Joan (Jo) Melchior van der Mey (19 August 1878,

Delfshaven Delfshaven is a borough of Rotterdam, Netherlands, on the right bank of river Nieuwe Maas. It was a separate municipality until 1886. The town of Delfshaven grew around the port of the city of Delft. Delft itself was not located on a major ...

– 6 June 1949, Geulle) was a Dutch

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

best known for the landmark Scheepvaarthuis (Shipping House) building in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

located at

Prins Hendrikkade Prins Hendrikkade (Dutch for "Prince Henry's Quay") is a major street in the centre of Amsterdam. It passes Amsterdam Central Station, intersects the Damrak at the mouth of the Amstel river, and forms the southern end of the IJtunnel across the ...

, 1912. Van der Mey was a student of

Eduard Cuypers Eduard Cuypers (18 April 1859 Roermond – 1 June 1927, The Hague) was a Dutch architect. He worked in Amsterdam and the Dutch East Indies. Biography Cuypers was trained in the architectural practice of his uncle Pierre Cuypers, the countr ...

from 1898, won the Dutch

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

in 1906; he was taken on by the city of Amsterdam as an "Aesthetic Advisor". In 1905 Amsterdam was the first city in the world to impose a building code, and later they hired van der Mey as their civic building artist. In this capacity he developed the facade for the 1912 Palm House at the Hortus Botanicus among other buildings. That same year brought the commission for the Scheepvaarthuis, a large cooperative building for six Dutch shipping companies. Van der Mey sought the assistance of his former colleague-architects

Michel de Klerk Michel de Klerk (24 November 1884, Amsterdam – 24 November 1923, Amsterdam) was a Dutch architect. Born to a Jewish family, he was one of the founding architects of the movement Amsterdam School (Expressionist architecture) Early in his ca ...

and

Piet Kramer Pieter Lodewijk (Piet) Kramer (Amsterdam, 1 July 1881 – Santpoort, 4 February 1961) was a Dutch architect, one of the most important architects of the Amsterdam School (Expressionist architecture). From 1903 to 1911 Piet Kramer worked in the a ...

, and the architect ''Adolf Daniël Nicolaas van Gendt'' was responsible for engineering the concrete structure. Van der Mey's job was to coordinate the extensive symbolic art and sculptural program, inside and outside. Much of the sculpture is the work of

Hildo Krop Hildebrand Lucien (Hildo) Krop (February 26, 1884, Steenwijk, Overijssel – August 20, 1970) was a prolific Dutch sculptor and furniture designer, widely known as the city sculptor of Amsterdam, where his work is well represented. Life Krop wa ...

and H. A. van den Eijnde, but a large group of well-known artists contributed. The Scheepvaarthuis is regarded as a highlight of the

Amsterdam School The Amsterdam School (Dutch: ''Amsterdamse School'') is a style of architecture that arose from 1910 through about 1930 in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam School movement is part of international Expressionist architecture, sometimes linked ...

of building. Michel de Klerk went on to become its most important representative. Van der Mey also designed bridges and housing complexes in south Amsterdam and around the city's Mercatorplein.

External links

Photos of figural architectural sculpture on the Scheepvaarthuis
1878 births 1949 deaths Brick Expressionism Architects from Rotterdam Expressionist architects Prix de Rome (Netherlands) winners {{Netherlands-architect-stub