housing societies, where they were
responsible for plans, interiors, and structure as well as elevations, the
architects had to work with fixed dwelling types established by the builders,
as well as with a pre-determined structural system.104 Each architect was
given a generous block of dwellings and, on major streets, the two facing
fagades were assigned to the same architect. Despite the usual idiosyncratic
details characteristic of the Amsterdam School, there is a basic unity to the
quarter which derives from the program, the scale, and the use of brick for
the fa$ades. The creative challenge was that which Berlage had outlined in
his lecture on standardization: the task of the architect was the rhythmic
composition of given elements into a bouwblok; the task of the committee
of three was the orderly composition of the housing blocks into a spacious
and attractive city extension.
Berelag was entrusted with the area around the Mercatorplein (figs. 35-37),
the most important center of Amsterdam West with its shops, green park, and
converging tram- and buslines. The square itself, relatively large for Amster
dam at this period, is based on the Sittesque turbine-plaza.105 The center
has been left free, and the plaza is defined by the buildings which surround
it on four sides. Only the Jan Evertsenstraat runs directly through the
plaza, and its length is masked by a bridge-like building (poortgebouw)
which connects the housing blocks at the second story. The other street
which enters from the east (today the Cabralstraat) leads to a closed vista.
The broad Hoofdweg enters and leaves the Mercatorplein on different, but
parallel, axes, so that there are no wide swathes cutting through the square
and dissipating its space. The two narrow, north-south streets on the short
sides of the plaza (the Van Spilbergen- and Mercatorstraat) are closed off
to vehicular traffic by poortgebouwen. These points of pedestrian entry and
exit are indicated by towers, which provide a picturesque vertical accent
to two sides of the square.
The same combination of medieval picturesqueness and classical order which
marks the square has shaped Berlage's design for the housing blocks. Those
on the long sides of the square face each other symmetrically (although

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 Berlage and Housing

Block 3 has been extended to form a support for the poortgebouw), and the
central portions with balconies are evenly framed by the slightly projecting
wings. The wings are equipped with loggias to shelter the shops and recall
Berlage's admiration for the Rue de Rivoli (see above, p. 162). On the other
hand the towers, which diverge somewhat in execution from the original
design, and the poortgebouwen 106, reveal Berlage's continued love of the
Middle Ages.
Berlage was the oldest architect to work in Amsterdam West and his build
ings appropriately form the focal point of the extension. His design for the
Mercatorplein is not uncomfortable amid the blocks by the members of the
Amsterdam School, but neither does it deny his own aesthetic beliefs. In a
detail here and there, such as the elongated hexagonal attic windows, or the
curving partitions between the balconies, he has made a bow to the taste of
the younger men. But Berlage is clearly the old master, the Amsterdam
School a new generation. Berlage's blocks are earthbound masses, those of
the younger men are airy volumes bounded by thin, taut planes. Berlage
conceived of windows as holes cut into a masonry wall, an architect like
Kramer (fig. 38) as part of the building surface. Berlage's buildings are
invested with solidity and one is aware of static forces; the other buildings
in Amsterdam West offer little expression of structural or gravitational
realities. Although simplicity was enjoined upon all, because of the need for
economy, only Berlage has remained faithful to the old zakelijkheid.
Yet Amsterdam West has a collective, though distinct, character. A con
temporary architect correctly observed that: 'in these construction en masse,
or more precisely, in the composition en grand of street and fagades, the
personalities of the architects.. . have been subordinated to the aspect of
the ensemble . . . What dominates here is the impression of the group:
disposition, rhythm, color, equilibrium'.107
Berlage, whose hopes for architecture seem echoed in these words, con
tributed significantly to the success of the ensemble, as he had to the
working-class quarters elsewhere in Amsterdam. While his housing blocks
did not attain the architectural sublimity of the Bourse or the Gemeente
museum, they have served long and proudly the aesthetic as well as the
functional needs of their users. And many of his ideas about housing and
planning, as interpreted by others and as embodied in his own work, were
an important force in the development of the most significant modern
building type.

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 SEARING

Notes

1 Preface to Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland, Rotterdam 1921. In 'de ontwikkelings

geschiedenis der hedendaagsche bouwkunst... het arbeidershuis ... het belangrijkste
element zal blijken te zijn'.
2 In his conviction that the destinies of architecture and the social system were in
evitably linked, Berlage resembles John Ruskin and William Morris and, like them,
he saw the Middle Ages as the last Golden Age. See, for example, his statement
about 'het einde der middeleeuwsche kunst, de laatste verwerkelijking eener groote
algemeene aesthetische idee', in: 'De bouwkunst als maatschappelijke kunst', Schoon
heid in Samenleving, Rotterdam 1924 2, 105.
These themes are reiterated in most of Berlage's writings. In preparing this article,
the author has referred especially to Gedanken über Stil in der Baukunst, Leipzig
1905; Grundlagen und Entwicklung der Architektur, Berlin-Rotterdam 1908; Nor
malisatie in Woningbouw, Rotterdam 1918; Schoonheid in Samenleving, Rotterdam
1919; and 'Bouwkunst en Socialisme', Religieus-Socialistische Studiën III (1932).
For Berlage's identification of architectural space with sublimity, see, for example,
the essay on 'De bouwkunst als maatschappelijke kunst', Schoonheid in Samenleving,
Rotterdam 1924 2, 104 and 111.
4 Normalisatie in Woningbouw, op. cit. (see note 3), p. 39: 'Bovendien is het verklaar
baar dat de moderne bouwkunst juist in het woonhuis het meeste heeft bereikt'.
5 While Berlage was against organized religious sects, he was not irreligious. At the
end of his life he believed in a religion based on the brotherhood and equality of
man, and thought that through idealizing the materialistic theories of socialism, one
could again attain a universal faith which would become the basis for a new culture.
'Want cultuur groeit alleen uit religie; zij is een maatschappelijke toestand van vol
komen eensgezindheid, hetgeen een geestelijke zoowel, ja werkelijk, zoowel als een
materieele samenstemming vóóronderstelt. See 'Bouwkunst en Socialisme', Socialisme,
Kunst, Levensbeschouwing, Arnhem 1932, 60.
0 P. Bakker Schut,' De Personen', 50 Jaar Woningwet, Alphen aan den Rijn 1952, 16:
'Dat voortaan de bekwaamste architecten zich zouden wijden aan dit onderdeel der
architectuur, dat in de negentiende eeuw in handen van ondeskundigen was geraakt.
Berlage's voorbeeld heeft stimulerend gewerkt.'
7 All Berlage's multiple housing is in Amsterdam. Streets mentioned in the text are in
Amsterdam unless indicated otherwise.
s See, for example, the opening pages, where he contrasts the older cities with those of
his own time, and calls the nineteenth-century 'das Jahrhundert der Hasslichkeit'.
!) Industrialization and hence urbanization in The Netherlands is closely linked with
the opening of the North Sea Canal, the development of the railroads, and the power
ful economic growth of the German states, all of which occurred after 1870.
0 For basic considerations in Dutch, see De Woningwet 1902—29, ed. H. P. J. Bloemers,
Amsterdam 1930, and 50 Jaar Woningwet, ed. G. van der Flier a.o., Alphen aan den
Rijn 1925. For brief summaries in English of its provisions and significance, see
Catherine Bauer, Modern Housing, Boston 1934, and Helen Searing, 'Eigen Haard:
Workers' Housing and the Amsterdam School', Architectura (1971), 149-150.
1 All Woningwet funds had to be requested by and channeled through the munici
palities. These could execute their own housing or extend the government loans to

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 Berlage and Housing

the housing societies.

12 The stringency of regulations varied greatly from city to city. Amsterdam in 1905
enacted a tough building code which became a model for other municipalities.
Amsterdam also had a Commission on Aesthetic Advice (Schoonheidscommissie),
which had to approve all exterior designs of buildings erected on municipal land,
which meant virtually all housing. Obviously architects had to be employed by those
who wished to erect dwellings, be they private builders or woningbouwvereenigingen,
in order to have their designs approved by this commission.
13 See, for example, 'Over het begrip der bouwkunst', in: Schoonheid in Samenleving,
op. cit. (see note 3), 25: 'De versiering is dus het individueele deel der bouwkunst en
daardoor het veranderlijke; deze, hoe gering ook, verheft het bouwwerk van nuttig
heidswerk tot kunstwerk'.
14 Scheinarchitektur was an architecture of lies which concealed the truth of construc
tion behind a welter of expensive, inappropriate, and restless ornament. In Ge
danken über Stil, op. cit. (see note 3), 10-12, he inveighs against it, citing as ex
amples the Hamburg Town Hall and the Tower Bridge in London where the
actual structural materials were disguised or hidden. 'Ja, diese Scheinarchitektur hat
so tief eingegriffen, dass ich sogar am Neubau des Hamburger Rathauses... gesehen
habe, dass "massive" Granitsaulen nur Scheinarchitektur, also nicht massiv waren;
und der Granit war sogar imitiert... Sogar die gewaltigen monumentalen Türme
der Towerbridge in London bergen in sich eine Eisenkonstruktion, und für diese
bildet die Steinarchitektur eine nur lose zusammenhangende Hülle'.
15 One of Berlage's main tenets, derived from such nineteenth-century theoreticians as
Ε. E. Viollet le Due, but held also by earlier writers like A. W. N. Pugin, was that
all decoration should grow out of the structure of the building. He express this very
emphatically still in 1919 in Schoonheid in Samenleving op. cit. (see note 3), which
shows that for all the austere functionalism his later work displayed, Berlage still
believed that appropriate ornament gave beauty to architecture, and never accepted
the extremes of die Neue Sachlichkeit. See p. 41.
16 Pieter Singelenberg, H. P. Berlage: Idea and Style, Utrecht 1972, has convincingly
shown the derivation of a number of Berlage's motifs from the pages of the
Dictionnaire raisonné. In Singelenberg, see Plate 103c for moldings similar to those
used by Berlage below the bays and Plate 115a for a look-out turret drawn by
Viollet le Due which has features found in the corner bay projections of this block.
1T And interestingly prefigures the cut-brick Expressionism which will burst on the
scene in the next decade in the Scheepvaarthuis, designed by members of the Am
sterdam School. For a discussion of influences on the design of the Scheepvaarthuis,
see the author's Housing in Holland and the Amsterdam School (Diss. Yale Univer
sity), 1971, 130-149.
18 Illustrated in Singelenberg, op. cit. (see note 16), Pis. 105-111.
19 Illustrated in Dr. H. P. Berlage en zijn Werk, Rotterdam 1916, Pis. 78-79.
20 Ibid., Pis. 86-87.
21 Ibid., Pis. 114-115. Elements of this design also seem to have been of interest to
the architects of the Scheepvaarthuis.
22 Ibid., Pis. 18-22.
23 Berlage made extension plans, however, for a number of municipalities besides
Amsterdam, among them Utrecht, The Hague, and Rotterdam.
24 For example, P. L. Tak and Henri Polak were responsible for forcing through a
number of the most stringent, and for housing reform the most valuable, measures
in the building code when it was enacted in 1905. For a transcript of the provisions
of the housing code and the debates in the council about it, see Gemeenteblad 1905.
For the history of the SDAP, see H. van Hulst a.o., Het Roode Vaandel volgen wij,
The Hague 1969. The author has explored the interrelationship between the SDAP
and housing in Amsterdam in an article to be published by the M.I.T. Press in a
volume on Art in the Service of Politics: 'With Red Flags Flying: Housing in

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 SEARING

Amsterdam, 1915—23'.
23 Wibaut (1859—1935), who became a member of the Amsterdam City Council in
1907, was named alderman for housing in 1914, and alderman for finances in 1921.
He believed in generous municipal support for social purposes and probably was one
of the social democrats who most earned the epithet flung by the bourgeoisie, 'rood
is duur'.

20 Keppler (1876—1941) was an appointed official but he was no less intense in his
belief in the SDAP than those who ran for elective office. He had a degree in civil
engineering, worked for the Bouw- en Woningtoezicht after its model building code
was enacted in 1905, and became director of the special agency created ten years
later to oversee the construction and operation of municipal housing. He held this
post until 1937, and was a tireless civil servant and housing reformer who attained
an international reputation.
27 For the proposal to build municipal housing and the debates occasioned by it, see
Gemeenteblad 1914 and 1915.

28 Het 25-jarig bestaan van de Algemene W oningbouwvereeniging te Amsterdam, 5-8;

De Algemene Woningbouwvereeniging in het Goud, 1910—1960, 5-7.
29 De AWV in het Goud, 8. 'Zeker niet een door conservatisme gekenmerkte keus'.
30 H. G. van Beusekom, Getijden der volkshuisvesting, Alphen a.d. Rijn 1955, 62.
31 Van Epen already had a few blocks of Woningwet dwellings to his credit when he
worked with Berlage for the AWV; for example, the housing for the ACOB (Am
sterdamse Coöperatieve Onderwijzers Bouwvereeniging) on the second Boerhaave
straat, the Brederodestraat, and Praetoriusplein. His style is based on Berlage's severe
rationalism and he shows a similar interest in developing the three-dimensional
potential of his simply detailed brick masses.
32 Amsterdam had some half dozen philanthropic organizations which had been founded
during the second half of the nineteenth-century. Most of them were created by
capitalists who, in the interests of helping the working classes, invested in housing
and agreed to take a low rate of interest—usually 3 %—on their investments. The
models for these were English; see J. N. Tarn, Working-class Housing in 19th
century Britain, London 1971, chaps. 3 and 5.
33 For example, the average rent projected for De Arbeiderswoning was ƒ 2.35 per
week, that for the AWV ƒ 4.60. Figures from Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland, op.
cit. (see note 1), 9 and 15.
34 Gemeenteblad 1918, I 467; II, 1234.
35 De Bazel received the commission in 1911 and the first block was completed in
1916. The second block was put out to bid in 1916 and was ready for occupancy
two years later. See Woningbouw, No. 2, April, 1917, 1-4, and Arbeiderswoningen
in Nederland, op. cit. (see note 1), 1-3. For de Bazel's life and architectural career,
see A. W. Reinink, K. P. C. de Bazel, Leiden 1965.
38 Gemeenteblad 1917, I, 2795; Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland, op. cit. (see note 1),
7-9; and the archives of the Bouw- en Woningtoezicht, Dossier 18242.
37 Van der Pek designed housing for Rochdale, the first woningbouwvereniging in
Amsterdam to erect dwellings, and he worked as well for Het Amsterdamsche
Bouwfonds, a Woningwet society run along philanthropic lines, which he helped to
found. His wife was a noted housing reformer in her own right, Louise Went. In
an obituary by the architect J. Lehman, van der Pek is described as follows: 'Voor
de architectonische ontwikkeling der arbeiderswoning heeft hij ongetwijfeld groote
en blijvende verdiensten verworven ... [Hij was] een der eerste architekten die
zich konden wijden aan de stichting der groote woningkomplexen, welke onder de
werking der Woningwet tot stand komen ...' He further states that van der Pek
had been 'een der eerste aanhangers der konstruktief-aesthetische beginselen welke
door Berlage in woord en werk verkondigd werden'. De Bouwwereld XVIII (1919),
107-108.
38 Gemeenteblad 1916, II, 816-817. Wibaut: 'Ik kan wel zeggen—ik kom herhaal

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 Berlage and Housing

delijk in aanraking met het bestuur van De Arbeiderswoning—dat deze architect

grooten naam heeft gemaakt op het gebied van woningbouw in deze stad en niet
enkel dat bestuur, maar ook de bewoners zijn niet uit in lof over de woningen, door
den heer Berlage gebouwd'.
Berlage's name appears, with those of Gratama and Versteeg, on the site plan, which
included indications of the height and grouping of the buildings, but Gratama is
credited with the design of the buildings and their details. See, for example, J. G.
Wattjes, 'Woningbouw in de Transvaalwijk te Amsterdam', Het Bouwbedrijf I
(1924), 98-103.
The first description of the plans was sent in to the Bouw- en Woningtoezicht in
December of 1910, but various objections were made to them, and the revised plans
were not approved until 1912. Financial problems also arose. The contractor's
original bid was too low and he demanded additional compensation. After arbitra
tion, the case was settled in his favor and the AWV had to pay an additional 29,000
guilders, 20,000 of it raised through a supplement to the original Woningwet loan.
At the time, before the first world war brought staggering increases in building
costs, most estimates were fairly accurate, but after 1916, it was commonplace for
the government to have to grant additional monies for Woningwet projects. See
Gemeenteblad 1915, I, 2269, and Het 25-jarig bestaan, op. cit. (see note 28), 8.
See, for example, Gedanken über Stil, op. cit. (see note 3), 23-24, where he em
phasizes that architecture is the art of construction and insists that this notion must
once again be realized. 'Rücksichtlos soli das geschehen und alles Unnütze verschwin
den... wollen wir das ideale Ziel erreichen, kein Kompromiss möglich ist'.
Sooner or later one must employ this term, or the German Sachlichkeit, when dealing
with Berlage's architecture. It has the connotation of business-like (in German ge
schiiftlich), focusing only on essentials, but is usually translated as 'objectivity'.
A more accurate rendering would seem to be 'functionalism' because the sachlich
architect lets his design evolve primarily from programmatic needs and structural
requirements. Berlage certainly supported a sachlich method of design, but when he
discussed objectivity, as opposed to subjectivity, he used the word objectief (see, for
example, 'Over de Ruimte', Schoonheid in Samenleving, op. cit. (see note 3), 45.
Still, construction was for him the objective part of architecture, decoration the
personal, and by emphasizing construction as he did, he thought to assert the
universal qualities (algemeenheid) of his style. Berlage never fit into the category of
De Neue Sachlichkeit, of the 1920's, which he himself identified with the Inter
national Style. He discusses the stijl der nieuwe zakelijkheid in 'Bouwkunst en
Socialisme', op. cit. (see note 3), 68-70, and clearly does not consider his own work
a part of this movement. For further observations on the Sachlichkeit of Berlage's
architecture, see Singelenberg, op. cit. (see note 16), and S. Frank, review of Singe
lenberg, Architectura (1973) 191.
Since 1896, the municipality of Amsterdam has not sold land but lets it to tenants
on leasehold (erfpacht), with terms of 50 to 75 years. After the passage of the
Woningwet, the city adopted an aggressive policy of land acquisition, through pur
chase or expropriation and by the end of the first decade, almost all the land on
which housing was erected would be available through leasehold only, for a yearly
sum (canon). This was actually an advantage to the housing societies who could
negotiate directly with the municipality for their terrain and did not have to get
a loan to purchase it. The housing society would ask the city for land in the different
areas which the city was preparing for development and would be assigned appro
priate plots. Sometimes adjacent sites could not be obtained; the land adjoining the
AWV housing on the south side of the Transvaalstraat was in private hands, for
example. Hence the somewhat piecemeal terrain which the AWV was granted. In
new areas of the city, such as Amsterdam Zuid, it was possible for the woningbouw
verenigingen to have more continuous plots.
The problem of the large scale building or blokbouw was a burning issue in the

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 SEARING

Scandinavian and German-speaking countries in the years just before and after the
first world war. The Miethaus or Mietkaserne had become a fact of urban life and
unless carefully dealt with, could be a brutalizing factor in the environment. An
influential book which dealt with the bouwblok was Walter Curt Behrendt, Die
Einheitliche Blockfront als Raumelement im Stadtbau, Berlin 1911. Berlage acknowl
edged the importance of blokbouw in the Memo of Information (Memorie van Toe
lichting) written for his revised plan for Amsterdam South of 1915, as well as in
Normalisatie in Woningbouw, op. cit. (see note 3).
The society would usually go to the architect with a general idea of the number of
apartments it wished, and the sizes which would best answer the needs of its
members. The request to the city for funds included a detailed description of
number and types of dwellings, for this was often an issue in the city's decision to
grant the funds. On the one hand, the municipality wished to assure that a comfort
able and useful type would be built; on the other, there were several members on
the city council who kept watch over anything that smacked too much of luxury.
The extra living room, which the houseproud huisvrouw used for special occasions
only, and which might have more profitably been employed as a bedroom, became
such a luxury after World War I.
Gemeenteblad 1911 I, 569.
To the author's knowledge, Berlage's work on the Transvaalplein was the first
housing to employ the varied heights. Shortly thereafter, in 1915, J. W. H. Leliman
designed a housing block on the Zeeburgerdijk for the society Eigen Haard that
united two, three and four story elevations. Michel de Klerk's housing for Eigen
Haard on the Zaanstraat, of 1918, and de Klerk's and Kramers project for De
Dageraad of 1920—22 also display this device. Keppler often recommended it to
housing societies as a means of achieving an interesting silhouette and providing at
least some members with low-rise living.
Gedanken iiber Stil, op. cit. (see note 3), 53: 'Man soli vor allen Dingen die nackte
Wand wieder in all ihrer schlichten Schönheit zeigen, und alle Überladenheit aufs
Peinlichste vermeiden'.

Gemeenteblad 1913, I, 613. In the proposal to build the dwellings, it was pointed
out that they would be very close to the absolute minimum required by the building
code. All flats would consist of a living-dining room, a spoelhoek met gootsteen, and
three or more bedrooms. The proposal added that anything more in the way of
space or amenities would be indefensible when rents must be kept to an absolute
minimum. See also Gemeenteblad 1914, I, 2591.
In De Bouwwereld IX (1910), 66.
Published in Wendingen, 1919.
Van Beusekom, op. cit. (see note 30), 61-62, mentions that Berlage used the 'Prince
Albert House' as a model, but incorrectly identifies this with the AWV dwellings
in the Transvaalbuurt. For a discussion of the Prince Albert dwelling in the context
of English nineteenth-century housing, see Tarn, op. cit. (see note 32), 7-8.
De Bouwwereld IX (1910), 73-74. 'Moge dit voorbeeld na een zestig jarig bestaan
nog eens door ontwerpers van arbeiderswoningen het bezien waard geacht worden'.
The use of Le Corbusier's term is deliberate, for he may have been inspired by
Dutch proportional systems in his own design. See Nic. H. M. Tummers, J. L.
Mathieu Lauweriks, Hilversum 1967, and the author's review in the Journal of the
Society of Architectural Historians XXXII (1973), nr. 3.
See Singelenberg, op. cit. (see note 16), 101-111, and Reinink, op. cit. (see note 35),
69-91 for a discussion of proportional systems of design.
It was first used extensively in middle Europe. See 'The Evolution of Housing
Concepts: 1870—1970', Another Chance for Housing: Low-Rise Alternatives, Mu
seum of Modern Art, New York 1973.
This was made clear in the Memorie van Toelichting (see note 44), and was further
discussed in Normalisatie in Woningbouw, op. cit. (see note 3), where most of his

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 Berlage and Housing

examples are of a regelmatigen stadsaanleg: Illahun (Egypt), Priene, Carthage,

Piraeus, Trier, Montpazier, and Karlsruhe.
The Director of Public Works had little sympathy for the site plan, with its 'kleine
bouwblokken en dwarsstraatjes', and in 1920 the planting along the short pedestrian
passages was torn up and they were made into regular streets. See Dossier 18242,
Archive, Bouw- en Woningtoezicht.
However, through a clever plan in which the bearing walls in the rear half of the
block are staggered, two-bedroom flats alternate with four-bedroom dwellings on
certain floors.

The configuration of the low buildings with their stepped gables was probably
developed by Gratama. He took such details as the wooden bay windows from
Berlage's work for the AWV, and the geometry which governs the massing shows
his fidelity to Berlage's principles. But the detailing, especially in the four-story
blocks, is far more complex than Berlage would have condoned and is evidence of
Gratama's admiration for the Amsterdam School. For the Transvaalbuurt, see Het
Bouwbedrijf I (1924), 98-103 and Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland, op. cit. (see
note 1), 46-48.
For example, Hampstead Garden Suburb by Parker and Unwin. Raymond Unwin's
ideas about the 'superblock' also seem to have been a factor in the design in the
Transvaalbuurt. See Raymond Unwin, Town Planning in Practice, London 1909,
and Nothing Gained by Overcrowding, London 1912.
As early as 1889, a lecture was given on the subject of De Menscbelijke Woning,
according to Singelenberg, op. cit. (see note 16), 11. Berlage's various written
addenda to his extension plans include ideas on the subject as well.
For the role played by Architectura et Amicitia in Dutch architecture, see J. J.
Vriend, The Amsterdam School, Amsterdam 1970, and the author's dissertation, op.
cit. (see note 17), 206-215.
The Netherlands was not a belligerent in World War I, but she suffered nonetheless
from shortages of labor, material, and capital, all of which contributed to worsening
the housing problem.
Keppler, for example, took van der Waerden to task for being so conservative, and
thinking only in terms of traditional materials and small, standardized parts, rather
than proposing methods which would utilize new materials such as reinforced
concrete, and which would employ larger pre-fabricated modules. Het Stenografisch
verslag van het Woning-Congres op 11 en 12 februari, 1918, 135-116. A copy of
this document is at the Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam.
'Praeadvies', Normalisatie, op. cit. (see note 3), 17-18.
Normalisatie, op. cit. (see note 3), 24-25.
Ibid., 24: 'Een aanslag op hun persoonlijkheid, op hun vrijheid, op hun mensch zijn'.
'Praeadvies', 8, Normalisatie, op. cit. (see note 3): 'De verzorging der situatie, de
groepeering over ... de afwisseling van laag- en hoogbouw, de kleur . .. Vooral voor
dit laatste biedt de nationale baksteen de mogelijkheid van menigvuldige combina
ties en dus veelvuldige gelegenheid het uiterlijk-schoon te dienen. En dan het
karakter van den bouwstijl der laatste tientallen jaren is naast soberheid geweest,
krachtigheid en waarheid in de constructie tot uitdrukking te brengen, de waarde
van de materialen in hun eigen aard te toonen... dit kan ook aan de normaal
ontwerpen worden dienstig gemaakt'.
Throughout his writings, Berlage repeats almost obsessively Semper's words about
nature being sparing in her motifs. See, for example, Gedanken iiber Stil, op. cit.
(see note 3), 26; Grundlagen und Entwicklung, op. cit. (see note 3), 4-8 and 'Be
schouwingen over Stijl', Studies over Bouwkunst, Stijl en Samenleving, Rotterdam
1922 2, 74.
Het Stenografisch verslag, op. cit. (see note 65), 123: 'Er zijn werkelijke verschillende
bouwcomplexen die de beide kwaliteiten in zich vereenigen, die de levendigheid
verbinden aan de doelmatige uniformiteit'.

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 SEARING

72 Ibid., 133.
73 Van Beusekom, op. cit. (see note 30), 76.
74 Normalisatie, op. cit. (see note 3), 28, 36: 'Want dan zouden we voor de bouwkunst
het begrip hebben gekultiveerd; en daarmee die waarde van elke kunst, die de
verwerkelijking is harer idee, d.i. de verwerkelijking van het onvergankelijke harer
objectieve algemeenheid. De eigenlijke kunstvorm daarentegen is de verwerkelijking
van het vergankelijke harer subjectieve bizonderheid'.
75 Ibid., 36: Έη het massaprodukt brengt de objectiviteit als vanzelf naar voren'. It is
interesting that both Berlage and the artists connected with de Stijl identified
objectivity with machine production.
76 Ibid., 31: 'Oeconomische oorzaken hebben altijd dezelfde gevolgen'.
77 Ibid., 36: 'Ondragelijke verschijningen van burgerlijk individualisme'.
78 Ibid., 38: 'Ja, de bouwkunst begroet deze wijze van uitdrukking zelfs met een ware
wellust, als reactie tegen de orgie van architekturaal individualisme, die achter ons
ligt. Want zij kan nu op grooter schaal bereiken ... zij hervindt een reeds vroeger
veroverde schoonheid.'
79 For Berlage, nothing was to be condemned solely on aesthetic grounds, but the
causal relationships between art and society had always to be explored. Capitalism,
with its emphasis on consumption, bred the need for continually changing forms,
just as it bred an individualism which forced the artist into an increasingly subjective
attitude.
80 For Sitte (1843—1903) see George and Christiane C. Collins, Camillo Sitte and the
Birth of Modern City Planning, London 1965. They have shown how the French
edition falsified Sitte's position, and made him seem to be exclusively interested in
medieval towns. In fact, 'his interests were more catholic... To read Sittle with
medievally-tinted glasses is to miss the lessons that he was trying to teach his
contemporaries about their own day' (p. 66). While Berlage was familiar with the
original Viennese edition (1889), and indeed reviewed it in Bouwkundig Weekblad
in 1892, his own inclinations toward the middle ages at this time may have fostered
the picturesque aspects of the first Plan Zuid.
81 For Brinckmann (1881—1958), see G. and C.Collins, op. cit. (see note 80), passim.
82 Normalisatie, op. cit. (see note 3), 45.
83 Ibid., 40: 'Voorbeeld van een aaneengesloten rij van dezelfde woningen met een
gewijzigde hoekoplossing.'
84 While Dudok's (1884—1974) mature work fused Amsterdam School detailing with de
Stijl compositional principles, his first examples of workers' housing may be placed
in the rationalist camp.
85 The great achievement of Brinkman (1873—1925) is the municipal housing he
designed in the Spangen quarter of Rotterdam, 1921. See Arbeiderswoningen in
Nederland, op. cit. (see note 1), 19-21.
88 Van der Vlugt (1894—1936) became a partner of M. Brinkman's son, and a major
exponent of the International Style. But his housing of 1921 on the Beukelsdijk
and Schiedamscheweg in Rotterdam (see Het Bouwbedrijf, II (1925), 291-293),
with its indented corners and lack of ornamentation, is, like Oud's and Brinkman's
complexes, an updated version of Berlage's constructive style.
87 Oud (1890—1963), who was a member of de Stijl, would become the foremost
Dutch practitioner of the International Style. The municipal housing in the Spangen
and Tusschendijken quarters of Rotterdam which arose between 1918 and 1920,
however, reveal his indebtedness to Berlage's work as well as theory. Berlage's
interesting comment in Normalisatie, op. cit. (see note 3), 45, comparing the com
position of dwellings with the creation of cubistic ornament ('Want het is door de
groepeering, aaneenrijging en opstapeling van dezelfde eenheden, te vergelijken met
het ontwerpen van een driedimensionaal kubistisch ornament'), calls to mind Oud's
project of 1917 for a group of dwellings on the Strandboulevard. Cubism was one
of the artistic movements that contributed to the development of de Stijl, but

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 Berlage and Housing

Berlage was probably using the term in a looser fashion.

88 Recent general considerations of the Amsterdam School include Wolfgang Pehnt,
Expressionist Architecture, New York 1973, 181-193; J. J. Vriend, op. cit. (see
note 63); Giovanni Fanelli, Architettura moderna in Olanda, Florence 1968, 83-98;
Dennis Sharp, Modern Architecture and Expressionism, London 1966, 131-143;
and Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, London 1960,
163-184.
89 For De Klerk's (1884—1923) designs for Eigen Haard, see Suzanne S. Frank,
'Michel de Klerk's Designs for Amsterdam's Spaarndammerbuurt', Nederlands
Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 22 (1971), and the author's article, 'Eigen Haard: Workers'
Housing and the Amsterdam School' op. cit. (see note 10).
80 For Kramer (1881—1961) see W. Retera, P. Kramer, Amsterdam 1927. For De
Dageraad see Het Bouwbedrijf I (1924), 252-255, and the article cited in note 24.
91 See the discussion in Gemeenteblad 1920, II, 1387 ff.
92 'De Bazel en de Klerk', De Socialistische Gids, IX (1924), 27.
93 For a discussion of this question, see the author's 'Eigen Haard: Workers' Housing
and the Amsterdam School', op. cit. (see note 10), 174-175.
94 Bouwkundig Weekblad, XXXVI (1916), 332: 'Evenals bij de meeste Hollandsche
architecten, mist ook zijn werk ten eenenmale, karakteristiek en uitbeelding ... Zijn
stadsheerenhuizen verschillen in wezen en typeering niet van zijn land- of volks
woonhuizen'.
95 Singelenberg, op. cit. (see note 16), 56, 112-113.
96 Ary Keppler's words in 1912. See the article cited in note 24.
97 'Bouwkunst en Socialisme', op. cit. (see note 3), 69.
98 Ibid., 67: 'De bouwkunst vertolkt nu dezen gang op treffende wijze, door haar
eindelijke ontaarding ten koste der stijlkundige gevoeligheid in een barok karakter,
hetzij door een ornamenteele overlading, hetzij door een droog verstandelijken
vorm'.
99 Ibid., 71: 'Een bouwkunst, in diepste wezen uit het socialisme geboren, zal niet
anders dan uit een religieuse levensbeschouwing en nooit uit een religieuse leer
kunnen groeien'.
100 Ibid., 69: 'Vandaar ook zijn internationale mogelijkheid, omdat het technische
verstand ... zich overal op dezelfde wijze openbaart'.
101 Plan West, Bussum, n.d.
102 Μ. Ε. H. Tjaden, 'De Bouwbedrijvigheid te Amsterdam', Het Bouwbedrijf, I
(1924), 246-247. Tjaden points out how important Berlage's Memorie van Toe
lichting of 1915 was for the development of Plan West.
103 Wijdeveld (b. 1885) was the editor of Wendingen, the single most important
source for the Amsterdam School. His work in Amsterdam West is on the Hoofd
weg.
104 In Plan West, three innovative structural systems utilizing concrete were employed.
For a description of these systems, see Het Bouwbedrijf, II (1925), 21-26.
105 Camillo Sitte, City Planning According to Artistic Principles, trans, by G. and C.
Collins, New York 1965, 34, 138.
too As early as 1891, Berlage had worked with the idea of a poortgebouw in his
theatrical designs, incorporating the Haarlemmerpoort, for Vondel's 'Gysbrecht
van Aemstel' (see Singelenberg, op. cit. (see note 16), Pis. 44-45). Poortgebouwen
also figure in his 1908 extension scheme for The Hague (see Dr. H. P. Berlage en
zijn Werk, op. cit. (see note 19), Pis. 151 and 154).
107 A. Boeken, 'La nouvelle architecture dans les Pays-Bas', L'Architecture, XL (1927),
206. 'Dans cette constructions en masse, ou, plus exactement, dans cette composi
tion en grand des rues et des fa?ades, la personnalité des architects ... s'est subor
donée a l'aspect d'ensemble... Ce qui domine ici, c'est l'impression d'ensemble:
la disposition, le rythme, la couleur, l'équilibre du tout'.

179

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