PROLOGUE

In 1918, Michiel Brinkman was commissioned to design

housing for two blocks in the Spangen polder in
Rotterdams northwestern fringe. The plan for the polder,
provided in schematic form by J. de Jonge in 1903,
promoted housing development through dense
configurations of perimeter enclosure with interior stairs
and single-floor dwelling units. These housing blocks
were seen as uniform, whole blocks that combined to
create a monumental, as opposed to a picturesque, urban
landscape. Various architects commissioned to design
housing in Spangen, including the newly-appointed City
Housing Architect J.J.P. Oud, proceeded with projects that
met these expectations. However, since Brinkman had
not been active in housing design to that point in his
practice, nobody anticipated the radical departures he
proposed for his assigned blocks and then defended as
necessary to the social reconstruction of the Dutch city.
His design, known as Justus van Effenstraat, enclosed
both blocks within a single, but broken, perimeter
building, included significant communal facilities and,
most contentiously, proposed a gallery or elevated street
that ran over 1000 meters long to give access upper level
units. While Brinkman considered these qualities subtle,
others thought it a strong departure that might destroy the
urban concept of connecting the new district to the
existing city. Indeed, the distinction he sought
emphasized the futility he felt toward housing proposals
being made at that time and the necessity for an
alternative which promised a new life.
Ever pragmatic, Brinkman sought to reconcile the
collectivity of the enclosed block with an increasing
desire for individuality as proposed in the garden city
concept. Although usually seen as a benchmark in Dutch
objectivity (labeled New Building [Nieuwe Bouwen
], Justus van Effenstraat also presents an example of
Brinkmans application of Theosophical studies. As a
leader in the Dutch Theosophical movement, Brinkman
saw the careful observing of lifeeveryday life as the
container of meaningas central to his attempt to
ransform society. This approach distanced him from
other architects in the Theosophical Society, particularly
the Vhana Lodge in Amsterdam, which focused on
abstract, numeric and geometric systems to achieve a
universal aesthetic that would evolve new connections
to the dormant potential of humans through abstract
means. For Brinkman, maintaining a clear objective
purpose while emphasizing the particular, individual
ability to live provided the stimulus for design to touch
spirit.
ABSTRACTION AND THEOSOPHY:
SOCIAL HOUSING IN ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Ken Lambla
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Figure 1. Aerial photograph showing a portion of the Spangen
polder. Justus van Effenstraat is located upper-center with
newly painted white walls inside the courtyard. J. J. P. Ouds
projects are to the right and above; alcove-dwellings in the
foreground with pitched roofs.
He was not alone among architects at this time in the
Netherlands searching for alternative social and spiritual
goals in spite of Dutch neutrality during World War I.
Through the debate over the Stock Exchange competition
(1885-1898) in Amsterdam, H.P. Berlage fought hard to
instill confidence in a modern, rational approach to
counter the comfort gained through eclecticism. Berlage
also spoke at length and with elaborate conviction from
the 1880s about the loss of transcendent values
architecture suffered since the Renaissance. Other Dutch
architects such as J.L.M. Lauweriks, K.P.C. de Bazel, and
H.J.M. Walenkamp joined Berlage in a call for a
practical aesthetics, but it was Berlage who insisted that
the architect who abandons style in favor of geometry
loses unity in diversity.
Berlage was not a Theosophist, but these uniquely Dutch
debates about the significance and application of rational
systems are central to Brinkmans concern about the
increasingly distant way in which occupants of Rotterdam
related to each other. As opposed to the Beaux Arts
design models he learned from Henri Evers at the
Rotterdam academy, the Academie voor Beeldende
Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen, Brinkman sought
to engage a form of social realism and human contact at
Justus van Effenstraat.
Brinkman envisioned a process whereby opening the
perimeter block, providing places of meeting, and
creating a second street in the form of the gallery, might
unify the occupants. For the Theosophist each instance
was an opportunity to reveal oneself and be exposed to
other people. This unveiling is a precondition to
brotherhood.
His was not a behaviorist dream or functionalist
maneuver, but an impetus to enact individual will within
the collective unity of the community. This process might
appear to follow the function of geometric abstraction as
described by fellow Theosophist and painter Piet
Mondrian: Abstraction is the reducing of (individual)
particularities to their intrinsic universal aspect.
1
However, whereas Mondrian sought to distance himself
from the concrete, and therefore subjective, condition
of humankind, Brinkman sought total immersion in the
fabric of life and all its willfulness.
As happened in the case of Justus van Effenstraat,
abstraction in architecture was quite distinct from
abstraction in art; the operation (mutation) may appear
similar, but the impetus and process differ. Brinkmans
search for universal or absolute value in architecture
is dependent on the everyday life of its occupants. Within
this everyday life, occupants tangle with layers of
architectural determinacy, both spiritual and material. To
them life occurs as small steps and occasions rather than
as transcendent leaps into new horizons.
OCCUPYING JUSTUS VAN EFFENSTRAAT
In 1921 the new residents began moving into Justus van
Effenstraat. They were, according to one of the first
residents, carefully chosen to live in this project due to
its radical form and social intent.
2
The criteria for
residency combined income, political affiliation, family
stability, and progressiveness. Civil servants and factory
workers (both were recognized as not being part of the
lowest class in the Netherlands) were chosen by the City
Housing Department for what was considered some of the
best housing available in Rotterdam.
3
The residents of Rotterdam were good merchants, and
even better workers, thus frugality and conviviality were
measured as a cost by occupants, developers, architects,
and politicians alike. In a 1921 survey by H.P. Berlage of
contemporary examples of social housing, the plan type
and costs for various projects built since 1915 in Holland
were presented and compared. Most projects kept rents
low, usually around f 4.00 per week, while those proposed
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 2
Figure 2. Photograph of the interior court of Justus van
Effenstraat showing the central bath and laundry building and
gallery, with shops on the ground level.
in Spangen by J.J.P. Oud (the newly-appointed City
Housing architect, by recommendation of Berlage) and
Brinkman were f 5.50 to f 6.75 per week.
4
To build at
this cost difference one had to believe that architecture
promoted a better life.
Opposing these new social housing projects were
developer-built, perimeter- or row-blocks with alcove
units, defined by the lack of a separate room for sleeping
and common stairwells. Developers could sell vertical
sections of the city when market conditions were good or
when maintenance had been deferred beyond repair.
However, these designs ignored the traditional, direct
connection between dwelling and street. As a result,
residents turned to hanging out of front windows to
survey and thus live on the street, a practice eschewed
as uncivilized (and unsafe) by housing officials. The
common stairs made public the political affinity of the
occupants. Socialist residents, popular but not powerful,
were easily identified by the pamphlets seen in open mail
slots or spread across the common stairs for retrieval.
At Justus van Effenstraat, each resident had their own,
private door to the street, whether on the ground or on the
raised gallery and the size and sill height of windows
were designed to maximize natural lighting and
ventilation but also to restrict potential window hanging
so prevalent in older housing districts. In addition,
sleeping alcoves were replaced by isolated bedrooms
accessed by internal, private stairs.
Brinkman had provided a powerful design that promoted
social change, especially for those in the socialist
movement in this city of workers. Early residents
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 3
Figure 3. General plan of the Spangen polder showing Justus van Effenstraat project plan at left (inside box), surrounded by projects
designed by J. J. P. Oud. Plan dated 1939. Note Ouds project, Witte Dorp in Oud-Mathensee to the left, and his repetitive blocks,
Tusschendijken bottom, center. Also note the Van Nelle Factory at the top by Brinkman and Van der Vlugt (1925).
generally applauded the controversial broken perimeter
block, courtyard, elevators, common bath and laundry,
individual garbage chutes, shops, central heating plant,
front-door delivery of milk and vegetables, and 3000 foot
long gallery. These attributes provided for common,
everyday contacts that brought individual residents to
acknowledge their social potential in the form of concrete
engagement, interdependence, and visibility. For
example, the central bathhouse was used almost
continuously; working shifts at nearby docks and factories
made for constant need and the habit of bathing on
Saturdays that has survived until today. These contacts
depicted life as fully integrated. This would appear to
fulfill the simple promise of the selection criteria, but
occupying Justus van Effenstraat also confirmed that
outside the self was a dimension of diversity (even
chaos!) that was connected with inside. The home was
separate, but not secular, and residents saw in this duality
the potential for continuity in both social and spiritual
terms. The Theosophist spoke in similar manner of
exoteric as expounding intellect, defended by reason,
with the esoteric as the inner dimension of truth to
Spirit.
Thus, residents of Justus van Effenstraat were alternately
viewed as appropriate families, those who could
demonstrate that changes in society were possible through
physical arrangement; and those who might be
predisposed, possessing gezelligheid, which expresses a
feeling of social contentment or comfort.
5
This quiet
confidence pervaded each exposure, contact, or
presentation of self within the courtyard and on the
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 4
gallery; and the loose enclosure defined by the opened
court, vehicular access and raised walkway (gallery) was
equated with sociability by residents. It was no wonder
that photographs of families sitting or engaging the cart
men on the gallery were used to exemplify the success of
the project.
Justus van Effenstraat presented a potential confluence
or conflictat the time of its occupancy. Would the will
of the residents, who confronted a European community
continually assailed as problematic due to rising
individualism, persist against the ultimate, and idealistic,
intent of an architect, Michiel Brinkman, and his client,
A. Plate, President of City Housing Services?
Figure 4. Existing alcove housing in the Spangen polder, back
side view opposite Justus van Effenstraat.
Figure 5. Residents use the gallery as a public space and, in
some cases, as an extension of their living quarters.
DEBATING JUSTUS VAN EFFENSTRAAT
City officials and other architects expected that in his
design of Justus van Effenstraat (begun in 1916)
Brinkman would follow the plan for the Spangen district
made in 1906, conforming to the primacy of the street
pattern by laying out two perimeter blocks with well-
designed public facades and relatively narrow, private
courtyards.
6
However, Brinkman and Plate presented
something quite radical: one large block, broken in
various places to access an interior courtyard; doors
facing inwards; a common washing and bathing house
at the center; and, connected by seven common stairwells,
a gallery at the second level which brought the street to
half of the houses in the air. Plate reflected, in 1941, on
the intentions of his only built work with Brinkman: The
invisible world in which beauty lies hidden must again be
able to establish contact with the regions in which
everyday temporary happenings take place. . . . Everyday
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 5
life should be interwoven with beauty to such an extent
that there is no room for the idea of art. For that, art is
too special, it limits the domain of beauty.
7
In 1942
Plate reiterated, A universal religious atmosphere should
penetrate our everyday life. Society will have to be free
from that which impedes the ties with supersensual
influences.
8
These statements reveal why in Rotterdam,
a city of workers run by conservative businessmen,
Plates appointment was a surprise. His commitment to
social harmony through new forms of collective housing
was not only against the tradition of alcove housing
development but also opposed the use of land for garden
suburbs, which had begun in the Heyplaat area of
Rotterdam in 1914. But Plate had considerable
connections established through his father-in-law, a
former mayor of Rotterdam, and his presentation of
scientific categories of housing need justified the
rationale.
Figure 6. Site plan prepared by Brinkman for Justus van Effenstraat (1918). The bath and laundry block are at the center with
adjacent shops on the ground floor. The gallery on the second floor connects all the parts and was originally accessed by seven
stairs and one elevator.
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 6
The public debate about housing in Spangen predated the
design of Justus van Effenstraat by Brinkman. In 1916,
Socialist city council member Hendrik Spiekman argued
that municipal urban development was essential since
private developers could neither meet demand nor strive
for improving conditions under the alcove dwelling
model, which continued to be built until 1937.
9
Brinkmans idea would prove to be just the housing
model Spiekman sought, although he died in 1917 before
seeing its final design. By turning its back on the street it
became a miniature city; Bakema would later called it ". .
. a large house with many apartments.
10
It realized the
dream of socialistic, communal housing policy, while at
the same time demonstrating Plates search for a scientific
basis of matching unit type with family size as the
prerequisite for a truly modern architecture (Justus van
Effenstraat had 264 dwellings with 17 different,
sometimes complicated, unit plans).
11
The debate was furious and demonstrated how distant the
goals of Brinkman and Plate were, and the resonance of
the demands made by Spiekman (who had died in 1917 at
the age of 43). On February 13, 1920, the Rotterdam
City Council first saw the plans of Michiel Brinkman,
along with other proposals for further development in
Spangen polder. By that time the projects by J.J.P. Oud
were under construction on adjacent blocks. The council
requested proof, on April 9, 1920, to establish the
suitability of the gallery-street.
12
But the criticism
went much further. By then the complex was feared by
conservative and liberal members of Council alike: the
gallery was considered a no mans land that would
require constant policing for garbage and young lovers
exploits on the stairways; household arguments would
spill out onto the gallery only to conflict with its use for
deliveries and playing; merchants carts could not pass
each other because of the gallerys narrow width; the
whole complex, with its flat roof, was un-Dutch and
would look too much like a barracks. Each critical voice
was a signal for the primacy of individual occupant and
idiosyncratic everyday life.
During the April 15, 1920, discussion preceding formal
approval of Justus van Effenstraat, Social-Democratic
Councilman A.W. Heijkoop defended the project as a
specific social-democratic invention. His statement
would later prove fatal to his political career. Heijkoop
had been to Germany to study new housing models in an
effort to find an acceptable substitute to privately
developed alcove housing. The invention was in the
form of projects that emphasized collectivity through
common facilities and spaces. This stood in stark contrast
to another prevailing counterproposal in the form of the
Vreewijk garden suburb, whose street plan was initially
laid out by H.P. Berlage in 1916. While the garden
suburb presented an anti-urban environment appealing to
people who had just moved from the countryside, some
politicians and businessmen argued for the future
industrial city. In September, 1920, Heijkoop argued for
a second open-court, raised-gallery project for Spangen,
this one designed by the architect P.G. Buskens.
Surprisingly, both observers and supporters of Brinkman
and Plates experiment were not yet prepared to
relinquish the credibility of private developers or promote
such ideal social plans until Justus van Effenstraat had
been proven. By 1922, Buskens was forced to redesign
his project to a perimeter-block scheme with private
interior courts and Heijkoop resigned from City Council.
Evident throughout this debate is the dilemma of
individual control and the representation of collective,
unifying thought. Michiel Brinkman, by the time of this
commission an experienced, well-known architect,
portrayed Justus van Effenstraat as a search for, a small
step forward where he ". . . tried a few of the advantages
of a single-family house within the conditions given and
the current (perceived and actual) conditions of the city
(i.e., a long road, building societies, dwelling number).
He saw this work as an evolution in seeking balance for
the urban dweller in a tumultuous environment. This is a
crucial distinction from the invention proclaimed by
Heijkoop, which distanced - almost abstractly - the
particular contribution the project offered. For Heijkoop,
Spangen existed as a radical experiment that would
literally model future behavior.
Justus van Effenstraat, in fact social housing in general,
presented the opportunity to debate the distinction
between human will (abstraction, scientific method, and
invention) and ultimate progress (ideal, self-
consciousness). Herein lies a parallel with Theosophy, if
only in the sense that its idealism depends upon the
human experience in various forms.
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 7
URBANISM AND ARCHITECTURE
The design of Justus van Effenstraat contributed to a new
optimism about architectural design and society. In
addition, it fostered a simmering debate about the
relations between residents and the street in the city.
Reports about the project claimed it as a key symbol in
the Nieuwe Bouwen: it changed the relationship between
household unit and the public realm, moved the street into
the air, and provided a poignant example of
Functionalisms purpose and application. It would be a
serious error, however, to see these strategies as unified in
either their point of origin or result. Brinkman struggled
with the balance between the monumental effect of Justus
van Effenstraat and the centrality of the individual
occupant as viewer of the city. These were the same
concerns being professed by H.P. Berlage in his work on
the Amsterdam urban extension plans during those years
Brinkman was traveling there for Theosophical Society
meetings.
Brinkmans acquaintance with H.P. Berlage is almost
assured. By 1918, when Brinkman was working in
earnest on Justus van Effenstraat, the social program of
Berlages plan for Amsterdam-South had been recently
approved and van Epens first blocks were being
constructed. By then Berlage had been passed over in the
competition for the Rotterdam City Hall (1912) for
reasons primarily associated with his being a recognized
socialist, but had been working in Rotterdam on Vreewijk
garden suburb (1916). Additionally, in 1918 Berlage
was invited to design the monument to the socialist
Spiekman on the P.C. Hooftplein in Spangen, and
published his influential Normalisatie in Woningbouw
in Rotterdam.
13
In this work Berlage asserts the social
conscience of architecture through ". . . universality,
regularity, zakelijkheid, and constructive rationalism.
14
While Justus van Effenstraat was being occupied in 1922,
Berlage argued for a new plan he had prepared for the
Hofplein in Rotterdam before a committee of architects
including Brinkman, Buskens, and Meischke and
Schmidt.
15
Also in 1918, the young J.J.P. Oud was appointed as
Chief Architect of City Housing Services, and served in
this position until 1933. At the same time as Brinkman,
Oud designed housing blocks on all three sides (on the
fourth was a canal) surrounding Justus van Effenstraat
and in the nearby area of Tusschendijken (1920); all of
this housing was of a perimeter block type, confirming
both the attention to city spaces and the strict separation
of social spaces. In these projects he makes a first
attempt at artistic integration by employing Gerrit
Rietveld to design furnishings for a Spangen model home,
and Theo Van Doesburg to consult on exterior bands
above the plinth and door.
16
From his position as Chief
Architect, Oud was able to view and discuss other
projects with Plate, namely Brinkmans.
Independently, Oud and Berlage presented images of the
city unified by an abstract device, what Oud would later
call a poetic functionalism. They sought unity through
calculated control and coherence, which limited the urban
experience to the disposition of objects. They were less
romantic than Camillo Sitte (although Berlage was deeply
interested), and more influenced by Peter Behrens and
A.E. Brinckman, with the attempt to integrate art and
architecture resulting in the buildings preciousness,
untouched by the dirty hands of the user. Unity came
to be seen not as a conjoining of inside and outside but,
rather, what the housing blocks were in themselves,
isolated.
Although Brinkman and Berlages direct association is
unconfirmed, the developing program for housing in
Rotterdam was certainly of mutual concern. By 1923,
Brinkman had designed four new housing projects. None
contained galleries and all were closed, perimeter blocks.
In the same year he became an aesthetic adviser for the
development of the Mathenesserweg, the principle
boulevard connecting Rotterdam-West (including
Spangen) with the older part of the city. Perhaps
Figure 7. The interior courtyard at one of Ouds perimeter blocks
at Tussendijken.
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 8
Berlages influence convinced Brinkman of the superior
significance of the bouwblok the impression of which
unifies and beautifies the social order. This order forced
the spiritual further inward, both in denial of the
individual architects expression and in the residents
acceptance of a clear distinction between inside and
outside (private courtyard and public street). The opened
block of Justus van Effenstraat was courageous not
because of a grand socialist ideal of Brinkman, but
because of his confidence that the transition could be
made by the occupants between inner thought and
outwardness, experience, and contact. This is an
important difference, but one overlooked in subsequent
abstractions of collective housing and everyday life.
PRAGMATISM AND THEOSOPHY
Against the irrational fear that the collective character of
the Justus van Effenstraat block would lead to alienation
and misconduct stood the pragmatism of Michiel
Brinkman. By the time he began work on Justus van
Effenstraat, Brinkman had developed an extensive
practice and network of civic positions. He was educated
by the future, albeit controversial, winner of the
Rotterdam City Hall competition, Henri Evers, at the
Academy of Plastic Arts and Technical Science.
Through Evers, Brinkman was exposed to a rationally-
based curriculum using Cuypers and Viollet-le-Duc as
background to what would evolve into a practical
classicism.
17
Neither the courtyard or the gallery was
unusual in this formal oeuvre of Brinkman or to
Rotterdam. (He seems unaware of the proliferation of
both courtyard and gallery schemes in the United
Kingdom and in the form of the familistre in Belgium.)
Brinkman had also completed significant industrial
projects, designing warehouses, grain silos, and factories,
which brought him into contact with many of Rotterdams
most important business and civic leaders. He, unlike the
excessively socialist Berlage, was among those invited
in 1912 to the City Hall competition. He also belonged to
many professional organizations, De Rotterdamsche
Kring (The Rotterdam Circle) and De Opbouw (The
Builders) being the best known. These helped him to
look out for the city of Rotterdam.
Brinkman conceived of his work as a contribution to the
life of the citizens, whom he saw as his neighbors. In
Justus van Effenstraat there was a clear attempt to
demonstrate an essence or naturalistic pragmatism
that improved both individual and collective lives. This,
however, was not dogmatically or theoretically pressed
upon the occupants; they were to realize, through
common necessity, the opportunity that lay before them.
Necessity, however, was not simple or direct convienence
or proximity.
Pragmatism, for Brinkman, was represented through
thought and gesture as seen in the basic layout of Justus
van Effenstraat. Rather than designing two separate
housing blocks, Brinkman sought to make the back side
more pleasant and increase the depth of each unit. The
blocks assigned to Brinkman were longitudinal to the
north-south axis, thus by opening the interior, more
natural light was available. The gallery permitted
everyone visual and acoustic access to the interior
garden.
18
He wrote, It is in the integrated facilitya
feeling of togetherness through their common interests
everyone has to agree to function and maintain the
facility. Brinkman trusted that feeling, I hope I made a
total in which these people could live agreeably in a
dense neighborhood. I hope they will like it. It will
depend upon the behavior of these first occupants [to
make it successful] and then the next generation.
19
For
almost 50 years, it did succeed.
Even before the defeat of Buskenss similar project in
Spangen, Brinkman was commissioned to design two new
housing projects in developing areas of Rotterdam. Both
were designed during the construction of Justus van
Effenstraat and demonstrated Brinkmans rational method,
typological complexity, and situational fit. Neither,
however, attempted to repeat the occupied interior
courtyard or common facilities of the Spangen project.
Perhaps even Brinkman had to test his will.
The impression one receives of Michiel Brinkman as
pragmatic architect disguises, however, another
significant aspect of his personal development which
tempers an interpretation of his practice as the skilled
application of rational, scientific rule. Michiel Brinkman
was a long-standing member in the Dutch Theosophical
Society, and rose through its ranks to be elected to the
national board and was nominated for the national
presidency. In the July 1903 issue of the publication
Theosophische Vereeniging: Nederlandsche Afdeeling
[Theosophical Society: Netherlands Section], Michiel
Brinkman is first listed as the chairman of the Rotterdam
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 9
Lodge. His role, however, is not simply one of presider,
since he conducted study-classes on Friday evenings on
H.P. Blavatskys The Secret Doctrine (1888). Records
show that Brinkman maintained the position of chair of
either the Rotterdam or Besant Lodge, Rotterdam,
through at least 1919, while he was designing Justus van
Effenstraat. During this period Brinkman presented
lectures to broaden peoples understanding of Theosophy
such as The Study of the Consciousness (1908), and
General Theosophical Study (1910), as well as hosting
meetings at the Rotterdam Circle between 1918 and
1920.
20
In 1916, Brinkman is listed as a possible juror,
along with Mondrian, for a new cover for Theosophia.
21
Theosophical Society lodge meetings occurred in cities
and towns throughout the Netherlands, forming the core
method for the promulgation of Theosophy in various
arenas. In Amsterdam, at the Vhana Lodge, begun by
De Bazel, Lauweriks, and Walencamp in 1896, classes in
drawing, art history and aesthetic theory were
conducted.
22
In Rotterdam, in contrast, programs focused on a broad
range of topics: spirituality, the Bible, and ethics. These
had titles such as, Art, Idolatry and Philosophy,
Theosophy and Socialism, and Practical Theosophy.
Through these engagements Brinkman reaffirmed the
inseparable nature of social involvement and individual
self-formation, demonstrated at Justus van Effenstraat.
This was the connection, or unification, which detractors
could not, or would not, accept. Their fear and charges of
potential immorality depended upon an exaggerated
attempt to restrict spiritual development to inward actions
- secular at best, manipulable at worst. This was
consonant with Calvinist moralism, which put a premium
on dwelling within through secrecy and privacy.
Clearly, Brinkmans work was fully engaged with his
values and beliefs. Rationality was a formal construct to
inform the product measured ultimately in terms not of its
affect on a client, but with a client. This process was
demonstrated in his extensive work for the Van Nelle
tobacco, coffee and tea company, culminating with the
completion of the icon of the Nieuwe Bouwen
movement, the Van Nelle Factory, in 1931 by Brinkmans
son, Johannes, and Leen van der Vlugt. Michiel
Brinkman, however, began work for the Van Nelle firm as
early as 1912, first with some office and industrial
renovations and later, in April 1916, he made the first
sketches for a new factory on the banks of the canal
Delfshavensche Schie, immediately north of the Spangen
polder. Undoubtedly, this work brought Brinkman into
contact with C.H. (Kees) van der Leeuw, whose family
had been proprietors of the van Nelle business since
1837. Van der Leeuw, whose induction in May 1912 into
the Order of the Star while traveling in the United States,
began a lifelong commitment to Theosophical ideals and
was also active in the Rotterdam Circle, the Besant
Lodge, and the Ommen Camps.
Whereas Brinkman and van der Leeuw are central to the
Theosophical movements development in Rotterdam, it
is their balance between esoteric (relating to the occult)
with exoteric (in this case human brotherhood) that is
most important. It is at this juncture that the
Theosophical interpretation of Brinkman and van der
Leeuw toward pragmatism based in human need becomes
an absolute demanda form of essence into itself.
This is interpreted through van der Leeuws critique of De
Bazels plan for the Van Nelle office in Amsterdam
(1916), and his embrace of Brinkmans early concern for
light and functional expression in his factory plans.
23
Unfortunately, Michiel Brinkmans early death in 1925
prevented both his completion of the Van Nelle project
and the further development of the Theosophical ground
he and van der Leeuw shared.
Figure 8. Photograph of Justus van Effenstraat during
construction showing the underside of the pre-cast concrete
gallery as well as the passages through the broken block.
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 10
EXTENSIONS OF JUSTUS VAN EFFENSTRAAT
In 1923, Adolf Loos, proponent of the strict division
between public and private, proposed a housing project
for Vienna with large, communal terraces which were
meant to function as raised streets and meeting places.
Each person possesses his own entrance with his own
outdoor space where he can sit at the end of the day and
take in some fresh air. It is possible for children to play
on the terrace without worrying about being hit by a car. .
. . My tranquil and protected terraces give the children
the possibility of spending the whole day out of doors,
near their apartment and under the neighbors
surveillance.
24
The next gallery access housing in
Rotterdam does not appear until after Michiel Brinkmans
death, when de Mathenesserhof is built in 1926 by De
Roos & Overeynder, a few blocks from Justus van
Effenstraat. Later, gallery-access housing was designed
and built in Moscow (1928, Ginzburg and Milinis),
Berlin-Siemensstadt (1929, Gropius), Warsaw (1930-31,
Brukalscy and Szanajca). In London balcony-access
housing had been built as far back as 1850 and continues
today, with the project in Highgate (1932, Wells Coates)
most clearly representative of Brinkmans influence.
With the rise of the Nieuwe Bouwen in the Netherlands,
though, Brinkmans sons firm produced one of the most
striking examples of gallery-access housing in
Bergpolderflat (1934) in Rotterdam, with W. van Tijen.
Many of these projects have served as evidence of the
failure of functionalism; but with these examples modern
architects sought to accentuate the role of neutrality as an
abstraction of everyday life. Loos was concerned not
with social agenda or political affiliation, but rather a
purification of place which assumes that the inner self is
free to inhabit and grow as needed (privately). At
Bergpolderflat one sees the raised street extended to a
constructional aesthetic and economic demand, divorcing
intention from the action of residents.
Abstraction is seen here as an end unto itself; its use is as
a representational forcean essenceas opposed to the
exercise of will. With benefit of hindsight, Herman
Hertzberger noted, The connection between these
components (family units, gallery, bouwbloks) as a result
of their situation is an abstract relation which, through the
lack of plastic recognizability of the partsthe blocks
can never belong to an order other than one abstracted
from society.
25
Willfulness must be connected to
peoples contact with each other, not their separation.
ESOTERIC ABSTRACTION
It is, then, contact with human will which represents the
subject for Michiel Brinkman; it is this subject that cannot
be made objective, nor autonomous, nor denied by
abstraction.
In February 1921, J.J.P. Oud gave a lecture to the
Rotterdam Opbouw group in which he established
himself not only as a significant contributor to De Stijl,
but also as a strict proponent of functionalism.
26
Oud
had corresponded with Piet Mondrian beginning in
January 1920, and the two engaged in a debate on the
differing roles, attachments, and results of art and
architecture. They agreed on one thing: that purity
through neo-plasticism was the goal of both disciplines.
This created an simplistic similarity in the operations
involved in creating both painting and building.
However, in a letter to Oud begun in the summer of 1925,
Mondrian describes an important principle of their search,
". . . an essay on the subject must be banished from
art.
27
Mondrian concludes, after struggling toward purity and
against naturalism, that the subjectnatural
representationmust be abolished if any truly pure art or
architecture is to be produced. Thus, the subject is
made neutral in assessing the influence of person to a
building, to a neighbor, and to a street or courtyard. To
Figure 9. Bergpolderflat block (1934), by W. van Tijen.
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 11
Brinkman, this abolition was the very subject of his
architecture!
Risking too literal an interpretation, Justus van Effenstraat
might be presented as an unveiling of the unity present in
humankind, referred to as collectivity. The open
courtyard and entry portals reveal the potential hidden in
the perimeter block arrangement; in Ouds Spangen and
Tusschendijken blocks the inner remains locked inside.
For Brinkman, the courtyard, with the communal
bathhouse at its center, was seen as an inside full of life-
sharing, connected parts in which brotherhoodthe
Theosophists ultimate goalcould be demonstrated.
While this assessment of Justus van Effenstraat is
adequate to explain the positivistic tendencies (logos)
of early modern Dutch architecture, it leaves unanswered
how Brinkman arrived at such a radical, synthetic
proposal. For Brinkman, having conducted study sessions
on The Secret Doctrine, contact with the practice, rather
than aesthetic, of architecture results in assessing methods
necessary to engage the workand the occupantsof
building. It is through practice and discipline that
Brinkman develops complex unit typology, site
specificity, and economic justification; each attribute
accommodates the variety of resident. These are not the
means to remove the subject from architecture.
The method Brinkman applies he has learned from his
studies in Theosophy. Madame Blavatsky acknowledges
Hegels reliance on mysteriousness to explain the relation
between subject and object, inner and outer, and self and
world. The abstract concept of the first moment is
counterbalanced by a concrete, particularizing element.
Brinkman may be understood as giving only provisional
status to the concepts of unity, rationalism, and openness
which he learned both academically and practiced in
previous, typologically similar offices and urban
complexes. Instead, he awaited the experience of the
residents of Justus van Effenstraat.
28
He was not fearful
of their filling in the project with their own experience,
conflict, and encounters with the world outside.
The abstract, then, is not positioned as a bridging
device, but rather an opposition to the absolute, where
active engagement of the will brings about new
possibilities.
29
By neutralizing the subject, abstraction
nullifies the very goal of Theosophy to see human
existence as a totality and return the true powers of
humanity both to individuals and the collective body. The
Theosopher starts with the personal, individual event.
Brinkman saw Justus van Effenstraat, in fact, as an
integrated facility that encouraged "a feeling of
togetherness through their common interests. But what
constitutes the common does not necessarily cause unity,
and empowers the dualism of absolute reality.
This approach defines the Dutch heritage in paradoxes
that arise from living in the material world.
30
Brinkman
is seen here as a modern architect precisely because of his
willingness to accept that his decisions were the result of
complex possibilities within the traditions he had learned.
In this case, Brinkman saw Justus van Effenstraat as it
presented experience. We understand a building only if
our experience is persuasive for us: only if it occupies a
place in which we can feel its relation to the workings of
the moral life.
31
Brinkmans work is not that of an authoritarian,
transcendent architect who is seeking to neutralize human
distinction as a reaction to material indifference or cosmic
tragedy. If the Modern sought to restrict, albeit for higher
ground, the subjective nature of self, then Justus van
Effenstraat must be seen in new terms. Rather than
defining collectivity as sameness, one may seek unity in
fleeting, but enduring, everyday encounters. This was
Brinkmans absolute test of unity.
Figure 10. Brahmshof housing, Zurich, Switzerland (1995),
Kuhn, Fischer and Partner Architekten AG. Showing the interior
court with steel-framed galleries and access stairs as recently
constructed.
REFERENCES
The author would like to acknowledge the contributions of Peter Luthi and Ria Niclaes in providing critical and local insight into the subjects
contained in this paper. For many years they have welcomed my inquiry and nurtured my direction.
1
P. Mondrian, Abstract Art, Art of This Century, exhibition catalogue from the Art of this Century Gallery, New York, ed. by Peggy
Guggenheim in October 1942, draft version.
2
Interview with Ms. J.M.B. de Bruijn-Minnes, March 1995, one of the first residents of Justus van Effenstraat.
3
Rob Dettingmeijer, The fight for a well built city, Het Nieuwe Bouwen in Rotterdam, 1920-1960 (Delft, 1982), 28-29. The Burgdorfer
Report of 1912 outlines the classification of various occupant groups and the different methods of assessing housing plans according to three
general categories: Able-bodied workers; Less able-bodied persons; and Physically unfit persons. It goes beyond the scope of this paper to
undertake an analysis of how these categories were defined and the strategies and priorities devised, but the increasingly scientific definition of
housing needs was an important component of new objectivity.
4
H.P. Berlage, A. Keppler, W. Kromhout and J. Wils, Arbeiderswoningen in Nederland (Rotterdam, 1921).
5
Gezelligheid is exclusively Dutch and without direct translation into English. It signifies not being dependent upon a group, and is subjective,
describing ones personal feelings. Similarly, it should not be confused with gezellschap (Dutch) or Gesellschaft (German), or gemeenschap
(Dutch) or Gemeinschaft (German). While treatises abound on the German usage, for the purposes of this essay the Dutch implies distinctions of
size, intent, and internal/external implication. Acknowledgment is given to Rianne Verhoef for detailed explanation of these qualities as well as
Ms. J.M.B. de Bruijn-Minnes for confirming their overt use at Justus van Effenstraat.
6
Following the Census of 1900 and the Housing Act of 1902, the plan for Spangen provided by de Jongh in 1903 presents the opportunity to relate
the debate from the expansion plan for Amsterdam South to the very different context of Rotterdam. The pattern described relating streets to
perimeter block housing originates in the presentations made by H.P. Berlage in 1883 and 1894, Amsterdam and Venetie. Schets in verband met
de tegenwoordige veranderingen van Amsterdam, Bouwkundig Weekblad 3, no. 34 (1883): 217-219; and Bouwkunst en impressionisme,
Architectura 2, no. 22 (1894): 109-110. While derived from Sitte (1889) and Stubben (1890), it is the work of A.E. Brinkman, Platz und
Monument als Kunstlerisches Formproblem (Berlin, 1908), which articulates the planning basis used in the Spangen district in Rotterdam. For a
review of this history in Rotterdam see, L.J.C.J. van Ravesteyn, Rotterdam in de negentiende eeuw (Rotterdam, 1924).
7
J.P. Bakema, A house for 270 families in Spangen, Forum 15 (1960-61): 194-195.
8
Ibid., 195.
9
Handelingen van den Gemeenteraad van Rotterdam (17 February 1916), 211-215.
10
Bakema, A house for 270 families in Spangen, 194.
11
Woningbouw Spangen, Justus van Effenblok, Rotterdam Kunststichting 115, pt. 3 (1991).
12
Register op de Verzameling van Gedrukte Stukken 114 (9 April 1920): 421-423.
13
Private correspondence between Berlage and A.B. de Zeeuw, 16 October 1918, contained in the archives at the Netherlands Architecture
Institute, Rotterdam. Further correspondence between Berlage and de Zeeuw continues on 22 and 23 December 1919; and with Meischke &
Schmidt on 3 November 1919.
14
H. Searing, Berlage and Housing, the most significant modern building type, in H.P. Berlage: 1856 -1934 (Bussum, 1975), 165.
15
Het Hofplein te Rotterdam, De Bouwereld 21, no. 19 (10 May 1922): 146-148.
16
J.J.P. Oud, Gemeentelijke Volkswoningen, Polder Spangen, Rotterdam, Bouwkundig Weekblad. 41, no. 37 (11 September 1920): 219-222
17
J. P. Baeten and K. Schomaker, Michiel Brinkman: 1873- 1925, Bibliografieen en oeuvrelijsten van Nederlandse architecten en
stedebouwkundigen (Rotterdam, 1995): 10-12.
18
Volkswoningbouw Te Rotterdam in Den Polder Spangen, Architect M. Brinkman, Bouwkundig Weekblad 41, no. 8 (1920): 45-50.
19
Galerijbouw in Der Polder Spangen, Rotterdam Jaarboecke (1923), xlii- xlv.
20
De Theosofische Beweging 1, no. 1 (1 January 1905) and vol. 16, no. 2 (February 1920).
21
K.P.C. de Bazel was also nominated and finally chosen. Mondrian was, perhaps, not chosen because of his rejected article (his first and only)
for this journal. See De Theosofische Beweging 12, no. 1 (1916).
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 12
V7n2: Abstraction and Theosophy, Page 13
22
K.P.C. de Bazel and J.L.M. Lauweriks became members of the Theosophical Society in Amsterdam on 31 May 1894, and published woodcuts in
1894-95 in Licht en Waarheid .
23
F. Kauffmann, Kees van der Leeuw, Wiederhall 14: Leen van der Vlugt, ed. E. Adriaansz, J. Molenaar, and J. Meuwissen (Amsterdam,
1993).
24
A. Loos, Die moderne Siedlung, Der Sturm (February 1927).
25
H. Hertzberger, Three better possibilities, Forum 15 (1960-61): 193
26
J.J.P. Oud, Bouwkundig Weekblad 42, no. 21 (11 June 1921): 159.
27
H. Holzman and M. S. James, After De Stijl: 1924-38, Purely Abstract Art (1926), in The New ArtThe New Life: The Collected Writings
of Piet Mondrian (Boston, 1986), 198.
28
A. Faivre, Book One: Approaches to Western Esoteric Currents; Part One, II B: Some Key Concepts; Theosophy, in Access to Western
Esotericism (Albany, 1994).
29
The ideas of absolute and abstract are further explained by Henri Lefebvre in two books: Critique of Everyday Life, translated by John Moore
(New York, 1991), originally published as Critique de la vie quotidienne (Paris, 1947); and The Production of Space, translated by Donald
Nicholson-Smith (Cambridge, 1991), originally published as Production de lespace (Paris, 1974). Lefebvre presents a dependent relationship
between relative (real) and absolute (apparent) knowledge. While Lefebvre acknowledges that natural and social space comes into being by being
inhabited by a higher reality, he distinguishes absolute from abstract space. Absolute space, religious and poltical in character, was a product of
the bonds of consanguinity, soil and language, but out of it evolved a space which was relativized and historical. Abstract space functions
objectally, as a set of things/signs and their formal relationships: glass and stone, concrete and steel, angles and curves, full and empty. Formal
and quantitative, it erases distinctions. . . Lefebvre, The Production of Space , 48-49.
30
S. Schama, An Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (Berkeley, 1988); and, in his review of the
1995 Mondrian exhibition. He notes, . . . the struggle between matter and spirit (Carnival and Lent); between the local and the universal; between
the parochial flatlands of the Low Countries and the cultural imperialism of Paris; between the humanism of Erasmus and the mortifications of
Calvin, The New Yorker (9 October 1995).
31
R. Scruton, Expression and Abstraction, The Aesthetics of Architecture (Princeton, 1979), 205.
Copyright 1998 by Ken Lambla
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