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MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE

G. FRIEDHOFF, 1952-1962

Bezuidenhoutseweg 73, Den Haag

ARCHITECT(URAL OFFICE):
Gijsbert Friedhoff

ASSISTING ARCHITECT:
Mart Bolten

ARTIST:
Bram Roth
Hans Reicher
Katinka van Rood
Henk Etienne
Fred Carasso

:
Cees Dam

BUILDING TYPE:
Government buildings

U. Barbieri, L. van Duin (red.) - Honderd Jaar Nederlandse Architectuur 1901-2000, 1999; M. Kamphuis - De iconografie van een ministerie, Den Haag 1999; M. Kuipers - Toonbeelden van de wederopbouw, Zwolle 2002

Built in two phases, this government building was first occupied by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Royal Netherlands Air Force. It consists of four parallel volumes linked by less-tall transverse blocks. The three courtyards this creates are threaded together by an internal street passing through four gateways. The design is deliberately subdued, functional and severe, being of a hierarchic, monumental and symmetrical disposition. Besides being responsible for this restrained government architecture, in 1953 Friedhoff established the ruling that one per cent of a building's construction costs was to be spent on art. Containing work by some 30 artists to inject identity into its uniform parti, this particular government building surely deserves the epithet 'Gesamtkunstwerk'.