BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Joseph Crouwell was born on March 15, 1885, the son of Catharina Elisabeth Pohlmeijer and Joseph Crouwel Sr. The actual family name was Crouwel, but it was changed when his grandfather was born in 1817 on a ship sailing from England to the Netherlands. The captain on the ship acted as registrar and wrote Crouwel in English: Crouwell. In signatures, the architect used the two names interchangeably. Sometimes he signed his drawings with J. Crouwell, other times with J. Crouwel (jr.). Especially in the early days of his career, when making study drawings, he used the "English" version of his name. Crouwell began his education in 1899 at the Quellinusschool in Amsterdam, an arts and crafts school where he attended architectural classes until 1902. In the same city, he attended the Academie voor Voortgezet en Hooger Bouwkunstonderricht. There he was taught, among others, by architect K.P.C. de Bazel, at whose architectural office he also gained practical experience. In addition, A. Jacot, J.W. Hanrath, and H.P. Berlage employed Crouwell. From 1911, Crouwell established himself as an independent architect in Amsterdam. Several designs for residential houses and a number of competition designs date from that period. In 1908 he won first prize for the design of an entrance to a park, and in the same year he won the Godon competition, organized by the Architectura et Amicitia society, with a paneling for a study room. At Willemspark in Amsterdam, where architects such as Berlage and De Bazel had also built, a triple house by Crouwell's hand was built in 1914. At this time he was also engaged in designing furniture. He drew interiors for various competitions, such as for 't Woonhuis in Amsterdam. He also worked on private commissions and had furniture manufactured by the L.O.V., a furniture factory in Oosterbeek where Crouwell was a "free employee" between 1916 and 1935, particularly in the 1920s. In 1917, Crouwell entered the competition for the Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam and won third prize. When Crouwell was appointed architect at the Rijksgebouwendienst that same year, his most productive period began. From 1920, he was deputy government architect under government architect H.Th. Teeuwisse. Crouwell became the successor to C.H. Peters and was responsible for the Landsgebouwen First District, consisting of the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, Overijssel, Gelderland, Utrecht and North Holland. Teeuwisse had employed three young architects: C.J. Blaauw, Crouwell and J.M. Luthmann. They produced the designs and were also required to supervise the firm's architectural officers, who were responsible for the elaboration and detailing of the plans and the production of specifications and budgets. Crouwell served as deputy government architect and was in charge of architecture; on a number of occasions Teeuwisse still made the layout plan, but left the design of interior and exterior to Crouwell. The main post offices of Utrecht and Haarlem and the telegraph office in Arnhem, which was destroyed during World War II, would become Crouwell's best-known buildings. In addition, he mainly designed many small post and telegraph offices and two buildings for the Veeartsenijkundige Hogeschool in Utrecht and a Rijks-HBS. For inspiration, Crouwell traveled to Finland, Sweden and Germany in the 1920s at the expense of the Government Buildings Agency. There he made drawings of post offices and other buildings and bought architecture books, whose illustrations served as study materials. Crouwell was fascinated by the architecture of Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, and his post offices reflect that influence. Often Crouwell worked with the same artists in the construction of his post offices. Sculptor H.A. van den Eijnde, who was a permanent employee of the Rijksgebouwendienst between 1921 and 1923, designed sculptures for several post offices, including those in Haarlem and Arnhem. The stained glass windows were often made by artist R.N. Roland Holst, with whom Crouwell maintained an extensive correspondence. For representative photography of his architecture, Crouwell chose the photographer who also worked for Dudok: C.A. Deul of Hilversum. Deul and Crouwell corresponded with each other for a long time. In 1947, Crouwell was appointed chief architect. He continued to work for the Government Buildings Agency until the end of 1950. In the following four years, Crouwell worked on a project basis and completed several more ongoing projects. In the literature, Crouwell's work from the 1920s is usually placed with the architecture of the Amsterdam School, but within this he is characterized as an architect with his own handwriting. The cathedral hall of the Utrecht post office, with its roof stretched in a parabola - a common motif of the Amsterdam School - garnered much admiration from other architects and critics. The post offices in Arnhem and Haarlem reminded architectural critics of the Scheepvaarthuis in Amsterdam, and the two brick buildings for the Veeartsenijkundige Hogeschool also fit into the formal language of the Amsterdam School, according to the literature, because of the semicircular extensions and the typical symbolic ornamentation. However, Crouwell only built in this manner during a particular period, namely when he worked with Blaauw and Luthmann under Teeuwisse. In the mid-1920s Crouwell abandoned the round brick forms and, influenced by the ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright, built the business HBS in Harlingen and the Money Office in Amsterdam. The latter building did not acquire such a functional character until the second design phase. Due to money problems, Crouwell had to drop the total decorative program. In the end, he drew a completely different building without any ornamentation, resembling in nothing the first drawings he had put on paper. Other designs also had to change due to lack of money. In the post office in Utrecht a stained glass window by artist R.N. Roland Holst was not installed and there was no more money for the sculptures of Hildo Krop , in Haarlem the building of a monumental tower was abandoned. On the basis of the presentation drawings in the archive, one can still see how the post office with the imposing tower could have become.