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DANCE INSTITUTE GAILLARD JORISSEN
J. WILS, 1920-1921, Laan van Meerdervoort 50b-c, Den Haag
Dansinstituut Gaillard-Jorissen / Dance Institute Gaillard Jorissen ( J. Wils )
© 2016 Ossip van Duivenbode

ARCHITECT(URAL OFFICE):
Jan Wils

ASSISTING ARCHITECT:
Piet Zwart

BUILDING TYPE:
Buildings for education

According to the authoritative Italian architecture critic Giovanni Fanelli, the building Jan Wils designed for Rita Gaillard-Jorissen and William Jorissen’s dance institute is one of De Stijl’s finest built works. Its front facade slips into the street elevation of Laan van Meerdervoort, so that most passers-by fail to observe it head-on. It is a balanced asymmetrical composition whose horizontality is accentuated by the fenestration and bands of concrete, with the entrance and stairwell as a vertical thrust. Inside, the colour design was the work of Wils’s draftsman Piet Zwart, who would later make a name for himself most of all as a graphic designer. The large dance studio was mainly black and grey, with yellow and red accents on the doors and furniture, and had a yellow floor.