Isaac A. Brooks: Housing Precedent_JJP Oud

Why JJP Oud? Besides perhaps Rem Koolhaas, there has been no architect more prolific nor important for Dutch architecture than JJP Oud. Oud covered styles from Regional Vernacular to De Stijl to Modernism (and slightly beyond to a highly plastic variation on Modernism), over a career spanning nearly 60 years.




Oud was highly involved in housing both public and private - he served as an architect for the Rotterdam Municipal Housing authority for over a decade. There is of course the European connection, however, Oud was able to practice through both World Wars, in Europe without much of a gap at all, which makes his take on Modernism especially interesting because it is arguably the most European version of Modernism that exists. His style shares a connection with his home country in a way that the other premier Modern architects cannot claim (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris had a much more international profile, Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe both emigrated and developed their style abroad).Neither can the other three lay claim on a more impressive portfolio of housing designs. Jeanneret-Gris may have designed more square meters, but I would argue that he lacked the variety that one can find in Oud's portfolio.

Oud was also very involved in a more interdisciplanary practice of architecture than most architects of his time (or our time). Furniture was a given, but his correspondence with Piet Mondrian concerning the merging of art and architecture during the De Stijl years produced an architecture with a sympathy to art that few architects can boast.

What lessons can we learn from Oud? More than anything, I think we can learn better to understand architecture as temporal, as ever-changing. One of the great arguments of Oud's time was that between Traditionalism and Functionalism. Traditionalism essentially held that, stylistically, architecture had really come as far as it needed. If Classicism (for example) has persisted for hundred of years, then there must be some merit to it - there is no need to discern exactly why, and there is certainly no need to continually search for a new solution to a problem that has been sufficiently answered. Functionalists on the other hand saw a need for architecture to continue to adapt to stylistically address current problems in architecture. For the Dutch, this meant finding a national identity, accommodating new materials such as concrete, and leveraging standardization.

Oud was firmly a Functionalist. However, while most Functionalists were carrying Functionalism to a point where it lost all warmth and feeling - Oud was able to soften his architecture using vernacular materials more fit of a Traditionalist. What does all of this demonstrate? The ability to understand architecture as something that doesn't exist for a small moment in time, but something that people will potentially be inhabiting for their whole lives. The flexibility to see past trends in architecture and address larger issues. Functionalism is really just a footnote in the slow march to Modernism - Oud was able to not lose sight of this and several steps ahead of his peers when it came to achieving the Modernism spirit. 

In what is pictured below, I have provided an overview of the different phases of architecture Oud worked through, major historical events, and a list of some of his noteworthy projects. These are not projects that are necessarily his most well-known - or even built. They are projects that I feel best capture what makes Oud unique and best capture his response to Dutch architecture at a moment in time.  

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