Avant-garde · 1918–1932 · Western Europe

Wendingen & Amsterdam School Typography

Also known as Wendingen style, Amsterdam School graphics, Dutch Expressionist typography

The graphic language of Wendingen (1918–1932), monthly of the Amsterdam architects' society Architectura et Amicitia, and its editor H. Th. Wijdeveld: the Amsterdam School's brick Expressionism in print. Wijdeveld built heavy capitals and meanders from compositors' brass rules and centred them in thick rule frames on square, Japanese-sewn pages; invited artists drew the covers. The School also built such capitals in brick and on bridge nameplates. Avant-garde covers, such as El Lissitzky's Proun (1921 no. 11, out 1922) and Vilmos Huszár's De Stijl design (1929), sit outside the house style.

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A symmetrical geometric poster in rust orange, ochre, black and cream features a rising semicircular sun with angular rays above the large word “HORIZON.” Stepped shapes, vertical bars and small squares fill an elaborate border on a grainy, aged-paper background. — AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

How it works

Build display letters and ornament from the material at hand: piece brass rules, bars and blocks from the type case into heavy, rectilinear capitals, or lay them in the bricks of the facade, and let the joins between the pieces show.
Centre the page on a single vertical axis and lock the title inside massive black bars and stacked rule borders, like the facade of a building.
Print in black plus one warm colour, such as burnt orange, red or gold, on cream paper, in flat solid fields.
Make the publication itself an architectural object: a square page, covers in a double-square format based on the proportion of the Japanese tatami mat, double leaves printed on one side only, folded and sewn in the Japanese manner.
Devote each issue to one maker or theme, from Frank Lloyd Wright to seashells and crystals, give its cover to an invited artist or architect, and hold the photographs and plans inside on calm pages framed by the same rule work.

Amsterdam: Wendingen, the monthly of the architects' society Architectura et Amicitia, edited and designed by the architect H. Th. Wijdeveld (sources differ on whether he stayed editor after 1925; he still set the interior typography in 1929), published by De Hooge Brug in Amsterdam (1918–1923) and C. A. Mees in Santpoort (1924–1931)

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition: Central symmetry defining
Framed panels characteristic
Classical text block occasional
Space & hierarchy: Single focal point characteristic
Repetition & rhythm characteristic
Measured density characteristic
Generous white space occasional
Typography: All caps defining
Ornamented display characteristic
Experimental & distorted characteristic
Type as image characteristic
Tight setting characteristic
Stencil occasional
Hand-lettering occasional
Colour: Limited spot colours defining
Light ground characteristic
Flat fields characteristic
Earth & mineral characteristic
Jewel & metallic occasional
Form & shape: Rectilinear defining
Geometric primitives characteristic
Non-representational characteristic
Optical pattern occasional
Surface & texture: Flat characteristic
Paper & letterpress bite characteristic
Ornament: Rules & bars defining
Borders & frames defining
Geometric tessellation characteristic
Abundant decoration characteristic
Imagery: Typography only characteristic
Straight photography characteristic
Diagram & data occasional
Line illustration occasional
Medium & production: Letterpress defining
Lithography characteristic
Architecture & signage characteristic
Tone & intent: Authoritative & institutional characteristic
Utopian & idealistic characteristic
Luxurious & glamorous occasional
Romantic & sensual occasional
Avoids: Whiplash line, Dynamic asymmetry, Diagonal axis, Flush left, ragged right, Script, Gradients, Photomontage, Collage & layering, Eclectic mixing

Palette

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Typefaces

H. Th. Wijdeveld's capitals and meanders assembled from compositors' brass rules and type-case pieces
Wendingen title pages; posters of 1929 and 1931
Architectuur NF (Nick Curtis, Nick's Fonts, 2006), a digital revival of the rule-built letters of Wijdeveld's 1925 Frank Lloyd Wright issue, with his meander ornaments
The Amsterdam bridge-nameplate letter of about 1930, attributed to Anton Kurvers, since digitised more than once
Hand-drawn, lithographed cover lettering by the invited cover artists, such as Michel de Klerk, Jan Toorop and Hildo Krop

Known for

H. Th. Wijdeveld, covers and typography of the seven Frank Lloyd Wright issues of Wendingen
(series 7, nos. 3–9, 1925–1926), gathered as The Life-Work of the American Architect Frank Lloyd Wright (C. A. Mees, Santpoort, 1925; colophon April 1926), printed on one side of double leaves folded in the Japanese style
H. Th. Wijdeveld, poster Architectuur / Frank Lloyd Wright for Wright's exhibition that opened in Amsterdam on 9 May 1931, colour lithograph printed by Joh. Enschedé en Zonen, with letters and ornament built from printers' brass rules (Minneapolis Institute of Art, P.98.33.3)
H. Th. Wijdeveld, poster Internationale Economisch-Historische Tentoonstelling (1929), letterpress, a mosaic of letterforms pieced together from printer's type-case elements in burnt orange and gold (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2001-7-1)
J. L. M. Lauweriks, cover of the first issue (Wendingen 1918, no. 1), and Michel de Klerk, cover of no. 2
1918
H. Th. Wijdeveld, the Eileen Gray issue
Wendingen vol. 6, no. 6, 1924
Piet Kramer with Michel de Klerk, the words 'de dageraad' built from bricks into the facade high on the western corner of the De Dageraad housing complex, Burgemeester Tellegenstraat, Amsterdam (1923), letters whose shapes follow the limits of the bricks
Amsterdam Public Works department, the identical nameplates of the city's named bridges (designed around 1930), lettering attributed to Anton Kurvers, who also drew the Wendingen cover of the public housing issue (1923, no. 7)

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