Johannes Andreas (Jan) Brinkman

Pioneering architect and technical talent

The architect’s son Jan Brinkman studied civil engineering in Delft, but promptly took over his father’s architectural firm when he died in 1925.

A client of his father’s paired him with the talented architect Leendert Cornelis van der Vlugt, and so the successful firm of Brinkman & Van der Vlugt was born. Brinkman excelled in the technical field. The collaboration produced a few Rotterdam building gems: the Van Nelle factory, Sonneveld House and Feijenoord Stadium.

Van der Vlugt died in 1936, and Brinkman started a partnership with Delft alumnus Jo van den Broek. Brinkman and Van den Broek realised the departure hall of the Holland America Line in Rotterdam. In 1939 Brinkman was diagnosed with an incurable disease which forced him to stop working until his death in 1949. Brinkman’s buildings in the functionalist style of the Nieuwe Bouwen are still standing.