Berend Tobia Boeyinga
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Berend Tobia Boeyinga (Noord-Scharwoude, 27 March 1886 - Amsterdam, 6 November 1969) was a Dutch architect who is important especially because of his Calvinist church buildings.
Boeyinga was the son of a Calvinist minister. Like so many architects Boeyinga started his training in practice, first as a carpenter, later as a draughtsman and a foreman. From 1909 until 1919 he studied in Amsterdam to become an architect. In this period he worked two years at the office of Eduard Cuypers, that by the long-term presence of architects such as Johan Melchior van de Mey, Pieter Kramer and Michel de Klerk would later become known as the maternity room of the Amsterdam School. After these two years Boeyinga worked for Charles Estourgie and, from 1917 until 1921, for Michel de Klerk. During this period Boeyinga was an overseer at the construction of De Klerk's famous housing complexes at the Spaarndammerplantsoen in Amsterdam.
After the completion of his study with a massive design for a government seat in Amsterdam, the director of the municipal housing service, ir. Arie Keppler, asked Boeyinga to design the proposed garden villages in Amsterdam-Noord, the current Tuindorp Oostzaan and Tuindorp Nieuwendam. Today these projects are considered highlights of Amsterdam school architecture, of which they represent a rural variant.
Not satisfied with the relative anonymity of his work as a municipal civil servant, and insufficiently harnassed against the developments in Amsterdam which would marginalise the municipal housing service, Boeyinga established himself as an independent architect in 1926. That year he built his first church, the Kloppersingelkerk in Haarlem, based on a design he had entered in a competition for a new Calvinist church in Amsterdam in 1923. The church was designed according to the ideas of Abraham Kuyper, leader of the denomination Boeyinga was a member of. The space had a fan-shaped floorplan with the pulpit at the centre. Stylistically the church was closely related to the Amsterdam School. There was some controversy about the inclusion of statues at the entrance of protestant leaders like Luther, Calvin and Kuyper. Since the church on 23 March 2003 was entirely destroyed by a dramatic fire , these statues are all that remain of the building. Although Boeyinga designed many more churches, the complexity of the Kloppersingelkerk was never repeated.
For the Vrije university in Amsterdam he built the famous laboratories in the 1930's. In that period he became involved in the training of architects, first as a teacher, later as the head of a school for architecture in Amsterdam. After the Second World War he was involved in restoration work, among others the Cuneratoren in Rhenen and The Eusebiuskerk in Arnhem , both heavily damaged during the war.
[edit] Buildings (Selected)
- Garden village Oostzaan, Zonneplein Amsterdam-Noord, 1921 - 1924
- Garden village Nieuwendam, Purmerplein / weg Amsterdam-Noord, 1923 - 1926
- Reformed church, Kloppersingel (destroyed 2003) Haarlem,1926 - 1927
- Reformed church Bergen (NH), 1926 - 1927
- Reformed church Bergen op Zoom, 1927 - 1928
- VU Laboratories Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1930 - 1932
- Restoration Cunera-church Rhenen, 1940 - 1963
- Restoration Eusebius-church Arnhem, 1946 - 1961
- Reformed Pniël-church, Amsterdam, 1954
[edit] Reference
[edit] Further reading
- Radboud van Beekum: B.T. Boeyinga, Amsterdamse School Architect, Thoth, Bussum, 2003
- Maristella Casciato, The Amsterdam School, Rotterdam, 1996
- G. Fanelli, Architettura moderna in Olanda 1900-1940, Florence, 1968
