(abridged version Bonas Essay) A. Eibink and J.A. Snellebrand With their 1916 design, just after graduation, for a village church in Elshout, architects Adolph Eibink (1893-1975) and Jan Antonie Snellebrand (1891-1963) would achieve international fame. A number of early works by these two architects are among the most expressive designs produced by the Amsterdam School. What makes these designs special is that the structures are integrated into a whole in terms of both construction and sculpture. Eibink and Snellebrand remained active as architects until the 1950s. Between the World Wars, they designed such notable structures as the VARA studio. After World War II, each continued independently. Eibink once again managed to find a contemporary form: buildings with an expressive form that emerged logically from construction and organization. Snellebrand managed to realize a small monument of international significance with his last design, the Willem Dreeshuis in Amsterdam. In addition, both played an important role in the architectural establishment, both in the Genootschap Architectura et Amicitia and in architectural education;Snellebrand was a lecturer and then director of the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. Jan Antonie Snellebrand junior was born March 11, 1891, and Adolph Eibink was born December 28, 1893, both in Amsterdam. Together with Snellebrand, Eibink would design a new facade for Eibink's father's bakery in 1938. The drawings indicated that it was an "electric bread bakery. The collaboration between Eibink and Snellebrand came about when they met at the Quellinus arts and crafts school. Snellebrand had already trained as a furniture draughtsman and continued his studies by training as an architectural draughtsman. During the last two years of the course, Eibink and Snellebrand were in the same class. Their first joint design from 1916, the competition design for a village church in Elshout, would eventually bring them international fame. Although it was never executed, it is cited in much literature as a striking example of Amsterdam School architecture. In Eibink and Snellebrand's early designs, we see many natural, organic forms. The executed designs of Eibink and Snellebrand are much tighter in appearance. Starting in 1929, we see a new direction in their design style: tight geometric facades and rectangular floor plans based on good organization of use. The design for the expansion of the VARA studios (1930) has a special character. The complex consists of austere, rectangular building parts, plastered white, with windows with thin profiles and stairs and balconies executed with steel railings. The design of the studio came about after an extensive analysis of the studios of the BBC in London and those of Rundfunk in Berlin. This line of austere, geometric buildings was continued in three school designs for the Stichting Neutrale Volksschool in Heerlen, Geleen and Hoensbroek (1931-1932). World War II meant discontinuation of the architectural firm for Eibink and Snellebrand. Eibink actively opposed the institution of the Kultuurkamer. As of 1942, he was imprisoned. Snellebrand stayed in Amsterdam during the war and worked as a member of the air protection service. After World War II, Snellebrand became a lecturer at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. Although the architectural firm continued under the old name for several years after the war, the last design on the specification drawings shows only Eibink's signature. Eibink continued as an independent architect. His designs are sometimes austere and sober, such as the housing complexes from the Reconstruction, but are also characterized by a formal design and decorative elements. He also built several churches in Zeeland. At the end of his career he worked together with J. Brouwer. When Eibink retired as an architect in 1957, Brouwer took over the office from him. Snellebrand became a lecturer at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam in 1946. In 1951, he became director. He made an important contribution to the renewal of education. He also encouraged his students to travel extensively, including during their studies. Snellebrand organized many study trips. To pay for this, he established a fund that would enable students to go on trips. This Snellebrand Study Trip Fund Foundation still exists today. When he quit as director in 1961, he still remained associated with the Academy. Until his death in 1963, he engaged in the inventory of the archives. With their first design of a village church in Elshout, Eibink and Snellebrand brought an important innovation within the prevailing architecture of the Amsterdam School. They approached their design tasks as sculptures, in which each part was to be subordinate to the formal expression of the whole. What was new, however, as with the church in Elshout, was that the construction became an explicit part of that formal expression. They would never again achieve a reaction such as this first joint work produced. Nevertheless, their later oeuvre also deserves attention, as Snellebrand's already mentioned Willem Dreeshuis and also the austere, formal design of Eibink's high-rise blocks in Overtoomseveld, also in Amsterdam, which now appear surprisingly modern again, clearly show. ... Eibink did much for the Genootschap Architectura et Amicitia both before and after World War II; his resistance during the German occupation to the equalization of Dutch cultural life landed him in captivity. Snellebrand, first as a lecturer at the Academy of Architecture and later as director, gave architectural education a new direction. The articles they both wrote show two very different personalities. Eibink was primarily the philosophically minded thinker with a broad vision of what architecture should be. As was already evident from his attitude during the occupation, he was primarily interested in a climate in which architecture and culture in general could thrive. As a person, he was a modest, unassuming man, but with a very broad knowledge, which he was able to articulate very well in the articles he wrote. Snellebrand was more hands-on: someone who looked around carefully and reacted directly to what he saw and felt. The tone of Snellebrand's articles is very different from Eibink's, freer, looser, more poetic, especially in the captions to the sketches he published. Eibink reasoned, Snellebrand tried to depict what he saw and felt as directly as possible. And his descriptions show that he was particularly interested in how buildings functioned. Exactly how their division of labor was unclear. What is certain is that Eibink was well versed in the field of construction. Snellebrand was presumably more the practical designer with much attention to how people interact with the objects in their environment; during his training as a furniture draughtsman, he was trained in this early on. In the design of the VARA studio, something of a mix of different views can be seen for the first time: the main design is modern, the program logically divided into a number of linked building sections, but in the elaboration one sees both business and formal elements. After they had each continued on their own after the war, their housing projects from the 1940s and early 1950s show clear differences; Eibink designed traditional row houses, while Snellebrand, for example in the single-family houses in Slotermeer with the porches, alternating with outside storerooms at the front, managed to adapt the floor plan. In the larger projects, the differences between the two become clearer; presumably here they had more opportunities to show what they were actually after. With Eibink we see this, for example, in the churches, in the projects for Verkade and in the high-rise in Overtoomse Veld. In all these projects one of the main characteristics of the church recurs for Elshout: an expressive form, which finds its basis in the construction and organization of the structure. Education: Kunstnijverheidsschool Quellinus Amsterdam (furniture drawing department)/1906-1910;Kunstnijverheidsschool Quellinus Amsterdam (architectural drawing department)/1911-1913 Additional positions: Architectura et Amicitia/member/1911-1942;Architectura et Amicitia/member/1946-1962;Architectura et Amicitia/board member/1935-1938;Competition Architectura et Amicitia Design Study 3 beach pool/jurorymember/1933;Study competition for students on the occasion of 50th anniversary of VHBO study resort in Gooi near IJsselmeer/juror/member/1958;Academy of Architecture Amsterdam/teacher/1946;Academy of Architecture Amsterdam/director/1951.10.01-1962;Forum/redactielid/1951-1960;Architectura et Amicitia/redactielid/1921-1922; Honors: silver medal awarded by the government for the outstanding student in the fourth year furniture drawing department at the Quellinus School of Arts and Crafts/1910;silver medal awarded by the government for the outstanding student in the fourth year architectural drawing department at the Quellinus School of Arts and Crafts/1913;appointment as a Delegate Member of the Society of Architectura et Amicitia/1920