BERLAGE, Hendrik Petrus

(1856-1934)

   One of Holland's first modernist architects, Hendrik Berlage studied with the historically oriented architect Gottfried Semper, but gradually Berlage began to experiment with a more geometric, spare, rational approach to architecture. His most famous building is the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, known as the Beurs van Berlage, built in the center of the city from 1896 to 1903. The style of this monumental brick building can be characterized as a stripped-down Richardsonian Romanesque, and it features a tripartite entrance façade with a triple-arched entrance portico flanked by a clock tower. The long exterior side walls are visually organized by groupings of windows that provide a rhythm to the exterior and demonstrate Berlage's interest in proportion. The building contained three exchange halls, the chamber of commerce, a post office, and a cafeteria, and is today used as a museum and community center. To Berlage, a successful building will achieve the idea of riposo, or repose, through carefully proportioned spaces that are organized so as to reveal the idea of "unity in plurality." To him, it is only through this unity that true beauty can be achieved in architecture. Berlage was influential in the establishment of modernism in the Netherlands, seen mainly in the subsequent work of the de Stijl architects.

   See also RATIONALISM.