Rein Blijstra (1901-1975) was a travel writer, novellist, novelist, architectural critic and art critic. After working in journalism for more than ten years, from 1935 he traveled through Europe (especially Greece) and processed his experiences in travel reports. In addition, he wrote novellas, novels, collections of short stories, plays, collections of dialogues, reviews, and books on architecture and urban planning. Many of the latter have been translated into English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian. As early as the 1920s he had become interested in architecture, following in the footsteps of his friends Carel Willink and Charles Roelofs, both of whom had studied architecture but never finished. Later, he got to know Van Eesteren and Merkelbach. The latter particularly encouraged him to write about architecture. During World War II, they were in hiding in Landsmeer and together studied Siegfried Giedion's book Time, Space and Architecture. After the war, Blijstra became chief art editor of Het Vrije Volk. Among other things, Blijstra wrote: Nederlandse bouwkunst na 1900 (1957), Nederlandse stedebouw na 1900 (1963), Rotterdam: stad in beweging (1965), C. van Eesteren (1968), B. Merkelbach (1968), 2000 jaar Utrecht (1969) and Berlage in 's-Gravenhage (1971).