Charles Prosper Wolff Schoemaker

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The Villa Isola in Bandung, designed by Wolff Schoemaker
Bandung Cathedral

Charles Prosper Kemal Wolff Schoemaker (born July 25, 1882 in Banyu Biru , Java ; † May 22, 1949 in Bandung ) was a Dutch architect who worked mainly in the Dutch East Indies .

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CP Schoemaker came from a family that had lived in the Dutch East Indies for three generations . He attended the Hogere Burgerschool in Nijmegen , then the Koninklijke Militaire Academie in Breda and graduated as civil engineering . From 1905 to 1911 he was an officer of in Batavia stationed engineer units . He worked alternately for the army and for the Departement van Burgerlijke Openbare Werken (department for public buildings), from 1911 to 1914 he was director of the public utilities of Batavia. He then worked for Schlieper & Co. for a year , during which time he went on a study trip to the United States . There he stayed longer than planned because of the outbreak of the First World War . In 1918, he and his brother Richard Schoemaker opened the architecture office CP Schoemaker en Associatie, Architecten en Ingenieurs , which existed until 1924. From 1922 he put himself on the double name Wolff Schoemaker ( Wolff was his mother's maiden name).

From 1922 to 1924 Schoemaker was an associate professor at the Technische Hoogeschool Bandoeng and until 1939 a full professor. He was also visiting professor at the Technical University of Delft . In 1920 he took part in the Dutch-Indian architecture debate. He was also active as a painter and sculptor and contributed sculptures to the Bandoengse Kunstkring , of which he was temporarily chairman, from 1927 an honorary member. In 1938 he was awarded the Order of the Dutch Lion .

While Wolff Schoemaker was highly respected as an architect, he was a social outsider in the Dutch colony because of his unusual lifestyle. He was married five times (one of his fathers-in-law was the aviation pioneer Johan Hilgers ), and in such rapid succession that the first child from his fourth marriage was born before the last from his third. He converted to Islam , made a pilgrimage to Mecca and took the Muslim name Kemal . He collected Asian art and kept exotic animals: a black panther, a giant boa, and venomous snakes. He is said to have assured troubled visitors that he had the right antidote in the house.

Schoemaker's brother Richard was executed as a resistance fighter in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1942 ; Johan Hilgers died in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in 1945.

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Schoemaker is referred to as Frank Lloyd Wright of Indonesia . He designed numerous buildings, including a Protestant and a Catholic church, a mosque, a bank and villas; 62 buildings can be assigned to him with certainty, with a further 52 his involvement cannot be proven beyond doubt. His most famous works include the Villa Isola and the renovation of the Grand Hotel Preanger in Bandung, which are among the highlights of Dutch colonial architecture. The Dutch East Indies tried to develop a modern colonial style in the 1920s and 1930s, and Schoemaker was one of the protagonists of this trend.

Hotel Preanger in Bandung

During the renovation of the Grand Hotel Preanger , the future first President of Indonesia, Sukarno , acted as Schoemaker's assistant. The two men remained friends until Schoemaker's death: "Met Soekarno had Schoemaker een passie voor kunst en vrouwen gemeen." (German: "Schoemaker shared a passion for art and women with Sukarno.")

literature

  • CJ van Dullemen: Tropical Modernity. Life and Work of CP Wolff Schoemaker . Idea Books 2010, ISBN 978-90-8506-879-2

Web links

Commons : Wolff Schoemaker  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Modern architecture in de tropics van Charles Prosper Wolff Schoemaker. (No longer available online.) Tong Tong Fair, April 8, 2014, archived from the original on October 21, 2014 ; Retrieved September 26, 2014 (Dutch). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tongtongfair.nl
  2. ↑ Wolff Schoemaker. indisch4ever, July 16, 2008, accessed September 26, 2014 (Dutch).
  3. ↑ CJ van Dullemen, Tropical Modernity: Life and Work of CP Wolff Schoemaker (review) . In: BMGN (Ed.): Low Countries Historical Review . Volume 127-2 (2012), Review 35.
  4. ↑ Enkele Nederlandse architecten werkzaam in India. Kota Salatiga, accessed September 26, 2014 (Dutch).
  5. ^ A b Bob Witman: Tropical kroonstukken Architectuur CP Wolff Schoemaker. Volkskrant.nl, July 17, 2010, accessed September 26, 2014 (Dutch).
  6. ↑ Tropical modernism. Java Post, October 31, 2012, accessed September 26, 2014 (Dutch).
personal data
SURNAME Schoemaker, Charles Prosper Wolff
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schoemaker, Charles Prosper Kemal Wolff (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch architect
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Banyu Biru , Java , Dutch East Indies
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1949
Place of death Bandung , Dutch East Indies