Architect and architecture theorist Robert van ’t Hoff (1887– 1979) made a highly idiosyncratic contribution to Dutch archi tecture of the twentieth century. Van ’t Hoff was associated with De Stijl, one of the most important innovative forces in Dutch art and architecture of the early twentieth century. His buildings, writings and, for example, his fi nancial support of De Stijl meant he was a pivotal member of the Dutch avant-garde. Van ’t Hoff was fairly extreme in his views about the role of the architect. For instance, as the project’s architect, he personally stood on the scaffolding during the construction of his renowned Villa Henny, a ‘white-collar worker’ shoulder to shoulder with the ‘manual workers’, in order to realize the new society with its greater social equality and well-being in combination with less private ownership. Besides designing for a new society he drew the logical conclusions of such ideologies for how he pursued his own life. Van ’t Hoff won international fame for the Villa Henny (1915–1919), the ‘concrete villa’ which has become an icon of modernist architecture and obtains as a distinct example of the dawn of the Nieuwe Bouwen movement, the Dutch interpretation of functionalism.
In this seminal monograph on Robert van ’t Hoff the three authors present and analyse the work, intellectual legacy and significance of this innovative architect in an accessible way. The volume incorporates Van ’t Hoff’s most important writings and his projects are presented using an abundance of attractive, previously unpublished visual material.

Authors: Dolf Broekhuizen, Evert van Straaten, Herman Bergeijk
Design: Lex Reitsma
Hardback/ 156 pagina's/ Dutch; English