(abridged version Bonas Essay) The Beginning In 1828, the year that Leliman was born, the German architect Heinrich Hübsch (1795-1863) wrote his famous In welchem Style sollen wir bauen?, a question that would play a central role in the debate that took place during Leliman's lifetime. In the same year, the French architect Henri Labrouste (1801-1875) laid the foundations in Rome for what would later become eclecticism, the architectural concept that Leliman would be among the first to propagate in the Netherlands. On June 26 of that year, Johannes Hermanus Leliman was born in Amsterdam. At the age of fifteen, in 1843, Leliman was sent to Rotterdam to learn the trade in the carpentry store of J.F. Metzelaar (1818-1897), who was ten years older. Leliman thus began a practical training. Leliman continued to work there until 1847, attending classes at "Musis Sacrum," which always earned him the highest honors. He gained a love for the craft at the carpenter's workshop, but also found out that craft education was in bad shape. Resistance to academicism A year before he left for Rotterdam, the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst had been founded in Amsterdam. This Maatschappij, in which architects could express their ideas about architecture, ensured that there was a clear separation between the building artist and the performing craftsman. The architect distinguished himself by being artistically and theoretically skilled, an image in which the Society would play an important role. Leliman will not have come into contact with the Maatschappij until 1847, when he was back in Amsterdam. It was customary for an aspiring architect to take theoretical courses in the evenings to supplement his practical experience, and so Leliman had been drawn back to Amsterdam. There, beginning in 1847, he attended the Department of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Art. There he was taught for two years by, among others, M.G. Tétar van Elven. At the academy, composition and perspective were taught, and competitions were held each year, in which students were required to participate. The young Leliman resisted the strict teaching. Nevertheless, he was considered a talented student; for example, in 1848 he received a gold medal for his design of an asylum for "500 old people. During his academy time, his first design was also executed, a custodial school in Zwammerdam (1847). And in 1848, Leliman won his first competition: for a facade of a storehouse for manufactures, organized by the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst. While training at the academy, Leliman worked during the day at the architectural office of I. Warnsinck (1811-1857) in Amsterdam. At Warnsinck's office, Leliman will have worked out his master's design sketches and specifications as a draughtsman, as was common in the mid-nineteenth century. Parisian modernity In 1852, Leliman went to Paris to be apprenticed to the renowned French architect Henri Labrouste (1801-1875) until 1853. Labrouste's studio was at that time the largest and most famous in Paris. At Labrouste's studio, Leliman's work would include study drawings of classical examples. These were second-hand studies after drawings Labrouste himself had made during his Prix-de-Rome trip. It was common at the time to copy each other's drawings. From Labrouste's studio, Leliman participated in several competitions held in the Netherlands. The stay with Labrouste was of great importance for Leliman's subsequent career. Truth and waking men In 1854 Leliman was able to translate the ideas he had developed during his trip abroad into a building for the first time: that for the artists' association Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam. The renovation of this association and exhibition building on the Rokin in Amsterdam was Leliman's first commission after his return from Paris. With the commission to remodel Arti, Leliman was able to present his own ideas regarding eclecticism. The building of Arti received appreciation for its contemporary and simple character, but could also count on criticism. Leliman responded to this from an eclecticist point of view, but had incorporated his adage of truth into this design methodology. Truth for him could also only result from an adaptation to local and national conditions. The utility of craft and education Leliman also made a case for issues of social importance. For him, in fact, there was something that was inseparable from the profession of architecture: craft. According to Leliman, the training of craftsmen, from apprentice to master, could not be separated from the training of architects. Therefore, he devoted himself to the interests of craftsmen, both in terms of education and their social conditions. To reinstate this craft, Leliman was as much concerned with the interests of his own profession as he was with those of the craftsmen. According to Leliman, a handicraft school should be a subsidized institution, with a supervisory committee, where apprentices received three years of education, gained practical experience, headed by a director who was both theoretically and practically experienced. In addition to theory and practice, history, mathematics, physics and mechanics should be taught. In 1861, the Society for the Working Class finally took the initiative to found the First Craft School. Leliman, who had been co-founder of this Society in 1854 and an honorary member since 1857, had played a major role in it, along with the other honorary members, all board members of the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst. The course lasted three to four years. At its inception, there were 22 students. Teachers were some members of Architectura et Amicitia, J.A. Rooseboom, J.H.A.E. de Vries, G.D. Martens, D.J. Sanches and Jacob Olie, who later became director. The latter two were pupils of Leliman. The ideas of a former architect In his fiftieth year, that is, in 1878, Leliman retired as a building architect. Presumably he wanted to spend a lot of time raising his newborn son. He did continue to design, but now purely for himself. On small sketch sheets he drew villas and residential and commercial houses and gable tops with pencil, ink and watercolor. These he carefully pasted, in composition, onto large cardboard panels, which he numbered. In 1889, Leliman exhibited his "sketches of villas and residential houses drawn with bright colors" in the hall of the Architectura et Amicitia building. He showed his entire collection of 800 sketches, on 48 cartons, to the members of this architectural society: 36 cartons with 680 sketches of floor plans and elevations for small and large villas, and 12 cartons with 120 facades of bourgeois residential houses. He also held a treatise on them. Eleven years later, the collection had grown to ninety cartons, in three series, and he had made two thousand drawings. Although he no longer designed buildings intended for realization, Leliman had by no means rested on his laurels as a theorist. Leliman continued to attend meetings of the Society and Architectura et Amicitia until about 1900, and in the theories he wrote and expressed in later life, the passionate eclectic he was during his building life still shines through. The end On December 1, 1910, Leliman died. Present at the funeral were delegates from the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst, from the Genootschap Architectura et Amicitia, from the Amsterdam branch of the Maatschappij, from the Maatschappij Arti et Amicitia, from the Maatschappij voor de Werkende Stand and from its Crafts Schools branch. They discussed Leliman's influence on Dutch architecture, his contribution to the various institutions and his commitment to the education of craftsmen and the profession of architecture. Only at the end of his life did a number of colleagues recognize that his influence had been great and that he formulated very early thoughts that later became commonplace. While Cuypers had already been embraced by Berlage cum suis as the grandfather of new architecture, a few discovered that Leliman had been much more progressive. Training: carpenter's workshop J.F. Metzelaar/1843-1847; Musis Sacrum/1843-1847; Royal Academy of Arts, Department of Architecture/1847 (from). Additional positions: Architectura et Amicitia/member/1855-1860; Contests Architectura et Amicitia /juror member/1855-1906; Architectura et Amicitia/chairman/1860-1864; Architectura et Amicitia/ honorary chairman/1864-1910/Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst/member/1856-1862; Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst/secretary/1862-1867; Society for the Advancement of Architecture/chairman/1867-1876; Society for the Advancement of Architecture/judge member/1858-1892; Society for the Advancement of Architecture/board member/1876-1880/Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst/erelid/1880-1910; Society for the Working Position/chairman/1860-1870. Honors: Knight of the Order of Christ of Portugal/1867; Knight of the Order of Conceiçad Portugal/after 1867.