A.P. Smits (1881-1957), H. Fels (1882-1962) and C. van de Linde (1886-1941) The joint oeuvre of Anthonie Pieter Smits and Hendrik Fels consists largely of country houses and villas in The Hague and its surroundings. From 1920 both architects went their separate ways. Smits remained primarily an architect of country houses, while Fels focused on industrial architecture. However, Fels also still designed several houses and both architects designed interiors and furniture. In their country house architecture, Smits and Fels strove for a coherence of interior and exterior. Through careful siting, the houses had to form one harmonious whole with the surrounding landscape. In their work they combined English country house architecture with the traditionalist rationalism of K.P.C. de Bazel. After De Bazel's death in 1923, Smits took over a number of commissions from his office, such as the synagogue in Enschede. But the most important part of Smits' work consists of country houses and villas. The archive of Smits available at the NAI covers his entire working period, including his collaboration with Fels and C. van de Linde. However, the archive contains only a fraction of the oeuvre actually built. The list of works found in Smits' archive shows that he designed more than just country houses and villas. But it also shows that he built more villas and country houses than those from which archives have survived. This list, on which BONAS' oeuvre list is based, was probably compiled by Smits' last associate, J. Lourijssen. The list does not always mention all the architects involved in a project and sometimes no architect is mentioned. In addition, it is difficult to get clarity on the architects involved because the architects also took on commissions independently of their partnership. Besides Fels, Smits also entered into a working partnership with C. van de Linde. Smits had to deal with Van de Linde when his friend and teacher K.P.C. de Bazel died in 1923. Van de Linde was De Bazel's bureau chief and, with A.D.N. van Gendt, completed the then under construction office building for the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij on Vijzelstraat in Amsterdam. In 1927, the bureau A.P. Smits and C. van de Linde was founded. Because of the lack of clarity about the architects involved and the changing partnerships, the oeuvre list of BONAS always mentions - as far as known - the individual architects and not the firm name Smits and Fels, or Smits and Van de Linde. Anthonie Pieter Smits 1881-1957 Anthonie Pieter Smits was born in Haarlem and was the third son of the art bookbinder Johannes Smits and Francina Reyerse.1 Smits began his education in 1894 at the Studio for Church Art in Haarlem. At the same time, he was a student at the School for Architecture, Decorative Arts and Art Crafts, also in Haarlem. There he took lessons from K.P.C. de Bazel and J.W. Hanrath. In 1897 he left for Amsterdam, where he joined the arts and crafts workshop of the firm Wisselingh & Co. Smits worked there under the direction of workmaster J.P. Strijbos. The firm executed works by Lion Cachet, Dijsselhof and Nieuwenhuis, among others. In the evenings, Smits took the so-called "Vahana course" with Lauweriks and De Bazel. They covered Oriental art and designing on a mathematical basis. In 1900, Smits moved to The Hague. At the office of Joh. Mutters he became chef de bureau and in the evenings he received private lessons from W. van Boven. At Mutters, Smits became acquainted with H. Fels, with whom he started an architectural firm in 1906. Their first country houses, such as Hagheweyde in Warmond and De Spranck and Duynrose in Scheveningen, show typical English characteristics, such as large brick chimneys and sitting areas with a fireplace. Smits joined 't Binnenhuis, an organization where arts and crafts products were made, exhibited and sold, in 1900. His interest in interior design is also evident in his work for the Association for Crafts and Crafts (VANK). Both Smits and Fels were board members, and Smits also served as editor. From 1916 to 1935, both architects were "free employees" of the social-idealist furniture factory Labor Omnia Vincit (LOV) in Oosterbeek. Smits additionally had furniture designs executed by the firm of Gebrs. Reens in Amsterdam. In 1917, Smits designed for himself the country house De Kroft on the Burgemeester den Texlaan in Aerdenhout. In the meantime, he had married a sister of Fels. The association with Fels officially ended in 1919, although the two architects continued to work together occasionally thereafter. From about 1927 until about 1938, A.P. Smits and C. van de Linde formed a firm. Their work consisted partly of completing and executing bequeathed commissions by De Bazel. Between 1929-1933 they built office buildings for the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij in Batavia (Jakarta) and Medan in the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia). This was followed by many more country houses in the Gooi and the dune region. In 1938, J. Lourijssen joined Smits. When Smits became ill in the 1950s, Lourijssen began to play an increasingly important role. In 1953, he became a partner. In the postwar years, Smits was mainly involved in the reconstruction of Rhenen and Middelburg. Hendrik Fels 1882-1962 Besides country houses, Hendrik Fels's oeuvre consists largely of works for electricity companies.2 He also designed schools, garages and other commercial buildings, mainly in The Hague and its surroundings. Fels was born in Rotterdam in 1882. After HBS, he studied in Delft at the Technische Hogeschool under professors E. Gugel, K. Sluyterman and J.F. Klinkhamer, the specialist in factory construction. Fels broke off his studies and settled in The Hague, where he worked in the office of Joh. Mutters Jr. as did his brother-in-law A.P. Smits. As mentioned, he had a joint office with Smits in The Hague from 1906 until 1919. On Sept. 3, 1918, Fels married Caroline Fernande Emilie Dommers. Like Smits, Fels was involved in several artists' and architects' organizations. For example, he was a board member of the Union of Dutch Architects from 1910 to 1914. Smits had been involved in the founding of this organization in 1907. Furthermore, Fels was a board member of the VANK at the same time as Smits, and Fels also worked for the furniture factory LOV from 1916 to 1935. Furthermore, Fels was a member of Architectura et Amicitia and the Haagsche Kunstkring. His brother Jan Jacob Fels helped Hendrik Fels get his first commission with an electricity company around 1918. This involved a small renovation of the headquarters of the Provinciale Geldersche Electriciteits-Maatschappij (PGEM), the villa Kraton on the Utrechtseweg in Arnhem. J.J. Fels was an electrical engineer at the Municipal Electricity Works of Nijmegen from 1908. In 1915 he succeeded the director of that company and 1922 he became chief engineer at the PGEM. From 1940, J.J. Fels was a member of the board of directors of the PGEM. Thanks in part to his brother, Fels received one major commission after another. For the PGEM in the 1920s he designed extensions to the power station in Nijmegen, which eventually received a completely new look in the style of the Hague School. In the same vein, he designed a series of electrical substations (switching and transformer stations) in Gelderland. In the early 1930s, Fels worked on two major commissions: the new Centrale Gelderland in Nijmegen and a complex with offices and laboratories for the N.V. Keuringsinstituut voor Electrotechnische Materialen in Arnhem. In the construction of power plants, he usually worked with Ingenieursbureau Dwars, Heederik and Verhey (DHV). Hendrik Fels and A.H. van Rood, who also worked for electricity companies, played a leading role in the industrial architecture of the 1920s and 1930s. They brought the modern architecture of the Hague School, with its geometric language of form, into large-scale practice for industrial buildings for the first time. Fels drew heavily on the examples of prominent colleagues such as J. Wils and W.M. Dudok. Apart from the architectural aspect, Fels's buildings were also very modern from the operational point of view. The latter was not so much the merit of himself as of his brother, who was an electrical engineer. At the PGEM, J.J. Fels introduced new types of substations based on American models and a new layout for power stations based on the example of Großkraftwerk Klingenberg in Berlin. After World War II, Fels' style developed in a business-traditionalist direction. This development was contrary to the general trend in industrial architecture, which was increasingly dominated by prefabrication and the use of concrete, steel and glass. His last major work was the Central Merwedehaven in Dordrecht. Cornelis van de Linde 1886-1941 C. van de Linde was born in Kloetinge as the fourth son in a farming family of five boys and one girl. In nearby Goes, he received part of his education at the drawing school; at a young age he joined the Municipal Works Department of Goes. This service was headed by city architect F.G.C. Rothuizen. At the age of twenty-two, Van de Linde left Kloetinge and went to work for the Utrecht architect E.G. Wentinck, who had begun a major restoration of Nijenrode Castle in Breukelen. Here Van de Linde learned building practice while acquiring his theoretical knowledge in an evening course. It was a common path for many later architects, especially those from simple backgrounds. In 1911 he passed the architectural supervisor exam of the Maatschappij tot Bevordering van de Bouwkunst. In 1913 he married Cornelis Jacoba Brinkhuis, a tailor's daughter from Rheden. When Wentinck finished his work at Nijenrode, Van de Linde joined architect K.P.C. de Bazel in 1917, where he became chef de bureau. This he remained until De Bazel's sudden death in 1923. Architects who, like De Bazel, emphatically presented themselves as architects/artists, more often than not attracted figures for the execution of their work who had a more sober view of the building trade. In most cases, both benefited from each other's opposite qualities. The theosophical reflections of the ex-Catholic De Bazel may have influenced a reformed Zeeuw. The little that Van de Linde wrote about building, by the way, does not show this. After completing the office of the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij on Vijzelstraat in Amsterdam, together with A.D.N. van Gendt, Van de Linde would execute another design by de Bazel, for a synagogue in Enschede. This time in collaboration with architect A.P. Smits with whom he had formed a firm in 1927. A year later, the firm received the commission to design an office building in the then Dutch East Indies for the Factorij Batavia of the Nederlandsche Handel Maatschappij N.V., opposite the new railway station, located in the old lower town of Batavia, now Jakarta. It was to be a monumental building of about 100x100 meters in a square shape. Together with technical advisor of the NHM J.J.J. de Bruyn, Van de Linde made an orientation trip to India in 1928, and the preliminary design was made. Construction began in the fall of 1929, and Van de Linde would supervise the entire construction for four years. Simultaneously, another office building was designed and executed for the NHM in Medan. After returning to the Netherlands, Van de Linde and his partner realized many more villas and country houses, especially in the Gooi and the dune region. He died in 1941. The country house architecture of Smits and Fels, and Smits and Van de Linde The style of Smits, Fels and Van de Linde is an outgrowth of resistance to the historicizing styles, such as neoclassicism and the Old Dutch style, which were widely used in country house building. They were inspired by the British country house. The English country house style was combined with contemporary architectural developments, as initiated by H.P. Berlage and others. Smits and Fels and Van de Linde were also interested in Dutch country houses. Besides Berlage, K.P.C. de Bazel was also important in the development of the Dutch country house. His principles were simplicity, craftsmanship and the incorporation of seventeenth and eighteenth-century influences, but without copying historical styles. Smits' great example in this regard was De Bazel's De Maerle house (1906). For Smits, Fels and Van de Linde, tradition and craftsmanship were important, but that did not mean that they lost sight of contemporary requirements. In terms of functionality, Smits, Fels and Van de Linde tried to position the living rooms so that they received plenty of sunlight. In doing so, they took into account the privacy of the residents. The floor plans of their houses are often asymmetrical, as are the facades. Other features include the use of brick with decorative masonry and stained glass windows. Furthermore, they paid great attention to the transitions from inside to outside through the use of loggias, covered entrances and terraces. With the country houses and villas, there are unmistakable English influences. The composite roofs of De Spranck and Duynrose are clear examples. Another English influence is the pursuit of horizontality. This is expressed in low, wide facades under wide overhanging roofs. The tall and thick chimneys are in some cases almost literal English quotations. The bay windows and the wide, low windows under the eaves are also borrowed from English examples. While Fels and Van de Linde focused mainly on architecture and sometimes called in garden architects for later works, Smits also made garden designs. Smits based his designs on the idea that the house, the interior and the garden should form one whole. This was best achieved when the architect would design everything himself. Because house and garden had to fit into their surroundings, Smits immersed himself in garden and landscape architecture. In 1930, he even wrote a manual for the construction of rock gardens. Town houses, surrounded by buildings, were best given a geometric garden, according to Smits. The garden of a country house, on the other hand, had to dissolve, as it were, into the surrounding nature. The transition from garden to landscape was achieved by stylized landscaping around the house with pergolas and terraces. A different approach was necessary for each country house because each country house had a different environment. 1. The information on Smits is taken from: M. Potter, Inventory of the Archives of A.P. Smits (1881-1957). Archives 1913-1938, NAi, Rotterdam 1999. 2. The information on H. Fels was taken from: J. Vredenberg, "Proud Castles and Luminous Halls. Architecture of Electricity Companies in the Netherlands until 1960, Utrecht 2003. 3. The information on C. van de Linde was taken from the ABN-AMRO archives in Weesp and the NHM archives at the National Archives in The Hague. Side activities: Nederlandsche Vereeniging voor Ambachts- en Nijverheidskunst/bestuurslid/1910-1914 (about);Bond van Nederlandse Architecten/bestuurslid/1910-1914 (about);Meubelfabriek Labor Omnia Vincit, Oosterbeek/free employee/1916-1935