Gerardus Jozef Dusseldorp (2 December 191822 April 2000) was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

water

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...

and the founder of

Civil & Civic Civil & Civic was an Australian construction company. Founded in 1951, it was acquired in 1961 by Lend Lease Corporation. History Civil & Civic was founded by Dick Dusseldorp in 1951 on behalf of Dutch building companies Bredero's Bouwbedrijf and ...

, the financing arm of which later emerged as

Lendlease Lendlease is a globally integrated real estate company that creates and invests in communities, workplaces, retail, and infrastructure projects, headquartered in Barangaroo, New South Wales, Australia. History Founding The company was estab ...

, one of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

's largest companies.

Career

Born in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

in December 1918,Clark, L. Page 18
/ref> Gerardus Dusseldorp was known as ''Dik'' as a child, the

anglicise Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influenc ...

d version of which stuck with him for the rest of his life. At the age of 15, he enrolled as a marine cadet, with the aim of becoming a captain in the merchant marine. He was found to be color blind when he sought entry into officer training and withdrew from the service. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, as a Dutchman of working age, he was deported to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

, to work as forced labor.Clark, L. Page 22 Returning to the

, he secured work with a Danish firm building a railway from

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

. In late 1943 he was transported to

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula, Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland un ...

, again as forced labor but this time for the Siemens Organisation. In Summer 1944 he escaped with his wife and four-year-old daughter, and returned again to the

. In 1945 he and his younger brother Hank secured jobs at ''Bredero's Bouwbedrijf'', a

housebuilder established in the 1870s.Clark, L. Page 24 By 1947 he had been promoted to Construction Manager. In March 1951 Bredero's sent him to

to seek out business opportunities. He identified a project to build workers' housing in the

Snowy Mountains Scheme The Snowy Mountains Scheme or Snowy scheme is a hydroelectricity and irrigation complex in south-east Australia. The Scheme consists of sixteen major dams; nine power stations; two pumping stations; and of tunnels, pipelines and aqueducts that ...

, the largest infrastructure project to have been attempted in Australia. He established

, as a subsidiary of Bredero's. The success of which was based on the principle that the designer should be employed by the contractor rather than the other way round. During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s he undertook residential housing developments such as Harbour Heights Estate and was a competitor of Leslie Joseph Hooker and Hooker’s housing developments. In 1957 he secured the contract to build the podium for the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...

and, having established his reputation, built the business into an international concern. Civil and Civic built the first high rise office block (Caltex House) to be erected in Sydney. He went on to establish a publicly listed financing arm for Civil & Civic. This emerged as

Lend Lease Corporation Lendlease is a globally integrated real estate company that creates and invests in communities, workplaces, retail, and infrastructure projects, headquartered in Barangaroo, New South Wales, Australia. History Founding The company was estab ...

of which he was

Chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the group ...

until his retirement in 1988. To mark his retirement, the shareholders of Lend Lease gave him one million new shares, to establish the ''Dusseldorp Skills Forum''. He initially chaired the Forum before handing over the position to his son, Tjerk, who chairs the Forum to this day. His driving vision for the Forum was that it become a creator of "lighthouse" initiatives that would influence government policy for the benefit of young people, particularly those at the margin who were there through no fault of their own. During the last decade of his life he gained recognition as a practical

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

Honours

On Australia Day 1988 he was appointed an Honorary Officer of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Go ...

Family

He was married to Anne and together they went on to have five children. Australian actress

Marta Dusseldorp Marta Dusseldorp (born 1 February 1973) is an Australian stage, film and theatre actress. Her television credits include ''BlackJack'', ''Crownies'' (and its spin-off '' Janet King''), ''Jack Irish'' and '' A Place to Call Home''. Early life an ...

is his granddaughter.

Legacy

Dusseldorp was the founder of two

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

suburbs, one of them being the prestigious Middle Cove where the Dusseldorp family lived from 1959 until 2004. The house which Dusseldorp built in Middle Cove is one of the top five house designs in Australia: it is based on

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

's inspirational honeycomb house design and is a good example of

Organic Architecture Organic architecture is a philosophy of architecture which promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world. This is achieved through design approaches that aim to be sympathetic and well-integrated with a site, so buildings, furn ...

Career

Honours

Family

Legacy

References

Further reading