Frans Johan Louwrens Ghijsels was a Dutch architect and urban planner who worked in the Netherlands and the Dutch Indies. Ghijsels is the founder of AIA, the biggest architecture consultant in the Dutch Indies. He was one of the instrumental architect in developing a modern style characteristic of the Dutch Indies.
Biography
In year 1903 Ghijsels studied at the polytechnic in Delft, where some of his fellow students included several future East Indies architects, Thomas Karsten and Henri Maclaine Pont among them. After his academic study in 1909, his first appointment was as a government architectural supervisor in Amsterdam under the firm of GA van Arkel. In the same year he married Johanna Elisabeth Antonia de Regt in Rotterdam. By the end of September 1910, Ghijsels was accepted for the post of engineer by the Department of Municipal Works in Batavia, so he returned to the Dutch East Indies. From 1913, he worked for the Department of Civil Works, as well as becoming a freelance architect. Between 1913 and 1915, he designed the three-storeyed Post, Telephone and Telegraph office building in Surabaya, now Gedung Telkom; the building was one of the pioneers of modern architecture in Surabaya. He also designed the Post, Telephone and Telegraph Office on the site of the 1914 Colonial Exhibition in Semarang. In the same year, Ghijsels designed the Petamboeran hospital for the Royal Packet Company in Batavia, now Pelni Petamburan hospital Jakarta. KPM also commissioned Ghijsels to design the headquarters for the KPM, which led to the formation of the private architectural consultant AIA, together with architect H. von Essen and contractor F. Stoltz. The AIA was considered one of the biggest architecture consultant in the Dutch East Indies, with a building contractor. The agency expanded in 1927 with an office in Surabaya. In 1932, AIA bureau created an associate with another office in Bandung, led by architect FW Brinkman and GH Voorhoeve. Ghijsels was a key figure of AIA until 1929, when he had to depart aboard the SS Hooft to Genoa and then the Netherlands. He remained committed to AIA where he worked from distance on a number of projects in the Dutch East Indies. During the 1930s, Ghijsels made a number of design sketches for his own house and a clubhouse for the Bloemendaal Hockeyclub. Ghijsels died on March 2, 1947 in Overveen.
AIA
The first project of AIA is the headquarters of KPM in Batavia. The project was a huge success and won critical acclaim. After the KPM headquarters project, AIA received many commissions for commercial buildings. Other AIA most famous works are the Kota railway station and Hotel des Indes in Batavia. In Surabaya, he designed the Internatio Building for the Internationale Crediet- en Handelsvereniging Rotterdam. The hospital Onder de Bogen in Yogyakarta is one of the best example of a more Indies style. In Bandung, Villa Isola of press magnate Dominique W. Beretty, was designed by Schoemaker who was affiliated with AIA. AIA also received big commissions for the hydraulic works after it had been associated with the firm Sitsen and Louzada in 1936. Other architects affiliated with AIA were HA Hes, FBH Asselberg and NE Burhoven Jaspers. Stoltz left the agency in 1921, while Hein von Essen had already left. From 1945, the office was led by Indonesian engineers Tan and Soetono. Today, the office still exist in Surabaya, under the old name: PT Biro AIA.
Style
In the beginning of the 20th century, there were two major groups of Modern architects in the Dutch Indies: those who followed the western architectural tradition in which they had been trained, and those that sought to achieve a synthesis of western and traditional Indies style. Ghijsels is definitely from the first - less Indies, more western - group, however it was known that Ghijsels made a separation between a more "formal" style for office and commercial projects, while choosing "informal" Indies style for schools and hospitals. Some of Ghijsels more Indies style are Onder de Bogen hospital and KPM hospital. This distinction that he invented contributed to a theoretical discussion about the importance of the colonial Indies style The Dutch East Indies newspaper De Indische Courant on December 16, 1925 quoted "simplicity is the shortest path to beauty" to Ghijsels' work. The quote clearly described Ghijsels' clean Modernist style.
