The Success of the Amsterdam

Orphanage and School

By Kshitiz Sharma

According to Victor Hugo, architecture is dead. In his classic gothic novel The
Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Hugo speaks extensively about the destruction of architecture. Hugo
states from the origin of things down to the fifteenth century of the Christian era, inclusive,
architecture is the great book of humanity, the principal expression of man in his different stages
of development, either as a force or as an intelligence.(Hugo 897) This idea stems from the fact
that cultures have always expressed their ideas through their architecture because of how durable
and ever-present architecture is in society. He was so cynical about the future of architecture
because of the invention and implementation of the Gutenberg press. Society now had a more
durable form of transcribing ideas than architecture and Hugo was afraid that architecture would
lose its significance as a form of communication He claimed that the book [would] kill the
edifice. (Hugo) Ultimately though, he was wrong. The printing press was not killing
architecture, but rather pushing it to evolve. As he stated himself, architecture began like all
writing. It was first an alphabet. Men planted a stone upright, it was a letter, and each letter was a
hieroglyph, and upon each hieroglyph rested a group of ideas, like the capital on the column.
(Hugo) After the printing press, architecture needed to evolve as a form of writing. It needed to
become more complex so that buildings would carry the same weight that literature carries with
symbolism and diction. Architecture needed to become a richer medium of language to be
successful, and the Amsterdam Orphanage and School is just one example of how architecture
can be used as a sophisticated form of language. Designed by Aldo van Eyck in 1960, the
structure was meant to house and care for orphans on the outskirts of the city. By being designed
with its subconscious influence in mind, illustrating ideas and views of the architect, and
representing a part of history the structure succeeds as a building.
Like most forms of successful writing, architecture needs to have an underlying theme or
message that it intends to convey. The Amsterdam Orphanage contains numerous ideas that van

Eyck tries to invoke in the viewer through the language of architecture. Charles Jencks brings up
the fact in his book about post-modern architecture, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture,
that People invariably see one building in terms of another, or in terms of a similar object; in
short, as a metaphor. More unfamiliar a modern building is, the more they will compare it
metaphorically to what they know. (Jencks 4) This is undoubtedly true and evident in everyday
life; people tend to associate things with the abstract. Unsuccessful buildings and architects lay
victim to this phenomenon, while successful architects use it to send a message. Using
symbolism and metaphors to his advantage, Eyck illustrates a view on both society and human
mind. Through the metaphor of a grid like city he draws a connection, associating the orphanage
with a city. (Eyck, Writings. The Child, the City and the Artist 28) Through this suggested
metaphor Eyck can further illustrate the meaning behind his famous quote: in every home there
is a city, in every city a home. The city that he creates through the orphanage has very unique
aspects. The city is decentralized, preventing ostracization of children from a center. The entire
structure is also one story, this symbolizes the inefficiency of hierarchical structure and promotes
a sense of equality; the fact that everyone is on the same level as you. The Amsterdam
Orphanage and School is a piece of language that has meaning which is directly conveyed by it
through various forms of architectural communication.
Besides having a direct message, successful architecture should also take advantage of its
subliminal influence. Architecture is often viewed in its most utilitarian aspect; besides being a
defense against the elements, architecture serves as a medium in which we interact with other
people and ourselves. It in fact dictates how you get from one place to another, how much space
you have to perform your daily activities, if a space is communal or private, and so much more
of everyone's life than is usually noticed. Jane Jacobs addressed this fact when expressing the
social impact of something that is essentially invisible to the common person: sidewalks. In her

book The Death and Life of Great American Cities she states The points of the testimonial
banquet and the social life of city sidewalks is precisely that they are public. They bring together
people that don't know each other in an intimate, private social fashion and in most cases do not
care to know each other in that fashion. (Jacobs 1) The existence of this communal space
between residences allows for the opportunity for interaction, but a unique sort of interaction that
is limited simply to what one wants to know or tell. The lack of these mediums of interaction
also has an effect. In suburbia, where sidewalk interactions are not abundant and getting to know
neighbors requires a more intimate and intrusive method: inviting them into your house. Again,
an architect can be ignorant of the psychological and social importance of the space here or she
is creating (or not creating), but this will only lead to a structure that does not take into account
its fullest potential. A successful building or structure can only be created when the architect is
aware of the influence that spatial distribution has on the people that interact with it. An even
more successful architect would go past self-awareness and actually use the influence as a tool
for creating a better structure. Aldo van Eyck clearly took advantage of the effect that his
building had on the children that inhabited it. The grid-like layout of the building allowed easier
mobility and navigation for its younger clients. The integration of communal space also has a
profound influence on how the building allows for human interaction. There are multiple
modules scattered throughout the building that allow for mingling and contact amongst the
orphans. The placements of administrative offices instilled the feeling of accessibility to the
children, for they were at the same level as the rest of the school. (Eyck, Writings. Collected
Articles and Other Writings 56) This thoughtful and intentional use of the subconscious effect of
architecture is what makes the Amsterdam Orphanage and School so efficient and successful.

Writing and language have always held the purpose of recording the past or representing
a time in history, and Victor Hugo can rest in peace knowing that contemporary successful
architecture still preserves its time in human history. The Amsterdam Orphanage and School
stands for the success of modern architecture. Modern architecture was known for its repetitive
and cost effective style. Originally meant for cheap worker housing, modern architecture became
almost universal due to its low financial cost and minimum creativity needed. Tom Wolfe
enthusiastically criticizes modern architecture in a chapter entitled Escape to Islip from his
book From Bauhaus to our House. In it he describes towers [that] are steel, concrete, and glass;
sometimes of glass, steel, and small glazed white or beige bricks the ceilings are low, often
under 8 feet, the hallways are narrow, the rooms are narrow, even when there long, the bedrooms
are small, the laws are thin, the doorways and windows have no casings, the joints have no
moldings, the walls have no baseboards (Wolfe 6) This was essentially the template from which
numerous buildings were Xeroxed and scattered across the world. While the modern movement
in Architecture is often viewed in a negative light, it was architects like Aldo van Eyck and
buildings like the Amsterdam Orphanage and School that represented the best of this era,
treading on the border of post-modern architecture. The School also contained the minimalist
style and geometric shapes and planes, but these aspects a=were on purpose and not a byproduct
of expediency. While still holding the same styles and themes of modernist architecture, thus
becoming a significant example of the best of an era, van Eyck used these styles cleverly and for
specific purposes instead of just for convenience.
Architecture, like all forms of expression, must evolve over time. It is no longer the
words and letters that Victor Hugo described as architecture; it's gone past even sentences and
paragraphs. Successful architecture now takes the form of fully developed essays or

comprehensive pieces of text. The Amsterdam Orphanage and School takes form as an insightful
piece of writing: conveying messages and ideas through its language, containing underlying
themes and influences, and acting as a reflection of its time period, proving to Hugo that the
book did not in fact kill the edifice.

Works Cited

van Eyck, Aldo. Writings. Collected Articles and Other Writings. Amsterdam: SUN, 2008.
. Writings. The Child, the City and the Artist. Amsterdam: SUN, 2008 (1962).
Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961.
Jencks, Charles. The Language of the Post-Modern Architecture. New York: Rizzoli, 1977.
Wolfe, Tom. From Bauhaus to our House. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1981.
Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. New York: Modern Library, 1941. Print.