He has collaborated internationally with big names such as Le Corbusier and Gerrit Rietveld, designed in the Amsterdam Betondorp (where Johan Cruijff grew up) and built some of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Haarlem, including Rosehaghe and Tuinwijk-Zuid. They are social rental homes that evoke a feeling of wealth through the beautiful urban compositions and careful detailing. Yet the name of architect Johannes Bernardus (Han) Van Lochem (1881-1940) fell into oblivion.
Time to change that, thinks the Haarlem Architecture Center ABC, which seizes the centenary of Tuinwijk-Zuid for an exhibition (until 23 October) about the work and life of the Haarlem architect. On the basis of photos of built work, publications and furniture that he designed for the interiors of his villas, you are taken along in his development: from a traditionally oriented architect to one of the best interpreters of the New Construction.
The seeds for his socialist philosophy, which drove him as an architect, were sown during his studies of architecture in Delft. He then has a meeting with architect Berlage, who is building the Stock Exchange in Amsterdam. ‘The uncertain, the questioning, which dominated me as a young student, was touched as if by magic’, he wrote about it. It became clear to him ‘that to build is to fulfill a vocation that can support humanity.’
During that period he built his first villa for his parents in De Haarlemmerhout (nowadays the city park), of which his father is director. After graduating in 1909, he immediately started an office in Haarlem and received a major contract from the Kennemer Electricity Company for the expansion of the power station in IJmuiden and the construction of eighty transformer houses. He seizes the opportunity to do what he prefers to do: experiment with masonry, construction techniques and urban planning integration.
Inspired by the garden city ideas of the British urban planner Ebenezer Howard, he develops an outspoken idea of public housing. In 1920 he writes in the Nieuwe Amsterdammer: ‘In the new cities the whole house will be the norm for a family, because only then can the children grow up happily in nature.’ He gave the houses in Tuinwijk-Zuid a front and back garden, which turns into a gigantic collective courtyard.
If you compare Rosehaghe and Tuinwijk-Zuid with Betondorp or the Haarlem district of Patria, you see Van Loghem’s work becoming more modern, with brick making way for plaster and concrete. But he thinks that in the Netherlands it is too much about style – ‘clean appearance’.
He did not hesitate when he was invited in 1925 to participate in the construction of a socialist urban project in Soviet Russia. He wants ‘to be able to contribute to the laying of a large foundation on which the new architecture could develop.’ The plan, for which he designs houses and a bathhouse, starts idealistically, but is ended prematurely by Stalin. Disillusioned, he returns and settles in Rotterdam, where he focuses on writing in the absence of design assignments and becomes internationally active in the Conges Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), as an advocate for the New Building.
Van Loghem never got the chance to realize an iconic building, but excelled in making the everyday living environment special. He died at the age of 58, just before the Second World War.
The exhibition looks back at Van Loghem’s history, but also poses the question of what to do next with his work. The neighborhoods are monuments, which you cannot change just like that. At the same time, the energy transition requires solutions for insulation and sustainable energy supply. Van Loghem would know: time for another experiment.
ABC Architecture Center Haarlem: Architect JB van Loghem in the spotlight, until 23/10. On Saturday 18/6, during Architecture Day, the house designed by Van Loghem on Zonnelaan in Tuinwijk-Zuid will be open to the public.