The Life and History of Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud

Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud was born in Purmerend, North Holland in 1890. He began his education at Amsterdam's Quellinus School of Decorative Arts and later began working with the architectural firm of Jeseph Cuypers and Jan Stuyt in 1907. Oud was interested in architectural theory, and found his lack of knowledge in that area frustrating. He left the firm after only six months to study at the National School for Art Education in Amsterdam. He had high expectations for the education he would receive at the School, but they failed to materialize. He also attended lectures at the Delft Technische Hogeschool, but was once again disappointed with what knowledge he gained. Oud worked in Theodor Fischer's Munich office for part of 1911, and attended Fischer's lectures at the Munich Polytechnic. These, along with other lectures and experiences in Germany, finally gave Oud what he was looking for in an architectural education. He returned to Purmerend, desiring to focus on new construction and materials in his architecture. He began his own practice, working mostly on residential projects
In the projects of his early career, Oud was influenced mainly by Berlage's ideas of honesty in construction and Frank Lloyd Wright's use of floating planes and volumes. In 1917, he designed a duplex workers' house of reinforced concrete. He wished to move away from the restrictions of traditional brick construction, placing emphasis on definition of planes, monumentality, and a synthesis of theory and form. This project was never actually constructed, as Oud felt that "construction in concrete is eminently suitable for a plastic, three-dimensional architecture [but] definitely not applicable to this design." 1

J.J.P. Oud's influences changed somewhat in this same year with the beginning of the De Stijl movement. De Stijl was founded by the painters Mondrian and van Doesburg, architects van't Horr and Oud, and furniture-maker Rietveld, along with several other artists