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Other works

Both in municipal service and through his own architectural firm, Dudok designed a wide variety of structures, including bridges, a viaduct, a swimming pool, petrol stations, theatres, a monument to the Afsluitdijk and even a deer stable.

Technical engineer

Trained at the Royal Military Academy in Breda, Dudok designed his first buildings working for the engineer. Here he gained experience in designing a barracks and a home for soldiers and the use of concrete in bombproof forts. He was able to use the technical experience well in his first municipal job as an engineer at Public Works in Leiden, where he designed various bridges and supervised the new construction for the municipal cleaning service and waste incineration.

Employed by the municipality of Hilversum

Many different designs were commissioned by the municipality of Hilversum. This was an early decorative fountain on the Kerkbrink (later demolished), but it also included large waterworks, sewage treatment plants, a sports park, a swimming pool, bridges and service buildings. Dudok paid equal attention to all designs. Even a deer stable, built as an employment project in the late 1930s, was covered with a beautiful overhanging thatched roof, red doors and a round window, a typical Dudok feature.

Independent architect

As an independent architect, Dudok also received commissions for various buildings. Special designs are the Monument on the Afsluitdijk (1933), built on the spot where the dike was closed in 1932, and a prototype of a petrol station (1953), which was erected by the Esso in various places in the Netherlands, both designated as National Monuments. The representative Stadsschouwburg in Utrecht at the Lucas Bolwerk is also a design by Dudok, in which the architect arranged the building in such a way that the green stronghold, an important walking park, was spared as much as possible.

Abroad

Dudok built only a few buildings outside the Netherlands. The Collège Néerlandais, a student pavilion in Paris (introduced in 1937), resembles the Hilversum Town Hall and was reopened in 2016 after a thorough restoration. In Calcutta, India, the architect built a recreation center consisting of a hotel and two cinemas (1936). After a major fire in 2014 – the complex had been neglected for some time – it was demolished. A design for a city theater in Izmir, Turkey that Dudok had worked on with great enthusiasm, was never executed (1953). The architect wrote to the Turkish ambassador in the Netherlands: ‘… cette affaire avec Izmir, commencée de bon foi et avec tant d’enthousiasme, est une si grande déception pour moi’.