(Essay by Patrick van Buijtenen; abridged version) J.F. Berghoef (1903-1994) Education and practice Johannes Fake Berghoef was born in Aalsmeer on February 14, 1903. His father was a textile trader and later an alderman in Aalsmeer. Berghoef went through elementary school there and then went to the H.B.S. in Amsterdam. He then worked as a "sapling" in the construction of the office for the Nederlandse Handelmaatschappij on Vijzelstraat in Amsterdam by K.P.C. de Bazel. It must also have been at this time that he saw a building by J.J.P. Oud, which helped make him decide to choose the profession of architecture. In 1921 he began his studies at the Technische Hogeschool in Delft with professors Evers and Klinkhamer. He passed his candidate exam in 1925 and then left the university to gain practical experience in his native village, Aalsmeer. In 1927 he returned to Delft but was called back after only six months to complete a large extension to the Aalsmeer flower auction, built in 1922 by M. de Klerk. This was to be his first major utilitarian structure. Berghoef remained based in Aalsmeer as an architect after this, and it would not be until 1946 that he received his engineering degree. At the end of 1970 he moved to Middelburg where he carried on the profession of architect and consultant until 1985, when he was 82 years old. He died on March 9, 1994, at the age of 91, after spending several years in a nursing home. Influences In 1924, M.J. Granpré Molière was appointed professor at TH Delft. He had garnered much admiration with his garden village Vreewijk in Rotterdam (1917), talked about the connection between architecture and urban planning and about the "beauty" in the profession. He must have really captured Berghoef's imagination. War In 1940, Berghoef became a member of the BNA. On Van Tijen's initiative, in collaboration with several members of the BNA, Merkelbach and Van Embden and Berghoef, the Studiekring voor de Woningbouw was illegally founded. The studies conducted here would help Dutch architects on their way with regard to public housing construction after the war. In 1946, Berghoef earned his engineering degree and, remarkably, in 1947 he was appointed professor of architectural formal theory at TH Delft. Here he succeeded his teacher Granpré Molière. On Oct. 15, 1947, he delivered his inaugural address. Reconstruction Partly because of his fame, acquired with the Amsterdam town hall competition, he received the commissions for the town halls of Aalsmeer and Hengelo (O.), among others. Here, as in his prewar designs for the Amsterdam town hall, he applied to a large extent his ideas acquired in Italy. In rebuilding the country, he was active on two fronts: both in restoring what had been destroyed and in building new homes. System construction To solve the great housing shortage after the war quickly and affordably, various system-building methods were developed. Berghoef also embarked on the path of one of these, although not entirely with conviction and confidence in the feasibility of the necessary architectural and urban design quality with such systems with respect to human dignity. He took the same position as the government, namely that because of the severe shortage of skilled construction workers and craftsmen, new construction methods should be sought to quickly bring the housing stock up to standard. Berghoef thought that this shortage of skilled construction workers would disappear again over time, but prefabrication became a trend that never disappeared from construction and the craftsman never returned. The building system Berghoef built with is the Nemavo-Airey system developed from the English prefabricated assembly system Airey. The adaptation and reworking of the Airey system took place in years of cooperation of the director of the Nemavo (Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Volkshuisvesting), Mr. M. van Saane, with Berghoef, Prof. ir. H.T. Zwiers and a large bevy of technicians from the Nemavo, de Vries Robbé and Betondak Arkel. In addition to the practice Berghoef combined practice with teaching for a long time. At the TH in Delft, he taught the course The Dwelling House in the second academic year and the course Architectural Design and Composition in the third academic year. Furthermore, together with Prof. G.H.M. Holt, he taught the third-year design exercises in designing residential houses. Later, residential neighborhoods and small public buildings were added. On April 15, 1969, Berghoef had been associated with the TH in Delft for 25 years, and on September 1, 1969, at his own request, he was honorably discharged as a professor. He gave his farewell lecture on June 6, 1969. Oeuvre and development Berghoef's oeuvre contains about 830 works, almost all of which were built. In addition, I have collected about 190 articles of which about 60 are by Berghoef. A few have appeared in book form. Berghoef's speeches often have a similar structure: from a historical perspective he makes his message clear. This is not so surprising if one looks at his oeuvre: always he tried to arrive at design solutions from tradition. In this way he justified the designs of the town halls of Aalsmeer and Hengelo (O.) and in 1980 he wrote several articles on urban planning in relation to human welfare. For his first works, Berghoef reverted to regional character. He drew inspiration from the work of the Scandinavian architects and the German architects Tessenow and Schmitthenner. These built very sober and simple: after the archetype of the house. For larger commissions he used the monumental and hierarchical style of the Italian Middle Ages and Renaissance, such as for the town hall competition in Amsterdam and later the town halls in Aalsmeer and Hengelo. Rhythm and harmony are two important architectural ordering principles here, which he emphasized in his classes at the TH in Delft after the war. In the system construction for houses, as Berghoef designed after the war to relieve the housing shortage, he also used these principles to make good houses with limited resources. The number of skilled construction workers was too small for the required housing production and did not increase, precisely because of the application of prefabrication and standardization on construction. In some larger restoration jobs, he did manage to perform the "old craft. But he did not only deal carefully with structures to be restored. He also carefully fitted new buildings into the existing environment. See for example the town hall in Naarden from 1984, one of his last works. Also characteristic of Berghoef's architecture is the use of brick. This material is specific to Dutch architecture and he often applied it in combination with a flat-faced joint. The facades of the office building for the ANWB in The Hague also feature brickwork. Here, however, it was applied to a facade element already prepared in the factory. The use of precast elements in this project goes even further: the concrete shell elements that form the roof of the office and public hall were pre-cast and then lifted into place. A final precast building is the office for the Provinciale Waterstaat Zeeland in Middelburg. These last major projects also show how Berghoef managed to develop a modern, monumental language rooted in tradition. Education: H.B.S.Aalsmeer/;TH Delft/1921-1925,1927-1946 Additional positions: At Granpré Molière at the TH (assistantship)/1935-1938; Kursus voor Voortgezet en Hoger Bouwkunstonderwijs (lecturer)/1936-1947; Editor of Bouwkundig Weekblad (editorial board member)/1937-1939; Department of Architecture TH Delft(secretary)/1948-1949; Department of Architecture TH Delft (chairman)/1949-1951; Committee for preparation of honorary doctorate Z.K.H. Prince Bernhard/1951; honorary doctorate J.J.P. Oud (promotor)/1955; promotion ir. P. Dijkema (promotor)/1960; farewell prof. Willem van der Pluym (chairman committee farewell)/1949; farewell prof. Dr. E.H. ter Kuile (chairman farewell committee)/1965; General Honorary Committee BNA (chairman)/1946-1948; Advisory Board on the choice of an architect BNA (member)/1952-1953; BNA circle Amsterdam (deken)/1965-1968; Welstandscommissie Velsen (member)/1980 (about); advisory committee municipality Middelburg/1962 (about) Honors: Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion/1961; honorary citizen of Aalsmeer/1962; BNA cube/1982