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K(arel) P(etrus) C(ornelis) Bazel (February 14, 1869 - November 28, 1923)
K(arel) P(etrus) C(ornelis) Bazel
(February 14, 1869 - November 28, 1923) |
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Art Work
| Name: |
K(arel) P(etrus) C(ornelis) Bazel |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Den Helder |
| Nationality: |
Dutch |
| Birth: |
February 14, 1869 |
| Death: |
November 28, 1923 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
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| Medium: |
Architect/decorative artist |
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Biography
| He studied at the Akademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague from 1882 to 1888. After a year in the office of J. J. van Nieukerken, a local architect, in 1889 he joined the studio of P. J. H. Cuypers, which was in the new Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Beginning as a draughtsman, he quickly took on more responsible work; in 1890 he supervised the building of the St Vituskerk in Emmastraat, Hilversum, but in the same year he suffered one of the long periods of illness that hindered his career. In 1892 he returned to a supervisory position with Cuypers where he remained until 1895; while there he received a thorough exposure to the principle of the Gesamtkunstwerk, and he became friends with J. L. M. Lauweriks. In 1893 they traveled to London where they studied and drew Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities in the British Museum. In 1894 they followed this interest further by joining the newly formed Theosophical Society in Amsterdam and contributed woodcuts to its magazine Licht en Waarheid. In 1895 they left Cuypers and opened their own studio for architecture and the decorative arts in Amsterdam, modelled on the lines of William Morriss workshops in England. From Theosophy and their own studies they had absorbed the idea of the sacredness of geometry and proportion, and geometric ornament appeared prominently in de Bazels subsequent buildings. In 1895 de Bazel prepared extensive watercolour drawings for an important competition for a large public library. These had a wide influence; although the most immediate derivation was Willem Kromhouts American Hotel, Amsterdam, their most important effect was on the designs for the Koopmansbeurs (Exchange) in Amsterdam, then being prepared by H. P. Berlage who was a member of the competition jury. The facades of both de Bazels project and the exchange as built were proportioned on a geometric system based on the Egyptian triangle; more importantly, de Bazel had gone further than Charles Rennie Mackintosh or anyone else at that time in presenting masonry walls, in this case brick, as thick, substantial planes of whose surface the ornament was an integral part. Another competition entry by de Bazel, an unbuilt design for an architects club building in 1897, was also widely admired, but it was a less radical design in stone. In 1900 another period of illness forced the closure of de Bazels practice with Lauweriks; after some time in a hospital, in 1902 he moved to Bussum, and in 1902-6 he built a model farm there, Oud-Bussem. He began to practise on his own, at first working on country houses but gradually returning to larger work. In 1905 he prepared a street plan for a proposed international government district in The Hague, and in 1914 he began his involvement in the design of social housing with two blocks on Van Beuningenplein in Amsterdam, completed in 1916. Other major housing complexes by de Bazel include 232 units of workers housing (1918-23) in the Spaarndammer neighbourhood of Amsterdam, a company village (1919-20) in Eindhoven for Philips Electric and 54 workers dwellings (1923) for the municipality of Bussum. He also continued his work in the decorative arts, such as the glassware designed for the Royal Leerdam glassworks from 1916, in which he strove to maintain decorative beauty while answering practical requirements.A small office building (Koninklijke Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij, Apeldoornseweg; 1912-13) in Arnhem by de Bazel illustrates well the transitional role of his generation: it is basically traditional in form with a hip roof and brick facades, but it has clear, simple detailing, a concrete structural frame, rectangular multi-pane windows and black horizontal decorative bands. Many of these features are developed more fully in one of de Bazels major works, the large seven-storey office block for the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij in Vijzelstraat, Amsterdam, begun in 1919 and completed in 1926 after his death. The concrete frame surrounds two large light courts whose proportions and severe lack of detail directly recall Frank Lloyd Wrights Larkin Building in Buffalo, NY. The exterior is handled quite decoratively, however; there are figure sculptures by Joseph Mendes da Costa, and thin horizontal and even chequerboard bands of light and dark masonry are above the black stone ground floor and the heavily articulated and modelled wall surfaces. This building was much published and discussed as an example in the debates surrounding the use of ornament, which so preoccupied architects of the 20th century and in which de Bazel was a keen participant. In 1909 de Bazel was one of the founders of the Bond van Nederlandsche Architecten and served as its first chairman until 1913. |
Samples of Work
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