Aldo van Eyck

Aldo van Eyck ( born March 16, 1918 in Driebergen, † January 14, 1999 in Loenen aan de Vecht ) was a Dutch architect and is considered a founding father of structuralism in architecture.

Life

Aldo van Eyck was born as the second son of the Dutch critic and philosopher Pieter Nicolaas van Eyck in Driebergen. His older brother Robert Floris van Eyck was later artists and art restorer.

Van Eyck studied architecture, first at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague, from 1938 to 1942 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, where he came into contact with the international avant-garde.

After van Eyck worked first as an employee at the city development office of the Amsterdam city works until in 1951 he founded his architectural office and freelance work. In the years from 1947 to 1978 originated in Amsterdam about 730 playgrounds according to his designs, including the settlement Jeruzalem. In 1960, his first major building, the Municipal Orphanage in Amsterdam, completed. A number of other, decisive buildings in the city followed.

Van Eyck was from 1959 to 1963 served as editor of the architecture magazine Forum, and exerted great influence on the Dutch architecture. As co-founder of Team Ten, he played a major role in the CIAM ( Congrès Internationaux d' Architecture Moderne ).

Even in Germany he worked: In 1976, he created the Schmela Gallery, the first gallery building erected for this purpose, the Federal Republic of Germany in the style of structuralism. The present owner 's art collection Nordrhein-Westfalen dedicated Aldo van Eyck there in 2013 an exhibition.

Since 1982 he worked in his architectural firm with his wife Hannie, and they led among other things, designs for office buildings of the European Space Agency in Noordwijk ( 1984-1989 ) and the Tripoli building in Amsterdam (1990-1994).

1990 van Eyck was awarded the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects. In the same year he also received the Austrian Medal for Science and Art.