Berend Tobia Boeyinga - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Berend Tobia Boeyinga was a Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

noted for his Calvinist church buildings and as a practicing member of the Amsterdam School

Amsterdam School

The Amsterdam School is a style of architecture that arose from 1910 through about 1930 in The Netherlands...

.

Boeyinga was the son of a Calvinist minister

Minister of religion

In Christian churches, a minister is someone who is authorized by a church or religious organization to perform functions such as teaching of beliefs; leading services such as weddings, baptisms or funerals; or otherwise providing spiritual guidance to the community...

. Boeyinga started his training as a carpenter and then as a draughtsman

Technical drawing

Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....

and a foreman. From 1909 until 1919 he studied in Amsterdam to become an architect. In this period he worked for two years at the office of Eduard Cuypers

Eduard Cuypers

Eduard Cuypers was a Dutch architect.Cuypers was trained in the architectural practice of his uncle P.J.H. Cuypers and in 1881 set up his own office in Amsterdam. His good contacts with businessmen earned him commissions for offices, shops and houses...

. Cuypers gave the architects working in his office considerable autonomy and Boeyinga, Johan van der Mey

Johan van der Mey

Johan Melchior van der Mey was a Dutch architect best known for the landmark Scheepvaarthuis building in Amsterdam located at Prins Hendrikkade, 1012....

, Piet Kramer

Piet Kramer

Pieter Lodewijk Kramer was a Dutch architect, one of the most important architects of the Amsterdam School ....

and Michel de Klerk

Michel de Klerk

Michel de Klerk was a Dutch architect.He was one of the founding architects of the movement Amsterdam School. Early in his career he worked for other architects, including Eduard Cuypers. Of his many outstanding designs, very few have actually been built...

, all of whom were more experimental than Cuypers himself, established the principle of what would later become known as the Amsterdam School

Amsterdam School

The Amsterdam School is a style of architecture that arose from 1910 through about 1930 in The Netherlands...

, while working there. Boeyinga then went on to work for Charles Estourgie and, from 1917 to 1921, for Michel de Klerk. During this period Boeyinga oversaw the construction of De Klerk's famous housing complexes at the Spaarndammerplantsoen in Amsterdam.

After the completion of his studies with a massive design for a government building in Amsterdam, the director of the municipal housing service, ir. Arie Keppler, asked Boeyinga to design new garden villages in Amsterdam-Noord, known today as Tuindorp Oostzaan

Tuindorp Oostzaan

Tuindorp Oostzaan is a neighborhood of Amsterdam, Netherlands....

and Tuindorp Nieuwendam

Tuindorp Nieuwendam

Tuindorp Nieuwendam is a neighborhood of Amsterdam, Netherlands....

. These projects are now 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

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

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

Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuijper generally known as Abraham Kuyper, was a Dutch politician, journalist, statesman and theologian...

, 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 Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

, John Calvin

John Calvin

John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...

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 1930s. 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

Rhenen

Rhenen is a municipality and a city in the central Netherlands.The municipality also includes the villages of Achterberg, Remmerden, Elst and Laareind. The town lies at a geographically interesting location, namely on the southernmost part of the chain of hills known as the Utrecht Hill Ridge ,...

and The Eusebiuskerk in Arnhem

Arnhem

Arnhem is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Nederrijn as well as near the St. Jansbeek, which was the source of the city's development. Arnhem has 146,095 residents as one of the...

, both heavily damaged during the war.

Buildings (Selected)

Garden village Oostzaan, Zonneplein Amsterdam-Noord, 1921–1924
Garden village Nieuwendam, Purmerplein / weg Amsterdam-Noord, 1923–1926
Church, Kloppersingel (destroyed 2003) Haarlem,1926–1927
Church Bergen (NH), 1926–1927
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
Pniël-church, Amsterdam, 1954

Buildings (Selected)

Further reading