2 Preface

This book describes the life of Eduard Cuypers, Marius Hulswit, the people around them and their projects in the Dutch East Indies, where they worked in both Amsterdam and Jakarta. The choice was made for a story with a chronological structure, which takes place alternatively in the Netherlands or in the Dutch East Indies. The architects have left a very small archive which makes a thorough investigation into their work diffi cult. Thanks to the internet, digitised archives, a few interviews with relatives, visits to Indonesia and the discovery of part of the archive of Fermont-Cuypers, it was possible to reconstruct their story in broad lines. Many of their buildings in Indonesia are still there, despite all the changes there. After the death of Eduard Cuypers, the agency in Jakarta continued under the name Fermont-Cuypers. 1 That name unintentionally led to confusion, because it seemed as if Eduard Cuypers, even after his death, still had buildings in his name. The offi ce in Amsterdam continued after the death of the founder under the name Eduard Cuypers, which led to similar misunderstandings. The period 1927-1957, in which the architecture fi rm in Jakarta, ‘Fermont-Cuypers’ was called, is covered in another book entitled: Architecture from the Indonesian past.

For whom

This book contains facts of which in the Netherlands there is little or no knowledge, even though they belong to Dutch architectural history. That gives this book its raison d’être. This book is necessary because it informs the population of Indonesia about buildings that are still in use and whose backgrounds they do not know. I have used present-day geographical names, including Jakarta (Batavia, Djakarta) and Bogor (Buitenzorg), but I do speak of the Dutch East Indies. 2 This book shows that the buildings that the Dutch left behind in Indonesia are often very worthwhile. Many Dutch architects have now made their name in Asia. This book shows how their predecessors worked there in a diff erent time and under diff erent conditions. This book is necessary because this topic remained unspoken, partly because the colonial situation overshadowed this past. This book describes the creation of buildings, which were initially intended for western companies and agencies, but which are now in use by Indonesian companies. These now occupy their buildings with pride. This book is also meant for them. This book is for everyone who is interested in Eduard Cuypers, Marius Hulswit, Arthur Fermont, their architecture fi rms and the work they left behind.

Method

Biographies of many fellow contemporaries of Eduard Cuypers have appeared in the Netherlands. Books have been published about his colleagues and his former employees who became well-known architects. 3 Yet, little was known about Cuypers himself. Calls for a thorough study have so far not been heard. 4 I had to identify and interpret most sources and archives in the Netherlands and Indonesia by myself. The meetings with the people in Indonesia confi rmed my suspicion that my research was based on a eurocentric approach. 5 There is no getting away from it, I am not an Indonesian. The people I describe were not either. They were foreigners in a country where they had or thought they had a mission. 6 The Dutch writer Hella Haasse wrote; ‘I was born in the Dutch East Indies [...] and yet, I was nothing more than a stranger’. 7 I have not visited all the projects that I describe here. That is partly due to the long distances that have to be covered. During the life of Hulswit and Cuypers, those distances were no less so. It was logistically a huge task to get anything done. Add to this the scarcity of western building materials and skilled craftsmen in the Dutch East Indies. All in all, there is suffi cient reason to judge the work done in the Dutch Indies diff erently to the work done in Europe.

Sources

Books about Eduard Cuypers do not exist, let alone about Marius Hulswit. A thesis was published in 1979 about Eduard Cuypers. 8 This work was, together with a few inventory lists, the basis from which I worked. 9 This was also the only source for the small group of people who have worked in the Netherlands on publications about pre-war architecture in the Dutch East Indies, so that the inaccuracies in the thesis regularly reappeared. 10 Even

once pronounced prejudices about Cuypers’ work stubbornly persisted. Architectural historians often viewed his work in the light of Berlage’s rationalism, which was a harbinger of modernism. Architecture that did not meet one of the two ‘-isms’ was not appropriate in the post-war cultural climate, in which modernism was considered an inevitable and also desired fi nal phase of history. This view of history led to the condemnation of architects such as Eduard Cuypers as someone who went in a diff erent direction and that you had better not talk about. 11 At the end of the last century, resistance began to arise against this approach. Watkin states that even the best historians regarded modern architecture as an unchanging standard with the idea that man and his ideals had fundamentally changed. According to Watkin, that was an incorrect assumption. For many, there was still a need for the ‘classical language of forms, which for centuries had enabled architects to express their imaginations to the full’. 12 This encouraged me to revisit what has been written about Eduard Cuypers and Hulswit and to write about them from another perspective.

The firm

Eduard Cuypers was responsible for most works in this book. It remains uncertain which of his employees were involved in the successive projects and what Cuypers’ exact role was in the design process. Just as other large agencies, he employed a large number of employees who, depending on their experience, more or less independently delivered a partial contribution. Cuypers in any case did not create a uniform style at his architecture fi rm and during the design process he was strongly infl uenced by specifi c ideas of his most creative employees. 13 Eduard Cuypers always fi rst drafted the design himself which was then discussed with the talented employees. Then he asked one of them to work out the plan using the construction and presentation drawings. 14 Before a drawing left his offi ce, he always put his name on it. He was, with Hulswit, ultimately responsible for what happened in the Dutch East Indies, more than 11,000 kilometres from Amsterdam. The Indies work of Eduard Cuypers mainly originated in Amsterdam. If necessary, the fi nishing touches took place in Jakarta, in consultation with Eduard Cuypers. Logistics of everything must have been complicated. All transport was by ship’s post ? between Amsterdam and Jakarta, a single journey took about a month. What is striking is that with the passage of the years the offi ce in the Dutch East Indies went on to do more itself. The offi ce in Jakarta changed its name a few times. Until 1914 the agency was called Ed. Cuypers and Hulswit. After Arthur Fermont joined in 1914 as a partner, it was called Hulswit-Fermont & Ed. Cuypers until 1921. Between 1921 and 1927 the offi ce continued under the name ‘Hulswit-Fermont-Cuypers’. Until now the architecture of Eduard Cuypers has always been associated in the Netherlands with eclecticism. This design method, which was applied worldwide throughout the nineteenth century, was taboo after 1918 in the Netherlands. 15 Architects such as H.P. Berlage argued that eclecticism had ‘degenerated into applying historical forms without expert knowledge’, resulting in the ‘age of ugliness’. Eduard Cuypers also had problems with contractors and architects who simply added ‘historical’ ornaments from a catalogue to a moderately designed building. 16 Nevertheless, for years, regardless of the quality of the design, he was associated with these builders, only to be completely ignored after the Second World War. 17 Since then, the history of twentieth-century Dutch architecture began with the forerunners of ‘rationalism’; starting with the Beurs van Berlage (commodity exchange building) in Amsterdam and the ‘triumphal procession of the moderns’. 18 Requirements, formulated from abstract theory, had to ensure that architecture was created, without the arbitrariness of motifs from all conceivable periods. Berlage and his followers sought fi rmness in a new building style, which they could link to ‘a new era’. 19 Although Eduard Cuypers was open to practically every architectural movement, he did not let himself be pinned down to one of them, and certainly not to this rationalist architectural vision from the Netherlands. He related more to fashionable international styles, comparing himself to the great American architects. As was their practice, Eduard Cuypers preferred to work eclectically, because it off ered him great design freedom. He did not want to be bothered by demands that created a ‘style-pure’ building. Because of this attitude, he received criticism from Berlage and his followers, who blamed him for conservatism. Eduard commented that there was something strange about assessing building plans. It was no longer asked whether something was beautiful or ugly, no it was investigated in what style they were designed. ‘And once a building was ‘in style’, it was automatically found to be beautiful too’. 20 And as for that ‘new age, there was no new age for Eduard Cuypers. One period automatically spilled over into another. Every period has its architectural developments that, in the opinion of Eduard Cuypers, must at the same time be innovative and grafted onto the past. In this, too, he diff ered from his opponents who wanted nothing to do with the past. This astonished him and he stated that ‘everything that has style has been found to be beautiful, except buildings designed in a historical style, because they are likely to be ugly’. 21 Initially, Cuypers worked on his Dutch East Indies projects before the First World War in the international style of the École des Beaux-Arts. According to Auke van der Woud this was ‘the cradle of modern representative architecture, which enjoyed high esteem in all countries, except in a few Dutch coteries’. 22 What took place

around 1900 in architecture in cities such as Singapore, Manila, Calcutta, Melbourne and Sydney, was virtually unknown in the Netherlands, while the architect Eduard Cuypers was open to it. The Dutch professor Temminck Groll later posted a link there in 2002, to immediately zoom in on the ornaments of the Javasche Bank, as Berlage did seventy-fi ve years earlier: ‘The Ed. Cuypers and Hulswit Offi ce displayed the Classicist style that would become characteristic […] throughout the archipelago. On the one hand, it was reasonably international – similar buildings can be found in both the British and French spheres of infl uence- but it also had modest references to the Indonesian world due to the application of decorative elements derived from old Hindu-Buddhist architecture’. 23 Incidentally, many of the ornaments that had “bothered” Berlage at the time had already gone with the arrival of a new front building in 1937. 24 A building style developed more specifi cally for the Dutch East Indies enjoyed the preference of the architect P.A.J. Moojen (1879-1955), who lived and worked only briefl y in the Dutch East Indies. Moojen wanted to enforce this building style, which he called ‘DutchIndies’, and was prepared to use all means available for this. He did like to compare himself with Berlage, who in turn characterised Moojen as the man who had a ‘lonely struggle in the Dutch East Indies for another concept of art’. 25 Moojen owed much to Berlage’s embrace of his eff orts, because since then he was generally considered within the Dutch clique as a person who strived for the right thing in the fi eld of architecture in the Indies. Eduard Cuypers represented an opposite pole within that image. 26 Hulswit and Ed. Cuypers only built in the ‘DutchIndies style’ in Jakarta between 1910 and 1915. An offi cial committee could, partly on the advice of an external consultant, reject construction plans submitted. The external advisor during that period was P.A.J. Moojen. 27 The buildings that Cuypers and Hulswit-Fermont subsequently completed until 1928 show international style characteristics that changed over the years from Expressionism via Art Deco to more Modernism. Other architects working in the Dutch East Indies were also internationally orientated. As a result, the Dutch East Indies developed its own western architecture with diff erent stylistic features, diff erent from the introverted Netherlands. Apart from the architecture, it is noticeable that the individual who expressed himself in those years about western architecture in the Dutch East Indies, hardly noticed the signifi cance of the building for the cityscape. In Ed. Cuypers’ publications, this was explicitly defi ned, establishing him as an innovator. 28

Architecture

In the small amount of literature about Eduard Cuypers it is often stated that he, as an architect, missed the boat towards rationalism. The fact that he deliberately ignored rationalism and that this was a positive choice for him, could not be understood by these writers, since they assumed modernism as an inevitable new phase to which all had to comply. 29 This book discusses the architectural views of Eduard Cuypers and his offi ce, insofar they have any bearing on his Dutch East Indies work. For Cuypers, evoking an atmosphere in architecture was more important than applying rules focused on composition and coherence. For him, designing was a creative process with room for unexpected ideas. The success of this process, in which he involved talented employees, required knowledge of the latest developments in the fi eld of building technology as well as both current and historical building styles. These styles were the source of inspiration, never an example that had to be copied. From this mix something surprising came about. ‘You can let yourself be inspired by the past and historical styles, but in such a way that they are originally dealing with a modern character,’ says Eduard Cuypers in 1904. 30 He attached great importance to the creative input of the designer but found that somebody’s personal taste should not infl uence the end result too much. A building was not a work of art, it had to meet primarily the client’s requirements. The main design had to be simple, with attention to the details. The surprising thing for him was the deviation from the predictable. Eduard Cuypers, for example, often consciously worked asymmetrically during a certain period and developed compositional work, such as the position of the windows and the doors. He applied classical elements, which he stripped of their historical connotation, by applying them lightly and often purely as a decoration. He loved decorations as long as they were crafted by professional artists whom he considered to be completely equivalent. The fact that Eduard’s father was a decorator undoubtedly contributed to this. Eduard Cuypers built up a relationship with his client and developed a building plan with the principal in an interactive way. That design process was at odds with rationalism and later modernism, which would lead to often useful rules of thumb for architects with whom Cuypers had nothing in common. The rationalists and modernists turned it around. A Berlage adept, said in 1983; ‘Under the dictatorship of the historical and eclectic school, the originality was exclusively in the personal variation of the available forming apparatus and the available composition schemes’. 31 Cuypers, if he had been aware of this statement, would almost certainly have expressed his astonishment at the word ‘exclusively’. Not his working method, but rather that of ‘rationalists’ and modernists led to predictable results in architecture. Resistance eventually arose against this modernist vision. In the words of the Dutch professor Auke van der Woud from 1993; ‘We look again for the infi - nitely expressive possibilities of architecture, for a design which shows that a building is distinguished, festive, or subdued, or witty - in short, that it has character. 32

Those who wrote about the work of Cuypers and Hulswit in the Dutch East Indies and who expressed a judgment on their accomplishments, compared this quite often with the works of architects who lived years later and were modern educated also. 33 On that basis it was concluded that the fi rm was not innovative. 34 It was often unclear which fi rm was meant, that of Eduard Cuypers who died in 1927, or that of his successors working at the fi rm Fermont-Cuypers? Akihary accredits Eduard Cuypers with designs long after Cuypers’ death. 35 In order to prevent such confusion, the year of Cuypers’ death forms a break. The end of this book is therefore limited to the period 1897-1927. From 1927, politics also changed considerably in the Dutch East Indies thanks to the rise of Indonesian nationalism. More than ninety projects from Hulswit-Fermont and Ed. Cuypers were completed in the Dutch East Indies. For thirteen buildings once attributed to them, I found no or insuffi cient proof of their authorship or I discovered the name of another architect. 36 Because virtually all design data of the buildings is unknown, the buildings are arranged in the order of the year of their completion. The description per project is almost always that of the building shortly after completion. The current state and the current use will also be included. For each project, historical photos are included, if available, in order to do as much justice as possible to the time frame. Because buildings mainly speak when the people behind them come to life, they have a prominent place in the description. I do not have a (family) bond with Indonesia. In the Netherlands I belong to the generation with whom there was no nuanced talk about the colonial past. In 2010 I decided to visit Indonesia. I wanted to see what had been built there in colonial times with my own eyes. Relatively little about it had been written. 37 Strange that a country such as the Netherlands, which attaches so much importance to its own building past has charted so little of the past that it shares with Indonesia. ‘Most people here on land will not know much about the many works that have been built there by Dutch architects over the years’, wrote an architect in 1959 with some sadness. 38 I visited Indonesia several times, armed with old and new city maps. I was surprised by the countless old buildings that I knew nothing about. Trained and working for many years as an urban planner, I looked freely at those buildings from a diff erent perspective than someone with a cultural-historical background would have done. I shared my discoveries and fi ndings with various, more experienced people in the fi eld, and that is how this book came to be written about an unknown group of people and their architecture.

Obbe H. Norbruis, Amsterdam 2020

Notes accompanying chapters 1 and 2

1 The book about the Fermont-Cuypers period from 1927-1957 appears separately, titled: Architecture from the Indonesian Past. 2 The Dutch East Indies, I reserve the name Indonesia for the independent republic. 3 Piet Kramer (Kohlenbach 1994) Michel de Klerk (Bock 1997), Berend

Boeyinga (Beekum 2003), Guillaume la Croix (Beekum 2008), Johan

Melchior van der Meij (Kruidenier 2014). 4 Woud (1997), p. 367; Ibelings (1995), p. 23; Beekum (2008), p. 15. 5 Doorn (2003), p. 17. 6 Doorn (2003), p. 12: translated from Dutch: ‘What can also be said to the detriment of colonialism, it must primarily be understood as a route to prosperity and civilisation, a phase in history in which the more developed western world, driven by their own interests, seized lesserdeveloped societies against their will to make a better future.’ 7 Haasse (2010), p. 94. 8 Gerlagh (1979). 9 List of works: Vissering (1927), Fanelli (1981), Akihary (1990). 10 Passchier (2016) p. 176. Two obvious inaccuracies that were published until recently are that Fermont died in 1954 and that the Fermont

Cuypers fi rm ceased to exist. A.A. Fermont died in 1967 and the Fermont

Cuypers fi rm ceased operations informally in 1957 under pressure from political circumstances and was formally naturalised by Indonesia in 1960. 11 Woud (1997) p. 369. Van der Woud wrote: ‘there was no term so useful for distinguishing the ‘logical’ approach from the apparent architecture.’ 12 Watkin (1994), p. 8. 13 Ed. Cuypers (1914) Eduard Cuypers was a friend of Joseph Maria Olbrich, who worked at Otto Wagner for fi ve years. Olbrich could have informed him how the Otto Wagner offi ce worked. In 1900, Wagner employed more than seventy people according to Geretsegger (1978), p. 14 14 Whyte (1989), p. 31. At a large architecture fi rm like that of Otto Wagner

‘the tasks between the main architect and the assistants cannot be

15 Fletcher (1975) p. 1245. The First World War is seen as a clear watershed between the old and new architecture in the western world.

16 Bock (1975) p. 47. In 1893 W. Kromhout calls for measures against incompetent builders. Eduard Cuypers agrees, ‘because it is necessary in the interest of architecture and its practitioners to combat the abuses with suitable means’.

17 Woud (2008), p. 79: ‘In the Netherlands it is still not possible to conduct an open scientifi c debate on nineteenth-century architecture’. 18 Bock (1983) This vision culminated in the extensive thesis of Manfred

Bock, in which Berlage’s vision of history and his place in architectural history was taken very seriously and worked out to the limit. 19 Buiting (2003), p. 600. Berlage wrote in the Sociaal Democratisch

Maandschrift, (1919) 24, pp. 713-723 and 748-753 ‘The individualistic nineteenth century displays the most diverse architectural styles. Currently looming socialism has already announced an artistic renewal, in which architecture no longer has a chaotic change of shape, but is characterised by simplicity, formal beauty and a new ornamentation.’ 20 Het Huis (1904) p. 122.

21

Het Huis (1904) p. 124. 22 Woud (1997), p. 368. Auke van der Woud remarks: ‘Henri Evers was the only one who dared to write positively about the École des Beaux Arts; the cradle of modern representative architecture, which was highly appreciated in all countries, except for a few Dutch coteries. H. Evers (1855-1929) had been head of the Department of Architecture at the

Academy of Fine Arts and Technical Sciences in Rotterdam since 1887.

From 1902 to 1926 he was a professor at Delft University of Technology.

His designs include the Rotterdam City Hall (1914), which has some affi nity with the Javasche Bank of Ed. Cuypers in Jakarta (Batavia) from 1913. 23 Temminck Groll (2002), p. 153. 24 Berlage (1931), p. 31. Berlage saw the Javasche Bank in Jakarta (Batavia) in 1923. His verdict was: ‘a modernised and therefore weak renaissance, with an unsatisfactory attempt by Hindu-Javanese ornament motifs’

25

Rotterdamsche Courant, February 9, 1924. 26 Moojen (1909) pp. 394-397. 27 This committee was set up to assess and sanction construction plans similar to the Advisory Committee in Amsterdam, established in 1898, the later ‘Schoonheidscommissie’

28 Het Nederlandsch Indische Huis Oud & Nieuw 1913 pp. 113-123, pp. 177-193.

Nederlandsch-Indië Oud & Nieuw Sept. 1922, pp. 145-148. 29 Eduard Cuypers had nothing to do with the architecture of the Berlage’s

Beurs building in Amsterdam, let alone with his fully stripped-down public housing construction. He preferred to build in the richer style of the nearby Bijenkorf and Rotterdam City Hall. Buildings that had and have much appeal then and now. 30 Het Huis (1904) p. 130 31 Bock (1983) p. 260 32 Woud (1993) p. 25. Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, February 9, 1924. ‘Brieven over Bouwkunst’ In his second lecture on ‘Modern Architecture in the Dutch

East Indies, Berlage showed work of the most diverse architects in the colony that he provided with comments’. 34 Passchier (2016) p. 190. 35 Akihary (1990) p. 101. 36 The following buildings have been accredited to Ed. Cuypers and Hulswit, but this is incorrect or I could not prove this: Jakarta: Nederlandsch

Indische Handelsbank: Kali Besar Barat (19th century building); 1908:

Surabaya: Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij, Jl. Kalet No.106 (W.

Westmaas); 1910: Jakarta: Schools of the Ursuline Sisters of Weltevreden,

Jl. Pos No.2 (B.O.W.); 1913: Surabaya: Escomptobank, Jl. Kembang Jepun

No.180 (P.A.J. Moojen); 1905: Malang: Ursuline Sisters School Jl. Jaksa

Agung Suprapto No.55 (W. Westmaas); 1923: Malang rk his School; 1923:

Jakarta: Escomptobank Kota Tua (L.M. van den Berg and W.H. Pichel); 1926: Malang: Fraters School and convent, Jl. Jagung Suprapto No.21 (Smits, skh architects); 1908: Semarang: Building of the Franciscanessen

Bangkong; 1916: Jakarta: Sluyters & Co Kali Besar Tim. 5-7 (P.A.J. Moojen); 1916: Jakarta: Tiedeman & Van Kerchem, Kali Besar Tim. No.3 (L.M. van den Berg and W.H. Pichel); 1923: Medan Town hall; 1932: Jakarta: De

Factorij, Jl. Lapangan Stasiun No.1 (C. van de Linde and A.P. Smits). 37 Leushuis (2011). This practical guide from Leushuis had not yet been published. 38 Bouwkundig Weekblad, March 14, 1959, p. 130, M. Westerduin.