59 Maaike Behm
huge building would be located next to a motorway that would cut right through the city centre. Shortly afterwards a conflict erupted surrounding demolition work to clear the way for the first metro line with stations designed by Sier van Rhijn and Ben Spängberg, who graduated from the academy in 1953 and 1959. Moreover, plans to demolish large parts of the Jordaan were tabled in 1959-1960. On the edges of the centre of Amsterdam a number of complexes stand out on account of the contrast in scale with the surrounding districts. Such projects include the work of architect Jacob Dunnebier, who graduated from the Academy of Architecture in 1930. His architecture looks like a mild combination of Amsterdam School and Nieuwe Zakelijkheid (‘New Objectivity’) and is best expressed in his housing in the Dapperbuurt from 1974. This neighbourhood was built rapidly and cheaply in the late 19th century, and by the late 1960s it was in an appalling condition. A plan from 1972 envisaged the almost total demolition and reconstruction of the district on the basis of a new system of building plots. Well-organised opposition prevented implementation of this plan, except for one project: Dunnebier’s scheme for the Roomtuintjes. Gerard de Klerk (diploma 1958) was similar to Dunnebier in that his architecture lacked an outspoken character. With his big, commercial architecture office he was responsible for the former Public Library on Prinsengracht and a series of hotels. De Klerk was not afraid of big volumes either, as is clearly evident in his Marriott Hotel from 1975. It was built on the Leidsebosje, on a site previously occupied by a protestant church with a dome. With Toon ter Braak one must also mention the colleagues with whom he associated in the mid-1950s: Dick Apon, Johan van den Berg and Wim Tromp (bureau ABBT). They were taught by architects like Van Tijen, Maaskant and Van den Broek & Bakema, and all of them graduated from the academy in the years 1954-1956. In the period 1959-1963 Dick Apon was also involved with Forum magazine. In the Kattenburg district Ter Braak and company were able to complete a very big housing project because practically the whole island had already been demolished in the late 1960s. The new district, built between 1971 and 1976, was totally dissimilar to typologies in the centre of Amsterdam. Even during construction it was decided that the process of urban renewal should not continue along these lines.