Jacobus Oud
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"This quality appears in the Row of Houses which Oud built at the Hook of Holland. He had passed through the stage of stark geometry under the influences of the neoplasticist painters and sculptors, Mondrian and van Doesburg, that of the suprematist Kasimir Malevich, and that of the Russian constructivists, who in their constructions made out of various materials were experimenting in problems of interrelated and interpenetrating spaces, applicable both to architecture and to sculpture and as completely non-objective as Mondrian’s. It is noteworthy that a similar purpose was motivating the painters at this time — the cubists. In fact the whole situation was analogous to that of early fifteenth- century Florence when Masaccio in painting, Brunelleschi in architecture, and Donatello in sculpture were all seeking solutions of spatial problems. Oud, in his Row of Houses with corner shops, by his use of concrete, brick, glass, and iron and by accents of color and contrasting textures and by a complete absence of ornament, created buildings whose refreshing clarity and conciseness, whose sensitively realized proportions and related parts, produce a satisfying result. The long two-story block with a ribbon arrangement of windows and a wide cornice over the first story, paralleling the unbroken horizontal of the flat roof, suggests in its emphasis upon horizontality the influence of Wright." --Gardner's Art Through the Ages (1926) by Helen Gardner
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Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud, commonly called J.J.P. Oud (9 February 1890 - 5 April 1963) was a Dutch architect. His fame began as a follower of the De Stijl movement.
Oud was born in Purmerend, the son of a tobacco and wine merchant. As a young architect, he was influenced by Berlage, and studied under Theodor Fischer in Munich for a time. He worked together with W.M. Dudok in Leiden, which is where he also met Theo van Doesburg and became involved with the movement De Stijl.
Between 1918 and 1933, Oud became Municipal Housing Architect for Rotterdam. During this period when many laborers were coming to the city, he mostly worked on socially progressive residential projects. This included projects in the areas of Spangen, Kiefhoek and the Witte Dorp. Oud was one of a number of Dutch architects who attempted to reconcile strict, rational, 'scientific' cost-effective construction technique against the psychological needs and aesthetic expectations of the users. His own answer was to practice 'poetic functionalism'.
In 1927, he was one of the fifteen architects who contributed to the influential modernist Weissenhof Estate exhibition.
In America Oud is perhaps best known for being lauded and adopted by the mainstream modernist movement, then summarily kicked out on stylistic grounds. As of 1932, he was considered one of the four greatest modern architects (along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier), and was prominently featured in Philip Johnson's International Style exhibition. Johnson maintained a correspondence with Oud, tried to help him get work, commissioned a house for his mother (never built), and sent him socks and bicycle tires. Then in 1945, after the end of World War II allowed photographs of Oud's 1941 Shell Headquarters building in The Hague to be published in America, the architectural press sarcastically condemned his use of ornament ("embroidery") as contrary to the spirit of modernism.
After World War II, Oud designed the Dutch National War Monument in Amsterdam and the monument on De Grebbeberg. By then, he had mostly let go of any Stijl influences. He continued to take a highly individualistic stance against mainstream modernism.
Oud's brother, Pieter Oud was mayor of Rotterdam.
Oud died in 1963 at the age of 73 in Wassenaar.
Chronology of Works
- 1906 House in Purmerend.
- 1912 Movie theatre, block of worker housing and small individual houses in Purmerend.
- 1913 - 1914 Small houses in and about Leiden.
- 1915 Project for a municipal bath house, unexecuted.
- 1917 House in Katwijk-aan-Zee (collaboration with Kamerlingh Onnes). House in Noordwijkerhout (collaboration with Theo van Doesburg). Project for a row of seaside houses, unexcecuted.
- 1918 Spangen, Blocks I and V, Worker housing in Rotterdam.
- 1919 Spangen, Blocks VIII and IX. Projects for a factory and a bonded Warehouse, unexcecuted.
- 1920 - 1921 Tuschendijken, Blocks I to IV and VI in Rotterdam.
- 1921 Project for a house in Berlin, unexcecuted.
- 1922 Garden Village in Rotterdam at Oud-Mathenesse.
- 1923 Superintendent's office at Oud-Mathenesse, temporary.
- 1925 Café de Unie in Rotterdam
- 1926 Project for Hotel Stiassni in Brno, Czechoslovakia, unexcecuted. Competition project for Rotterdam Exchange, unexcecuted.
- 1926 - 1927 Worker's Houses at the Hoek of Holland
- 1927 Row of 5 houses, Weissenhof Housing Exposition, Stuttgart. Additions to the villa at Katwijk-aan-Zee.
- 1928 - 1930 Keifhoek Housing Development in Rotterdam.
- 1931 Project for steel apartments in Rotterdam, unexcecuted. Project for house in Pinehurst, unexecuted.
- 1956, National Monument (with sculptor John Raedecker), Dam Square, Amsterdam
