Henri Maclaine Pont (Meester Cornelis,

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

, 21 June 1884 –

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, 3 December 1971) was a Dutch architect and archaeologist active in Indonesia, acclaimed for his synthesis of Javanese and western architecture. He is seen as the "father" of modern vernacular architecture of Indonesia.

Biography

Henri Maclaine Pont studied civil engineering in

Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...

. After graduation, he moved back to the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

where in 1911 he received his first major work, the design of the Semarang-Cheribon Steam Tram Company headquarters. In

Semarang Semarang ( jv, ꦏꦸꦛꦯꦼꦩꦫꦁ , Pegon: سماراڠ) is the capital and largest city of Central Java province in Indonesia. It was a major port during the Dutch colonial era, and is still an important regional center and port today. ...

he set up his own firm, which was later joined by Thomas Karsten. Soon however he fell ill, and being forced to return to the Netherlands, sold the firm to Karsten, Lutjens and Steenstra Toussaint.C.J. van Dullemen: ''Tropical Modernity: Life and Work of C.P. Wolff Schoemaker'', SUN 2010 He lived and worked in various places in Java and studied the Javanese pre-Islamic architecture. He wrote many articles in professional journals and had a

polemic Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...

with prof.

Wolff Schoemaker Charles Prosper Wolff Schoemaker (25 July 1882 – 22 May 1949) was a Dutch architect who designed several distinguished Art Deco buildings in Bandung, Indonesia, including the Villa Isola and Hotel Preanger. He has been described as "the Fran ...

. In 1919 he was commissioned for the design of the Ceremonial Hall of the Bandung Institute of Technology building.NAi: ''Henri Maclaine Pont: Architect, Engineer, Archeologist'', October 2009
/ref> The building is remarkable for the synthesis of Western technology and local architecture. In 1943, he was put in an internment camp along with the many other Europeans during the Japanese occupation, and in 1945 was brought to Australia to recover. Due to the lack in job vacancies at the Bandung Technical School, he left Indonesia in 1947 for The Hague, where he died in 1971. His notable works also include the original

Trowulan Museum The Trowulan Museum is an archaeological museum located in Trowulan, Mojokerto, in East Java, Indonesia. The museum was built in order to house the artifacts and archaeological findings discovered around Trowulan and its vicinity. The location is ...

(1932) and the Puh Sarang Catholic church in Kediri (1937).

References

External links

1884 births 1971 deaths Dutch architects Dutch people of the Dutch East Indies People from Batavia, Dutch East Indies Delft University of Technology alumni Architects in the Dutch East Indies {{Netherlands-architect-stub