Aldo van Eyck; Architectural Innovator

Aldo van Eyck, considered one of the most important architectural thinkers of the postwar avant-garde in Europe, has died.

Media in Amsterdam reported that Van Eyck died of a heart attack Thursday at his home in the Netherlands. He was 80.

During the 1950s, Van Eyck ranked among the most articulate of a generation of architects who began to attack modernism for its functionalist abstraction--in particular, the deadening alienation of the modern urban environment. He worked to create an architecture more rooted in the complexity and multiplicity of urban life. In projects such as his most famous structure, the state orphanage in Amsterdam, he sought to reintroduce elements of the vernacular into architecture with what he called labyrinthine clarity.

His work reflected a fundamental sense of humanity. In his view, buildings needed to provide more than practical space; they needed to be adaptable enough to provide several alternatives for those who used them.

“What is needed is better functionalism,” he said some years ago, commenting on the state of architecture.

Many of his works were public facilities. His 1959 design for the state orphanage was credited with smashing many of the architectural conventions of the time.

“It was classical without containing any classical elements,” fellow architect Herman Hertzberger said. “It contained references to Greek temples, primitive African towns and Japanese palaces. It was a complete surprise.”

The simple, village-like structure featured small houses for the children linked by covered plains and walkways.

“He inspired an entire generation,” Hertzberger said. “He emphasized the human side of building.”

He first gained fame by designing the 1949 international exhibition of experimental art at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum. The exhibition later became known as the Cobra exhibition, featuring works by Dutch, Belgian and Danish artists. The exhibition drew its name from the first letters of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Van Eyck, a man of considerable personal charm and modesty, often collaborated with his wife, Annie. He also designed a colorful housing structure for single-parent families in the Dutch capital and hundreds of children’s playgrounds throughout the city.

Outside the Netherlands, he built low-income housing in Lima, Peru, in the late 1970s and new buildings for Siemens AG in Nuremberg, Germany.

Van Eyck founded the school of structural realism in the Netherlands, a movement centered around the School of Architecture of the Technical University at Delft, where he taught throughout his career.

He was awarded Denmark’s Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in 1990, one of the world’s most prestigious architecture awards.