Would you keep Bandung's name on your letterhead for fifteen years?

An architect builds a city that defines his career, only for a global upheaval to take it all away. What does he hold onto when he can never return?

Would you keep Bandung's name on your letterhead for fifteen years?

This episode explores the life and work of architect Albert Frederik Aalbers, focusing on his transformative years in Bandung. It delves into the profound connection between a person and the place where their work truly flourishes, and what remains when that connection is severed.

Person: Albert Frederik Aalbers Location: Bandung, Dutch East Indies Period: 1930s Architectural Style: Expressionism, Modernism Building: DENIS Bank

- Albert Aalbers studied at the Rotterdam Academy of Visual Arts and Techniques from 1910 to 1918, influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. - After an initial bankruptcy in Rotterdam, Aalbers moved to the Dutch East Indies in 1929, following his brother Theo. - He arrived in Bandung in 1930, a city then considered an architectural laboratory due to Dutch colonial government planning. - In Bandung, Aalbers partnered with Rijk de Waal, and their firm, Aalbers en De Waal, built extensively for a decade and a half. - His design for the DENIS Bank on Braga Street in 1935 featured a continuous horizontal curve facade contrasted with a straight vertical tower.

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