Dirk Bolt

Dirk Bolt (* 1930 in Groningen) is a Dutch architect who influenced the Modernist Australian post-war architecture. Later he worked as a university professor and urban planner. His most famous buildings are the Christ College at the University of Tasmania and Burgmann College at the Australian National University.

Life

Bolt began at the Delft University of Technology to study architecture, but moved to Australia in 1951 and completed his studies as an architect and urban planner at the Hobart Technical College.

Then he designed innovative houses, university and commercial buildings in Hobart and Canberra. In Canberra, where he worked 1964-1971, he also worked as a counselor for the National Capital Development Commission (Development Commission of the city of Canberra ). The Australian Institute of Architects (Australian Institute of Architects ) is preparing a monograph of the bolt work.

In the 1970s, Bolt worked for international development organizations in Africa and Asia, including as a counselor for urban planning, urban development and sustainability. He then became a lecturer in urban planning at the University of Auckland, where he received his doctorate in 1984 with a dissertation in a sustainable, equitable, and humane urban planning. In 1987 he returned to the Netherlands and became a professor at the Department of Urban Planning at the University of Twente. Bolt lives in Scotland.

Important buildings

Christ College, University of Tasmania ( 1961-62 )

Christ College at the University of Tasmania was resembling a prime example of modernist architecture and Tasmanian in its design Alvar Aalto's Town Hall building in Säynätsalo described. The construction of the Christ College was made ​​necessary by the campus relocation to Sandy Bay. On a steep slope Bolt built a hilltop village, consisting of visually diverse buildings, which are arranged around a garden courtyard. He used the materials, which were subjected to an aging process in the course of time, such as concrete blocks and untreated wood. The Australian Institute of Architects gave the building the Australian Institute of Architects 2011 Enduring Architecture Award (Tasmania ).

Murray State Street Offices, Hobart ( 1966-69 )

Murray State Street offices in Hobart ( completed in 1969 and the capital of Tasmania better known as 10 Murray Street), is a multi-storey office building, which is a significant example of the Australian brutalism with its external reinforced concrete frame and its recessed windows. As was recently planned to demolish the building, a petition was launched in order to get it and promote a restoration.

Burgmann College, Australian National University, Canberra ( 1970-71 )

Because of his successful draft of the building for the Christ College in Sandy Bay Dirk Bolt was commissioned to design the building also for the Burgmann College at the Australian National University. Bolt designed the college buildings in a style inspired by Japanese architecture style, which was combined with Dutch pragmatism: The building received only a reduced number of building materials, and sliding doors and sliding windows that resemble shoji. The recessed exterior window of the living areas extend along the entire building long sides as horizontal bands of windows on three levels. Originally four wings of the building were planned that should surround a central courtyard, but only two wings, which now form an L-shaped building were completed.