Klerk, Michel de
Bibliography
Bock et al. (1997);
Fanelli (1968);
S. Frank (1984);
Millon & and Nochlin (1978);
Pehnt (1973);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Sharp (1967)
De Klerk, Michel
DE KLERK, MICHEL
DE KLERK, MICHEL (1884–1923), Dutch architect. Born in Amsterdam, De Klerk became a leader of the architectural movement known as the "Amsterdam School." This school, which flourished from early in the century to the mid-1920s, proclaimed the beauty of unadorned materials and surfaces. Individual idiosyncrasy was encouraged, resulting in a rich variety of forms, and an Expressionist idiom was evolved, comparable to that developed in Germany during the same period.
The Amsterdam School became widely known through a series of low-cost housing projects. From 1911 onward De Klerk was engaged in designing workers' houses for the Eigen Haard Estate in the suburb of Amsterdam-Oost. The housing blocks were horizontal in emphasis, broken by sudden verticals, echoing the Dutch landscape. The use of brickwork created a richness of texture. Other features were the strangely shaped roofs with curious projections and whimsical details such as corner oriels in the shape of barrels. Despite the element of fantasy, the total effect of the scheme was quiet and controlled with a human warmth rare in the workers' housing schemes of the period.
bibliography:
H.R. Hitchcock, Architecture, 19th and 20th centuries (1958), 357–9; Roth, Art, 734–5; R. Banham, Guide to Modern Architecture (1962), 53–56.